Rise Up

Just when I was beginning to get the hang of all this self-help, along comes this from Newsweek:
Is Happiness Overrated?
The question is posed by Julie Baird. It quotes a survey by economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers of Wharton that says despite economic gains in the past three decades, people are no happier. Baird then goes on to discuss Barbara Ehrenreich's new book, Bright-Sided: How relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America.
What? Someone else in America shares my suspicion of the positive attitude industry? What? There have been economic gains during the past three decades? This is monumental news!
I'll deal with the second one first.
Apparently, the US economy has been gaining ground since I hit adulthood in the 1980s, despite a couple of recessions. Yet people aren't any happier. Hmmm.
Did they break this down by income group? Because I don't know, it's just a hunch, but I bet after 30 years of getting all the breaks and perks, that top one or two percent of earners is happier. It's the overwhelming majority of the rest of us who are bringing the happiness index down.
That "trickle down" economics President Ronald Reagan was so in love with was supposed to lift all the boats in the marina. Those with the wealth and power were supposed to use it to fire up new companies and industry, helping the rest of us in the United States.
Unfortunately, the main thing we learned from trickle-down is that the people at the top are fantastic dike builders. Hardly a leak has sprung.
Okay. Money doesn't necessarily mean happiness. In fact, that's one key belief being tested by this blog. But there's a difference between having money for things like that flat-screened TV and having money for the surprise MRI you kid had to have on her ankle. Or for college. Or for food. Not having money to meet your basic needs + working twice as hard as you did five years ago + never having time with your family + knowing you could be laid off at any minute despite your skill = well, I'll just go out on a limb here and say it. It equals unhappiness.
Add to that the idea that your unhappiness is your own fault. Snap that rubber wrist band, you complainer. You should feel guilty about being unhappy.And that leads, of course, to more unhappiness.
I haven't read the Ehrenreich book (the county library doesn't have any in stock yet). But I think I know where she might be going with that subtitle. As long as we keep blaming ourselves for our dissatisfaction, nothing will ever happen to change it. We'll never vote the bastards out, we'll never unionize, demonstrate, incite anarchy in the streets...but I digress.
I don't think any of us can stop searching for happiness. It's wired into our brains (and into the Declaration of Independence). But maybe it's time to quit focusing on the symptom and address the cause. Maybe it's time to quit pondering and start doing.

Life is GOOD

Not much time today, so I'll devote it to sharing something I found in my search for good in the blogosphere. The site is called GOOD, and is, in the editors' view, "a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the world forward."
It's categories: design, politics (with a decidedly environmentalist bent), food, people, business, the environment and money. There is apparently a magazine involved in some way, but you can join the site and start posting for free.
This is not the typical "good news" site. It doesn't concentrate only on happy endings, but on outreach and on doing good in the world. I guess this is why it so appeals to me. I'd so much rather be taking action than pondering my own shortcomings and apparent inability to be happy.
Today when I looked, someone has posted an idea for happiness--posting thankful thought every other day. Hmmm... Maybe there's another idea to try.

...Ice cream Solidarity

It's not often you feel the advertising language on the outside of an ice cream carton putting you in solidarity with your brothers and sisters. But such was the case for me this weekend as I did the bi-weekly grocery shopping.
I was looking for ice cream--one small luxury we still can afford--and I came across this flavor from Edys. "Red, white and no more blues." And on a small campaign-style button below "recovery never tasted so good."
Awww. I'm not sure what drew me in to this. Maybe it was the unusual acknowledgement by a big food company that some of us might be down in the dumps. When you hear a business exec talking about the economic problems of the masses, it's usually in money terms only. Do some of them realize this also causes sadness? My God, that's a breakthrough!
In any case, I'm ashamed to admit I fell for it just like the sucker they figured me for. Mmmmm. Blueberry and strawberry swirl.

