The Two Whos

Cece works at an agency that supports people with disabilities.  It is a multi- faceted agency that provides many services and supports.  One  part of the agency that is in Corrales,  has 4 greenhouses.   In the fall,  they grow over 8000 poinsettia!  Through out the year they grow  organic wheat grass that gets sold to wheat grass lovers and then the majority is sold  to Keva Juice.  They also grow lots of bedding plants and flowers year round.

Recently they were gifted with an organic farm!  Many departments at the agency have taken turns going out to the farm to team build and do some weeding.  As they found out this morning, weeds abound! In the midst of the weeds are asparagus and berries, garlic, tomatoes and other veggies.  They sell this produce to local restaurants.

The management team arrived at the farm!  Some had  experience…. and some  realized they were better off behind a desk!

Cece received instruction in how to wield a hoe and then it was determined that she would do better with a wheel barrow.  She learned that once her weeds were picked up and piled and balanced perfectly in her wheelbarrow,  then she would cart them a way. Others were pulling weeds in other rows and  when she would come back down the cleaned up row,  she discovered that   more weeds would be thrown “willy nilly” into her cleaned up  row…a metaphor for life…often  we have to deal with other people’s weeds.  But , we have to focus on pulling up the weeds in  our own  lives, taking the trash out to the curb and then  being willing to let the garbage man take the trash away rather than to hold onto it…..all life lessons that need to be learned and re-learned in our lives.

“Bye for Now” from The Two Whos

The Saturday Morning Rendezvous will be a place to stop in and meet up  on a weekend morning.  Have a cup of tea or coffee, a special breakfast,  and relax and catch up from the week’s fast pace.  The Two Whos will focus Saturday’s content on physical wellness , food and fitness of all types.  Come back and rendezvous with us!    See you next  Saturday!  Thanks for visiting.

Cece grew up on Long Island and was spoiled by the traditional Italian garden that her parents kept in their backyard.  Spoiled because they had a big fig tree, grew basil, eggplants…corn..many veggies..

Growing up, she ate  fresh tomatoes as if they were apples, straight out of the garden and she loved the fleshy taste of these hearty large fruits.

Cece is an apartment dweller.  She has lived in a very spacious quiet  complex…quiet and spacious are the key words.  But the only problem is that her patio is too hot .  It faces  east  (one of the reasons she loves it) and  it also faces a large black  tarmaced driveway.   In the summer the heat  absorbs from the tarmac and rises to her patio and it  has fried everything that Cece tries to grow in container pots…tomatoes, herbs, flowers.  ….everything fries. She has misted,  she has watered, she has contemplated UV protected screening… She has tried many times to grow things on her patio…to no avail.  The only time she has had success was the year she decided to have a water garden.  She was able to grow  lotus and wild water cabbages with no problem.  They were pretty and restful.

And so it was that on Sunday, Cece ventured forth in search of  homegrown tomatoes at the Corrales Growers Market. This time Cece would arrive at 9am as she was directed by the growers.  This way,  she can get her tomatoes.

The senses have a party when one  holds and gently squeezes a tomato..the smell is like no other…earthy , astringent,  and then when you finally taste it…you are keenly aware that those faux fruits they sell in the supermarket are not at all palatable and are “constructed.”

Cece arrived at 9am and saw a long line  of people who had formed at a booth….that was selling…guess what?  Home grown tomatoes!  Not many tomatoes were to be had!  All of us on line were waiting and discussing why tomatoes were so rare this year…some blamed the heat…others blamed the cold….and one lady said she had plenty in her garden.  Cece asked if she could come over!  The lady giggled, but Cece was serious!  Friendships were developing on line, but still this NYer  was a bit too forward for this Lady from Corrales!

Why do fresh vegetables make Cece so happy?  With her mesh bag in hand, Cece trotted all around, talking to people and making friends.  The “tomato line people” met every now and then through out the market and compared the veggies they purchased and  made recommendations as to what grower was selling what!  Perhaps it is just reminiscent of  a more simple time….or a cleaner , more organic earth based living that  makes her so happy!  She ended up with her tomatoes, basil, arugula, swiss chard and lovely radically lavender Japanese eggplants!  She will be cooking up a storm on Sunday.

“Bye for Now” from The Two Whos

Beth from Sayville  NY!    Please send us your snail mail address so that we can mail you the Bagnesia Solution from Grab Your Bags!  Congratualtions. 

Here is Beth’s  funny story!

Here are the problems:

My oldest ,the college sophomore who takes economic courses given by guys who work for government think tanks (which on the surface sounds impressive, but has not helped with the real economic crises like, keeping track of your  checking account) has a habit where all her trips home go like this:1 bag comes home with child – 4 bags go back with child. You guessed it, my shopping bags are perfect for this. May will be ugly bringing her home from college….. Detroit doesn’t make a vehicle big enough for all that.

Meanwhile my youngest, the Green Avenger, takes them to sleepovers and to carry various stuff from our house to other houses elsewhere in town, it’s about 50-50 we’ll ever see bags or baggage  again.

My middle one, my son, is 17, he travels light, no bags needed thank you. Of course he consumes 8 of every 10 bags of groceries that come into the house but the bags themselves usually survive.

