Dove's Eye View

Chemotherapy, oilspills, hair and mushrooms

Something really useful to do with my hair once it falls out in a few days: Hair and mushrooms create a recipe for cleaning up oily beaches. From the SF Chronicle.

A group of guerrilla volunteers is cleaning oil from San Francisco's beaches using an unorthodox, albeit totally organic, method: human hair and mushrooms.
Using mats made of hair, they are absorbing the droplets of oil that have washed ashore since a cargo ship rammed the base of a Bay Bridge tower last week, spilling 58,000 gallons of fuel.
Hair, which naturally absorbs oil from air and water, acts as a perfect sponge, said Lisa Gautier of San Francisco, who provided 1,000 hair mats. They are about the size of a doormat, tightly woven with dark hair, and feel somewhat like an S.O.S pad.
While the mats may not be the obvious choice among hazardous waste experts, they hit San Francisco's green chord: More than 700 volunteers have tried them in recent days. Organizers hope their success will inspire more ecological responses to toxic waste removal.
Gautier had 1,000 of them on hand because she runs a nonprofit, Matter of Trust, which matches donations from businesses with needy nonprofits. She collects human hair from Bay Area salons and sends it to Georgia to be woven into mats, which she then gives to the San Francisco Department of the Environment to absorb used motor oil.
Once the mats are soaked with black gunk, oyster mushrooms will take over, growing on the mats and absorbing the oil.

Now my brother and I were going to shave our heads on camera this weekend, to make a big splash about it. But I decided I need the rest more than I need to organize a video shoot. My hair is still on my head and I'm just waiting for the inevitable.

However don't be alarmed for me. One week after my first infusion (Avastin, Abraxane and some bone-strengthening drug whose name I've forgotten) I feel better than I did before chemo. Appetite is good, liver feels much better, some of my energy has returned. I'll get more infusion on Monday - it's weekly for three weeks, one week off, then another round, then a scan, then they decide if more is warranted. I feel like it's helping already, and my blood counts on Monday showed significant improvements in two crucial markers, a mere three days after infusion.

Courage!

What Would Jesus Buy?

On "Black Friday", the day millions of Americans swamp the stores to buy stuff in a frenzy for Christmas, why don't you ask yourself: What Would Jesus Buy?.

This is a docu-comedy about the performance artist Reverend Billy, who goes about the country exorcising Wal-Mart and practicing street theater in which he and his gospel choir urge Americans to stop shopping and prevent the apocalypse.

I just love our home-grown American performance artists, especially the political ones who are grass-roots. Reverend Billy's message seems fabulous and I look forward to viewing him in action.

Visit the NY Times review to see Reverend Billy exorcising Wal-Mart headquarters.

Thanks to No-Impact Man for the tip.

Easiest Fix for Big Crisis

The New York Times reports that American students' reading scores are going down starting in middle school and continuing through college. Study links decline in test scores to decline in time spent reading. Well duh. Would you be surprised if a decline in baseball batting scores was linked to a decline in time spent playing baseball?

The pontificators muse that teachers and schools need to develop new programs to promote a culture of learning.

Look folks, whether you're an Arab, Chinese, Frenchman, or American, the fix is simple.

Read aloud to your kids. Even if they are old enough to read for themselves.

If you are too poor to buy books and have no access to a library (not a problem in most of the USA, and probably not for anybody who access the internet) then read aloud from your spiritual tradition: Bible, Koran, Bhaghavad Gita, you name it. You don't need to be a believer to get a great cultural and spiritual inheritance from these volumes.

Read them the newspaper. Read them yesterday's newspapers. Are you too proud? Do you want your kids to be dumb, or do you want to look "good" for the neighbors?

If you live in the affluent West you may get a library card for free which will open the door to worlds of learning once available only to archbishops and princelings.

Oh yes, and turn off those damn game boys/xboxes/tvs/cel phones/i-pods. Just throw them all out why don't you? They are poisoning your children's brains.

Easier said than done, I know. But your kids will be better off without them. My children have access to online computer games (carefully screened and time limited) and to broadcast TV with select DVDs. That's it. They don't understand why they don't have an XBox but they accept that somehow that's the way it is. And that's the way it will be for as long as we can hold out.

They spend a lot of time playing with toy figurines, blocks, costumes and swords. They also like to draw, cut out their pictures and write in composition books. They have taken to making me darling cards that say "I love you Mom".

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Yesterday three of my friends from graduate school, who are also members of my writing group, stopped by with food for us. Thank you Carolina, Julia and Sara. Will L. also brought a lasagna just after I was diagnosed. One of my grad school friends also brought cascaria for the bath, and some semper virens plants (sp?) to cleanse the air in my room and encourage regeneration.

