charlotte harris

I recently finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and more than ever I want to fast forward to the part of my life I have been patiently waiting for — you know that part with the cozy little house in the country with a backyard big enough for a garden and a hammock and a couple of ankle biters running around pulling up all my lettuce?

Planting a lush vegetable garden and pickling and canning have long been on my dream to-do list.  I have been biding my time in a series of apartments and condos, knowing one day I will have a backyard to grow in, a kitchen large enough to can in, and a pantry deep enough to store in.  I’ll have a lifestyle that keeps me close to home so I can water and weed and love on those plants.  Even a tiny patio herb garden would wither right now because I spend too much time away from home.

It’s something I daydream out loud about pretty regularly these days. 

Now Barbara Kingsolver has pretty much wrecked me for good.  Not only do I long to garden and pickle, but after reading her book I have added chickens and cheesemaking to my wish list.  Fresh eggs!  Homemade mozzarella!  I want to fast forward to the chapter of my own life where my hypothetical kids help me in the kitchen and get excited about Friday Family Pizza Night!

Who knows when I’ll get my big backyard and my root cellar and those helpful teenagers, so in the meantime, I am inspired by Barbara’s pleas to eat locally and in season and choose organic however I can right now. 

This isn’t exactly a new concept for me… I have subscribed to a CSA in the past but found myself skipping town or making plans so often during that time of year that I missed too many vegetable pickups to make it worth the several hundred dollars I paid up front.  I have gratefully accepted bag-fuls of zucchini and tomatoes from my green-thumbed friends and family, knowing that a juicy Early Girl grown in my Dad’s garden is going to taste so much more exceptional than anything from Giant, and that the zucchini grown by my coworker’s wife in Frederick, MD is going to be fat enough to make a loaf of bread AND a salad.

Now that they’re open for the season, I will absolutely shop the weekend growers markets and have loved doing so in the past.  My current dilemma is that half of the weekends I am not even sleeping at my own home, so I can’t exactly roll out of bed and hit the farmers markets then run home to stock up my kitchen.  Because the growers markets will work for me only about half the time, I am left to the grocery produce section the remaining weeks.  So this Tuesday, when I returned from vacation and made a desperate trip to the Harris Teeter, I vowed to buy only locally grown fruits and veggies.

Harder said than done. 

I managed to keep it in the USA family, but most of the stuff I got was from California.  Asparagus is in season in these parts now, so why couldn’t I get some locally-grown asparagus?  Lettuce is growing up all over this region right now, but my big bunch of lettuce wasn’t grown down the road here, either.  I needed scallions and parsley for my hummus recipe, both of which I think should have been available from a local producer, but weren’t.  

The grocery store is not buying locally.  Sections of Barbara’s book, especially some co-written by her husband Steven L. Hopp, explain why stores often buy truckloads of produce from across the country instead of buying smaller deliveries locally.  I have always heard arguments both for and against this practice.  I read an article in the Economist last summer arguing against buying local organic produce because it uses more fuel to make more smaller deliveries than it does to make one large delivery.

Yes there’s a price for fuel, but there’s also a price for putting local farmers out of business or for buying fruits and vegetables grown treated with insecticides.  If I were to recap all of her thoughtful talking points, I would have to quote half the book right here, so I recommend you just read it cover to cover.  Even if you have no intention of getting dirt under your nails, it’s still such an informative and eye-opening read.  This book will remain on my bookshelf as a reference manual from here on out.

I don’t ever anticipate taking as firm a stance as Barbara and her family did.  The bananas I buy will likely never be from a from a northern Virginia farm.  Barbara would say something like: So just don’t eat bananas.  Get your potassium from some local potatoes instead.   But I am not quite ready to dip fingerlings into my morning yogurt.  Yogurt which I now know I can make easily at home!

“Are you really on vacation or did you bring your laptop?”  The front desk clerk wanted to know if we needed instructions for the wireless Internet.

“Nope!  We are unplugged!”  We grabbed our room keys and two rubber beer cozies and headed off to the beach.  We’d planned it well.  Stopped at a Publix off the Island and stocked up on beer, limes, crackers, cheese, veggies and hummus.  Bottled water and dixie cups.  We pretty much stocked up “on happy hour.”

