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Camp has never smelled so good

2009-07-14T12:55:00.009-04:00

“If we don’t find the soy sauce, we’re doomed!” Urban Sophisticate Sister said dramatically. Dandelion Niece, her sous chef, scanned the grocery shelves.

Red-haired Niece walked by, timer in hand. “Seventeen minutes left.”

“I’ll go ask at the register,” said Dandelion Niece breathlessly.

The little north-country grocery store near my parents’ camp is usually a relaxed place where summer tourists stroll by in flipflops to stock up on hamburger buns and suntan lotion. But last week, for thirty minutes – EXACTLY thirty minutes – it became a set for the Islands Chef contest, a family event organized by Red-Haired Niece. The contest was, apparently, modeled after a television show that most of us have never seen. But we all grasped the concept right away: it was a cooking contest in which strict time limits force contestants to prepare food at a stressful pace that is highly entertaining to anyone not in the contest.

As the official photographer, it was my job to take photos. In the tiny store, it wasn’t hard to find the Islands Chef competitors. They were the frantic, obsessed shoppers racing up and down the aisles, muttering to each other as they tossed items into their carts. Other customers – that is the people in the store not part of my crazy family -- looked at my camera curiously; one man began waving and trying to get into the pictures.

In the produce section, Tie-dye Brother-in-law, who had been caught earlier in the week bribing judges with bars of dark chocolate, lamented the lack of fresh basil. Suburban Nephew was choosing peppers.

“Twelve minutes left,” warned Red-haired Niece. She strode off to find the other teams. “I wish they’d let me use the PA system.”

The little grocery store has never seen such excitement. Workers and customers alike kept asking us questions. By the time the Islands Chef competitors came through the checkout lines, the cashiers were shaking hands and saying, “Good luck!”

“How many of you are there?” asked the young woman ringing up purchases as Urban Sophisticate and Dandelion Niece frantically bagged their groceries.

“Four teams of two,” said Urban Sophisticate. “Do we have enough chicken? Dandelion Niece -- run and grab another package.”

Back at camp, the teams had exactly one hour to prepare their food. In addition to eight cooks, we had a mob of judges – the rest of the family – who milled about watching the preparations and getting in the way. The chefs had to prepare two dishes, one of which had to be vegetarian. And they had to incorporate the “secret ingredient” that had been dramatically unveiled fifteen minutes before the shopping trip: tomatoes.

What the chefs didn’t have was a full kitchen. In fact, they had no kitchen at all. They had to share the grill and couple of burners set up near the firepit under the oak trees. Two more electric burners were available inside my parents’ cabin. Furious negotiations over burners resulted in several chefs using the same hot water for different kinds of pasta.

In a strategic move, my brother and Blonde Sister-in-law opened the trunk of their car to reveal a card table, camp stove, knives, cutting board, and pots. They set up their own cooking station over near their tent, a good fifty feet away from the firepit where the other contestants were fighting over space.

My mother, who normally does a whole lot of the cooking at camp and who was supposed to be relaxing and not doing any work, spent the hour rushing about to help as frantic requests came from the chefs: “Do you have a can opener? A sharp knife?”

“We couldn’t let Grandma enter the contest because everyone would vote for her,” one of the judges observed. “It wouldn’t be a contest.”

“Yeah,” agreed Boy in Black. “She would dominate.”

The hour went by in a blur for the harried chefs and sous chefs. Cooking for 26 people means a whole lot of chopping. Knives flashed through onions, peppers, and of course, tomatoes. Despite stern warnings from Red-haired Niece, there was a high degree of cooperation amongst the chefs. Blond Brother-in-law seemed to be watching over everyone’s pots – and he grilled the chicken for Urban Sophisticate’s curry chicken.

I could see that the teams were making efforts to cater to individual judges. The Italian sausage that Tie-dye Brother-in-law had bought to add to his pasta dish was an obvious effort to get my father’s vote. Blond Brother-in-law secured my mother’s vote as soon as he began unpacking the mussels and shrimp. My brother and his wife went for the teenage vote – a huge vat of chicken chili that won over my sons. Urban Sophisticate catered to the vegetarian voting block with a curry dish that included spinach, black-eyed peas, and tomatoes.

Schoolteacher Niece gave a cry of horror halfway through the hour when she discovered that the bottle of wine she’d bought to serve with her meal was empty. It had been drunk by several of the judges, who had mistaken it for a bribe.

The chefs and sous chefs rushed to get their dishes on the picnic table as the clock wound down. The chefs presented each dish, making up names on the spot to pretend that their dishes were entirely original. “And our chicken chili is accompanied by Whiskey Island Mango Salad,” my brother explained, borrowing the name from an island we’ve all swum at since we were kids. The mango salad, spooned into scooped-out tomatoes, was sure to get everyone’s vote for best presentation.

Then, without even clearing the cutting boards away, we all sat down a frenzy of eating. Drama Niece’s two teenage friends arrived just as the feast began. They looked startled at first at all the elaborate dishes but soon joined right in and even produced an old cutting board to be used as first prize.

Red-haired Niece, who had printed ballots ahead of time, oversaw the voting process in my parents’ cabin. The judges lined up outside and were allowed to enter one at a time to vote. To ensure secrecy, Red-haired Niece burned the ballots in the firepit – where we were all gathered, anxiously waiting the results -- before she would announce the winners.

