Staying cool.

It's really hot today. Like 98 degrees. I am approaching six months pregnant and so I am sitting on my bed with the fan blowing on me while the girls are happily playing with their carboard box kitchen. As it was about as hot yesterday I spent this portion of the day in bed reading. ( doing anything from noon to three in this kind of heat represeants a work ethic that I do not posess and the best thing to do is be lazy until it cools off. )

So of course when you hot and grouchy and you are reading the Arlington Catholic Herald you undoubtably find something that you read that makes you really annoyed. This time there was an arlicle by that Glenmary Appalaicia priest about bottled water.

I didn't realize this but you know that Fiji water? The fancy expensive bottled water, that people drink. . . mostly I see them drinking it in California but I did see one of their bottles flug aside on the roadside here in Virignia amongst the Mcdonalds wrappers Front Royalians seem to love to fling from their automobiles. I guess it acutally comes from beautiful springs in Fiji and people who drink it think that they are getting only the purest best tasking mineral rich water in the world.

And they are!

But at what cost? Apparently the Fiji plastic bottles are produced in China then trucked and shipped to Fiji, then filled at their plant and shipped back to the states where people pay a ton for the water and then apparently chuck their bottle out of their car where it joins the rest of the trash gracing our highways and biways. The extreme cost and complexity invloved in getting this water is astonishing. But then on top of it. Many of the hardworking residents of the island of Fiji have lno acsess to clean water at all.

So next time reach for the Aquafina or the Dasani. . . which at the very least is good ol' USA tap water produced here. (I'm looking at you, Josepha!!!!)

Me? I'm a stingy bastard so I'll keep filling my Nalgene bottle with free tap water. And probably someday soon I'll break down and splurge on a britta filter.

Oh and if you type in "bottled water" into Wikipedia, (Ben's favorite) you'll find out way more than you ever wanted to know about bottled water.


Sorry for a complainy post. That just got my ire up.

Oh and here's why I haven't made anything with the apples yet. . .

Last days of summer.

Sunflower 2
Originally uploaded by househatke

Well I tried to pilfer apples from the Christendom apple trees this year but only ended up with one small pail of apples because I was too late and they had been wiped clean by a couple other families.

I did sucsessfully make cortido this week which is sort of a Latin American version of Saurkraut and I like it better because it is a little spicier and more colorful, like most things from those sunny southern cultures. It ferments out of the fridge for three days and then keeps for forever in the refridgerator and it is supposed to be really good for you too.

Lastly Ben and I came home to SO many tomatoes in the garden that we spent all of sunday afternoon making salsa and then had an impromtu salsa party that evening.

Saturday

Well these days I have been trying to squat and do things on my hands and knees, all part of the Hatke campaign for a non posterior birth. Today I did both those things. The old nesting instinct kicked in and I scrubbed the linoleum, on my hands and knees. As I was doing this I realized the last time I really gave it a good scrubbing like this was when I was pregnant with Zita. That was pretty funny. Then again, when you have two small children you pretty much spot clean the floor so much that it gets all cleaned in a peice meal sort of fashion.

Angelica came in the dining room and said, "It smells nice in here." and left. Zita came in several times and asked for "un po pane" and left, only to return to ask for water. I couldn't beleive how much cleaning the kids let me get accomplished today.


Then we went to Beth and Bills new little house for dinner. They live up on a little mountain now in a very nice little red house. They are waiting for their stove to arrive so Beth has been cooking on an outdoor fire. I got to help stir the chili and so got some nice squatting in. It was a nice feeling to sit there in the evening sunshine, stirring a pot of yummy food over an open fire and chatting with Beth. Angelica was beside herself to see her bosom companion again and it was a lovely evening.

I came home and took a splendid bath. There are few luxuries greater than a Satutday evening bath following a day of cleaning.

Oops that first picture is mendocino. The rest are from our trip to Dillon beach.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

BACK!

We are back from California!!!

It was good to see all my family, extended family, friends, the Pacific Ocean, and the Genova deli.

I'll admit I was disillisioned when I discovered "Pete's Cofee" is a chain. (and here I thought I was being so noble in not going to Starbucks.)

My brother's wedding was beautiful, and despite the raging fight over wether the meat at the reception was tri-tip steak or fillet mignon---I didn't care. It tasted awesome. Ben did his fire breathing at the reception which was enjoyes by all.

My mother made a horrible meatloaf--and we only dicovered later in the week that my FATHER had actually made it!!! (and was allowing my poor mother to take the flack.) The meatloaf was then turned into a rather delicious chili.

Angelica found a sea snail.

Ben and I drove up the coast to Eureka and saw the beautiful town of Mendicino where I would move if I was rich.

There are all the highlights of the trip!