Kwik Sew 3614 shorts ... and September!

Way back in July I noticed a dearth of shorts in my wardrobe. I'm not a big fan of shorts ... specifically, I'm not a big fan of how shorts look on me. Mostly because I don't tan at all and my white legs scare people, but also because I don't like wearing anything higher than just above my knee. Since I have a spiffy new sewing machine, I decided to make some shorts that met my requirements and I feel comfortable wearing on the hotter days of summer.

Enter Kwik Sew 3614, a pattern I first read about on Sewn. Elizabeth had mentioned how members of Pattern Review raved about the fly construction instruction on these shorts, and after making a couple pairs, I have to agree -- fly fronts can be tricky, but it's smooth sailing with this pattern.

My first pair was constructed out of lavender-colored cotton twill I purchased a few years ago from Fabric Place. I traced and cut a size L and followed the directions for view A (the longest version) exactly, making no modifications. The shorts came out well and I've worn them a lot this summer. My only dislikes were having hook and eye closures on the closure tab. I decided with my next pair I'd use a button and buttonhole.

My second pair are the ones I'm wearing in the photos above. I can't remember where I got the fabric, a navy blue cotton twill ... either Joann's or Sewfisticated Fabrics in Framingham. The button/buttonhole closure works much better. For future shorts I plan to use a contrasting facing on the waistband, as well as softer pocket fabric. I used matching twill to make pockets for both pairs of shorts. They're fine, but maybe a little bulkier than I'd like.

This is a great pattern and I will definitely get my money's worth from it as I have plans for olive, white, and red shorts for next summer.

Since I took a bit of a blog break for the last six weeks, here's what else is going on. My mother and I took a week-long trip to central Maine in August and had a wonderful time. I didn't take any pictures (bah!) except for a shot of my yarn haul from Halcyon Yarn in Bath.  I'll do a run down of what I purchased in a separate post.

I've been a bit down because my father and stepmother are going through a painful divorce. It's not a bitter one, just very sad because of the circumstances. I'm hoping that once the smoke clears, things will get better.

Then my husband's car died. We were down to one car for the last few years, so it has been necessary to do some car shopping. It looks like I'll be getting a new VW Jetta by the end of the week. It's funny because VW was not on my "car-buying radar" until I rented one a couple weeks ago and fell in love. Even better, my son loves it and my husband, while not a fan of practical four-door sedans, admits that it's a smooth, responsive ride.

And oh, that cat you see above? That's Winston. I'l write more about him in another post, but we decided after a year of having no cats it was time to welcome a new cat into our home ... and hearts. We adore Winston ... he is a sweet, lovable, friendly guy. And even better,  he doesn't chase my yarn.

What have you been up to this summer? Are you glad it's September?

Holiday knitting

When I was in Mystic, Connecticut, a couple weeks ago, I saw a sample of The Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief knitted up in sock-weight yarn (the pattern specifies a DK-weight yarn). The ruby-red sock yarn I purchased that day was so soft and pretty that I decided it would make an equally lovely kerchief. My mother really loved the color of the yarn (by Other Kingdom, a dyer I cannot find on the Web!) so this is a Christmas present for her. She looks terrific in this shade of red.

My mother doesn't read my blog, so no worries about her finding out. :)

It's a very enjoyable knit with lots of stockinette broken up with rows of eyelet, an easy pattern to remember, and something I can work on in front of the television or while waiting for an appointment. I figure I'll have this "wrapped up" by the weekend so I can move on to my next gift knit.

So far in my gift knitting, I've finished two cowls, two earflap hats (stranded colorwork), one and a half socks, and a hot water bottle cozy. Just a couple more things and then I can move on to some selfish knitting. ;-)

This week has been a trying one, professionally and personally. Professionally it has been a week of rejection after rejection, then having people (mostly PR) play bait-and-switch with me. Frustrating!