Wednesday my friend Deborah C. watched my kids for eight hours while I went for a CT scan and an oncology appointment. She also listens to me cry on the phone. Deborah has taken the kids several times.

Shelley H. got up at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday to drive me to that appointment, over the bridge to SF, and sat around for three hours while they messed with me. Shelley is another who takes my weepy cals.

Lisa R. drove me to my second liver biopsy and held my hand. She has been such a love, and is going to give me a broadsheet from the Mutanabbi Street reading series.

Chris and Karl across the street babysit our kids one night with about an hour's notice. They have cared for our children before.

Um-Yusuf, whose son goes to school with my six-year-old, takes our kids at least once a week after school, entertains them at home with her brood, feeds them enormous Yemeni chicken and rice dinners, and didn't even mind the night we forgot to pick them up. (Don't ask.)

Francesca drove my younger son to school the day my older son had a seizure and had to be shipped to the hospital with my husband, while I went off to my first oncology appointment post-diagnosis. Have we had enough drama around here? I have, thank you.

Naomi S. gave hugs and encouragement and a lovely present to honor my graduation and encourage me for my impending tests. She then organized a fabulous baby shower for our mutual friend Julie, and picked up all the slack I could not carry. Her own father struggles with late stage lung cancer, and I don't know how she can focus on others so kindly.

Julie is great with child but she still talks to me on the phone whenever I need her; she also had been going out with us for fun dinners, but she's too pregnant and I'm too tired now. One day she won't be pregnant and she will have a babysitter, and I will feel good, and we'll all double-date again. Or we'll bring our offspring for a noisy supper at some Italian restaurant.

An unknown internet passerby sent me a cd of his band, which I loved, and must find the address so I can thank him.

My other internet buddies and commenters send messages of encouragement and love. I am blessed with friends.

Family division:

My mother has been driving me to appointments and babysitting the children.

My brother takes the children on Saturdays and lets them cavort with his 13 year old son.

My mother-in-law dropped everything and got on the bus for the city that morning when my son and husband went to Children's Hospital and I went to a momentous oncology appointment.

My aunts, uncles and cousins have been calling, emailing, sending cards. I am so very grateful for all of you.

I believe my father is somewhere resembling heaven, pulling for me to survive.

Most importantly, my husband, David, who pitches in everywhere and every time I cannot cope. Childcare, cooking, health emergencies, doctor visits, shopping, homework, after school care, and holding me when I weep - David is there. Thank you, darling.

Yes, I get by with a little help from my friends.

If I left you out, forgive me, and feel free to email me so I can update. I am writing this off the top of my head (and I ought to go to sleep now).

Image of Bishop Salim Ghazal

Bishop Salim Ghazal holding my son, Joseph, in the monastery of Deir MKhalles, September 2000. My late father, Elias Abu-Saba, is in the left background. We had just visited with Father Salim during his Sunday tea hour, and he was about to go down to dinner with the brethren of his order, of which he is still the Superior.

This blog gets about twenty referrals a day from search engines, in which people look for images of Bishop Ghazal. His tour of the States must be prompting all the activity. Here's hoping they all try again and find what I believe is the only close up portrait of the Bishop on the Internet.

Eat local for the planet - even in winter

Sharon at Casaubon's Book states the problem: to reduce carbon emissions, we need to eat locally, but most people don't know what to do with the produce available in winter from their local farms. Change your Diet.

Most Americans don't derive from a greens eating culture, and we're not sure what to do with multiple bunches of greens - unless you are southern and cook them with pork...you probably eat greens once or twice a week - mostly in salad. So changing our agriculture to focus on local food has to start at the table.

In comments over there, people got busy with recipe ideas for winter produce. What to cook when you've got kale, sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, jerusalem artichokes, cabbage, cauliflower, pumpkins and mushrooms?

Here are some ideas:

Roasted Harvest Vegetables (recipe has you put them in a whole roast pumpkin - you can skip this and just roast the veggies.)

Kale and White Bean Soup with smoked sausage.

Tassajara Cookbook's original vegetarian Kale and White Bean Soup.

Pumpkin Tahini (thank you Clifford Wright)

A long thread of ideas for canned pumpkin. Somebody in it linked to me! Cool.

Kale and Mushrooms with Creamy Polenta

Kale and Potato Spanish Tortilla (omelet).

How about a dessert of Pear, Apple and Cranberry Compote?

You must look at Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone. In it she lists innumerable salads, soups, sides and entrees using winter vegetables. Off the top of my head I remember a winter greens salad with fennel.