Fun with goo

Take control.
Of all the optimism advice tidbits I've seen the past 10 months, "Take control" has been, without doubt, the most useful. Some sort of action--even if it isn't guaranteed to be successful--is miles better than sitting around and waiting for the next bad thing to happen.
There isn't much I can do about the economy as a whole. I can't wave a wand and make more people sign up for piano lessons.
So my form of taking control is all about our budget, specifically how much we spend. For me, it means reaching back into the skills I learned in 4-H Club and finding ways to meet our basic needs. Cooking, canning, furniture refinishing, sewing. These often-sneered-at life skills are all things I thank 4-H for teaching me, even though I resisted the compulsory nature of them for girl members at the time.
So yeah. Our chest freezer is almost full to the brim, and the garden isn't even thinking about being done. We'll always have something to eat--as long as we can pay our electric bill. All that slaving away this summer was worth it.
But with conditions the way they are, I'm always looking for ways to soar up above the clouds and into the stratosphere of cheapness. This year I think I may have found it with a recipe to make my own liquid laundry detergent.
I found it on the Simple Dollar, a website worth checking out if you're interested in tightwad money management styles.
The recipe gives you a slimy goo that separates and must be shaken or stirred. But it definitely works. In fact, it made our clothes cleaner than Method, the brand I'd switched to out of concern for the environment. It's easy to make and costs only pennies compared to the same amount of a Tide or Gain, which will be over $10.
As I worked with it, though, I made some changes in the mixing technique and storage that, in my humble opinion, improve on the original. So here, with a nod to the Simple Dollar, is my version of liquid laundry detergent:

You'll need
A 5-gallon pail with a lid (a restaurant pickle pail works. We use a cleaned out plastic pail that formerly held kitty litter)
A long paint stirring stick, brand new
A brand new, never used, plastic gasoline container with childproof cap and funnel (knock the wire mesh out of the end of the funnel before using)
One box washing soda
One box borax
One-half bar any kind of hand soap (I use Fels Naptha)

Put 4 cups water into a pan on the stove and light the burner. As it heats, cut your bar of soap in half and begin to grate. I find the grater attachment of a food processor works nicely, as long as you're patient and don't push down too hard. Gradually add the grated soap to the hot water, stirring as you sprinkle it in and waiting a little for each addition to dissolve. Don't allow the water to boil. It will suds over.
After the bar soap is completely dissolved, turn off the heat. Put 5 quarts plus 2 cups tap water--as hot as you can get it--into the big plastic pail. Mix in the hot soapy water from the pan, stirring with the paint stick.
Add one half cup of the washing soda and continue to stir for another minute or two. Then add a fourth of a cup of the borax and stir in.
Put on the lid and put the pail in a safe place to sit overnight. Since borax is poisonous, it is essential to keep the pail out of reach of children.
The next day, your detergent should be separated into a thick goo on top and water underneath. Take the stick and slice and stir one more time. Then put the funnel into the gasoline container and gradually pour in the detergent. Put on the childproof top, rinse your materials and you're good to go. Always shake the container well before using.

Is it Over?

We need a new rule. No one is allowed to say the Recession is over until people start hiring. You can't have 14.9 million people out of work (9.7 percent: Bureau of Labor Statistics) and be singing about the end of the recession.
Yes, yes. I know. Declaring a recession is a complex process based on numerous economic indicators that we non-economists should not dare to question. And I'll be the first to admit I don't have the technical chops to match wits with the likes of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, who made news earlier this week by saying the Recession is "very likely over at this point."
The story of Bernanke's remarks to the Brookings Institute caught my eye Tuesday, splashed as it was over the front page of the Kansas City Star. Why am I just now getting around to posting on it?
Because I was busy picking vegetables, teaching piano, working on the garden book and just doing anything else possible to make up for the pay cut our family is dealing with since the downsizing. So the news that someone thinks the Recession is over was bittersweet.
To me, it feels a little like the USS Economy has dropped a bunch of us off on a desert island and we are waving goodbye as it steams away. In a little while, the people on the boat will have forgotten about us and will be complaining about inflation. Only in another 6 or 8 years, when someone determines it was a "jobless" recovery, will anyone wonder whatever happened to us.
Maybe the New York Times will come back and get some anecdotes.
Yeah, it's hard not to be bitter. It's my eternal struggle, as an optimist wanna-be and Bernanke, you are not helping.

Is Happiness Catching?

The cover asks us to wonder whether our friends are making us fat but inside the New York Times Sunday magazine piece is another question: Is Happiness Catching?
Clive Thompson's piece looks at recent ground-breaking research on social networks and their effects on physical and emotional health. I suspect most of us will remember this from when it vaulted into media star status a few months ago with respect to obesity. Fat people often had fat friends, the reports said, and so, hmmm, did that mean that friends could actually make you fat?
At the time, I thought this seemed like a cruel place to take research on obesity. So now, overweight people have to worry their thinner friends will drop them because obesity might be "catching?" Don't they have enough public censure already?
Now I see that the research had more to do with how certain behaviors are clustered among groups. If a few in the group decide to quit smoking, for example, it can catch on and affect the health of everyone in that group. Peer pressure, I suppose.
Interestingly, the researchers also tracked emotional well-being, including happiness. Among the findings:
If you want to be happy, what’s most important is to have lots of friends.

and

Happiness is more contagious than unhappiness. According to their statistical analysis, each additional happy friend boosts your good cheer by 9 percent, while each additional unhappy friend drags you down by only 7 percent. So by this logic, adding more links to your network should — mathematically — add to your store of happiness.