And maybe because of the cold and darkness, my temper is running a lot hotter than normal, esp. with my family. Last week I "bragged" about my son. Well this week he came home with some pretty bad lab/test grades in science, math, and social studies. I was really angry about the social studies grade because he had brought home a two-sided study sheet but insisted and argued with me that the test would only be on the first side. I kept telling him, "Let's just learn the facts on the second side," but he wouldn't have any of it. You can guess what happened ... the test included all the facts he didn't study on the second side. When I asked him what kind of grade he's expecting, he tried to put a positive spin on it by saying, "I'm sure I didn't get an F." I told him I wasn't going to be very happy with a D or a C, either.

Then yesterday O had a half day. The town was giving out free flu shots after school, so I told O I would walk up to school to pick him up and we'd walk over to the town hall. The walk to school isn't bad at all; it's just a mile down the bike trail and a cut through the woods. However it was bitterly cold and windy, and the trail was covered in ice, which made it hard for me to walk. I get up to the school and O comes bounding up to me with his backpack ... and no coat.

"I left it at home," he said.

I was pretty ripped because there was no way he would be able to walk home in that cold in just a t-shirt and flimsy sweatshirt. Sure enough, on the short walk over to the town hall, O complained about the wind, that his ears were hurting, that his throat ...

Oy! Enough already!

We ended up popping over to a new pizza place in town to kill some time. Since my husband and I had an appointment at school later on that evening, the plan was we'd hang out in town until DH could pick us up. However, I was sitting there in the warm restaurant, I started wondering if I'd turned the iron off in my sewing room. I'd sewed a holiday table runner that morning (seen above in photo) and I couldn't remember switching the iron off. So I told O he'd have to wait at the library until his father could pick him up. There was no way I could sit around for two hours wondering if my house was in flames. Cue more whining.

The walk home was even colder (and longer because I was walking home from town). All that worry for naught: the iron was off. Then I started getting texts from O complaining about being bored so I told him to read a book and leave me alone, and my husband was being difficult ... argh. I know the common belief is that women are difficult to live with, but in this house, it's the male species! I ended up blockading myself in the bedroom with my hot water bottle and a novel to avoid the two of them.

OK, moving on. We ended the evening with an appointment with O's math teacher, who was generally positive about O but agreed he could use an extra push at home. The good news is that his teacher said he'll recommend O to move into the highest level math class next year because of his grades and MCAS scores. The bad news is that we've got to play some hardball with O because it's clear he hasn't been working as hard as he should be. We are very generous with him because he's a good kid, but we have an understanding his #1 job is schoolwork and when he doesn't perform to his abilities, he gets things taken away from him ... like his iPad.

I was hoping the week would end on a good note, but I have a feeling it's going to get worse before it gets better.

 

Recumbent trike update

Earlier this fall I decided to extend the Carless in Suburbia experiment for another year until October 1, 2014. The experiment ended up offering many unexpected benefits beyond saving money and reducing fuel consumption. I found that using my bicycle to get around during the week reduced my stress levels considerably--slowing down has helped me enjoy the process of getting from "here" to "there." Because my in-person shopping options are limited to what I can find downtown, my impulse purchasing has gone way down; shopping is no longer something I do to kill time. Most of all, I feel happier inside. It's kind of crazy, I know. I think it's because I did something I didn't think I could do (give up my car for a year), and not only did I do it, but I signed up for another year of "car freedom."

Right after I made this new commitment, though, I landed in the hospital for three days with a herniated disc, and then a week later, developed a case of deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Biking as I knew it was out. Enter the recumbent trike, thanks to my husband's insistence this was the bike for me. (I didn't really buy into it until I tried it out.)

I've had the bike for a month, and I. Love. It. More than my Trek 700 commuter cycle. When I ride my regular cycle up a hill, it's exhausting. Not so with my recumbent--I seem to fly up hills with only my legs feeling the stress. But when I returned home after biking on the commuter bike, I didn't feel like I got much exercise. That's definitely NOT the case with my recumbent. I usually feel wiped (in a good way) and I can tell that even after a few weeks of triking, my thighs and butt have lost some inches. I also can trike in colder temperatures; it used to be that I wouldn't bike if it was under 40 degrees F, but I went triking when it was 35 degrees F and it wasn't bad at all. I guess I'm burning more calories i.e. generating more heat!

