Similar Posts

  • | |

    Excellent Blog on Community Gardening in DC

    ByElizabeth

    I was just led to this blog entry on community gardening in DC  from the DC Urban Gardeners‘ list serve’s daily digest.  The blog entry was originally posted last spring, but still has helpful information, and the service provided by the blogger looks interesting too.

    If you have been thinking about getting into a garden, now may be a better time to get on a waiting list than the start of the growing season.  Now is the time that novices have realized that they don’t take care of their plots, and they are better off supporting the local farmers’ markets.  If you cannot get into a garden, why not be the fantastic neighbor that starts a new garden?

    In the interest of full disclosure, after a few years at the garden nearest to my house, I decided to restructure my tiny backyard to add three 3’X3′ beds.  This gave me as much space as I had in the community garden.  I would love to have both spaces or more, but since there was a long waiting list at the garden, I ceded my space.  Currently most productive in my garden:  cucumbers, hot peppers, and all sorts of herbs.  Tomatoes aren’t doing too well, but I’ve gotten a few eggplants and my first big butternut squash.  Yum!

  • | |

    Warming Up on a Windy Wintry Day (and Warm Organic Ginger Oil Massage Treatment)

    ByElizabeth

    If it had not been for the half off coupon from Green Deals, I might not have gone to Wellbeing Massage in Dupont Circle for an ayurvedically inspired warm organic ginger oil massage after work today.  But I am certainly glad I succumbed to the lure of the coupon.

    It was absolutely perfect on this windy, bitter day in mid-winter to surrender, in a perfectly heated and softly lit room, to having warm oil poured onto my eyebrow center (ajna door) and having it massaged into my scalp, face, and neck and then poured on and slathered all over.  With the quantity of oil used, it is more a treatment than a massage, and and such, an admirable supplement (and never a replacement) for my regular massages with long time Capitol Hill massage therapist and friend Patrick McClintock of House of Hands.  For the first time in weeks, my skin feels completely hydrated, and though my house was set at 59F when I got home two hours after the treatment, I still feel warm.

    If you decide you want to get one of these treatments to chase away winter cold and dryness, please mention my name (shameless solicitation; if five of you go, I get a free treatment).  And if you are looking for a fantastic therapeutic massage from a wonderful person and experienced therapist, give Patrick a call.  And if five of you go to get a massage with him and mention my name, maybe he and I can work out a deal donating a portion of the proceeds to D-CLAW‘s next charity of choice (that’s DC Ladies Arm Wrestling for Charity) (more on D-CLAW in a future post).

  • | |

    To do list? (Yoga citta vrtti nirodaha)

    ByElizabeth

    Twitter?  What would be

    The point without an I-phone?

    Buy one? Save the nation?

    Last night I wrote this “twaiku” (why is it not a “twittiku?”) after having read yet another series of articles on why or why not to Twitter and still more articles on why it is important for a nation of consumers to keep consuming even if that is what got them into trouble in the first place.  One of the articles was lamenting the loss of true communication that comes with being limited to 140 characters, and it set forth some examples of how peculiar, when taken out of context, some twittering can sound, especially to the uninitiated.  In my attempt to keep an open mind about devaluing language while still communicating in language, I was led to think about haikus v. sonnets and other longer poetic forms.   A haiku easily fits into 140 characters.  This led me to wonder whether anyone had created a haiku trend on Twitter?  A quick Google search revealed that I am way behind the times in terms of the twaiku?

    One of the articles suggested that Twittering is about being in the moment.  Contrarians say it fosters attention deficit disorder and a host of other language-loss ills.  This led me to think of the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali “yoga citta vrtti nirodaha” (yoga is stilling/aligning with the thoughwaves of the mind).  When evaluating what to consume, when to consume, and how to consume (whether it is language and communication methods or electronic goods or anything else), if we are serious about taking yoga off the mat, it is good to think about whether our consumption eases the trials of being embodied or makes daily living more agitating, and whether our consumption brings us more into alignment with nature/spirit (brahmacharya) or turns us away.

  • I Wanted to Be Near the Water

    ByElizabeth

    When I finished practicing this morning, all I wanted was to be near the water. I walked to the tidal basin–about seven miles round trip. Some of the museums were open. After the crowds in New York, even the Natural History Museum for a rest stop did not seem too, too terrible. The day was almost balmy, no need for a scarf or hat even with the wind off of the water. Appreciating the contrast between walking around in DC and NY, I found myself remembering why I had first decided to come to DC from New York to go to law school, based on an initial visit in February: the snow was melted and the museums were free.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.