Bec's Happybox

Ferragosto on the Bobo Beach

In July Tobias told me that he didn't want to go to Ucluelet this summer.  Last summer we went for ferragosto (I've appropriated the Italian name for a holiday on and around August 15) and I surfed for the first time.  I thought maybe I would create a yearly tradition of ferragosto in Ukee.  But this year he wasn't interested.  My big girl Rara is now twelve, so theoretically I could have taken the kids myself and she could have watched her brother while I surfed.  But that is non-ideal because it means that I'm constantly distracted while I'm in the water, making sure they're okay on land and stressing out about bears and it means that she has to surf alone.  Sucky.  I longed to have a friend that would want to come on such a trip with me and my kids and who would enjoy it and trade off childcare duties.  Alas, I have no such friend. 

I do have a sister, Randal, but she lives in Tanzania full-time now.  I sighed and imagined an alternate reality where she lived here and would like to try surfing and would want to come camping.  The next day my mom announced that my sister was coming home for a two-week visit.  The day after that Randal accepted my email invitation to a three-night trip in my old camper van Godiva with the kids and a surf lesson. Miracles happen.  I prayed a prayer of thanksgiving.

(Tangent: I don't believe in the Secret but I think I know why it appears to work.  It's because people who believe in it allow themselves to formulate their desires to a degree that the rest of us don't.  This means that they know what they want, and are open and aware and vigilant about any opportunities that arise in their lives that help them to get those things.  And then, once they get them, they know they got them, and they can celebrate.  That's how it works for me.  It's a novel concept in my family: wanting something, allowing your mind to dwell on that wanting, thinking about it, figuring out the steps to getting it, and then jumping on chances that arise.  A more frequent pattern is this: wanting something, putting it from your mind.  Maybe you get it anyway, but if you do, you aren't nearly as excited as you would have been because you didn't allow yourself to dwell on it long enough to know how much you really wanted it. )

So my sister and my daughter took a surf lesson together.  My sister said she enjoyed it, but she didn't catch the bug the way I did last summer, where I wanted to sell my house and quit my job and homeschool just so I could surf all the time.  Rara, who is, did I mention? TWELVE YEARS OLD!, is an absolute natural.  She really floored her instructor, who thinks she could be a pro if she wanted to.  The very first wave she tried to catch, she caught, and not only caught, but stood up, and rode it all the way into the shore.  She is really amazing.  The next day we surfed together and she would consistently rock out on the waves that either wiped my board out from under me before I could get up, or toppled me over soon after getting up.  It wasn't my best surfing, but then, I'm not particularly good at it. 

 

Randal called Wickaninnish Beach a bobo beach.  "Bobo" is an adjective used in my family to denote a sense of obliviousness, mediocrity or loserishness.  It comes from Spanish, but I can't remember how.  When my sister and my mom and a mutual friend started working out at the gym together, they had matching jackets made that said Bobo Fitness on the back.  This is because of the face my mom makes when she is in the weight room, surveying the different fitness machines.  It's a look of bewilderment called her bobo face. Randal and the friend embraced the name Bobo Fitness as a way of recognizing their own discomfort in the meathead/T&A culture at the gym.  I think it was a subtle way of striking back at that culture too.  Sort of like they were saying, "We're here for our own reasons.  Don't assume we want to be like you." 

That's all very well for them, but bobo is not a term that I really identify with and I thought bobo was a bit harsh for Wickaninnish.  It's beautiful and there are a lot of really good surfers there.  But Randal rightly pointed out that there is a distinct lack of hot beach bodies around.  Very little T&A at Wickanninish.  Probably because everyone has wetsuits on.

I read online that the Long Beach surf community is rare in its acceptance of female surfers.  It's pretty much a totally normal and expected thing there, that girls will surf.  I wonder if this is partly due to the lack of a lot of gorgeous bikinied women walking around there.  I don't have anything against gorgeous bikinied women, but when you're at a beach with loads of them, it does create an environment where there's a sort of implicit assumption that the primary role of women on the beach is ornamental.  And this could maybe discourage active participation in surfing.  That's my theory. 

