New blog, new address

Tea Time Chatter is going into retirement, to be replaced with a new blog:
Good Life Writer (http://goodlifewriter.wordpress.com/). Update your links to keep up with my exploration of this good life.

I'll also be exploring the rapidly changing world of writing for a living, which you may find instructive or amusing depending on your point of view.

Ironing

The laundress, sweating in a cloud of steam as she irons mounds of (men's) shirts, is pretty much the poster child of the feminist movement. My life -- at least my professional life -- is pretty much the other poster child: degree in Engineering, with emphasis on Chemical Engineering. Technical writing career in the high tech industry, when high tech was the very coolest place to be. Etc etc. Fact is, though, I like to do ironing. I especially like to iron my guy's shirts. The sisterhood would be aghast. What's the deal here?

I find fabric both sensual and rich in history. I like the feel of it under my fingers. I like the way the cotton goes from wrinkled to crisp as I stroke it with the iron. I like the routine of ironing a shirt: collar, left cuff, sleeve back, sleeve front, right cuff, sleeve back, sleeve front, right shoulder, yoke, left shoulder, left front, back, right front, done. I smooth the tight cotton with my hand, then with steam, then with the iron. Lift and pull, taking the shirt though its stations on the board.

Fabric is amazing stuff. Thread is amazing stuff. As I work I feel connected to a thousand generations, mostly women, who took bits of fluff, cotton or wool, and transformed into thread, then fabric, then garments. I've spun on a drop spindle, and I know the magic of feeling strong, useful yarn come into being as it passes through my hands.

I follow a woven stripe with the point of the iron, assured I am working with the grain. I whisk the finished shirt off the board, crisp, slightly damp, too malleable still to hang in the closet. I arrange it gently on the hanger, hang it in the door frame, and carefully fasten two buttons. It pleases me, hanging there, perfect, the work of my hands.

Music for a philosophy of life

I'll be taking Mastery I early in February. The registration materials include this item:

In preparation for Mastery I, please choose a piece of music to bring on a CD to the program that summarizes your philosophy of life. This piece of music is to be clearly labeled with your name, the song title and the track number.

I have been agonizing over this for more than a week now. I'm realizing that I don't much listen to music with lyrics (I like to listen to music while I'm writing, and lyrics are a distraction). When I do listen to music with lyrics, it's usually something rollicking, like "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown." Fun stuff, but about as far as you can get from my philosophy of life.

A couple of years ago Seattle's Civic Light Opera put on Annie Get Your Gun. The actress who played Annie sang a rendition of Sun in the Morning that is a strong contender. Sweet as a sigh, heartfelt as a prayer. It resonates with me. But does it nail my philosophy of life?

I considered finding a piece of music without lyrics. Grieg's Morning Mood, say. I've loved that one since I was a kid. But the whole point is for the music to articulate my philosophy. If I have to write a speech to go with it, it kind of misses the point.

So... here's my philosophy of life, close as I know. Let me know if any piece of music that you know springs to mind.

I feel that the connections between living things are the truest reality, and that this world is a laboratory or classroom for learning the importance of those connections, and how to make and sustain them. We have bodies that need food, so that we can break bread together. We have beauty around us, so that we can share it and retell it. In this life, we learn to give and accept things we need, things that may sometimes be scarce. We sample fear and trust and betrayal and loyalty and anger and remorse. We learn love.

In a nutshell, we are here to pet the cat. And the cat is here to be a warm bundle in our arms, and soothe our hearts with purring. The rest is props and shop dressing.

An overdue update

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted. So much has happened around here. In brief:

• We processed SOME of the wood that we took down in the summer of 07. We filled the woodshed completely, and have been enjoying dry firewood this winter. This is especially important since we don't have a furnace currently. More on that later.
• I have been taking a series of experiential classes through Context International: Pursuit of Excellence, The Wall, Advancement of Excellence, and Inside Passage. I'll be taking Mastery I in a few weeks. These courses have really helped me turn a lot of corners in my life. The last traces of burnout seem to have been swept away. I'm ready and eager to get back into the workplace. My relationship with Jim is stronger and happier. And...
• I have started work on a piece of fiction. I'm thinking of a series of short stories that together can become a book. The setting is Baghdad around 785 to 800 AD -- during the Abbasid caliphate. (The idea has been rattling around in my head for decades, long before Baghdad became a staple of the evening news.) I've been doing research on the period. I've been writing back stories for the characters. Those back stories are a great tool -- when I put the character in a scene, the nuances of what he does and what he notices and how he speaks all fall into place. Exhausting, exhilarating work.
• We ripped out the kitchen cabinets. We'd seen a wee bit of mold and were deeply concerned that there was a lot more hidden behind the cabinets. There was not (whew!). However...
• We discovered that mice had been chewing the wiring. Mostly old damage, apparently from before we moved in. But exposed wires are dangerous no matter how long they have been there. There were scorch marks around some of them. So...
• Most of the circuits in the house have been shut off. We are rewiring the entire house in conduit -- it's called a "commercial tube job" and it's a monstrous piece of work. There might be a couple of walls we don't have to rip open, but essentially the house will be a shambles for months.
  We trust the circuits Jim put in conduit out to the garage, and we are running heavy duty extension cords from them to various parts of the house. And he ran a fresh wire to the water heater early on. But the furnace is not hooked up. Nor is the drier, although the washer is.