Well, that sounds easy. But wait. This sounds familiar. It's almost like--yes, it is exactly like the advice my grandmother always used to give (advice I always rejected). Be surrounded by friends at all times, put on a big smile and make a show of being happy. Talk about non-controversial things. Don't explore any subject too deeply. Don't ask too many questions.

This sounds harsh, I know. But when you're a depressed teenager, it just doesn't help to know that people would prefer you'd pretend to be someone else. Even though, for the good of the world, you probably should.
Besides, maybe emotional mirroring isn't the engine that drives this. Maybe cheerful people just don't want to associate with us "dry humor" types. Or maybe unhappiness clusters have more to do with some shared problem--like layoffs and downsizing. Wouldn't that account for some of the statistical clustering in the research? (Thompson quotes other skeptical researchers who think it might.)
Even so, it sounds like something interesting to try.
So let's see...How do I go about getting more friends?

Take a whack

I can hear the frenzied chopping as I sit waiting for afternoon piano to begin.
Out in the driveway, only a few feet away from this window, Mike is hacking to death an item that has been weighing us down for three or four years now. Ahhh, listen to him out there whaling away. It does my heart good.
Violent destruction is this family's time-honored way of celebrating end of life issues. Specifically the end of life of selected furniture, small appliances and even old sidewalk.
What? You've never dismembered an old recliner that insulted you by falling apart at every opportunity? You should try it. It's a real mood brightener.
Yes, I suppose we could take the item down to the Salvation Army. But any self respecting charity would take one look at our old toaster or dining room chair and give us a good tongue lashing, because really, what do we mean by bringing in trash like this? Should not the poor who shop at thrift stores have some dignity?
Today, we're destroying an ugly arm chair. We picked up this chair, plus a couch in the same nubby beige fabric, plus a couple of lamps that actually were quite nice--at a church next door that had put them out on it's lawn with a sign. "Free."
This free chair was converted into a sort of "open motif" closet by our daughter, who kept most of her clothes draped over it. But time passes. Our daughter is moving into her brothers' old, better room. The death of the chair was part of the deal.
It was always a happy day when we can get out the sledge hammer and take some whacks at an offensive household possession. Many's the time I would say something like, "This toaster oven is about shot," and see my son's face light up as he slid off his chair to get his brother. "Guess what!? Mama says the toaster oven is about shot!" And then off they'd go to look for the safety glasses.
Some would say this is symptomatic of profound rage, but we prefer to see it as a celebration of our superiority to the appliance that has plagued us for years with it's ugliness and failure to work properly.
There are businesses (Smash-n-Shatter, Lee's Summit) that cater to this urge. So, hmmm, maybe what we need to do is set up a booth in the drive, like a lemonade stand. One whack at the chair, $1. Hurl abuse at the stove, 50 cents.
Life and death power over malevolent appliances: Priceless.

I Eat the Sun

Here are a couple of items from the news this week that don't really have much to do with anything. But they're funny.
The first is an MSNBC story about Japan's first lady-to-be Miyuki Hatoyama. Her husband, Yukio, is due to be voted in as prime minister later this month after his party defeated the Liberal Democratic Party. The lowdown on Miyuki: She once acted in an all-female revue, she claims to have known Tom Cruise in a previous life (he was Japanese then) and to have ridden on a triangular space ship to Venus.
Oh, and she eats the sun. "Like this, hum, hum. hum. It gives me enormous energy," she was quoted as saying on a TV interview, as she raised her arms and tore off imaginary hunks of sun.
Interesting sidlight: Her husband was nicknamed "the alien" because of his large eyes.
Remind me again. What was it that irritated us so about Hillary Clinton? Why is it we didn't like Teresa Hines?
And is there any way we could get Miyuki to come back to the US for a while? Seriously, could we pay her? Because I'm thinking we need a little crazy to cheer us up right now. If we could just keep from tearing her apart, she'd be just the lift the country is looking for. And hey, I could see that sun eating thing catching on.
Hum, hum, hum.

On another MSNBC site was a slide show featuring dogs groomed to look like this:

Intrigued, I went to the entire slide show and...O my god! This camel creation was actually one of the tamer ones. Every one of those dogs had the look of being far, far away--perhaps mentally biting the photographer or signing a PETA petition. Where are my buzz clippers?! Stop the madness!