The first stop was our second-story balcony where we kicked off our travelin’ shoes and clinked a couple cold sweaty longnecks together with a toast to the start of our vacation.  For the next several days, we’d alternate between splashing around in the Gulf, snoozing under a beach umbrella, reading in the shade, pedaling into town, playing in the saltwater pool, and sipping beers at sunset. 

Instead of RSS feeds, we had a National Geographic Magazine and a Barbara Kingsolver book.  In lieu of cable, we watched the sky for pelicans and egrets and scanned the water for dolphins and manatees.  If we missed our gym memberships, we jumped in the saltwater pool or pedaled around on borrowed bicycles with baskets on the handlebars… or simply rolled over in bed when the clock struck six.   We left the iPods at home and zoned out to the unfamiliar calls of Island wildlife, the crunch of seashells under foot, the rustle of palm leaves in the breeze and the wind flapping at the fabric of our umbrella.  Cell phones buried in our bags, we used them only on to call out on Mothers Day. 

There was no fast food, but there were plenty of fresh local Gulf shrimp from a marina oasis called Gramma Dot’s, a couple breakfasts on the patio at the Island Cow, one lunch at Schnapper’s hot dog stand, and two fresh margaritas we intended to sip while listening to some island music but instead found ourselves out at Trader’s during the blue-hair-dinner-hour. 

We filled the moments in between with chit-chat and flirting, one or two petty personality clashes, and even more moments of relaxing silence.   No making friends down by the pool, no chatting up the locals down at the Lighthouse Cafe, and no wondering about the folks back home. 

We fell asleep to a movie around 9pm on two nights, but otherwise no TV.  Even the newspaper we bought on Sunday turned out to be Friday’s news.  The ceiling fan and A/C were indispensable, but no alarm clocks, no hair dryers, and just one emergency pit stop for number 45 sunscreen and after-sun lotion from Jerry’s Supermarket.  

So when we flew that last leg back into Dulles last night, it hurt me.  The sensory overload.  It hurt my ears to listen to Dora the Explorer on some kid’s portable DVD player throughout the whole flight, it hurt my skin to emerge from the airport into a 48-degree rainy night, it hurt my lips to kiss my man goodbye and go to sleep alone, and it hurt my eyes to power up my laptop and read through 5 days of email. 

This morning, I woke up on beach time, which happens to be my normal time anyway, and decided to ease my way back into real life.  I covered my tanned legs and arms with stiff blue jeans and a light sweater but didn’t do my hair or makeup.  I stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast and ate margarita-flavored potato chips for lunch.  I wrote this blog about my trip instead of culling through my work emails. 

We’d been playing this game, my friend and me, where we’d send each other cameraphone pics of ourselves, alone, doing everyday boring tasks.  Reading textbooks, driving to work, staring at a computer screen.  The more mundane the funnier. 

So of course when I found myself driving past his office building at lunchtime the other day, I started snapping pics.  I took like 5 blurry photos before I got a decent one.  And then I texted it to his work email from my phone. 

A picture tells a thousand words, and my picture was intended to say “I am driving past your office at noon on Thursday, which is highly unusual, and oh wouldn’t it be funny if this ends up being a photo of the very window where you sit and work all day?”  That’s all.  Just being silly and letting him know I thought of him when I drove by.

So I got a call later, “Charlotte.  I need to ask you a favor.  Please do not take pictures of my building and then send them to my work email.”

“Huh?  Why?  I was just bring funny.”

“I know you were just being funny but nobody else knows that.”  Seems he works in the kind of building one simply does not photograph.   I am now betting that if anyone had seen me taking cameraphone pics and captured my tag number, some men in dark suits might come a-knocking on my door.  And if his email is being monitored at all, my friend will get called down “to the principal’s office,” as he put it.

I actually used to work down the street from there, so I have seen the armed guards and the barriers that pop out of the ground.  I know it’s a government building of some sort (and that’s truly all I know).  I just didn’t think about all that when I was goofing off with my phone.  Obviously I have no hidden agenda and I was just having fun.  But I feel awful that I could get my friend in trouble.  So I deleted the pics and promised never to do it again. 

The upside is, I like to think that perhaps our government has finally begun compiling a dossier on me and my little cameraphone capers.   Awesome. 

“Tell me about myself,” I asked him, as I passed the bottle of beer. 