It has been snowing here in Boston for a couple days so I'm not sure when I'll be out on my trike again. I sure do miss it though! This weekend I was at REI, and I came close to buying a new pair of snowshoes. (My old ones slide off my boots annoyingly.) I find the key to staying happy and sane during the winter is to a. get outdoors as much as possible and b. to find outdoor activities that are enjoyable. For me, that's triking when there's no snow, and snowshoeing when there is.

Oh, and here's something else that's interesting about the switch from biking to triking: people are a LOT nicer to me, especially people in cars. I honestly didn't have much of a problem with cars when I was biking, probably because I have the philosophy of "I might have the right-of-way here, but I'm going to be the loser in a battle with a 2,500-lb. piece of metal so best to stay out of the way." The most irritating thing is when I walk my bike across crosswalks and drivers don't stop--they don't seem to understand that once I'm off my bike, I'm a pedestrian, not a cyclist.

However, when I'm on my trike at a crosswalk? People hit the brakes and very nicely wave me across before I can stand up! They also give me tons more room on the road, even though my trike is only 10 cm wider than a regular bike. It finally hit me one day: drivers think I'm disabled. I asked a couple people I know in town what they thought of my theory, and they agreed. My buddy Gerry down at the hardware store said it's the bright orange flag I have on the back of my trike. Just what I thought!

Rainy days and Monday

You have to be of a certain age to get that title.

This weekend I rented a car and drove down to Connecticut to spend some time with my mother, who has been very sick. My mother is the type of woman who can't step out of the house without her hair and makeup just so (and it can take hours to reach perfection!), but she promised me this time she wouldn't fuss if we went out because all she would be doing is sitting in the car while I did her bidding with errands. It worked out well! By the time I left Sunday afternoon, she was feeling much better. :)

I was able to collect my birthday present as well, and I broke my yarn diet by visiting Mystic River Yarns downtown. In under ten minutes I'd chosen a skein of Other Kingdoms sock yarn in a rich ruby red and two skeins of Jamieson's of Shetland wool (cream and a soft blue) for my Shetland wool stash. I'm turning the sock wool into an Age of Brass and Steam kerchief, which I'll be giving as a Christmas gift.

While I was in Mystic, I had a chance on Saturday to visit Stonington Borough, a classic New England seaside village not far from my mother's home in Mystic. I stopped in my tracks when I stepped out of the car to get a breath of fresh air at the southernmost tip of the village, where you can see three states: obviously Connecticut underfoot, Rhode Island to the east, and New York's Fishers Island. The smell of salt air and the sound of the mournful foghorn transported me back to my childhood, where I spent summers with my maternal grandparents on the Connecticut shoreline. Memories came flooding back all day: climbing over slippery rocks with my brother, gathering mussels, periwinkles, and hermit crabs from the tide pools; afternoons scooping crabs into nets; the foghorns calling me to sleep at night. I think of myself as a Vermont girl, but I guess Atlantic has its pull on me, too.

Sunday night back home in the Boston 'burbs, O and I watched the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead. I don't think O has ever cried as hard over a tv show. I finally got him laughing by telling him the actors that got axed probably asked for too much money during contract negotiation time or that Martin Scorsese offered them roles they couldn't refuse.

I finished a cardigan last week but it has been so dark and dreary I haven't bothered with pictures. Soon, I promise. It's a practical bit of knitwear, nothing fancy, but I love it because the wool came from Drumlin Farm Animal Sanctuary over in Lincoln. When it gets damp, it smells like sheep. When I told my mother that, she wrinkled her nose. She's definitely not a Vermont girl!

Happy birthday to me!

A birthday gift from my boys!

After this last stint with my back, I figured my days on a regular upright bike were numbered. My husband thought so, too, so he went to work figuring out a solution. And here it is -- a recumbent trike!