Now pomegranates, persimmons and citrus are not local in three-quarters or more of the USA, but here in California we add these items to our salads in autumn and winter, rather than buying pallid, crunchy, tasteless tomatoes. I just ate a spinach salad at a party that had pecans, feta, persimmons and pomegranates in it. Liked it so much I've been buying baby spinach greens and throwing in whatever citrus/pomegranate we have ever since.

Lemons are so local to me that I don't buy them; I just walk around the neighborhood and harvest from trees whose owners have given me permission. We also have persimmons nearby (my friend gave me four) and of course the rosemary, sage, oregano and lavender winter over in my garden, despite my neglect.

Oh yes and there's a beekeeper two blocks from me who sells honey to the local produce market. Can't get more local than that - eating honey from bees at work in your own yard.

Details on Bishop Ghazal Dinner - Irvine, CA

Here's the invitation that went out:

Pacem In Terris peace on earth
You are cordially invited to a formal dinner in honor of Bishop Salim Ghazal
recipient of the 2007 Pacem In Terris Peace and Freedom Award
Please join us on Sunday, November 11 from 3:30 - 7:00 p.m. to celebrate and support Bishop Ghazal's work.
All collected funds will go to Habitat for Humanity - Lebanon. Hosted at the residence of Nabhan and Yola Simaan Red Rock Chateau 17521 Santiago Canyon Road Silverado, California 92676
Kindly RSVP to [email protected] before November 7
If you are unable to attend and would still like to contribute, your generosity would be greatly appreciated. Please visit www.habitatforhumanity.org and select Lebanon. Or make your check payable to Habitat for Humanity International and write Lebanon in the memo section.

About Bishop Salim Ghazal
Bishop Ghazal is well known and respected throughout the Middle East and around the world for his unique ability to bridge the divides among Christians, Muslims, and Jews in a volatile region, through dialogue and genuine respect. With almost 50 years of service, he was part of the international delegation for peace in Rwanda after the 1994 massacres, and was invited to Bosnia and Herzegovina to describe how to unify divided communities and build peace. As Chairman of Habitat for Humanity Lebanon, Bishop Ghazal brought people of all faiths together to rebuild 370 homes, and requests our help to rebuild hundreds more.

About the Pacem In Terris Peace and Freedom Award
The Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award has been awarded annually since 1964. Past recipients include Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Cesar Chavez.
About Habitat for Humanity Lebanon (HFHL) (website) From its inception in 2002, Habitat for Humanity Lebanon (HFHL) has sheltered thousands of displaced Lebanese families in more than 40 mixed communities in south Lebanon by providing the necessary support through provision of material, financial, or technical assistance, which enables families to reconstruct, repair, renovate or complete their homes and make them decent, healthy and safe. Father Salim Ghazal, Bishop, regional statesman and Chairman of HFHL, comments: "With Habitat's arrival, many communities are overjoyed with the opportunity to rebuild their simple village homes.”
Working in partnership with volunteers, organizations, and the new homeowner families, HFHL builds more than houses; it builds lives, homes, and unified communities across the divides. Priority is given to those families in greatest need, without discrimination. Homeowners, neighbors, and corporate volunteers join in the construction, reviving the Lebanese village tradition of ‘aouni’, or helping one another. Local volunteers serve as program leaders, and are living examples of the attitude needed to rebuild their villages, a participatory approach that is rooted in firm beliefs of empowerment, transformation, and peace.

Stay tuned for pictures of Bishop Ghazal; if I can figure out the software, I'll excerpt the sermon he preached at my father's memorial - I have it on DVD as a video. My blog gets about ten requests a day recently for pictures of Bishop Ghazal, but the only ones on the internet are fuzzy and small. I took a nice photo of him in 2000, before he became a bishop, but I don't have a scanner at home - another errand to run.

California Mana'eesh - Convenience Version

I could easily make bread dough from scratch - I used to bake a lot - and make mana'eesh at home. But it's too much trouble. Instead I like to heat up whole wheat tortillas (Trader Joe's are decent) and smear them with za'atar.

The tortillas are also good spread with either lebneh or cream cheese. Roll them up around some olives and/or tomatoes and cucumbers for a Cali-Leb fast sandwich.

For our non-Arab readers: mana'eesh is a kind of hot flatbread spread with za'atar, a mixture of wild thyme, sumac, sesame seeds and olive oil. It's addictive and intoxicating. Beirut is full of mana'eesh bakers and it's the preferred fast-food breakfast there. You can also get your mana'eesh with one half of the circle covered in white cheese... also yummy. They call this the "half and half" or "nous wa nous."