Then the official announcement came : Urban Sophisticate and Dandelion Niece, the aunt and niece team who had taken a risk with two sophisticated curry dishes, had won! All chefs and sous chefs were awarded wooden stars that Red-haired Niece had painted gold or silver. After admiring these wonderful prizes, the contestants gathered at the outhouse to glue them to the walls, a permanent reminder of this delicious event.

Morning at camp

2009-07-13T16:16:00.002-04:00

During the night, I woke to crashing thunder and great flashes of lightning. On the river, the storms can be terrific. In the morning, after the rain had stopped, my mother and Blond Brother-in-law pulled our chairs into the clearing to dry them, hanging out towels that had been left out in the storm. Blond Brother-in-law went to town on an errand and returned with the newspaper. By then, other family members were stumbling out of their tents, claiming chairs in the sun and fighting over sections of the newspaper.

That's my mother, standing.

Summer Days

2009-07-13T11:22:00.001-04:00

My father floats on the yellow raft with four of his grandchildren: Shaggy Hair Boy, With-a-Why, Suburban Nephew, and Dandelion Niece. That's his sailboat anchored in the background.

Gone camping

2009-07-04T11:38:00.002-04:00

Longtime readers know that it's a tradition for my extended family to gather up at my parents' camp during early July. We'll spend the week swimming and sailing, playing Ultimate and bocce, eating and talking. At night, we'll sit around the campfire and slap at mosquitoes. I'll be offline, of course, since my tent doesn't have wireless. But I'll return with stories and photos.

In the mountains

2009-07-03T23:46:00.002-04:00

My husband and I spent several days of our vacation hiking in national parks – or natural areas just outside national parks. He had looked up hiking trails ahead of time, choosing obscure trails that wouldn’t be crowded. They certainly weren’t crowded. Usually, we’d be the only car at the trailhead, and I wasn’t always sure the path we'd found was a trailhead. I’m used to the mountains in my state, where the trailheads have brown signs and places to register before you start on the hike.

I kept leaving notes on the dashboard of our car, noting the time we’d left, the number in our party (2), and our destination. My husband thought that was a little paranoid. On the other hand, he was a bit paranoid about the wildlife.

Him: Ew. What’s that?
Me: Bear scat.
Him: But it looks … new.
Me: Yeah.
Him: What if we run into a bear? Shouldn’t we know what to do?
Me: Some bears, you’re supposed to stay quiet, some you make noise.
Him: WHICH KIND OF BEARS ARE THEY?
Me: I don’t know.
Him: We should have a plan. In case this bear comes back.
Me: Well, you could drop the backpack. It’s got food in it.
Him: What? I’m like … walking bear bait?
Me: I think for rattlesnakes, you stay still.
Him: Rattlesnakes?
Me: They can only strike as far as half the length of their bodies.
Him: Great. I’ll just measure the coils.
Me: It’s humbling, isn’t it? Nice not be the top predator in the woods.
Him: I’m going to write that on your tombstone.

We disagreed about what constitutes a hike. I call pretty much any walk in the woods a hike, especially if we are moving up the side of a mountain. My husband doesn’t think a walk qualifies as a hike unless you’re drenched in sweat, about to drop from heat exhaustion, and ready to kill yourself if you see yet another set of switchbacks.

Of course, no matter how strenuous the hike was, it was always great to make it to the summit, to sit on a rock and just gaze out at the view. Sometimes we’d hang out long enough to see a few other hikers straggle onto the rocks. These other hikers were always more prepared then us. Here we’d be, in the middle of nowhere, hours from the nearest road, and they’d pull out sandwiches and drinks and potato chips that somehow had remained uncrushed on the hike. My husband and I would watch enviously, as we sat on our rock with water and trail mix, and vow next time that we’d be more prepared. Then we’d start down the trail so that the other hikers wouldn’t notice us salivating.

Playing statue

2009-07-02T22:11:00.006-04:00

On my second day in Famous City With Space Needle, Ecowoman had to go to work. I told her not to worry, that someone I had met online was going to come pick me up, and I was pretty sure she wasn’t an axe murderer. “And if she’s a stalker, I’m still okay,” I said cheerfully, “because I’ve given her your address and not mine.”

Jane Dark and I had a wonderful day. We began by wandering around a beautiful Japanese garden, relaxing on a bench to talk, and then watching some little kids feed the most aggressive koi fish I’ve ever seen. Really, the koi fish were almost as creepy as rabbits.

On the campus of University Rub-a-dub, we went into a special room of the library and got to look at some amazing book art by artists like Julie Chen. They even let me touch the pages! I’m so used to getting yelled at in museums that I was thrilled to get to handle these gorgeous books. Our tour of campus included a room that looked like Hogwarts’ great hall, except it was filled with Americans students instead of British wizards and witches.

After our lunch with Rokeya, we looked at our watches and realized that we were running out of time. I don’t know where the day had gone, except that I had already gotten Jane lost at least once. People get lost when they are with me. It’s a special talent I have.