I wasn't sold on the idea at first, but one test ride converted me. That night, the bike was delivered to our driveway, and within an hour I was sailing down the trail. It's not as fast as my upright, but I don't bike for the speed thrill. Even better, by the time I got home, my legs were like jelly. I have a feeling by the spring I'll have a nice set of pins to show off. ;-)

Not a bad way to begin my last year in my 40s.

It's quiet here today. O is in upstate New Hampshire on a school trip through tomorrow afternoon. His teacher called me this morning to tell me O was really missing home. I was touched that she called me to tell me, and I was glad she was urging him to wait to call home until tonight. O was stressed out by my being in the hospital, and I'm sure he's thinking it's my birthday today and missing me. I certainly miss him. I told DH last night the house is utterly empty feeling without him, and now I understand why empty nesters have such a hard time of it. It's tough letting your little ones fly the coop!

 

What a week

O and I spent his spring break down in Connecticut with my parents ... a couple days at my father's house on the lake, then a day at my mother's house in Mystic.

We were lucky and got a Fiat 500 from the rental car company. I was so excited to get it. And yes, it lived up to my expectations. Not only adorable, but peppy and surprisingly comfortable. Usually after an hour of driving, I have to get out and stretch my spine ... not so with this car. I was sad to bring it back to the rental company at the week's end. :( Fingers crossed I can buy one when my car-less in suburbia experiment ends in October.

On Monday the 15th I left O with my parents and drove up to Northampton, home to my alma mater, Smith College, but more importantly, home to the yarn Mecca called WEBS, which was having its anniversary sale. I spent several hours there, bummed that the wool I'd picked out for two projects was backordered, but I did find enough for other projects in the queue. Thanks to my parents for the generous Christmas gift that financed this expedition! :)

On the way back to Connecticut, I stopped at another favorite place, City Fish Market in Wethersfield to pick up some salmon for dinner. I love this place. My mom used to buy fish here when we were kids, so it's always a nice nostalgic visit.

When I got back to my father's house, I recall asking him who won the Boston Marathon. My father is a former marathoner who has actually run this marathon, but he didn't know. I went to work preparing dinner, then went to check my e-mail when I saw a couple "Are you okay?" e-mails. Panic rising, I checked the news and saw what had happened. I quickly called my husband, who works in Cambridge, and he assured me he was fine. The rest of the night we stayed glued to the television.

We cut our visit to Connecticut a little short so we could return to Boston. It's weird, but I just wanted to be home even though it felt like everything was crazy up there. We did sneak in a visit to Storrs to the UCONN Dairy Bar, got in a nice walk at Center Church Camp, and my mother treated me to the first whole belly clams of the season down at Sea Swirl in Mystic. (Sorry, North Shore folks but Sea Swirl clams are superior, nyah-nyah.)

My husband usually works late on Thursday nights, but he came home a bit early because we'd returned. I was beat from all the drama of the week so I went to bed super-early and when I woke at 7, my husband had already left for work. He works at 500 Technology Square, which is part of MIT bordering the east campus. The first thing I do when I wake is check my e-mail ... and oh no, a bunch more e-mails asking if we're okay, or specifically if my husband is okay because of what happened at MIT!!! Frantically I checked the news, then called my husband. He happened to get into work so early that he was able to get into his building before they locked down Cambridge, but the fatal shooting and carjacking the night before had happened within a block of his building. I was so grateful that he'd come home early the night before because he would have been in the thick of it otherwise!

I had some worry that he wouldn't be able to get home that night, but with the action firmly over in Watertown, he was able to leave work around noon and return home.

And that was that.

I can't bear to watch the news anymore. It disgusts me that such a fun, iconic event like the Boston Marathon was attacked like this. But the pundits and comedians all have it right: Boston is a tough city. I mean come on ... we stuck by the Red Sox for how long? The people who live here are resilient. My heart goes out to the families who lost loved ones who were too young to pass. The people who were hurt and maimed will be loved and supported by not just their families, but the whole community.

 

 

 

How to dress for the cold

Yesterday I had errands in town, so I decided to leave the house shortly before noon and after things warmed up:

I took this screen shot around 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday -- it was actually 12 degrees Fahrenheit or -11 Celsius when I left the house. Brrrr!

