Day 282

July 5, 2011

Who knows why but Fraser actually had the day off today as well as yesterday. Whoohoo! 
We smoked a pork shoulder. We got the pork from a local farm at the Farmer's Market. Heritage pork which means pigs that haven't been bred to be factory farmed. And, boy, are they tasty! 

I went out to get my Oregon driver's license. Yes, we've been here awhile but who really ever wants to go to the DMV and even if you are crazy enough to want to, would you like to bring a 2 and 1/2 year old and wait around for an hour or so. Right. Me neither. Unfortunately, I can't count on a officer of the law thinking the same way. I used the time to read one of my latest books (I'm only reading 5 right now, I think). This one is called Treasure Islands and is about offshore banking/ tax havens/ globalization of financial capital. Not one of usual topics but I heard about it on Democracy Now months ago and put a request in for it at the library. I definitely have to pay attention to what I'm reading and still don't understand it all exactly. I understand enough to be highly disturbed, though. Kind of makes me want to take all my "money" (that the bank has loaned out and stuffed in offshore banks) and put it in my mattress. Anyway, an interesting read. I'd recommend it.

But yes, Oregon license. It's a milestone. Somehow, it really means we're here. Not that that is an entirely horrible thing. There are lots of things I really like about this area: I have many more mom friends with kids who are Jacob's age, there is an amazing amount of produce out here. Okay, those are my two favourite things so far. The true berry season is just starting but I think I'm going to love that too.

Anyway, we invited our neighbour friends over to share the pork. The mom is a vegetarian overall but she tried it (due to its locavore nature) and enjoyed it. Yay! And she brought margaritas that she'd blended in her Vitamix blender (a serious contraption like they use to make smoothies at Jamba Juice; carrots, pineapple with the core, celery, unhulled strawberries, spinach, you name it - liquefied. Incredible. 

It was surreal having Fraser home the whole day. Nice. We need to find him something better to do that doesn't involve such long hours away from home. There is just too much life to live to spend it mostly at work.