Jane had planned an ambitious naked photo shoot: “Okay, we’ll go out in kayaks, and I’ll just slip off my dress without anyone noticing, and I’ll pose with the skyline of the city in the distance. And you just balance in the other kayak and take the shot.”

I could see this easily turning into some kind of comedy routine that would end with my camera at the bottom of the sea. But alas, we didn’t have enough time.

“Well, it should be an outdoor shot,” I said. “But maybe we could do it on land.”

“Here’s a private spot,” said Jane.

“Just pretend you’re a statue. You know, like in Europe how the formal gardens always have statues in them?”

She tossed off her dress and sandals, and I snapped the photo. Now all we need is a sculptor.

(Readers who want to know the history of the naked photo tradition can check it out here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here.)

Dancing bloggers

2009-07-02T16:51:00.004-04:00

I met so many bloggers at the Friendly Green Conference that I've lost track of them all. Then when I went to University Rub-a-dub, I found two bloggers dancing on the edge of a fountain. Jane Dark and Rokeya took me to a place that served tasty vegetarian food and we talked about all kinds of stuff over lunch. It’s always great to hear the voices of people whose blogs you’ve read for years, especially when they turn out to be as smart and articulate and cool as you thought they were going to be. After lunch, one of them posed naked for my blog. But that’s another post ….

Naked in the garden

2009-07-01T12:59:00.002-04:00

In City Where Jimi Hendrix Was Born, I stayed for a couple days with my friend Ecowomen. Longtime readers will remember her as the woman who inspired the tradition of naked blogging. Her cute little house is tucked into a garden of purple and yellow blossoms. When I arrived, bits of colored glass were twirling in the breeze near the front door, catching the afternoon night. I felt like I was in a movie as I walked into a house filled with pillows and colorful treasures.

Ecowoman buys old framed photos at yard sales, and then hangs them up, even though they are people she’s never met. They are mixed in with all her other pictures. When I was looking at the photos, she would say things like, “Yeah, that’s me and my mother. Here are my parents when they were young. Oh, that one? Yard sale family.”

Naturally, she and I talked over the Friendly Green Conference in great detail, and then went on to talk about stuff going on in our lives. She kept threatening to do a make-over of me. Apparently dressing like a teenage boy does not make me the height of fashion.

"You're meeting your husband for a romantic vacation and THAT'S what you're wearing?"

"We're going hiking," I protested. "And we'll be naked the rest of the time."

We sat at her table in the sun and ate fresh baguettes with deli foods. All during my stay, she kept taking care of me. “Are you hungry? Now, here are some clean towels. Can I get you anything else?”

“You don’t have to keep waiting on me,” I protested. “I’m a grown-up.”

“You’re in my house,” she said. “That makes you eight.”

We hadn’t planned, actually, for Ecowoman to make another naked appearance on the blog, but early one morning, I found her dancing naked in her backyard. I think she had papers to grade. Nothing inspires nudity like a stack of papers to grade.

Naturally, I ran for my camera.

“This setting is perfect,” I said, “but take off your hat so I can see that gorgeous hair.” At the sight of my camera, she stopped the wild frolicking and posed demurely, looking up to smell one of the flowers in her garden.

Then she pulled out her bicycle, put on some clothes, and rode off to catch the boat she rides to work.

Safe harbor

2009-06-30T23:35:00.000-04:00

Something truthful in the sea

2009-06-29T23:41:00.002-04:00

The sound of waves crashing on a beach makes me feel small and insignificant.

The West Coast Ocean sounded and smelled and looked very much like the East Coast Ocean that I’m used to. But the sun was in a different place. Late afternoon, I’d look through my camera towards the ocean, and I’d be startled to see the sun shining towards me. It was like the dramatic moment in a futuristic movie when the actor suddenly notices two suns instead of one.

My husband and I sat in the sand one evening to watch the sunset.

“Isn’t that bizarre?” I asked him. “The sun setting into the ocean! I feel like I’m in a science fiction novel. Something weird and futuristic. ”

He sighed. “This was supposed to be romantic.”

In addition to rabbits

2009-06-28T23:13:00.005-04:00

The Campus where Friendly Green Conference Was Held offered beautiful outdoor places for conversation: courtyards filled with flowering bushes, a fountain that made lovely water noises, a quiet pond, a grassy knoll beneath some totem poles.

One morning I woke up at 5:30 am to explore a protected area on the edge of campus, a forested ravine that was acquired by the university in 1993 after a student-led activist group convinced them that they needed to save the forested ravine from development. I walked in under the tree canopy, followed a dirt path that wove through ferns and over a stream, and watched the sun sending rays of light through tree branches.

One evening, Easy-going German Friend and I walked through a formal garden that was carefully fenced to keep the rabbits out. The flowers were just past peak, and the grounds were strewn with petals, gorgeous colours spread across the grass. “Are you sure this is a college campus?” I kept asking my friend as we’d turn the corner to see a stand of bamboo or a reflecting pool or another carefully groomed bed of flowers.

Of course, the best thing about Beautiful Campus on Canadian Island is that the walkways and buildings were infested with Friendly Green Folk. In my book, a college campus can only be improved by herds of Friendly Green Folk trampling into a dining hall or gathering for a plenary or sitting on the grass to talk. More than 650 of us who descended upon the campus for this conference. We almost outnumbered the rabbits.