With temps like these, biking is out of the question. A 4-mile walk is also a little insane, but the bike trail was clear of snow, the sun was shining, and I like to think I know how to dress for the elements  after living in New England for nearly a half century.

Before I got dressed, I put some body oil all over my legs and arms and some heavy-duty cream on my face and hands to prevent the flakes. Besides my standard-issue undergarments, I wore:

• a pair of long silk underwear underneath heavy denim jeans


• a cotton turtleneck


• a lightweight fleece pullover


• a toasty-warm zip-up alpaca cardigan I bought in Northampton, MA, home to WEBS. (The irony's not lost on me either.)


• a mohair and wool full-length coat


• a bulky wool cowl (handknit) around my neck and tucked into my coat


• a fleece balaclava layered with an additional wool slouch hat (handknit)


• one pair wool socks (handknit)


• my running shoes


• and a pair of felted wool mittens (handknit and hand felted)

I'm sure I looked a sight.

It was brutally cold but I felt impervious to it. At one point the backs of my calves got a little chilled and the tips of my toes weren't as warm as the rest of my feet, but I was never uncomfortable.  By the time I arrived at the bank I was actually hot -- too warm, in fact, to walk next door to Starbucks for the small cup of hot chocolate I'd promised myself for undertaking the long, arduous walk. :-)

I've knit a half-dozen pair of mittens over the last year for myself. I will not go outside on a cold day without my hands covered because once my fingers and toes are cold, it takes all day to warm them up again. My felted mittens are by far the warmest mittens I've ever worn, even warmer than the $60 ski gloves I bought many years ago and the thrummed mittens I knit this fall.* They're completely windproof, and they can contain my body heat without making my hands feel all clammy and sweaty. Yay natural fibers! They're not the most attractive knitted items I own, but I've had people around town stop me and ask, "Did you make those? I'll bet they're warm."



I'm still chugging away on my aran sweater, but I'm antsy for a quick project on the side. Maybe another pair of felted mittens?

* I suspect the thrummed mitts I made suffer from insufficient and/or inconsistent thrumming of fleece.

Car-less in Suburbia update

So ... I've passed the three-month mark of my car-less in suburbia experiment. By now, I figured I'd be missing my Subaru, but it hasn't happened, even with the holiday snow and bitterly cold weather that kept me off my bike. Even when I have use of my husband's car on the weekends, I tend to stay put (if it's bad weather) or use my bike or walk (weather permitting).

DH bought me some nice Christmas gifts for my biking -- a high-powered rechargeable headlamp that I can attach to my front handlebar, handy for when I'm biking down the trail after sunset, and LED clip lights I can attach to the spokes of my wheels, so that people can see me better from the side.

The only thing I really dislike about biking is being in traffic, a necessary evil for some trips. Bedford's a bike-friendly place, but inevitably I run into what I call "road hogs" -- ignorant drivers who think they own the road and that bicyclists should be up on the sidewalks. I wish states would require drivers to review the rules of the road when it's time for license renewal as so many drivers don't understand that bicyclists follow the same rules and are afforded the same rights. When I'm biking on a road with a left turning lane and I need to make that left turn, I have to get my bike over to that lane, making sure I'm not cutting off anyone in the right lane. (I'm equally peeved by bikers who do stupid things like dodge out into traffic.) Now and then I'll get someone behind me who starts honking as I wait to cross the oncoming traffic to make my turn. Very frustrating, not to mention startling. God forbid the extra ten seconds I need to cross keeps them from their morning stop at Dunkin Donuts.

OK, I'm whining. I'll stop. Really, it's all good. I love biking and I love love love the money I'm saving by not having a car. My insurance premium has dropped to $22 a month, I went from two or three fuel fill-ups a week to none at all, and there's no upkeep/maintenance bills to be paid. This weekend, DH and I discussed selling the Subaru and I'm about 90 percent there. He wanted me to think about buying a car for the summer -- we've got an 11-year-old with an active social life -- but I  want to stay car free until October 1. Not sure if I'll be able to get through another winter without a car, but by then I'll feel better/less guilty about buying a "new" car.