“Irresistable.  Hypnotic.  Flirtatious.  Aromatic.  Soft.  Supple.  Wild.  Unavoidable.  Smooth.  Exuberant.  Glistening.  Firm.  Rare.  Succulent.  Luscious.  Ripe.  Natural.  Glowing.  Curvaceous.  Magical.  Wheat.”

Wheat? 

It was a bottle of Sweaty Betty.  I ordered it because I liked the label.   Terrible beer, but I’ll gladly drink it again, just to hear my man read the label aloud to me.  Mmmmm… mmmmm.

Duh na nuh na duh na nuh na duh na nuh na duh na nuh na BATMAAANN!

We’d been enjoying the live music but finally decided to pack it in and head home.  As we left our seats on the sunny patio and walked past the band, they changed tunes.

I didn’t catch on at first but then I heard MF laughing.   I heard a few people laughing.  I’d forgotten that he was wearing his new Batman t-shirt.  MF loves superheroes.  And, apparently, so did the band.  They picked on the Batman theme song as we walked away, big grins.

Last night MF quizzed me on the superheroes’ real names.  I pretty much knew them all.  Superman is Clark Kent is Kal-El.  Batman is Bruce Wayne.  Darth Vader is Anikin Skywalker.  I stumped him with Ironman, though.  Ironman is Tony Stark! 

No, I’m not a diehard comic book fan… puhlease!  I only know about Ironman because when I watched last week’s episode of The Hills online, the ads were for some “Be Tony Stark for a weekend” contest out in L.A..

See, watching MTV has fringe benefits.  I won coolness points with my man, AND with some kid who was running around the office last week on bring-your-kid-to-work day.  The little boy of a coworker was fiddling with some action figure. 

“Whatcha playin’ with?”  I asked him. 

“It’s a superhero!”

“Which superhero is that?”

“It’s Tony Stark”

“Oh, isn’t he Ironman?!”

“Yeah!  Ironman!”

“How many of those superhero outfits does Ironman have?!”

… and the silliness continued until he left my desk to go play.

Oh, I have not seen the last of Tony Stark.  Per MF, we’re gonna see Ironman this weekend.  And we “hafta get there early so we can sit really close to the screen!”  He’s giddy like a ‘lil boy over this movie.

So MF, how many of those superhero outfits does Ironman have?!

We used to slide the record jacket across the living room floor, Sis lying in front of one speaker and me with my ear up to the other, “The Best of ABBA” playing.  When it was my turn to look at the album cover, I would stare at the photo of the foursome and try to decide which man was married to which lady. 

In years since, anytime I hear the first few bars of any ABBA song playing anywhere, I squeal in delight and urgently grab the wrist of whatever female might be with me (”OOOOOH!  I LOOOOOVE this song!!” or something equally predictable) and if folks are lucky, I might start in with the dorky finger pointing and dancing.

Last night Sis busted out that exact album, the cardboard sleeve barely held together with some old masking tape that lost its sticky sometime back in the ’80’s.  She dusted off the record and placed it on the turntable.  Mom made a special request for “Mamma Mia” and who can say “no” when a cute little 3 year-old asks the whole family to get up and hold hands and dance?

In a backyard full of toys, my niece just wanted to be pushed around in the wheelbarrow.  In a house full of modern gadgets, it was the vinyl records that entertained us all.  On a night I could have done anything at all, the only thing I wanted to do was hang with my folks.  Sometimes it’s just comfortable to return to the old family classics.

Sis has urged me to blog about the ridiculousness of people using ther cell phones in public restrooms.  Gross!   What goes through the mind of the person on the other end of the phone when they hear a big loud flush?  I did not write about it, because I think a lot of other people already have, including this guy:  Sis, this one’s for you.

I was gonna celebrate Earth Day 2008 by washing my hair only once yesterday.  But then my employer gave everyone in the company a Compact Flourescent Lightbulb to take home and use.  I am stoked about this product because it saves me money while saving the earth.   Sort of like my awesome new front-loading washing machine. 

My mom taught me to never buy a gift for someone that you wouldn’t like to receive yourself.  So for Mothers Day I ordered her a gift that I soooo would like to receive for myself, that I think I just might go order one more for me.  (Mom, don’t click on the link, lest you spoil your surprise.)

Did I tell y’all that MF and I are going on vacay next month?  We’re booked to go to Sanibel FL for 5 days.  We will do nothing but swim, sunbathe, eat, drink, sleep, read, nap and moon over one another the entire time.  We will not see a single attraction except the sunset and it is going to be wonderful.