Cute or creepy? You decide

2009-06-27T20:45:00.002-04:00

Our first night on Beautiful Campus Where Friendly Green Conference Was Held, my roommates and I went out to find a grocery store. As we walked down the road, I spotted a couple of rabbits on the embankment, eating grass in the afternoon light.

“Oh, aren’t they cute?”
“Shh … don’t scare them.”

We stopped, charmed by the chance encounter with some urban wildlife.

“Aw, look, there’s a baby one.”
“They don’t even seem afraid.”

On our walk back, we noticed more rabbits as we came onto campus. Black rabbits, this time. And then some white ones. Unlike wild rabbits who dart away at any movement, these rabbits paid no attention to us. It was dusk when we reached the lawn nearest our dorm suite, grass that was cropped suspiciously short. Dark shapes, perhaps thirty or forty of them, came crawling across the open space.

Three rabbits eating grass in the sun is cute. Forty rabbits approaching in the dusk is creepy.

For the next seven days, between plenaries and concurrent sessions and meals in the dining hall, we talked about the rabbits. They were everywhere. Hundreds of rabbits, someone said. No, thousands, said someone else. They’d begun as pet rabbits dumped onto the campus, an environment with so few predators that they had bred like … well, like rabbits.

One colleague said he was tempted to jettison his paper and instead do an ecocritical analysis of Night of the Lepus, the 1972 horror film in which people are terrorized by mutant rabbits.

“Can you imagine what this place must look like at Easter time?” asked another colleague. “Eggs everywhere!”

Jokes turned to serious discussion: it was pretty easy to see that the rabbits who conveniently kept the lawns cut short were also destroying any native vegetation. They are as much a nuisance as a source of entertainment.

Many of us had been talking about Alisa Smith and J.B.Mackinnon’s book The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating which chronicles a couple’s attempt to eat only foods that came from within a hundred miles of where they live. “Eat local” has become the new mantra amongst food activists. So the solution to the rabbit problem on campus seemed obvious to us: scoop those tame rabbits up and feed them to the students.

We never did get to propose our idea to anyone who might enact it, but the jokes and conversations about the rabbits continued. When I walked through the campus late at night, the flocks of rabbits, usually sitting motionless and staring at me, gave me chills. Many of my colleagues, on the other hand, found them cute. Between sessions, I’d see colleagues crouched on the ground, photographing the bunnies.

“Where’s the next conference?” asked Curly Hair. “I’m hoping for alligators or maybe bears.”

“How come you never mentioned the rabbits?” I asked Charming Canadian Host. I may have sounded a bit accusing, but after all, he spent a whole weekend with the leadership team when we were planning the conference and he never mentioned rabbits. Not even once.

He shrugged. “If your campus was infested with rats, would you tell everyone?”

Naked in morning light

2009-06-25T17:12:00.004-04:00

When I arrived in Beautiful Island City for the Friendly Green Conference, the first thing my roommates and I did was walk to a grocery store to buy food and flowers for our dorm suite. The second thing we did was yoga. Within minutes of getting back to our shared lounge, we had moved the furniture to the side and stretched out on the floor. Smart Articulate Roommate With a Lovely, Lilting Voice led the yoga session, telling us when to bend and to breathe. I’d spent the day scrunched into cramped airline seats on three different flights, so stretching those muscles felt wonderful.

In academia, conference organizers often don’t recognize that we have bodies. I’ve been to academic conferences with programs so jam-packed that there were no slots for breakfast, or lunch, or supper. I’ve been to events where I had to rush from session to session with no time to even use the bathroom. The intellectual stimulation of an academic conference is wonderful and fulfilling, but spending a whole conference sitting at sessions held in the basement of a big hotel can leave me reeling out of balance, like my mind has been ignoring the fact that I have a body.

Friendly Green Conferences, held on college campuses rather than big hotels, are different. Perhaps because our focus is on environmental issues, the organizers recognize that our bodies can’t be ignored. Even more importantly, the Friendly Green Association strives to be a community, rather than simply a space for the intellectual exchange of ideas. The value of a conference comes not just from the brilliant thoughts presented by speakers, but in the face-to-face conversations we have with colleagues from all over the earth.

The Friendly Green Conference schedule included generous time slots for meals and bathroom breaks and discussions outside in the sun. Friday afternoon was set aside for field trips: after several days of intense intellectual stimulation, it felt great to go ocean kayaking and to swim in icy water. The Friendly Green Conference was an atmosphere conducive to talking about the concerns of the body, from the way our bodies react to toxins to the ways the dominant culture can encourage body hate.

Throughout the week, conference participants kept offering to pose naked for my blog, but since I didn’t carry my camera to sessions, it seemed easiest to choose one of my roommates. That's the tradition, after all. When Lilting Voice volunteered, I thought that some kind of yoga pose would be fitting.

“I’ll put a blanket on this table,” I said. “The texture will work well with your bare skin. The early light’s just right.”

The lounge area was already decorated with a vase of flowers – and a string of chili peppers that EcoWoman had brought. (We like to make ourselves at home, even in campus housing.) As I moved the flowers off the table, Lilting Woman said, “Why not leave the flowers?”

“No, that would look fake,” I said. “Why would you be lying on a table with flowers?”