I want my family to be a surfing family.  The idea of taking Deetman (still only five years old, bless him) out in the water with me and helping him catch little waves used to seem scary and dangerous to me.  Now I think it's totally fine, despite the fact that he can only swim a distance of 3m.  He's not that keen on it yet.  He loves wave-jumping but hates taking his wetsuit on and off and is pretty scared of riding a wave by himself.  By this time next year I'm hoping he'll change his mind about these things. 

We do too many things.  All four of us have so many interests already and Tobias and I both have demanding work lives, despite mine being part-time.  We are busy all the time.  I don't care.  I want us to find a way to fit surfing in.

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My Flock

This is Primitivo.  She is a Light Brahma and has lived in our backyard since July 2007 when she was six weeks old.  We bought her and her sister Zinfandel (RIP) after being inspired to keep chickens by two sources: a) Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal Vegetable Miracle and b) Francisca, a beautiful and elegant Chilean woman who lives near our friends Mike and Jenn in the Madrona neighbourhood of Seattle, and keeps a small flock there.  Rara was seven when she got to collect eggs from Francisca's chickens for the first time and, despite a small catastrophe (one dropped and broke), the experience of collecting, then cooking and eating eggs was so fun for her, we thought we'd try our hand at small-time poultry raising. 

We chose a pair of Light Brahmas as our first chickens because of their hardiness (they have feathers on their legs and feet) and their beauty.  We were also told they were good layers.  Now that I have seen two breeds without feathers on their legs and feet survive cold temperatures and in light of Primitivo's paltry egg production, I would not buy this breed again.  They sure are pretty though.  At The Company Formerly Known As My Place of Work, Zinfandel came in second in the annual pet photo contest, in the "Other" division.  She was slightly more beautiful than Primitivo.  Alas, she died suddenly one morning a few months ago.  Tobias said she did us a favour, since her egg production was so poor, but we mourned her nonetheless.   

(The way that we used to be able to tell Zinfandel and Primitivo apart was their tail feathers.  Zinfandel always had a couple long ones that stood straight up in a chicken version of a cowlick.)

Rara chose the name Zinfandel on the way home from the farm.  We had some boxes from the liquor store in the van and she read the word along the side of it.  When it came to choosing Zinfandel's sister's name, Tobias and I suggested Primitivo because of the story of the two long-lost grape varietal siblings. 

When Zinfandel was alive, she was El Jefe of the coop, and I assumed that after her death, Primitivo would take over the role.  But she has instead become a sort of Queen Mum, still respected and feared by the younger ones, but without real authority.  The leadership role instead fell to Renata, who is now the most aggressive and roosterish hen in the yard.

 

 

That's not a hen you would want to mess with, is it?  Renata and her sister Big Ann joined the flock two years ago, but Big Ann died from a nasty infection.  Renata somehow resisted it.  It's hard to believe that when she and Big Ann arrived, they were picked on and bullied by Zinfandel and Primitivo relentlessly.  I even put Zinfandel in solitary confinement, just to make sure that Renata and Big Ann could get enough to eat.  Now Renata rules the roost.  Even the cat is afraid of her.  She's an excellent layer, also, and has given us the most eggs of any chicken thus far. 

Renata is named for Rara's oldest friend, who was with us when we got her. 

 

Baldanders has the distinction of being our most boring chicken.  She has a boyish name, poor thing.  She is a Rhode Island Red and hence not beautiful like the Light Brahmas or the Barred Rocks.  And she isn't powerful like Renata, our other Rhode Island.  But she lays, and lays consistently, so I love her. 

Her nerdy name comes from the writings of Gene Wolfe, and Tobias gave it to her after he took the children out to the ostrich and Christmas tree Farm to buy her in July 2010.  She is the only chicken that we have ever bought that wasn't half of a pair of sisters, so I was concerned that she might be an outsider in the flock, but she and Eve and Astronaut have remained a threesome since the day we first brought them home, and I don't think the two sisters have yet noticed that one of these things is not like the other.  Every night since we got them they have all slept together in a feathery heap, atop the nesting boxes.  Initially, this location protected them from the bullying of the old dames, Primitivo and Renata.  Now, that they no longer really need this nocturnal protection, and their bodies are way too large for the space they've chosen, they continue to do it out of habit.

 

Here is Rara holding Eve, just a few days after we got her in July 2010.  Eve and her sister Astronaut are of the Barred Rock breed.  Despite them being the same age, they are vastly different in size, which only results in a very small difference in the size of the eggs they lay.  When Eve first arrived, Rara was very cuddly with her, and unlike any of our other chickens, she didn't seem to mind it. 