I Netflix’d Jesus Camp after I heard Elliot interview one of the filmmakers on DC101.  I had not prevously been interested simply due to the title - I didn’t want to see a “religious” flick.  Well, it’s not exactly what I thought it was.  I did learn so much more about Evangelical Christans from this fascinating movie.  Ya know, I watched this and was endeared to some of the characters simply because they’re sweet kids: Tory, the girl who break dances to Christian Speed Metal, the odd little Rachael who approaches strangers to talk about being saved, and Levi, a youth preacher articulate and confident beyond his age.  I can look beyond the brainwashing and see them for the adorable kids they are - too bad their parents and preachers have taken away their carefree youth.  It’s sad and a ‘lil bit scary that a whole population of children is being exploited to carry political messages that they can’t possibly truly understand.  What does a 10 year old kid know about abrtion enough to go protest it in Washington DC?  What does a child that age know enough to state that President Dubya and Justice Alito are good for America?  What “sins” has a child even younger possibly ever committed bad enough to be told they are “dirty?”  Seriously, look beyond the film’s title and watch this movie.

A  “5K at a winery” sounds like fun, right?  An easy 3.1 mile jog with gorgeous views and free wine at the finish line.  Probably little kids and grandmas finishing alike, all decked out in their stiff new race t-shirts.  Spectator friends and family with dogs on leashes, picnic baskets and coolers waiting to be toted off to the vineyard where tired legs will splay out and soak up springtime’s first warm rays.

That was my fantasy when I decided that it was worth the $35 to drive out to the Blue Ridge Mountains on a beautiful 85 degree day with the top off the Jeep, my man and his dog Spot beside me, and a picnic blanket and some snacks for afterwards thrown in the back.  I rallied two girlfriends from the gym, a few acquaintances from the Tri club, and even a couple other friends to come for just the wine-tasting portion of the day. 

Well people, a 5K at a winery is not what it sounds like.  Oh there was wine at the finish line, alright.  And yes it was a beautiful day with spectacular views.  Yes, I did get to mingle with my friends.  But otherwise it was a tough course.  

The first 2.5 miles was a series of frequent switchbacks through the grape vines and adjacent apple orchard.  Like running through a tight maze.  Mile one was back and forth, switching our way down the hill.  The second mile and a half was switchbacks in the uphill / downhill direction, essentially a series of hill repeats.  

This was not merely putting one leg in front of the other.  It was dodging foxholes and rocks and pumping up hills.  I actually had to stop and lower my heart rate and nurse a side cramp a couple times.  It was exhausting work, this deceitful ‘lil race.  

The last half mile was an uphill time trial that every racer except the top two finishers had to walk.  (When I drove the Rubi up to the top, I was in first and second gear.)  When I was “racing” to the top, I was leaning so far forward that I could probably have reached out and done some damn pushups on the ground, because it was THAT STEEP.  It was a 350 foot gain in .5 mile.  I walked the entire thing, taking me nearly 9 minutes, until I got close enough to the winery porch that I could hear people chanting my name, then I picked it up and pranced to the finish line.

But climbing up onto that winery porch with the sweeping views of the valley and the warm breeze was a great reward.  After downing the requisite water and banana, we finally got to the whole point of the day… wine, friends, laughter as we clapped for age group winners in our tiny race field of only 50 runners.   We cracked up when Annette, despite it being her first 5K, actually won her age group because she was the only woman over 50.  And when a 20-something male who finished behind me won his too, because he was the only young man in his 20’s.  In fact, a steady parade of my amateur triathlete pals collected their prizes.   Prizes that would not have been won in a larger race… so it was a special day. 

I think I’ll go back again,  on another a beautiful 85 degree day with the top off the Jeep, my man and his dog Spot beside me, and a picnic blanket and some snacks thrown in the back…. but I’ll probably head directly to the wine at the finish line and skip the run uphill!

“Pull in that entrance.  I like to always park in the same place.”  I pulled in there and remembered my first trip to this same mall with this same friend about 16 years ago.