“Look, honey,” she said. “Let’s acknowledge that there’s some artifice here. You didn’t just come across me lying nekkid on a table.”

She stripped off her clothes and climbed onto the table, her hair in the ponytail she wears whether she’s doing yoga or chairing a meeting. “How’s this?”

Lilting Voice is a leader in the Friendly Green Community, someone who knows how to get things done while somehow being polite and tactful and friendly. She’s a woman who nurtures the intimacy that can happen when people spend time together. She and I are the same age, and we'd been already been talking about our bodies, comparing stories. Despite a bit of artifice, it felt natural to be taking a photo of her as she sat naked in the early morning light.

(Readers who want to know the history of the naked photo tradition can check it out here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here.)

Into the Light

2009-06-24T14:15:00.003-04:00

All spring semester, as the Friendly Green Conference was approaching, my friends were exchanging emails to coordinate our conference plans. “Which field trip did you sign up for?” and “Who are you rooming with?” and most importantly, “Whose turn is it to pose naked for jo(e)?”

Blogger Who Got Naked for Me the First Time We Met and Who Has the Word Leash in the Title of Her New Book argued persuasively that we needed more male models.

It’s true that few of my male friends have posed for the blog. Oh, they like to TALK about getting naked, and they joke with me about the naked photo project, but when it comes right down to it, they somehow never get around to stripping their clothes off.

It’s an interesting gender pattern I’ve noticed so far in the conversations about this project. When women hear that I’m taking naked photos, they will jump quickly from the usual jokes into serious discussion about their bodies: we talk about cultural taboos in the communities we grew up in, the effect of religion on body image, the way that our consumer culture promotes body hatred, and the way we have come to terms with our bodies as we get older. Even when I don’t have my camera with me, just talking about nude photos leads to discussions that get intimate after about half a sentence. Women I’ve never met before will approach me and share heart-wrenching stories.

The pattern with men has been different. The idea of getting naked usually leads to a whole lot of jokes. Sometimes we get into deep conversations, but the discussion tends to be very intellectual – quoting studies and scientific data – rather than a sharing of personal feelings and history. If we talk long enough and I push hard enough, an individual man might turn and say something to me that just gives me a glimpse into how he feels about his body, but it’s a sentence or two, just a quick statement, an aside to just me and not the whole group. For the most part, I’ve been discussing this project with men and women over the age of 35 so I’m curious as to whether I’d find this same gender difference with the younger generation, who have presumably been socialized differently.

Interestingly, the age of the model – male or female – seems to influence how comfortable a person is with posing naked. You’d think, by Hollywood standards, that the young grad students at the conference, with their toned youthful bodies, would be the quickest to strip their clothes off for the camera. But no. It’s actually the opposite. The older the person, the more likely he or she will take her clothes off.

That’s perhaps the most promising thing I’ve noticed so far. The older we get, the more comfortable we get with our bodies. This idea completely defies the premise of the fashion industry, the cosmetic industry, and pretty much every television commercial or magazine advertisement I’ve ever seen. When it comes to our bodies, older is better. Being comfortable with our bodies comes with experience. “It makes sense,” said Conference Friend Who Doesn’t Have a Pseudonym Yet when we were discussing this issue. “The more books you read, the more hikes you take, the more sex you have – it’s all good.”

The photo for this post took all of two minutes to take. Jempé, who chose his own pseudonym and who is far older than he looks in this photo, agreed to pose naked for me only minutes after Blogger From Maine introduced us. Without hesitation, he stripped off his clothes and stepped into the light of a staircase while I snapped the photo. Later, when I saw him (fully clothed) at a plenary session, he came over to hand me his card and suggest a title for the post. For the rest of the conference, I kept pointing him out to my male friends as a role model to follow.

(Readers who want to know the history of the naked photo tradition can check it out here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here.)

Home

2009-06-23T15:18:00.002-04:00

After three wonderful weeks on the west coast – an amazing, awesome, transformative trip – I’ve returned home to Snowstorm region, where I belong. Although I often take short trips to attend conferences or visit friends or go camping, this three-week trip is the longest I’ve been away from home in 26 years. Yes, I was a college student last time I left Snowstorm region for more than a couple of weeks.

I didn’t have my computer with me – and I didn’t have cell phone service most of the trip either, since I spent the first week in the Country to the North and the second week hiking in national parks. When my husband and I drove to the coast, and I called my mother to let her know I had cell phone service again, she said to me, “This is the longest we’ve gone without contact – since you were born.”

I realize that the Friendly Green Conference in Five Minutes post was filled with inside jokes that you wouldn’t get unless you’d been at the conference, but hey, I was a friend’s computer and writing fast. And to be fair, half the jokes are ones you probably wouldn’t get even if you were at the conference. You’d really have to have the same sense of humor as me, and that’s a pretty small audience. The post was hilariously funny inside my head. You’ll just have to take my word for that.

Being away from my computer for three weeks felt wonderfully healthy, but I did miss writing on my blog. It’s amazing how many times I said to myself, “Oh, I have to tell my blog friends this.” I’m not sure whether or not those ideas made it into my journal, but at the very least, I’m going to take some of the photos off my camera and throw them onto the blog. The photo above is me taken at the top of a mountain, with my obliging husband acting as tripod. (“Stand here. Hold the camera at this height. Now press that button when I say so.”)

