RIP Senator Edward M Kennedy

We went to pay our respects to Senator Kennedy on Friday. I have to admit, I wasn't sure why, but it felt like the right thing to do. Neither of us had ever had any direct contact with him. I've made many calls to my Congressional representatives, but honestly never felt the need to call Senator Kennedy's office. I always assumed he would make the kinds of decisions that I would have asked him to make.

I am a policy researcher and social justice advocate. Kennedy's personal belief in civil rights, social justice, and expanded opportunities for poor people and immigrants matters less to me than what he did while he was a senator. So, I reviewed the history of legislation that Senator Kennedy either sponsored, negotiated, or voted for that directly impacted my life or that of my family. Here's the highlights of that list:

• 1964 Medicaid and Medicare Act - provided health care to me and my sisters throughout much of our childhood.

• 1964 Civil Rights Act - provided protections from discrimination in hiring, housing, and education so that me, my sisters, their children, and my parents had the opportunity to work, get an education, buy a house, and otherwise pursue our dreams.

• 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act - allowed for my mother to stay in this country and raise her 6 children and eventually obtain American citizenship; allowed my mother-in-law to stay in this country, eventually obtain citizenship, and raise the Good Mr. Dr.

• 1965 Voting Rights Act - provided protections that allowed people like us (poor and working class Latinos) the ability to participate in elections.

• 26th Amendment (1971) - allowed me and my sisters, and all of their children, and my husband the ability to vote on our 18th birthdays. One of my niece's first vote was for President Obama.

• 1972 Title IX (part of 1972 Education Amendments) - provided equal access to educational opportunities for girls, which allowed my husband's niece to play high school sports, my youngest sister and eldest niece to play in the high school band, and me to take AP courses.
  

• 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act - allowed my sister-in-law to have access to all the things that the rest of take for granted, like being able to safely enter and exit any public building.

• 1993 Family Medical Leave Act - allowed my sisters and nieces to take a few weeks to recover after giving birth without fear of losing their jobs.
  

• SCHIP (in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act) - provided health care to my niece and nephew during a time in which my sister could not afford to pay for private health care insurance.

Senator Kennedy fought repeated battles to increase the minimum wage, which we have all benefited from at some point in our lives.

Senator Kennedy was also a consistent supporter of increasing access to college. He wrote and supported bills that would increase federal grants (lessening the need for loans), increase access to federal student loans (lessening the reliance on the more expensive private loans), and provide loan forgiveness to those of us who entered public service. Were it not for these efforts, it would have taken much longer for me and the Good Mr. Dr to finish college and eventually earn our doctorates, if it would have even been possible. Senator Kennedy also fought to ensure that the most recent GI Bill included increased educational benefits for our soldiers and their spouses, much to benefit of two of my sisters and one of my nieces who are veterans, active duty soldiers, and/or spouses of active duty soldiers.

Senator Kennedy truly believed in social justice. But, more importantly, he made it his cause and acted on those beliefs. We could cry in our wine that there is no one available to continue to fight for the cause. Or each of us could look at the example that Kennedy provided, and continue the work he started.

It's a jungle out there

We are smack in the middle of New England's two-shower-a-day season. We finally gave in this week and put in the air conditioners.

While the rest of summer was cooler and wetter than usual, August has been pretty characteristic: hot and muggy, with a side of random thunderstorms. Only five minutes outside is needed for your skin to develop a thin film of moisture that is one part sweat and two parts whatever is in the air.

The Garden doesn't seem the least bit bothered. As you can see, our grape vines have asserted themselves rather forcefully.

This is the top of the trellis. Please see pictures from May and June below for reference.

The inside of the Garden is just flourishing with life. As you may remember, we decided to just let everything grow so that we can see what is there. For the most part, we've been cultivating weeds. Pretty weeds, but weeds nonetheless.

The Good Mr. Dr. is cultivating a fern in the urn.

More weeds and my personal enemy: the rose vine.

We had the soil tested and found that it is in good condition. We already suspected this because there are plenty of worms and other (apparently) beneficial bugs in it. With these results, the Good Mr. Dr. has decided to use the back 10 feet to experiment with vegetable gardening. Currently, this is what it looks like:

The arbor vitae, the hated rose-vine and other assorted green things must go.

According to some old maps, this part of our yard was likely a wetland (i.e. swamp) 200 years ago. Kind of looks like one now.

During two-shower-a-day season, we are forced to escape into our garden regularly for dinner. It is just too hot to cook inside the house. Here we see the Good Mr. Dr. showing off his salmon grilling skills. Those collard greens and onions were suateed on a grill wok. Thank you, Mighty Dr. S from Miami for the gift; it is being put to good use.

"Hurry up and take the picture before the mosquitoes discover us."

One final note before we go. As you know from last week, the broken stink pipe has been repaired. When I went into my sewing/yoga room to take some pictures, I found this:

(click on the picture for a larger image)

(click on the picture for a larger image)

Free weekend stay at the Starluna B&B for anyone who can correctly guess what it is.

This is beautiful

I'd like to take a break on home improvement reporting to share something that a friend shared with me through Facebook.



This is a piece of history that I must admit to being totally ignorant about. This incredibly talented artist tells us the story of Germany's invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII using a light box and sand. Only the most dead of heart could watch this without feeling an emotional connection to the lives depicted in the sand. The inscription she writes at the end says, "you are always near."