Here's to a good long weekend. Please come join us some time at Mike & Roxie's Vegetable Paradise. The book is still on track, has its Library of Congress number and ISBN. No final cover design yet.

Marchons!

Casablanca was on television last night.
I didn't intend to watch it, really I didn't. Mike had it on as a place holder while we looked through the channel guide for something else. He slid the remote over to me and kept urging me to "find whatever you like. We don't have to watch this." After all, we've seen it numerous times.
I was too tired to even pick up the remote, so I left it. And as Ilsa and Rick battled over those letters of transit, we both became more and more sucked in. It was as if, having come through five months of the worst recession in my lifetime, I was suddenly seeing the movie through my parents' eyes.
Imagine years of making clothes from gunny sacks and eating cornmeal mush. Just when things had started to turn around and you were beginning to have hope, just as it looked like you might have a new start, someone says you have to bid your children farewell and prepare to make even more sacrifices.
Yeah, I can see why people resisted that idea. But by the time Casablanca came out (1942) we were already in it. There was nothing left to be done, nothing to bear you up but your own sense of resolve.
That recurring theme--personal resolve--is what I think makes this movie so appealing so many years later.
In a way, the high point is that corny scene I used to make fun of. The one where a tavern beatdown is narrowly avoided by a sing-off of German and French anthems. France's La Marseillaise wins, of course.
I always wondered what was in that song that upset the Germans so much that they felt it necessary to close Rick's. Despite a couple of years of required French, I could only make out a couple of the lyrics. So this morning I looked them up. Here are the French and English words, side by side., of the first verse:

Allons enfants de la Patrie,	Come, children of the Fatherland,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !	The day of glory has arrived!
Contre nous de la tyrannie,	Against us, tyranny
L'étendard sanglant est levé, (bis)	The bloodied banner is raised, (repeat)
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes	Do you hear in the countryside
Mugir ces féroces soldats ?	Those ferocious soldiers roaring?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras	They come up to your arms
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes !	To slit the throats of your sons and wives!
Aux armes, citoyens,	To arms, citizens,
Formez vos bataillons,	Form your battalions,
Marchons, marchons !	Let's march, let's march!
Qu'un sang impur	May an impure blood
Abreuve nos sillons !	Water our furrows!

No musings over the beautiful countryside or the heroic past. This was a call to action, straight out.
Time to quit being complacent. The devil has the people by the throat. Either a thing is worth fighting for or it's not.
Suddenly, I feel pretty good.
Aux armes, citoyens. Marchons.

Here's Mireille Mathieu:

Cheese?

I overheard something at a checkout counter a while ago that still has my head spinning round and round.
The cashier noted that the customer in front of me had a nice driver's license picture. Yeah, but not for long, the customer said. "I hear they don't let you smile any more."
No smiling? In a decade in which positive attitude and optimism have become something of a national obsession, we're not allowed to smile on a driver's license picture?
True. Turns out at least four states have adopted "no smile" rules for driver's license pictures. (Story here.) Missouri and Kansas are not among the four. Not yet, at least.
It's all about the new facial recognition software some states are using to prevent people from getting fake drivers' licenses. The software matches new pictures with previous ones to ferret out attempts to fake a license and an identity. But the program has trouble if the photos are of more extreme expressions, such as a big grin.
Hence, no smiling.
(That probably wouldn't have been a problem for the people who waited hours at the Mission, KS motor vehicles department yesterday because the one in Olathe was closed.)
For years, people have been promoting the idea that one way to improve your outlook on life is to smile more often. There's been all kinds of research on it, which I won't go into here.
But I've been no big fan of this, mainly because I've tried it and it is near impossible to do without some kind of shock collar as a reminder.
The smiley idea persists, though, and--predictably--some people have gone overboard. There's Walmart, which puts the smiley face everywhere (look here for a story about a former employee who claimed she was fired for not smiling enough). And in Japan, a machine apparently measures the depth of customer service smiles and critiques them.
So the machines have it both ways. Smile harder to please them in Japan, don't smile at all in the US. It's just one more step toward our enslavement to robot overlords.
But wait. There are other uses for facial recognition software besides warding off fake licenses. Law enforcement also uses cameras in public places to look for terrorists, fugitives, etc.
So here's a question: Can the terrorists, knowing this, avoid detection by sporting big silly grins whenever they go out to a shopping mall or football game? And if that's the case, will we eventually learn that the guy with the grin is more likely to do us in than his scowling companion? Will grinning become a bad thing, associated with criminals?
Or will his sunny smile turn him into a sunny optimist incapable of any thoughts that don't involve rainbows and unicorns?