Naked photos, ecocriticism, and so many rabbits

2009-06-10T01:28:00.032-04:00

I'm staying out on the west coast for another two weeks, and I don't have my conputer with me. But I've borrowed a friend's computer for a few minutes to blog the Friendly Green Conference. If community theater groups can perform the Complete Works of Shakespeare in an hour,surely I can blog the Friendly Green Conference in five minutes or less. Here goes.

I got pretty Canadian money. I got the key to my dorm suite. I saw rabbits.

I did yoga with my roommates. I went to a day-long meeting. I asked Conference Host, "WTF is up with these rabbits?"

Ecowoman arrived by bicycle, carrying luggage and a plant. We got Friendly Green tote bags. And hats! Complete with a funny story about how the editor bringing the hats had been stopped at the border. Because giving free hats away at a conference is clearly some kind of terrorist activity.

I walked through petals -- red, pink, white. I chaired a panel. I went to sessions. I wrote profound thoughts in the margin of my program. I hugged everyone I knew. I hugged people I didn't know. I saw kelp.

Women kept asking about the naked photo tradition, and then pulling me aside to tell me their stories. I felt honored.

Native people in ceremonial dress sang and danced and welcomed us, giving the Friendly Green Folk permission to hold our gathering on their traditional lands.

I met the guy from Terrain.org who was blogging the conference. He was wearing the first tie I've ever seen at this conference. It was covered in Muppets.

At dawn, I walked a trail through a forest that looked primeval. I took photos of morning light coming through the trees. Then I took a photo of my roommate. Naked.

I ate lunch with a bunch of bloggers. We made so much noise laughing that we almost got kicked out of the dining hall. Then I went to more sessions. And another plenary. The doorway was crowded with folks coming back from dinner. Friendly Green President asked Conference Host to go to the microphone and stall for time.

So he talked about rabbits.

The Guy Who Follows Caribou talked. And showed photos. And he was so amazing and so humble and so inspiring that we stood up when we clapped. And then we went to another party. And stayed up too late listening to the musicians who were hanging out with their guitars just outside the dining hall.

Then more talking and eating. Another amazing plenary. Ecocritic Who Lives on a Boat in England said he'd forgotten how polite Canadian culture was. He saw a sign on a door that said, "Thank you for using this door."

Then I took a naked photo of a professor I'd just met the day before. He came up to me later at a plenary to give me his card. And suggest a pseudonym. Clearly, he was following the etiquette book on naked photo shoots.

Between sessions, I sat on the lawn in the shade and talked to Artist Friend. And hugged anyone who walked by. Whether I knew them or not.

And there were books! Tables full of books! Authors drinking wine. A pajama party with my roommates. And rabbits, dozens of them, staring at us from the lawn.

We climbed into ocean kayaks. We saw a bald eagle. A mother seal and her pup. Kelp! Lots of kelp! Then I went skinny dipping with the plenary speaker.

We talked about books. We talked about climate change and the extinction of species and the fate of the earth. I went to some amazing readings. I ate vegetarian samosas at a table in the sun while Warm Bearded Guy read me a poem he had just written.

People kept coming up and offering to pose naked for my blog. But only when I wasn't carrying my camera. Between sessions, we argued about whether the rabbits were cute or creepy. And we told Exhausted Conference Host funny stories about all the things that had gone wrong at other conferences.

We gathered in a big room to hear a speaker from Earth.com. And the publisher from the Press Named After the Plant That Monarchs Eat. And the Editor-in-chief of Cool Nature Magazine.

Then Henry David Thoreau called on his cell phone.

We did a roundtable about blogging. Except there was no table, not even a square one. We kept seeing rabbits. They were multiplying like crazy. "It could be worse," said Friendly Green Photographer, "at least they aren't Burmese pythons."

I saw a parent telling his child not to eat the rabbit pellets. "They're not raisinets."

And then another party! More eating and drinking. We clapped. We laughed. I drank ginger ale. Handsome Editor from Press Named After a Plant complained about his pseudonym. Then he looked at my ginger ale and said to me, in surprise: "You're sober?"

There was a banquet. With an amazing speaker. We ate food. We clapped. I hugged friends goodbye.

There was some kind of ferry boat issue. The field trip to Cool Island became a field trip to Random Places That Conference Host Thought Might be Cool. We walked around a lake. We went to a winery. We saw pigs. Talkative Animal Lover almost kidnapped a dog. We ate lunch by the sea. And bought books too heavy to carry home and cursed the Conference Host for sending us to a town with so many bookstores. What was he thinking? Then we went to the top of a mountain and took photos.

I kept meeting Friendly Green Folks from other countries. I had a bad case of Accent Envy.

People kept saying to me, "You are SUCH an extrovert." I think that's code for, "My God, you talk a lot, you obnoxious bitch, but we love you anyhow." And they kept hugging me and inviting me to visiting them in real life,wherever that may be.