It was a legitimate college freshman road trip.  I say legitimate, because it was a contrast to how my girlfriends and I would typically just “steal” cars.  Like the time Lisa and I took Bridget’s car to Blockbuster across town and the battery died.  We got a jump and never told her about it because, well, we weren’t supposed to drive her car.  Or when MB and I took Melissa’s car on a joyride to Richmond just to eat a late night grilled cheese at the 3rd Street Diner where the boys at the table next to us wondered if we could explain a “rasher” of bacon.  We were *hoping* she’d never check the mileage. 

Yeah, I became sullied at age 17 when Heather stole her boyfriend’s Subaru so we could go party-hopping with our math teacher’s daughter.  I think she was the girl who gave me my first cigarette.   That night, we got pulled over by the cops, which evidently did not deter me from a future in grand theft auto.  Whatever, stealing cars is merely impish if you always return the vehicle when you’re through, right? 

But that particular night Pia had borrowed, with permission, a grey Honda  Accord from some guys in the dorm, and we drove to Northern Virginia with the intention of buying lingerie (lin-ger-eee, as she used to teasingly pronounce it) at the Tyson’s Corner mall.  We didn’t yet have fancy panties in the Fred.  I don’t remember much… but I do remember the perfume in the air as we picked out our lacy bras and satiny bikinis and left the store with crisp logo-emblazoned bags.  I wanted to go to Britches too, because “everyone” was wearing the warthog emblem. 

I think we wore those bras the night we celebrated Pia’s birthday.  Of course, to add a little girliness to a night otherwise involving a tin of Skoal (we were experimenting) and a couple gallons of screwdrivers.  I know we did wear baseball caps.  Backwards, as any righteous skoal-dipper in the South would. 

But I left the Skoal and the baseball caps behind in the spring of 1992, and I haven’t ”borrowed” a car in maybe 13 years.  In fact, I am shocked that we did not arrive at the mall in a minivan this time.   But really I am just so happy that my awesome wacky adventurous freshman year roomate is still my awesome interesting and savvy friend after all these years.  And if remembering all the fun times we had means I am also unable to erase the embarrassing memories (like the night we dipped Skoal in our lacy bras or all those cars I borrowed), then so be it.

Val-der-reeeeeee, val-der-raaaaaaaah…

Gramma would get us all singing as we hiked through the woods.  She said it was so the hunters would not mistake us little kids for deer.  

Nowadays we just wear bright orange hats in the fall, though I wouldn’t mind a bit if we got some silly songs going. 

Like the summer of Sis’ wedding when we sat around drinking the leftover wine from the reception and singing camp songs.   “Flea.  Flea Fly.  Flea Fly Flo.  Exameenie, decimeenie, oo walla walla meenie.”  Or when cousin Katy distracted us from the bitter cold one late November night with her Army marching songs.  ”I’m a steam roller baby, I’m gonna roll all over you!”  Or when my niece plays audience of one to a room full of adults singing “I’m a little teapot,” all of us posing with handles and spouts.

Anyway, hiking in the woods and singing… 

So I went for my first trail run of the spring at a park near my office after work on Wednesday.  A quick run because I wanted to get home and clean up for my dinner date with MF.  My plan was to run one long loop through the woods, followed by one loop of a much shorter adjacent trail.  It would total 4 miles.  I studied the park map real quick and left it behind in the car, knowing I should simply follow the blue trail markers, then the red trail markers. 

An hour later I emerged from the woods, my sneaks caked with clay and my legs splattered with mud and marked with little red scrapes.  Three times, I lost the blue trail markers.  Went way out of my way and had to backtrack.  Ran through a couple soccer games (ummm, definitely not on the map).  Ended up on Church Street (also not on my planned route).  Backtracked some more.  Even when on course, I was slowed by some seriously gooey mud and fallen trees several times.  

So while I was “lost” (ha ha, I could hear traffic and people playing in the distance the whole time)  I occupied myself remembering those Vermont hikes with my Gramma.  She’s the one who taught me to follow the trail blazes.  Why couldn’t I find them this time?   I visualized the map and remembered which other trails would take me back to the lot.   I had no problem finding the white trail — ya know, the faded blazes looked just like flaws in the grey tree bark.  But bright blue?  Had a little trouble seeing it. 

So I just ran.  I would just run ’til I got back to my car.  I would enjoy the empty woods on whatever color trail I found.  And I sang as I wove my path through the woods.  In my head of course.  “I love to go a wandering along the mountain track, and as I go I love to sing…”