Speaking of which, here's what I've been drooling over ...



A Fiat 500. Yeah, yeah, yeah I know ... Fiat stands for "Fix It Again, Tony," but it's so sexy. And cute. I've always been a sucker for Italian design, what can I say?

 

Carless in suburbia update

I survived October without a car!

So far, I haven't really missed not having one during the week. We had a fairly mild October, except for the last week with Hurricane Sandy. When the temperature drops below 45 degrees F, my exposed skin gets very cold. I was going to knit a balaclava since I couldn't bring myself to spend $50 to $75 (!!) on the ones I saw at our local bike shop, but then this weekend I spotted one for $15 in Ace Hardware of all places, so DH bought it for me as a birthday present. Awww. The last two "skin-saving" items on my list are gloves (can I knit them? Maybe lobster claw-style ones?) and goggles, which I'll have to buy.

A couple weeks ago I decided to visit my  mother on the Connecticut shore. A perfect opportunity to test run a car rental! I rented a Toyota Yaris through Hotwire. We picked it up on a Saturday morning at the Enterprise rental location, and returned it on Sunday around 9 p.m. The total cost came to something like $45 plus $26 in gas costs, which my husband says we shouldn't count because I would have spent that much (probably more) driving down with the Subaru or his car. Not bad -- and this included insurance. The Yaris was one car I wanted to test drive during my carless experiment. The best thing about it was the gas mileage, and it had good zip. Unfortunately, the seat wasn't very comfortable (I'm spoiled with my Subie's plush leather *heated* seats) and there was a lot of road noise especially on the highway. When we dropped the car off Sunday night, I noticed that someone had returned a Fiat. I love the look of the new Fiats, so I hope I can test one out at some point.

The difficulty I'm having with my carless experiment right now is that I have to get out early on my bike because it starts getting dark so early. My goal this month is to get a little more organized about my errands so that I don't have to kick myself around 4 p.m. for not getting down to the store to pick up milk. The new bike bag has made grocery shopping a lot easier so I'm feeling better about spending the $80.

I also resolved another challenge last week. My cats' vet is a half-hour away and their weekend hours are spotty. I can't ask my husband to take a day off from work so I can take the cats to the vet, so I found a new one down the street that has Saturday hours and is close enough so that if I had to walk (with a pissed-off cat in a cat carrier in hand, ugh!), I could. I felt bad leaving my old vet since we've been going to her for years, but they understood our situation and were kind enough to fax our cats' records to the new vet for a Saturday appointment.

O has a student council meeting every other Thursday at 8 a.m. We were lucky that my brother had left his truck at our house when the last meeting occurred, but now he's down in Staten Island doing hurricane relief work. We may actually have to walk to O's school this Thursday, but my husband said he may be able to go in late. Fingers crossed!

And speaking of my brother ... thank you today to the veterans who've put their lives on the line to defend our country. In my family, that's my brothers Matt and Kevin (U.S. Marine Corps) and my father and stepfather (U.S. Navy).

 

The sweet things he does

My husband and I, like many couples, don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. We're both on the same page when it comes to politics, raising our son, the pursuit of education, and world travel. But on a great many other things, forget it. Mr. Left Brain, meet Ms. Right Brain. He thinks rationally and rarely shows emotion; I am ruled by emotion and feeling, which makes for interesting "discussions." I pinch pennies (stingy!); he's quick to open his wallet (generous). He likes happy films with happy endings; I like my movies dark, filled with characters of ambiguous morality. Where I discover hilarity, he finds nothing funny. We are totally food incompatible. He is Mr. Meat and Potatoes, while my diet has ranged from strict vegan to semi-vegetarian in the 15 years we've been together. The mere whiff of garlic, onions, and coffee makes him ill; I can think of nothing more perfect for breakfast than a garlicky tofu scramble served up with a steaming mug of java. He doesn't understand why I like to knit and sew when I could simply run out to the store and buy a sweater or a skirt to wear. I don't understand how he can work as hard as he does and not have a hobby to relieve stress.

