Having a ball

I refuse to accept a life without joy, without culture. What good is it to be human if you can't dance?


Yes, yes, the Navy's got my knickers in a knot.

They've been making a few changes around the school district; most of them for the worse, in my opinion. I suppose I could have predicted that their definition of "necessary" would be different from mine.

For example: Gavvy's school has been closed. Bruce (my husband) says all "non-essential" classes around the district have been cancelled until further notice. Surprisingly, they weren't referring to math; ) They mean art, dance, drama, choir, band, special ed(!)...even languages like French and Spanish are considered "non-essential". In other words, they seem determined to suck all the remaining happiness out of the kids' lives. The parents around here just duck their heads and go right along, same as they always do. The other teachers have been around long enough to know when to keep their mouths shut... but not Bruce, of course.

He argued with the new Navy-issued Super about it until the guy threatened to put him in jail. Apparently somebody from the admin office intervened - funny, she's usually fighting with Bruce, not for him - and the other teachers got him out of there before he could do any more harm to his job prospects.

Really, he doesn't have anything to worry about. Nobody else wants to babysit.


On other subjects, the ferries have stopped. Even the Bainbridge ferry to Seattle, which is where half of Seattle's (rich) lawyers and (rich) accountants live. It's some kind of terrorism threat, according to the news. I'm more likely to believe that, with the ferry system operating so close to the bone for so many years, the state just doesn't have the money to put diesel in them now. And no doubt the Navy sees them as "non-essential", or else they can't justify appropriating that much fuel just to keep the peninsula workers happy.

Still, that's a few thousand more Bremerton, Bainbridge, and Vashon workers and professionals who can't get to work.


I'm on the planning committee for the local farmers market, and we've all agreed that it should probably remain where it's always been; in the Silverdale hotel parking lot. Nice central location. Problem is, the farmers can't afford to drive the food to the market from the farms around Silverdale, Poulsbo, Kingston, and we've even got a honey supplier from up in Port Gamble... and still break even.

Now the Navy, while they don't see the need for organic produce (it doesn't come in a can tattooed with letters and numbers, does it?), can definitely get behind the idea of local food; it means self-sufficiency. Very military.
Their budget for fuel is pretty loose, so once we found the right person to propose to, the rest was a piece of cake. We got a (refrigerated!) diesel truck, a fuel card, and a pair of twenty-somethings in uniform named Williams and Fish.

I've got a two-seat Zenn, which isn't much good for carpooling, but I can fit a fair amount of stuff in the back...so I'm taking vegetable orders and bringing boxes back to Bremerton. Note to self: If down to less than half-charge, you can't get up Andersen Hill with a hundred pounds of produce in the back; )


Anyway, back to the theme of joy.

Item 1: We're not letting the school go to the dogs. There are no non-essential subjects, and no non-essential students. I'm calling Gavvy's teacher to see if there's anything I can do.

Item 2: We're planning a neighborhood ball. Yes, you heard me right. There's going to be dressing up, dancing, and laughing until dawn in the gymnasium of the elementary school down the street. Now, to figure out the best way to broach this with our keepers.

Item 3: We're learning how to garden. Seems there's more to it than putting seeds in the dirt and throwing some water on top, and some of the old people in our neighborhood are really good at it. Now, to get up the nerve to go talk to them.

Item 4: We're not going to live in fear, or pessimism. Reality is what it is; and you might say it's not that bad for us, so we can afford to fart clouds of sunshine. You might be thinking your neck of the woods is so steeped in violence and need that you can't help but despair. But I argue that - no matter what - we've got the choice to live with hope, love, and optimism, even if it seems insane. Better to be insane and human, than "realistic"...and much less.


The Seattle Electric Vehicle Association meeting was cancelled, because of security, or lack of it. I suggested we move it to Bremerton. I might be irritated at Big Brother, but they do keep the crime under control. Nothing's decided yet.