This young woman is the winner of Ukraine's Got Talent television show. I think if our own domestic "talent" competitions were as illuminating, I would probably watch them. I don't know what the difference between good art and high art is. But I believe that real artists do more than entertain; they provoke thought. True art forces us to look at our history, our society, and ourselves in a way that makes us evaluate what we think, we know, we believe.

Apparently they appreciate real art and real artists in the Ukraine. I think we have a lot to learn from this former Soviet Republic.

P.S. Yes our stink pipe is repaired. More on that later.

Stink pipes, horsehair, and dirt - oh my!

As some of you know, we had one of those wonderful homeowner experiences: a leaking ceiling due to a cracked pipe. The plumbing repair person will come on Wednesday to remove some length of the pipe and replace it with PVC. As much as we're trying to avoid any plastics, the PVC is really the best solution for this particular repair. We know it will last forever and a cast iron replacement would have cost twice as much.

It's come to our attention that not everyone knows what a stink pipe is. Your building undoubtedly has at least one per toilet and sink. Basically, it is a sewer vent pipe. It is needed so that your plumbing works properly. Every time you flush the toilet or rinse something in the sink, the water flows into the sewerage system. At the same time, air is vented through the stink pipe, usually through the roof, taking all of the odors of your plumbing with it.

So, what does a hole in a stink pipe look like? Just like this:


Looking at the close up, I haven't a clue what is even holding that one part in place.

In preparation for the repair and the installation of a new ceiling, the Good Mr. Dr. spent the better part of the day doing demolition. There were foam ceiling panels in this room. Not quite the institutional looking ones that were in the parlor, but equally ugly. Just above these panels was the original horsehair plaster ceiling. Again, why they decided to put the foam panels just below the original ceiling is beyond us. It wasn't even a dropped ceiling. Regardless, if you remember, removing horsehair plaster is a dirty job, as the good Mr. Dr. can demonstrate:

"I will not be doing this again anytime soon."

"I need a drink."

Needless to say, the rest of the day was spent vacuuming, mopping, and wiping down surfaces to make it reasonably safe for Simba. The part that really sucks is that we'll have to do all of this cleaning again after the plasterers put up a new ceiling. Ugh.

We'll post some pictures of the crawl space in this room later this week.

Do us a favor and pray for no rain.

Well, it is summer time you know

I know that I haven't updated this in over a month now. As it happened, summer started just after the 4th of July and we decided to take full advantage of it.

First, our Good Friend Scattone came for the annual visit. In addition to the ritual of at least one zombie/horror movie per night (that is a gentleman's only event), we also went blueberry picking with a couple of Delaware transplants and their very cute daughter.

And she speaks 3 languages so far.

I learned that these people, by that I mean everyone in the picture below, are obsessive, no - addicted, berry pickers. This next picture was taken after we all agreed that our baskets were overflowing and that they should leave some berries for other people. Yes, they have a problem but they don't want to admit it.

"Ooh, look at that one." "How did we miss this bush?" "This is the last one, I swear."

In addition to getting back to our roots on the farm, I was given a challenge by Ms. H-G. On the 4th of July, she brought over the starter for Amish Friendship Bread. Basically, you unload this on people you know as a test of your friendship. Even though the only thing that I can claim any skill in baking is chicken, I took it as a challenge. On the 10th day, wa-la!

"Mmmmm. Tasty." said the Good Mr. Dr.

Something tells me that this isn't really an Amish recipe. I think it was the need for instant vanilla pudding that tipped me off. Given the amount of sugar and cinnamon in this bread, it is not something to be shared with diabetics or anyone with a serious heart problem. But, for the rest of us, it was actually pretty good. I have since unloaded a starter onto 3 people, but I have yet to hear the results. I know at least two of them remain my friend. I don't know about the third.

We've also been spending quite a bit of time in the garden, making long term plans on what to do with it. We went back to the Garden in the Woods and a couple of local garden centers to get some pots and a few plants to start experimenting. This time we brought the bug spray. We were very comfortable on the tour of the Garden in the Woods, especially compared to the California family who did not use any bug spray. The little girl was just about eaten alive by mosquitos. As much as I believe we must avoid unnecessary exposure to chemicals, I still live by the principle that there is better living through DEET (40% if possible).

We've also been using the grill at every opportunity - which hasn't been as often as we'd like. Someone stole our summer. The weather guy reported the other night that Massachusetts got 11 inches of rain in July, the most since the 1930s. The normal (based on records between 1960-1990) is 2.8 inches. One Thursday we got 3 inches that came straight down in big huge raindrops. Those raindrops apparently went right down the stink pipe and through the big gaping hole that no one knew existed until the Good Mr. Dr. found a waterfall in my yoga/sewing room. It will not be expensive to fix, but our roofer/ contractor totalled his truck and he's been very difficult to get a hold of. Sigh. So, we hope for little rain and not just because we're sick of it.

But, it has not been all bad. Today, we decided to spruce up our street tree. We went and bought some mulch and some limestones to make a border. Here's what it looked like before:

Yep. That's a mess.

Mr. Dr. digging a trench for the stones:

No, that is not our car. No, we did not make that mess.

And here's what it looks like now:



There's one place where the stones don't meet because the sidewalk needs to be repaired. But, for now, this is an improvement as far as we're concerned.

Well, that's the month's news. Right now, we're preparing for classes that start up in a month. But today, we're going to cross our fingers that it stays cloudy and that there will be no more rain so that we can make steak tips.