I often wonder what keeps us together.

Every day, I've been checking the bike trail to see if the trees that fell down have been cut up and moved away. I can bike most of the trail, but there's one part that's totally blocked so I have to take a secondary trail and walk my bike across a couple fields to get back onto the main trail. It adds about 10 or 15 minutes to my ride, and truth be told it's tiring when my bike is loaded with groceries and packages from town.

Every day I've been keeping my husband posted. One small tree was cut up and removed, but the rest remain.

Yesterday I came home and found an e-mail in my inbox. My husband had made phone calls to people all over town until he found the person who could tell him what the plan was for the fallen trees. It didn't look good; the town has other priorities, which is understandable. So my husband called around to pull together a group of townspeople who can get together and help him cut the tree apart (our chainsaw is electric; we need gas-powered to reach the damage). It's going to take a few more calls, but maybe by this weekend the tree will be dismantled (ETA - only one big tree remains!)

He has been so busy at work, under a lot of pressure to get a project done, that I was touched he spent that much time making sure his wife can bike without too much disruption.

And I'm reminded why we're still together.

Election 2012

It's finally here. Election Day 2012. After months of sitting through the interminable television ads for candidates, chiseling out legitimate mail from our mailbox jammed with postcards from the Democrats, the Republicans, the Greens, the Reds, and political issues vying for our attention, walking and biking past lawn sign after lawn sign, listening to my mother rant about the Evil [insert political party that shall not be named]s, blocking discord mongers on my Facebook feed, and waving off pollsters at grocery stores, today I can take a nice bike ride down to the middle school, cast my vote, and be done with Election 2012.

I hope.

It's not all over but the shoutin'. I've read reports where we can expect recounts and charges of voter fraud before one side can claim victory. So much money has been spent on this presidential election, yet most people I talk to are voting to prevent "the other guy" from winning or they're picking the candidate who's least objectionable to their beliefs and values. I've yet to meet anyone who's genuinely crazy (in a good way!) about their candidate. I'm not someone who believes one party or presidential candidate is the be-all-and-end-all solution for our country's problems, but I do like to see citizens charged up for change. It  feels like people have, I don't know -- given up? don't give a rat's ass? -- about who gets in because we're heading for another four years of Been There, Done That, Drank the KoolAid. In fact, I know a few folks who've grown so apathetic and discouraged they're not even bothering to vote this election.

I'm always curious how other countries view our election process and what they think of our candidates. The Guardian has a geographic roundup of perceptions of U.S. presidential candidates. Bottom line: the apathy I've noticed on the domestic front crosses international borders.

What do you think of the U.S. elections this year? Are you ready for election season to be over already? Hopeful for the future? Add your comment below.

Meanwhile, I do have an election first: I'll be biking over to the polls instead of driving. :)

Car-less in suburbia, week 1

Sunday was my last day with my car, so around 8 p.m. I drove it over to the gas station in town, filled the tires up with air, returned home, and parked it in front of the garage where it is presently blanketed in soggy leaves. The week prior I'd driven it just once so I felt confident going into this year-long experiment.

Then this week it rained. Steadily.

I have to admit I missed my car. There was one day where I went out to run errands, and I showed up at the grocery store looking a sorry sight. On the other hand, the rain felt good against my skin while I was pedaling through the woods and then town. You don't get that kind of tactile pleasure behind the wheel of a car. But then again, I am a touch vain and didn't like that I looked like a bedraggled rat once I got to the store. On the days it was too rainy to ride, I walked. Yesterday I took two three-mile walks in the woods. It helped that my brother dropped by with his pickup truck and took me over to Market Basket and H-Mart in Burlington for a "big shop."

Today we're supposed to get a respite from the rain. In fact, I see our neighbor's house bathed in sunlight. So today I'll do all the errands I've been putting off: returning books to the library, picking up a prescription, mailing a package at the post office. My enthusiasm for the car-less experiment is sure to return. Everyone gets grouchy after days and days of dreary weather, right?