That night we stood outside the dorms arguing about the validity of a study about sexual preference that involved men looking at porn while wearing sensors that attach to the penis. Brilliant Ecocritic Who Never Comes to Conferences in the States Because He's Not Allowed in the Country had a hypothesis about how American women's obsession with weight and appearance may have originally been driven by a desire to please men, but has become its own vicous cycle perpetuated by women. But he kept dodging the question about whether he would strip for my blog.

The next morning, a blogging friend picked me up and drove me to a wharf. With sailboats. And a view. And houseboats that were colorful and quirky. But the harbor seals were still sleeping. Then we ate breakfast in a cafe filled with kitchen chairs from my childhood.

Then I took a ferry boat. And saw islands! And sat at a table by the water, eating French fries. German Friend fed me chocolate. Woman from Taiwan massaged my shoulders. We analyzed the images on my obnoxious American passport. Then I hugged everyone goodbye and got into a cab.

My week was amazing and exhausting, and the best conference I've attended yet. Watching our Friendly Green President, the guy who had put together the conference, was like watching Barack Obama. Really. I am not even exaggerating. Except every day, he looked even more exhausted. And Conference Host somehow managed to stay laidback and friendly and polite even when people complained about ridiculous things like whales who did not show up at the appointed time.

Eh. Thoughtless whales. Damn those huge mammals anyhow. Who needed them? We had rabbits.

I'm blogging from a friend's computer so I can't post photos. And now I'm off to State South of Here to meet my husband for a long vacation. I promise naked photos -- and more details -- when I return.

Postscript: If you'd like to see other (possibly more serious) posts about the Friendly Green Conference, check out this post by Charming Canadian Professor Who Reads a Lot. He's compiled a list of bloggers who are writing about the conference. Leave him a comment if you wrote about the conference and would like to be added to the list.

I'll be back

2009-05-30T23:04:00.002-04:00

The friends I've made through blogging are scattered all over the world, and often I find it frustrating that I can't just pick up the phone and invite them to meet me for lunch, the way I do with my local friends. But the advantage is that no matter where I go, whether it's a major city or a small island, I have blogging friends -- wonderful people who take me out to lunch, show me where they live, and share their lives with me. Blogging has made the earth seem like a small and friendly neighborhood.

Now I'm leaving again for another trip -- the last adventure of my sabbatical. It's time for the biennual gathering of the Friendly Green Folks. I'll spend a whole week at that conference, hanging out with old friends, hearing great speakers, joining some bloggers for a roundtable, and exploring Beautiful Island in the Country to the North. Then I'm visiting a friend, meeting up with a blogger, and exploring City Where Frasier Lives before flying farther down the coast for a vacation with my husband. Our 25-year wedding anniversary is this August, and we've decided to celebrate a little early.

I'll be offline for three weeks. I'm not bringing my laptop because I don't want to leave it locked in the trunk of a rental car while I'm hiking; I'm too worried about heat damage. Besides, sometimes it's more relaxing to get away from the computer. I'll be thinking about my blogging friends, though, especially at the conference, where I'll be coercing Friendly Green Folk to pose naked. I'll return late in June with photos to post and stories to tell.

If you're trying to guess which state my husband and I will be visiting, the title to this post is a clue.

Sometimes

2009-05-29T21:34:00.001-04:00

On the wall

2009-05-28T09:37:00.004-04:00

You can spend a lot of time thinking about random stuff when you’re in the dentist chair and you’re trying not to think about the fact that the someone is poking at your sensitive gums with sharp instruments. As I gazed about the sterile room, trying to keep my eyes away from a ridiculously bright light leftover from the last Inquisition, I noticed a small, square, foil-wrapped object taped to the otherwise blank and empty wall.

When the dentist finally put aside her drill and pulled all the weird cotton crap from my mouth, I asked her the question I’d been wondering for the last fifteen minutes. “Why do you have a condom taped to your wall?”

Her assistant, who had been quietly arranging a tray of sterile instruments, looked up, startled, and said nothing.

The dentist, who is a woman about my age, laughed. “I guess it does look like a condom.”

Then she shrugged. “Well, it gets boring here when patients cancel their appointments. We gotta find something to do.”

Her assistant gave her a horrified glance and continued putting dental instruments into neat rows. Later, when they were done working on me and I could stand up to leave, I looked at the square little package closer. The label said “CPR face shield.”

Weekend at camp

2009-05-26T20:55:00.004-04:00

Memorial Day Weekend at my parents' camp was cold, as it usually is, far too cold for swimming, except on a dare, but the sun shone most of the weekend. Close to the ground, in the boundary layer, the air was almost hot. On an old quilt spread across the grass, Blonde Sister-in-law and I sunbathed until our pale skin remembered what it felt like to be warm. My husband and I set our little tent up under the lilac bushes, so that we could wake up to the scent of blossoms and the sound of birdsong. We played bocce and went canoeing in the marsh. My father and I took a sail to see what changes the winter had brought to the river.

For the first time in 23 years, my husband and I had no kids with us at camp. (Our sons were at the College Ultimate Championships, and our daughter was busy fighting crime in a long red cape.) As I watched a pair of geese swim near the dock with four little babies, I felt a pang at the thought of my own little ones all grown up. But of course, even though none of the grandchildren were at camp this weekend, that doesn't mean we didn't hear from them. My father, still getting used to his new cell phone, happily called family members at the end of the day and gave us reports. Blonde Sister and her family had gone to Big City Like No Other for the weekend, so he put her on speaker phone so we could hear all that they had done that day. “Isn’t this something?” he kept saying, “To think we can connect with everyone no matter where they are ....”