So the moral to my story -just when you get it all together somebody moves it on you!

———————-Here is the runner up’s story by Kristen!

Dear Cece, try as i might, I too have had a hard time remembering to use my cloth/plastic recycle bags.  However, I have not had a hard time buying them.  I am choosing today to tally up my spending in an attempt to be environmentally conscientious.  Lets see, I have two sets of bags from Sam’s club- a great value at 2 bags for $2.99; 4 bags from Trader Joe’s, at $1 each;1 library bag for a $4 donation; a nifty high-end bag perfect for your purse for $9; and several bags from Lands End for more then I care to admit.  So, if we follow the “new math” rules, I have spent about $50 dollars trying to remember to BYOB. No, we are not talking about beer. Stay with the program!  We are talking about trying to remember to “bring your own bag”.  The last time I remembered to take my cloth bag to shop it was pouring rain.  We had just re- shingled the roof and had yet to install new gutters. The rain was sliding off the roof in sheets, while the rain by my car was only moderate (translation , I didn’t need an umbrella).So, being the creative , be prepared Girl Scout that I am, I used my cloth bag to protect my neck and back from being soaked. The bag, while somewhat useful in protecting me from the  gutterless roof  flooding tidal wave, was too wet to use in the store.  HELP !  I give up.  I need a positive solution that will help me solve this problem, so i can move on to bigger problems like losing weight and world peace.  PS  We got new gutters last Friday “Bye for Now” from The Two Whos

This is Cece’s cat Latte.  He is perched on her computer monitor, sitting on her beanie baby dog Rufus and on her stuffed red chile head and is looking…..at Cece’s printer button.

He is waiting to strike.  Latte loves to print out paper from the printer…and he has figured  out the procedure  to do this through trial and error….using the basic  cause and effect principle: pushing different buttons and then watching the paper come out or not.  Finally, he learns  which button to push to guarantee the paper… The idea of “paper of  paperless ” never crosses his mind!

Does anyone else have a silly cat like this?

***Remember to enter the Grab Your Bags contest! What methods do you employ to try to remember your bags?    The winner will get a free Bagnesia Kit .  The contest deadline is Friday April 2, 2010 at 10pm Mountain Time.  Please email Cece  (cecile@swcp.com)your funny story and The Two Whos will judge the funniest story.  We will notify the winner by Monday April 5,  2010.****

“Bye for Now” from The Two Whos

About The Mid-Week  Symphony: Since Wednesday is hump day, we have decided to take this moment and bronze it and have a bit of down time from the writing.  We thought each Wednesday  we would like to bring you a symphony of ideas, a harmony of thoughts, beauty, silliness and all things that make the fullness of life.  When we started this blog we wanted it to reflect our entire personalities and interests..and that means yes…. Cece loves  the Far Side Cows and Yun loves the mumble jumble philosophical books.   Yun and Cece have many interests and we would like to share some of them with you each Wednesday.

***Remember to enter the Grab Your Bags contest! What methods do you employ to try to remember your bags?    The winner will get a free Bagnesia Kit .  The contest deadline is Friday April 2, 2010 at 10pm Mountain Time.  Please email Cece  (cecile@swcp.com)your funny story and The Two Whos will judge the funniest story.  We will notify the winner by Monday April 5,  2010.**

Well, now that Cece is remembering her fabric bags when she goes out, she is forgetting everything else.  This week alone, she has forgotten her keys, her shopping list, her lunch, her phone and her  IPOD…all on separate days!

AND worst of all,she has forgotten to buy toilet paper!  All these trips to the store with her fabric bags and each time, she forgot to purchase the TP!  So all week, when in need,  she had to go  to the guest bathroom to take all that was there….then she went to the tissue box…then at the very last moment, before she went to paper towels..she finally remembered to buy the toilet paper.  She went to Target because it was closer, left her fabric bags in  the car and shouted a curse….swearing  that she would not put one thing  into a plastic bag in Target.

She went into Target and looked in the household area for the toilet paper.  There were all kinds of things,but no toilet paper.  Cece thought to herself…”Has Target stopped selling toilet paper?”  She looked and looked and saw none!  It was like a bad dream.Could there be no toilet paper in Target?  Finally,she flagged down an employee and asked about the toilet paper…she sent Cece clear across the store to an unlikely place in the far back corner.   And there they were ….rolls and rolls of that  coveted stuff!  But alas…. not Cece’s brand. She decided to make do….or shall we say do dooo with a renegade brand and took her TP…without the plastic bag that the cashier tried to foist upon her…and went home.  She put the toilet paper on the front seat of her car rather than in the trunk where she knew she would forget it! 

Hours later, when Cece needed the TP , she looked around.  Where was the TP?  Was her Target trip a dream?  She looked all over the house and could not find it.  Could it be possible that she left it in her car? Cece went down her 20 steep steps from her house and looked through her tinted car windows.  There…. in the front seat…. was the  pack that she purchased.  This time , she brought it into the house and was thankful that the jumbo package she purchased will last a very long time!

These are  the moments in life that are so unbelievable that  you could almost think it is a dream, a comedy, a joke played by the divine… laugh,  because  you can! 

“Bye for Now” from The Two Whos