 

An experiment in doing without

This week I decided to give up my car. For the next year, I'm going to do without it and see where it leads.

For years I've idly wondered aloud to my husband if we could go from a two-car family to a one-car one. He thought no, and he was probably right. We were living in a town with a deplorable sidewalk situation and a nonexistent biking culture. Getting to the library or the grocery store on a bike was often harrowing.

One of the attractions of our new town is its bike-friendly culture. Still, when we moved here in 2011 I needed the car to drive my son to his school back in our old town. When he got out of school in June and we enrolled him in the local public school, I found I didn't need my car that much. I had a bike trail to use for grocery shopping and town amenities and two farmstands open year-round within a mile of our home.

A couple weeks ago we found out our beloved Subaru Outback was in worse shape than we thought, $1800 in repairs we needed right away, then $2,000 more in the spring to fix an ongoing emissions problem. The debate became Do we sink major bucks into a 12-year-old car or go out and buy a new (used) car?

That's a lot of money to sink into an old car, even if it is otherwise in great shape. As for car shopping, I'd rather get a root canal than go car shopping. I'm not exaggerating. I hate almost everything about the experience -- the slick salespeople trying to sell me more than I want, the amount of research that we have to put into it (my husband won't buy a box of toothpicks without doing extensive research on the benefits/drawbacks of flat-end versus round) and the weeks of rigmarole and drama of car-buying in general. If you get a used car, you inherit the past owner's headaches. When my husband had to buy a car last year, he spent weeks looking for a specific model, got it all checked out by his mechanic, and bought it; within two months, he had to sink a couple thousand into it for something that was missed during his mechanic's inspection. Don't get me wrong: I love looking at cars and get all ooo-and-ahhh- at a car show. But buying one? Seriously, rev up that dentist's drill.

So I've decided to go without a car until September 30, 2013. The plan is on October 1st I'm going to reduce my insurance on the car to the bare minimum and store it in the garage. With this type of insurance coverage, I can't drive the car but I don't have to drop the registration. If I decide in a couple months I just can't live without a car, I can put the regular coverage back on, and get it fixed or sell it/buy a new car. I was just too unsure of dropping the insurance and registration, and right now I'm not ready to sell it. If things work out really well with my plan, maybe I will drop the insurance/registration, but baby steps right now.

It's not like I'm going to be completely car-less. I'll bike or walk during the week, and if I need a car, I can take my husband's on the weekends. Or if there's a day where I absolutely need a car, I can drive him to the commuter station. If I need to pick up Oliver from school during the week, I can call a cab. If I need to get into the city, it's no big deal: we've got MBTA buses that run twice an hour into Cambridge. For longer trips, like visits to my parents in CT, I can always rent a car.

Even though I'm a bit nervous about this, I'm also excited. Since I dislike spending money on fuel costs and believe Americans waste way too many resources with their oversized cars and SUVs and thoughtless driving patterns, it feels like I'm putting my money where my mouth is. Whenever I've been to Europe, I've looked with envy at the city squares filled with parked bikes and wished I lived in a community like that, where people bike instead of drive. Why wait for that trend to come to U.S. when I can go for it now? I like the idea of putting physical effort into obtaining a thoughtful list of goods I need rather than passively driving to a mall and filling up my trunk with "stuff." As I age, the more I need physical activity -- not just to keep in shape, but to get my head clear -- and I need it most in the winter. A bit of Internet research shows that winter biking isn't all that uncommon, especially around here. On especially wicked cold days, I'll stay home, just as I do when I have a car. ;-) Lastly, we'll save a considerable amount of money as a result of this experiment. If I can go without a car for a year, maybe I'll decide I don't really  need one. But if the experiment feels like it has to end, I'll have saved enough money to pay cash for the car I really want -- a Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, or some other tiny car with a great safety rating and good gas mileage.

Any advice to share? I'm all ears! (Speaking of which, I'm researching lightweight balaclavas I can wear under my helmet to keep my ears from freezing off.)