 

Here are Eve and Astro taking a stroll together.  Deetman named Astronaut, and would prefer that you use the male pronoun when discussing him.  He knows that males don't lay eggs, but that doesn't mean that he's particularly happy about that fact.  I think Astro and Eve are the chickens that best meet my personal poultry standards in that they are pretty to look at and good layers, and have survived a few cold snaps without any complaint.  So I'll probably buy Barred Rocks again, maybe Rhode Islands, and definitely not Light Brahmas. 

Every day when I arrive home, I come in with my bike through the back gate, and the entire flock rushes to greet me, Renata running out in front with her crazy side-to-side gait.  I greet them, saying "Hi you monkeys.  What are you up to?", and we chat as I put my bike away.  If Deetman is with me, it will be a short chat, since his favourite thing to do with chickens is chase them.  If he's not, I'll count them, one two three four five, and be soothed, and calmed, and let the worries of my day melt away from me.  My flock is the perfect antidote to the things on the other side of the backyard gate.  Things like software development, business, money, negotiations, and being tough.  They really think all of that is a bunch of nonsense, and just want to know if we're going to remember to lock the coop against racoons and fill the water dish.  Aside from the delicious breakfasts, this is the best thing about them. 

On Fun and Working Part-Time

I was in San Francisco in April 2009.  It was a Friday.  I had a dinner date with my husband at Chez Panisse in Berkeley.  I had a plan to take the BART to Berkeley during the day to go see my friend E give a talk on an esoteric topic in the field of environmental biology.  Then I would take the BART all the way back to the city, meet T, and then get back on the BART and go back to Berkeley again.  It was all a bit silly, this BARTing.  E tried to dissuade me.  "It's going to be soooo boring!  Wouldn't you rather hang out in San Franciso and see the sights or go shopping?  The talk will not be fun."

I replied, "I have a non-traditional definition of fun." She replied, "Ok! We'll go for lunch after!"

And so I went out to Berkeley, and saw the talk, which was terrific, and had lunch with E and her new husband and it was hella fun.

Being forced to justify my odd decision to E and to type the words, "I have a non-traditional definition of fun", which, being a longing-to-fit-in sort of a person isn't my preference, made me realise that it's true.  And that it is OK.  And that I get to decide what OK is. 

It was a lesson for me.  The lesson wasn't, "Oh I am sooo special and unique!  I think certain things are fun and the REST OF THE WORLD, which is SO LAME, thinks certain other things are fun."  The lesson was more, "Yikes.  Society sends us messages about who we should want to be and what we should want to do, and most of the time, those messages are just totally wrong.  I don't give a rat's ass about cable cars and Fisherman's Wharf and Union Square boutiques, but I do love watching people get on and off public transit systems, and watching my friends succeed, and reading campus maps, and looking at old universities, and trying to understand stuff I have no hope of understanding, and connecting with people, and eating at sub-par student diners." 

I didn't return from that trip and immediately change my life, reject all societal standards, divorce my spouse and become vegan.  But I did start paying more attention to what I want, versus what I'm supposed to want, and thought it's not necessarily harder to get those things, it is harder to remain confident in my conviction that that's what I truly want. 

The most obvious example is this part-time work thing that I started at the beginning of 2010.  It's hurting my career velocity, reducing my salary and creating space in my life.  Many frantic little voices (mostly in my head) squeak that I should maybe rethink it.  "Opportunities!  Lost!  Less money!  Harder to get the kind of work you want!  Less money!  You're already too old!  Why put the brakes on your career needlessly!  Less money!"

I brought this up with Rara right before I went part-time.

"M'hija, I'm working on a plan to make it so you don't have to go to after-school care."

"Yay!"

"Because you said you don't like it, right?"

"Right."

"So I'm hoping to change my work so I can come home earlier."

"Yay!"

"But it's going to mean adjusting my whole professional life and not advancing as quickly, and making less money."

"Ok!"

"So, are you really sure you don't want to go to after-school care?"

"Yup!"

"Alrighty then. You're out."

"Yay!  I love you Mommy."

And that happy little voice is so much wiser than all the squeaking ones, I can't even tell you.  This working schedule is exactly right for me.  It's been a great year.