fabulareine

Where I live, the pickup with rifle rack is not an altogether unusual sight, if you know what I mean. And a couple of good friends are ex-military, so we’ve had the “protection” conversation numerous times. It’s a big decision, not to be taken lightly or out of fear, and don’t even think about it unless you thoroughly understand the relevant local, state and federal laws.
Here’s the prevailing wisdom on the subject:
Don’t own a weapon unless you are competent and practiced in its use.
Don’t draw it unless you intend to use it.
Don’t use it unless you intend to kill.
Otherwise, the likelihood of the weapon being taken and used against you goes up dramatically.
There’s a whole set of additional considerations if your household includes other people, especially children.
My own thought is that the folks you seek protection from are probably disorganized, impulsive, and opportunistic. They’ll prefer easy targets —and will steer clear of groups of people who appear to have their collective act together.
Yet another compelling reason for getting to know your neighbors.

Which expressions will baffle our grandchildren, when personal cars are a thing of the past? How about:

Backfire
Bumper sticker
Pull a U-ey
Pedal to the metal
Low rider
Hot rod
Back seat driver
Re-tread
Hydroplane
Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear

Doing research in advance of the NWEI course Discovering a Sense of Place. As I am a visual person this has resulted in the Great Wheel of the Year for my home. It highlights natural events, celestial and otherwise, and natural harvest times. (Please note: there's a reason why February was known to many indigenous peoples as "Hunger Moon.")

When we get the neighborhood distillery going, will we use it exclusively to power our cars —or say "scroom" and just produce something to pour down our throats?

Toward what do we move?

Yes, of course we may face civil strife, hunger, illness, desperation. But that’s not all that lies ahead of us.

Let’s imagine we move toward a world where all but the main roads are torn up for corn fields, and the strip malls deconstructed and returned to their original state: forests or meadows. Imagine a world without traffic jams and DUIIs and hit-and-run incidents. Where there are no summer days on which it is hazardous to breath the air, and rates of autoimmune disorders and cancers and autisms decline. We begin to hope that global warming may not be quite so devastating, or last quite so long.

The building on the corner becomes a new sort of community center: The neighborhood’s single big screen TV lives there, as does its small collection of computers and miscellaneous electronics. Neighbors share a few efficient vehicles for occasional or emergency use, but most folks stick close to home and the artificial lines between work and family life and leisure blur.

Children spend most of their days within reach of their parents’ voices, and their grandparents’ stories. The elders are worth listening to, and nobody ever needs to be alone in sickness, fear or grief, unless they choose solitude. Wherever there is an instrument and somebody who can play it —guitar, piano, flute, drum— folks gather to sing when the work is done.

Finally, everybody is getting enough vegetables in their diet, and we are all lean and strong and healthy. The summer’s first ripe tomato, tangy-sweet juice dripping down your face, is celebrated because the last fresh one was eaten last summer. We all need to be very loud and very alert picking blackberries on the edge of town because the bears have come back.

In this world the sky is dark enough most nights to see the Milky Way, and we learn to recognize every constellation. Each solstice and equinox is reason enough for a party, and in early spring all the people who live along the river meet to agree on how many chinook may be taken and still preserve healthy fish runs. You help the neighbors haul everything out of their basement when it floods, and they help you put on a new roof.

Imagine a world like that, and we just might get something like it.

Bus 2.0
From Boston to Brazil, city planners and transportation gurus are reimagining the possibilities of the humble motorbus, using high-tech 'smart mobility' to challenge the preeminence of the car -- and revive the urban commons.
The Boston Globe | By Justin Peters | May 6, 2007

How much gas would be saved if drive-up windows were outlawed?

Will we soon have drug mules crossing the Mexican border smuggling coffee beans instead of meth?

I couldn't find any shopping carts locally, and who knows when one will turn up at Goodwill, so it will have to be an online order. Stacks and Stacks seems to have a good selection.
So, what do you guys think? Casual navy or sporty red? Easy to carry or heavy duty?

An eerily prescient limited edition drypoint... @ 2006

In the spring, when the rain lets up for a couple days and the sun peeks out, so do the people. Since last fall some new folks have moved into the neighborhood. I stopped yesterday to introduce myself to the unknown woman and dog out weeding at the blue house on the corner. (Sam, and her faithful Aussie companion, Rupert of the Yellow Eyes.)

Time for another potluck. Past time for another potluck.

All the immediate neighbors, plus a few truly fine folks from the historic district just downhill. This time I plan to have on hand some materials from the Northwest Earth Institute. NWEI offers these amazing self-guided group discussion courses — so I'm told by friends who've been involved — on topics like sustainability and voluntary simplicity. These courses are conducted in work groups, volunteer organizations, churches, families, and neighborhoods. Why not mine? Why not yours?

The course that really interests me is Developing a Sense of Place, which seems like a logical place to start for people who are going to be spending a lot more time in that place.

We've all acquired essential knowledge for successful oil-fueled lives: where the drive-thru espresso places are on the route to work, when Copper River salmon will be shipped to the market, which LA-area airport is cheapest to fly into. The day may come when it will be more important to figure out where local streams are buried in culverts, how long it takes to reach the state capitol on foot, and how to tell the difference between Camassia quamash and Death Camas. (I have no clue.)

We knew this was coming; hell, we’ve talked about it for years. (Half our friends and family think we’re crazy; the other half think we’re not crazy enough.) We’ve talked about it for years —oil being a limited and nonrenewable resource, it was bound to run out eventually— but of course nobody knew exactly when it would really happen.

The stupid things is, we haven’t done a fraction of the things we planned to do. We’ll have to hurry up and get the rain barrels and cisterns installed; they’re plastic and as such are petroleum dependent. I didn’t want to be an early adopter of nano-solar, and now there may simply not be enough time to move that technology into the marketplace at all.

We haven’t figured out how to heat the greenhouse efficiently in winter —compost and manure maybe?— but we did at least get a new roof on it and addressed the structural issues so that now it’s possible to close the door.

There were apples and raspberries when I bought the place, and we planted a pear tree and strawberries and blueberries (excellent anti-oxidants). I’ve been adding to the medicinal plants inherited from two owners back; mostly she collected women’s herbs, but I’m adding general purpose items like willow and licorice.

This part of the valley has lots of volunteer hazelnuts, but ours never seem to produce much, so I suppose they are all male or all female and we need to plant at least one of whatever these aren’t. (Note to self: investigate sexual habits of nut trees.) I’m allergic to them, but other people can certainly eat them.

We’ve made a point of getting to know our neighbors and have identified only one butthead in the immediate vicinity. Aren’t we fortunate? Believe me, we will really be stepping up the potluck schedule. I’m a firm believer in local food and local employment and local child care. Local everything. It’s only been in the last few decades that people in this country moved away from the places where they grew up, and moved away from the idea that it’s just good sense for folks to work together.

Somebody was telling me recently about a bumper sticker which reads: “Think Globally, Act Neighborly.” That’s the ticket!

...is to get to know your neighbors. Really. Especially those older than, oh, 50 or so. People who, like redhatty, may have some practical survival skills.
If you ask you'll find, within an easy walk from your home, someone who: 1) lived without electricity in childhood, 2) can catch and clean a fish, or 3) has set and splinted a broken leg—just for starters. If something devastating happens Monday, the shortcomings of Rugged Individualism become immediately apparent.
If nothing happens, hey, you've made some interesting new friends with great stories.