My sons had taken my camera with them, so this photo is from last year. It could just as well be from forty years ago. The familiar view across the bay has not changed.

Powerful women

2009-05-25T19:21:00.003-04:00

It began with women dancing naked on the roof.

See, my sons were driving to the Midwest to go to the College Ultimate Championships, my husband was still at work, and I was packing for camp. My daughter was staying for the long weekend because her friend Free Spirit, who currently lives in Southern State with Obnoxious Theme Parks had driven up here for a visit. When Free Spirit bounced into the house, I was busy making fruit salad at the kitchen counter. I listened while the two young women talked excitedly and made plans for their weekend.

Hey,” I said jokingly, “You can pose naked for my blog. You’re both old enough now.”

Free Spirit looked up. “You put naked photos on your blog?”

My daughter nodded, “Yep, she does.”

I hastened to explain, “Usually women much older than the two of you.”

My daughter opened her laptop. “You should see the yoga pose her one friend did. She can touch her face to her legs. And she’s a grandmother.”

Free Spirit looked at the computer. “I love this.”

Minutes later, my daughter and Free Spirit were climbing naked through my daughter’s bedroom window and out onto the roof.

“Maybe we need to wear hats,” Free Spirit said. She’d brought some hats with her, including one that made her look like a pirate.

“How about capes?” I asked. “You can be superheros.”

“CAPES? DEFINITELY!”

Happily, they donned two of my capes – the shiny red one for my daughter, the purple velvet for Free Spirit. And then using their special powers, they began crawling up the roof to save the world.

The turtle with the brains

2009-05-23T12:06:00.003-04:00

When the woman from the junior high attendance office called me on Friday to tell me that my eighth grader, With-a-Why, had been marked absent, I gave her my standard reply. “That’s right,” I said. “He’s absent.”

I didn’t add the part that might call into questioning my judgment as a parent. “Yeah, he’s on a roadtrip with a bunch of college students.”

With-a-Why isn’t even in high school yet, and he’s already spent considerable time hanging out with college students. He’s the youngest person to play on the Snowstorm City Ultimate League. He’s already earned the nickname Donatello because of the purple scarf that he knit himself and uses as a headband to keep back his long black hair. I think the nickname fits – not because of the superficial resemblance to the Mutant Ninja Turtle, but because the original Donatello was an artist.

The only thing that shows With-a-Why’s age is the way he packs. While his older brothers and First Extra were packing t-shirts, underwear, and hoodies, With-a-Why stretched out on the couch, half-asleep, hoping his Mom would come to his rescue. “Have you seen my purple shorts?” When I came downstairs to say goodbye to the group – handing my car keys and my good camera to my persuasive oldest son – the only things With-a-Why had packed were a chess board, his knitting, and the stuffed dog he likes to sleep with.

First Extra hurried the group along, getting Shaggy Hair Boy to move his stuff out to the car. Boy in Black was still trying to work his charm on me. “Yeah, thanks for the car and the camera. Could I borrow your credit card too?” They had a long drive ahead of them – almost five hundred miles to the College Ultimate Championships. As With-a-Why stumbled sleepily out to driveway, I heard him say to First Extra, “I couldn’t find the deodorant. So I used toothpaste instead.”

You know I've been to sea before

2009-05-22T16:02:00.001-04:00

Underground

2009-05-21T14:54:00.002-04:00

The subway tunnels are the essence of Big City Like No Other. The air carries all kinds of smells, from soft pretzels baking at a stand to the whiff of perfume as a woman walks past to the every-present stench of stale urine. The ground vibrates as a train approaches. The dark tunnels connect us mysteriously to other parts of the city. You can see everyone in the train: parents with small kids, teenagers with their friends, street people, young couples, and well-dressed business people.

Street performers play near entrances, serenading the crowd with music that is often touchingly awful. Sometimes a rat will scurry along the tracks. Breezes rush through the tunnel, cool and musty. As a train approaches, people will come hurrying down the steps, their feet clanking against the steps as they rush to jump on before the doors close. The mood of the tunnel shifts constantly from bored and sleepy to frantic rush. The train takes away the crowd of people on the platform, but always more people come hurtling down the stairs, an endless supply of humans going somewhere and then returning home again.

In one tunnel, I found a snake.

Every voyage is a journey

2009-05-20T10:39:00.002-04:00

I can remember riding Famous Ferry as a kid, standing on the back of the boat with my siblings. We’d gotten pinwheels and they blew crazily in the wind. We were all pretty young, and Urban Sophisticate Sister wasn’t even born yet.

Forty years later, my parents and I returned to the ferry, just to ride it over and back, getting a view of the harbor and the city in the mist. My mother said when she was a kid, the trip cost a nickel. Now it’s free.

The breeze was cold, but we stood at the back to be warmed by the sun as it came out from behind the clouds. My father, holding his newly acquired cell phone, was calling my brother. “Hey, guess where I am? Nope. Here’s a hint: I’m staring at the Statue of Liberty.”

Those are my parents in the photo, of course.