Sylvia. A review.

So Sat night I decided to go see a local community theater production of Sylvia, by A.R Gurney.   And I was very pleasantly surprised.

You walked into the lobby of the theater and were instantly introduced to a representative of Big Fluffy Dog Rescue, along with a mascot/ambassador, which, along with appropriately named snack bar treats, really set the feel for the show right off the bat.

The show has a tremendous amount of energy from the dynamic cast, all feeding off of one another and obviously having fun.  The set was simple but very well designed, and very adaptable.   Opening to a living room you got to meet Sylvia, played by Jill Luberto with infectious enthusiasm, and Greg, her new owner, played ably by Steven Siemiatkoski.





You then met Kate, Greg's wife, played by Jennifer Tellier, who is horrified that her husband has picked up a DOG at this time in their lives.   The themes of the play, love, self-truth, relationships, marriage, all really show up throughout the course of the show.  It isn't just a play about a dog, or about a midlife crisis, but a story about connection, and about love and affection.  And this was brought out by the able direction of Jim Ryan.    Tom, Phyllis and Leslie were all played by Adam Cormier, who brought out the unique qualities of each character.  The scene with Phyllis and Sylvia was amazing.   They, and a stellar group of stagehands who did seemingly seamless transitions, really kept the energy and momentum going in the show, and really brought the characters alive for us.  I would like to applaud them for a stellar night of theater.  

If you want to see the show it is at Hole In The Wall Theater, 116 Main Street, New Britain, CT. www.hitw.org, Sept 23 through October 8, with one Sunday matinee on the 25th.   (860)229-3049.

You might even come home with a dog of your own!  

The problem with endometriosis....

So, it is a gorgeous day.  My original plans were to go to the beach, but instead I'm in bed, exhausted and slightly crampy.  (My slightly would be ugh to anyone without endo).  So you feel wiped, and are low in iron, so you try to eat something easy, or nutritious, or something to give you enough energy to do something, anything...let alone anything constructive.  It's too much effort to even sit up.  But you get into bad habits when all you have in the fridge are ingredients, and the kitchen is messy from your last bout of cooking.  So you get into bad food choices, ie cheese, cheese, glorious cheese because it doesn't take effort...  Or a handful of trail mix, or cereal...  And then you still don't have energy...  And you feel guilty because all the lovely produce is going pttthhhbbbt.....ugh.  My view from my bed.  And the fridge full of ingredients 

Dear Corporations...

Instead of panicking, running in circles, screaming, and doubling down on the things that got us into these messes, stop.  Look at what is happening in the Democratic primary and learn from it.  People want more.   They want more than just what has become the status quo, the Big Corporations coming in, gobbling land, water, fuel.  

I found out yesterday about a company that has made a deal to set up a bottling plant.  A California company, now that the aquifer out there is depleted, wants to set up shop here and deplete our aquifer.

No.   I have a suggestion, Niagara bottling company, (and Coke, and Pepsi, and, and, and)

Go to Flint.  Go to some of the places that need infrastructure revamped, help figure out how to set up a new, eco-friendly infrastructure, clean up the water there, give some jobs to people who need it there.   Start using glass bottles.  Not plastic.  

Don't mess up our clean water.  There is very little of it left.

You will have to revamp sooner or later, why not sooner?    Listen to the people.

If we are going to drink bottled water, make it bottled in glass, and locally.  Revamp, rethink.

Help communities clean up their water systems.  

Don't drink up all the water and then move on.  

Lead in Flint and other concerns...

I want to start off by saying this lead in Flint's water is horrible.  And apparently it is also an issue elsewhere in the US as well.   But the environmental fallout from it is also horrible.

If every household is using four cases of water a week (which I'm sure is a low estimate), mostly for cooking, but also drinking.  And what about cleaning? they have to bathe, they have to do laundry, they have to clean the floors and the dishes...

So they go to paper dishes.

And all the plastic bottles, and the wrappers for those.

And the plastic cups.

Or the TV dinners.

And this water is sourced from places like California, Maine, etc, so that is going to have an impact.

I keep feeling like I am going to wake up one day and see...

We lived in Paradise once.

We had hot and cold potable water from the faucet.

We could plant things outside.

Animals used to live in our oceans, on our prairies, in our streams..

We have residual lead in our paint, outside our homes, by the highways.

We have lead in our makeup.

Roundup is everywhere.

And it just keeps feeling like the corporations are winning.  That they are profiting from all these disasters.  That we are driving ourselves ever closer to the graveyard.  

Buried in piles of plastic.   Poisoned by lead.  

Science vs Nature... the dilemma that shouldn't be.