The electrical issue has thrown a wrench in the kitchen remodel plans. We had set up a very nice camp kitchen on the back porch, in September. (This had the happy side effect of necessitating an enclosure for the goats OFF the back porch.) That became less useful when we had that little bout of freezing weather. We had to disconnect the hose from the utility sink we had set up. We had to keep popping back into the house to warm up.

And the toaster seemed not to work. Turns out that ambient temperature has an effect there -- those little elements were giving it their all, but the cold pouring into the bread slots defeated them. Indoors, we get toast.

So now we are well on the way to at indoor camp kitchen -- something we can live with until we redo the wiring, move the electrical panel (that was part of the original remodel plan), and have the inspector out. After the inspection, we can put drywall up, install cabinets. Until then, we will have cheap counters & plastic rolling drawer units. We'll tack down a scrap of vinyl flooring to protect the exposed subfloor. The dishwasher is hooked up and usable (provided we aren't running the space heater in the living room at the same time). The kitchen sink will go in RSN. We will get to test-drive and fine-tune the layout of the new kitchen. We've already been doing a lot of that -- it is increasingly obvious that we will not be buying off-the-shelf cabinets. Jim will be building cabinets that tuck into wall spaces, especially where we have thickened walls. He has a nice stockpile of high-end hinges and drawer slides, and that will deal with a lot of the expense.

Since we have expanded the kitchen, taking over the old laundry room, we'll have about 40% more counter space, somewhat more cupboard space, and a much, much better traffic flow. We will have our caffeine corner -- coffee & tea equipment isolated in one corner of the kitchen, with its own tiny bar sink. The stove will be propane, and we will be installing the tankless gas water heater we've had in the box since before we moved here. Hot water during power outages! Woo-hoo!

And, let's see, what else has been going on? Jim's been taking classes at Bellevue College, formalizing his on-the-job business training and filling in a few gaps. He is taking a break from that now, to focus more on the house projects. (Projects. Did I mention the upstairs bath? It ended up needing a remodel as part of the kitchen remodel. It's stripped out, expanded, and has a generous shower stall framed in.)

Jim is now looking into becoming a real estate agent. I think he'd be good at it. This is a scary market to start in, but it's a scary market for doing much of anything. I'm looking for work as a writer. I'm hanging back on the faux finishing until the economy picks up, but I'll be doing all the walls in the house. That will be fun, and I'll have some cool stuff for my finishing portfolio.

Rosie, one smart goat

The goats are penned in an enclosed back porch, which has glass doors leading to the living room & dining room. They are currently sharing it with many, many chickens who arrived in early March. The goats are tethered to one section of the porch.

Rose has figured out how to loosen her collar enough to slip out of it. This morning Jim discovered that she had:

• Slipped out of her collar
• Eaten all the chicken feed (she'll need to eat a lot of roughage today to avoid a catastrophic tummy ache)
• Started to work on the door handle to get into the house. They are lever type handles; she's quite capable of figuring them out.

I have this image of waking up to a goat climbing into bed with me. Dearie, dearie me.

The Mysterious Traveler has a nice post on the goats, including a view from my living room. Rose is the one in the pink collar.

A new tea house

It is important to me to have a place to go and relax over a cup of really good tea. My all-time favorite was Tiger Mt. Tea in Gilman Village, but they are now web-only. Yesterday on my way home from visiting Julia I ended up at Crossroads Mall in Bellevue, and stopped in at Xiu Xian Tea. It was lovely.

First let me tell you that their web site only hints at the varieties of tea they carry. One long wall is lined with big jars of tea, behind a counter. And in front of that counter are small jars of the same teas. You can open the small jars, sniff them, look at them -- without disturbing the tea that's for sale.

The staff was very helpful in suggesting teas to sample. Yes, sample. This is where it gets luxurious. I was guided to one of two large gong fu tea tables near the front of the store. These tables are works of art, carved from huge burls, waterproofed, and fitted with a drain. The one I was at had several levels, a carved bridge, and two dragon heads -- all designed so that water poured anywhere on the table flows to the drain. Electric water kettles are nearby, and there are a number of gaiwans for brewing the tea samples. The chairs are also carved from burls, and are really comfortable.

Your hostess puts a sample of a tea you have chosen in a gaiwan, rinses it with water from the kettle, and pours out the rinse water. New water goes into gaiwan, the brewed tea is poured into a serving pitcher and then...

At the moment it is served in a paper cup. The kitchen has just been set up, and the dishwasher isn't installed yet. My recommendation: Bring a tasting cup, or buy a $1 tasting cup at the store. Paper adds an odd taste to these delicate teas.