Hummer-flogging Petrophiles

I've been calling them the Hummer-floggers, or Petrophiles, or other disparaging terms for so long that I forgot they sometimes actually make themselves useful: I'm talking about the huge Navy community here in Bremerton, thanks to the naval shipyard on one end and the submarine base on the other.
Started calling 'em that because we've got a huge autoplex here - for a relatively small town - and all those boys from the ships and the Naval hospital seem to have driven off the lot with a Hummer or some other unsightly land-tank. I keep telling 'em that driving a giant gas-gobbler doesn't REALLY compensate for anything, but I've never felt like I got through; )

Anyway, I KNEW there was a good reason I wanted to situate myself in the warm, hairy lap of the Navy: They live here. The officers - the doctors and nurses at the Naval hospital, the scientists and metallurgists at the shipyard, and all the other military middle-class that makes the floating blue world go 'round - they all own homes here, send their kids to school here, and will retire here. It just follows that they're going to make it their business to take good care of it.

Now the Navy has quietly taken over Bremerton and Silverdale. I hear they've "secured" the whole Olympic Peninsula, Whidbey to Pt. Townsend to Pt. Angeles, too. I don't know whether this is a good thing or not. Our family isn't remotely Navy - in fact, we're overeducated bleeding-heart liberals - and all the mindless goose-stepping usually gets on our nerves.
It's hard to turn down good help, though.

They're making sure the civilian hospital stays supplied with equipment and staff, putting uniformed patrol on the streets, in the schools, in the grocery stores, and at the gas stations.
They've taken over the (diesel) city buses, which are now free and run a lot. Uniformed Navy personnel are driving the extra city bus routes.

My husband's job (he's a substitute teacher here in the Bremerton School District) isn't in any danger; in fact, he's got more work than ever. Lots of the regular teachers around here actually live in the outlying areas where the improved city bus service can't reach them. Consequently, the administration has gotten pretty desperate to staff the school. I hear they're tapping the Navy for that, too. Why not.

The compounding pharmacy in Maryland that's been shipping Gavvy's special vitamins to him since he was born actually called me yesterday to say their supplies might be unstable, and would we like to order an extra bottle, just to be sure? We don't really have the money, but I ordered two extra (they're about 75 dollars for a month's supply, but shipping has gone from 6.95 a package to 21.50). I'm feeling optimistic about business and pessimistic about continued availability of the vitamins, so I went ahead.

For most of us, vitamin supplements are sort of a luxury. For my beautiful son, an urgent necessity. Because of a chromosomal abnormality, his body will eat itself alive without the antioxidants.

I can't think about that too much.

Anyway, the news is basically good from Bremerton, thanks to the Navy. Everything still works. Sounds like naptime is over, so I'll say goodbye until next week.

There's a meeting of the Seattle chapter of the electric vehicle association on Tuesday night, and my presence has been sweetly requested. It'll be interesting to see what my buddies are doing with their alternative transportation. Only good deeds, I hope; )

It's good to be loved

Business is good.

Yeah, I feel a little bit bad about it. If people weren't so desperate and miserable, they'd still be ignoring me. As it is, I'm everybody's new best friend.

For those of you who've never met me, I'm Lynne Mason, the webmamma of a site called "Electric Cars Are For Girls". I started the site about six months ago, really because - living here in the Pacific Northwest as I do - I could see the environment going downhill in a hurry, and wanted to leave something good to my little boy, Gavin. You can see his picture here. See what I mean?

Six months ago, our biggest worry was global warming, not peak oil. The weather was going nuts, despite the Bush administration's reassurances that it was all in our heads...we knew better. And we knew, based on their response to Hurricane Katrina, that they didn't personally give a damn, either. Oh, they didn't mind making profit at the expense of the climate; but when the piper demanded to be paid, there wasn't nobody home.

Don't think we didn't take note of that, buddy.

Over the last couple of months I've seen my site traffic double and then triple every week. Logarithmic, exponential, whatever mathematical term fits the bill, I don't know...all I know is that suddenly everybody wants me.

Six months ago, it was only the geeks and treehuggers that wanted to drive electric cars. Most people, when you brought up the subject of electric cars, would nod wisely and say, "If only battery technology was better, we'd drive electric cars."

"Better than what?" I asked. Turns out, they were hoping for a car that would go 95 mph on the freeway for 300 miles on a charge, could be charged in 10 minutes, and came free inside every box of Cheerios. Or maybe, they just wanted an excuse to keep driving the Navigator, I don't know.

Now? Golf carts are sounding pretty good, apparently. They're starting at fifty thousand dollars for the oldest, flimsiest, nastiest dogcart you can imagine on ebay and craigslist...just as long as they can be plugged into the wall.

I better go, I hear Gavin waking up from his nap, and I've got all this email to answer.