Here's the thing.  We are facing an apparent dichotomy these days between "SCIENCE" and "NATURE".  Let me explain.  I was on Twitter the other day, and someone tweeted about some truly horrific "naturopathy" practices.   I responded that it was horrible, but that this was the reason we needed laws and such about it.   Right now, "naturopaths" can claim anything.   There are no laws governing natural health, natural health practices, etc.    And some of the information being generated is genuinely anti-science, anti-health.   (Such as the idea that ALL VACCINES ARE EVIL).   Vaccines are wonderful.  And herbs, judiciously and carefully used, can be very beneficial.   Chamomile tea at night, or catnip tea for cramps.    My cousin's wife, who is a nurse practicioner, benefited from using fennel when she was breastfeeding.  Herbs and natural remedies can be gentler on a person than a scientific formula.  I know the only thing that ever got rid of my athlete's foot was tea tree oil.  

That being said, yes, there are some things that antibiotics truly help with.   But, unfortunately, due to overuse of said antibiotics, we are about to plunge into a post-antibiotic era.   EXCEPT.  Hey, there was an article a few months ago where they replicated a medieval formula which seems to kill off some of these antibiotic resistant things.  There is value in going back and looking at these older formulations, at some of the herbal preparations.  Many modern treatments do stem from herbal treatments which were refined and purified.    Digitalis, for one, is originally from a plant.

I live a balance, or try to.  I have endometriosis, for which the only effective "treatment" is surgery.   So I have gone to diet to try to manage it.   I use some herbs, cramp bark, for one, which are pretty efficacious for pain, and I don't run some of the risk that I do with taking too much Advil, for example.

But it isn't just herbs where we've gotten to this extreme of "MUST HAVE SCIENCE/MUST HAVE ALL NATURAL".  Its food too.   There's distrust of GMOs, which I understand.  It isn't the same as crossbreeding...crossbreeding has been done for millennia.   GMOs are spliced and manufactured to withstand poisons like Roundup.  Or are designed to carry poison within the seed.   But the problem lies that apparently there have not been long-term studies of many of these things.  The automatic assumption is that if it is "science" it must be safe.   But the opposite also applies...arsenic and lead are natural.   As I keep saying, balance.  

I just feel as if we have thrown ourselves into a very bad situation with the insistence on one side being better than the other.  The best is a balance.   We have toxins in plastics, products of science which are not going away anytime soon...   but there don't seem to be the eco-friendly products we need to go forward.   We need a balance.  We need doctors who are informed about science, but also herbs.  Not just the latest anti-depressant, but maybe awareness of sensitivity to food dyes.  

We need balance, balance, balance.  We need MRIs and chamomile tea.  Surgery and organic carrots...  we need to look to the past and to the future.

On White Fragility and Race in CT. And thoughts on possible solutions..

So I posted this article:http://www.courant.com/community/hartford/hc-hartford-social-media-post-1220-20151219-story.html on FB.   And I suspect this fragile, pale, white woman goes to the church I used to go to.   Having gone to a mostly white church, and worked at the library in the same town... even though the town is actually more diverse than it appears, there is a real racial problem.   And it is continually perpetuated through the church, through the fact that the majority (if not all) of the town council are white.   The majority of the police force and fire department, from their pics on FB, all seem to be predominantly white...

Kids are bussed in from Hartford, but I would be genuinely worried about raising a brown child here.  

They get it from an early age.  They get it from being in an all-white church, which "sponsors" a brown girl from Haiti.   They get it from school, from the sanctification of MLK, and "the civil rights era which is over and done with".   They get it from reading books with white heroes/heroines, and movies with the same.

And I start to think, maybe it needs to change with the churches.   Maybe we stop letting churches be exempt from anti-discrimination.   Maybe we have to come in and stop letting churches preach "the other" and hate, and look through their CCD materials for racism and sexism.  

Maybe we need to integrate the churches.

Not just the schools.

But the lives.  

Because otherwise, the first real contact a "privileged" child has with someone of another color is in college.  And that does not always happen well.   And so there end up being bubbles in college, and no learning or exchange, or equality.  

I think we need to start with the churches now.  And if a church does not want diversity, it loses its tax free status and becomes a "hate group".  

Because I have heard hate coming from the mouths of churchgoers, and I stopped going.  If there is hate in a place that is supposed to be about love...  then how...  

Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas

This is for all the people who are solo at Christmas.  You don't have to be Scrooge, sitting looking mournful all alone.  I have never had much luck with Christmas open houses, as most folks I know have families they are spending Christmas with.   So I do my own thing.  I do buy a tree and a few decorations, and put out a crèche.  I make eggnog.  I try to go to at least one carol sing or seasonal show.  I bake.  Panforte, mince tarts, I'm planning on trying my hand at a gingerbread house this year.  

I plan a nice meal, and try to Skype with family.  I have a silly Facebook tradition of singing the twelve days of Christmas, starting on Christmas Day and ending on Epiphany.  Some of my friends join in, some don't.  Some get silly with it.  

You could get a live tree every year and plant it after the holidays, you could have a book you reread every year, my point is that you don't have to give up on the holidays or not have your own traditions just because you are single.   There are, of course, a lot of volunteer opportunities this time of year, but I prefer to volunteer at times when there is need but not quite so many people queuing up to feed the homeless.   

Use the good china, buy yourself a pretty plate setting if you don't have china, build a fire, have a spa day, watch silly movies.... But be good to yourself.