I tasted several teas, three that I'd sniffed out and some that were already sitting in the gaiwans on the table. I bought three:

• Sweet Jade, that has an incredible vanilla overtone although it is just tea, no added flavoring
  
• Iron God (rich) a savory and complex oolong with a silky finish
  
• An organic Pu Erh (Palace - Rich) with a gorgeous red color and good earthy flavor

I'm looking forward to going back there. While this is primarily a place to buy tea, they do have small tables at the back of the shop with gong fu tea trays where you can linger over a pot of tea, brewing and re-brewing to enjoy all the flavors the tea has to offer. If you are in the area and want a peaceful place to unwind, I recommend it. Maybe I'll see you there.

Twitter

Karen, bless her, has turned me on to Twitter. I've mailed the URL for her post What's Twitter, and why I love it to a few people, and now I'm sharing that URL with you here. If you've heard of Twitter and your reaction was along the lines of ??What?, Why?, or "That's just silly," check out Karen's post. And let me know when you sign up for Twitter.

New chicks on order

I got an email yesterday from Ideal Poultry. My name came up on the waiting list for Barnevelders! Barnevelders are one of the breeds of chickens that lay dark, dark brown eggs. They're pretty rare, hence the waiting list.

I called Ideal today and placed my entire chick order with them:

• 15 Barnevelders
  
• 6 Easter Eggers (EEs)
  
• 15 Australorps (Aussies)
  
• 6 Silver-laced Wyandottes
  
• 6 Gold-laced Wyandottes
  
• 8 Red sex-link
  
• 5 Gold sex-link

They are scheduled to ship 5 March, so I'm hoping for an EARLY call from the post office on the morning of the 6th.

Himself plans to be building the chicken coop starting 20 March, when his classes let out. He assures me the work will go fast once it starts. He's going to scale it for 100 chickens, with two runs. That way everyone will still have space to stretch her wings and do all those other important chicken activities. And I'll be able to keep the new chicks separate from the adults.

Short term, we'll have the brooder cage on the back porch, which is still enclosed as a goat stall.

Laid off, sorta

For the past couple of years I've had a dream gig, writing technical documentation part-time, from home, for a group of really nice people with a well thought out product. About a week and a half ago, in the middle of a mail thread on what they'd like me to work on next, I got the following message: "I was just talking to _____ to see what the high priorities are for the next few months and we feel we are in a great position (much thanks to you). For now we are going to hold off any new updates to the manuals and see where that takes us. We will definitely keep you informed if our needs change."

The suddenness of the shift threw me off for a day or two, but frankly I'm more excited about what might be next than I am concerned about what just went away. The world is changing (again), and in change there is always opportunity. I'm good with words, I'm good with critters, and I believe that there is the opportunity for depth and richness in everything we do. Surely I can combine all of that to make a life that supports me financially, emotionally, and spiritually.

While I was writing manuals in Word, Web-based writing and networking grew and morphed, and continues to do so. There it is again, change and opportunity. So I'm actively studying the current state of web-based writing, including blogging, networking, and things like Twitter. I'm studying search engine optimization (SEO). I'm looking for the next shift in this wonderful connected world the Web has brought us.

I'm watching for ways to draw together seemingly disparate skills and interests (animals, technology, psychology, bead work and textile arts, small farm management, ...). They all have one thing, at least, in common: they all live in me. Ergo, they all fit together, and they all describe the way that I fit into the world. My work right now is to find how I can offer them up in a way that supports me and mine in return.

FRESH Eggs!

Breakfast this morning included two fresh eggs for each of us. We are talking still warm from the chicken here. The whites are thick and the yolks are firm and round and deep orange. The flavor is great -- we had them over easy with not so much as salt and pepper and they held their own just fine.

Last week I started to have two eggs for dinner and ended up having four. I had them with Roasted Roots -- in this case a yam, a double handful of red potatoes, and a yellow onion, all cubed, tossed with lemon juice and olive oil, sprinkled with salt, pepper, and an Italian herb blend, and spread out on a foil-lined baking pan. Bake at 350 until tender and just starting to caramelize.

If you are thinking it might be nice to have a couple of chickens in your back yard, even just for the eggs, the answer is yes. Once you get set up with housing for them, their care takes minutes a day: Check that there is enough food & water, toss them food scraps from your kitchen and any weeds you've been pulling from your garden, and bring in the eggs. Most people end up hanging out with the chickens a bit more than that, though, because they are amusing. You'll want to really clean out the coop once or twice a year, say on some nice spring day as part of gardening. Other than that even cleanup is minimal (scatter food grade diatomaceous earth & wood chips once every week or two or three). All in all, a flock of chickens is much less work than a cat or a dog. And they do a great job on those garden weeds.

I've started selling eggs, too. Himself, watching the egg cartons pile up in the fridge, was threatening to serve chicken dinner if I didn't start selling eggs to subsidize their upkeep and housing. Our flock of twelve is producing almost five dozen eggs per week. So I ran an ad on Craigslist, and now have a few families that I'll be supplying on a regular basis.

Of course, that's encouraging me to get MORE chickens. I'll be putting in an order soon.

We have GOT to get that coop built. The big girls are OK in a sheltered run, but babies need better protection in the late winter and early spring.