Month: February 2012

Hey folks! Here’s a guest post from Kassia Arbabi, who gets around town largely on two wheels.

When the temperature dropped in mid-January and the snow started falling, this biker-chick was inclined to hole up at home for a few days. (Thankfully, my flexible work schedule allows for this…a side benefit of avoiding the “job to pay for car to drive to work” cycle.) The weather was gnarly and it was no fun to be on a bike whizzing down hills with icy air penetrating all layers.

When it was finally time to venture out, I was happy to use our truck share. This little 1986 Toyota pickup is co-owned by five people. We have a pretty simple cost- and use- share system, and can sign it out on a Google calendar. My partner and I coordinated our schedules and errands, and he dropped me off for my cleaning shift at Alexander House and then ran up to 29N and Pantops to pick up his bike from the shop and drop off the hostel’s tax info with the CPA. Then he swung back and picked me up, and we headed home to hole up for the rest of the day.

On the days when the truck is unavailable, I have my winter-biking outfits. Legwarmers, warms socks, huge mittens, a big scarf or neck warmer and a couple layers of wool generally do the trick. It’s all about keeping the coldest bits cozy, and then it can be quite invigorating to bike in the crazy temps.

And when the weather finally broke, I was happy to load up my bike with gym clothes and fiddle and swoop downtown in the sun for some mid-winter busking. Afterward, I dropped by Market Street Market to pick up some pitas for dinner, cramming them in to my already slightly overflowing panniers. I finally headed over to the hostel for our weekly meeting, turning down a ride home afterwards from my housemate/co-hosteler who has a truck. This was bikin’ weather! The spring feverish weather even induced me to invite my boyfriend for a milkshake on the mall, and we got special permission from Timberlakes to bring the glass outside and enjoy the last bits of sunny blueness.

Next up was a couple days of rain, which calls for breaking out the rain pants. Having lived in Portland, Oregon for a couple of months, where the cyclists are as ubiquitous as the rain, I can’t really make an exemption claim for wet weather. There, not biking in the rain means not leaving home for five months.

Again, it’s all about the gear. The trickiest bit, in my opinion, is keeping socks dry, which I have not yet perfected. If it’s a downpour, I usually just bring along a change of clothes. Or wait ‘til the rain lightens up, which doesn’t usually take too long. That’s a favorite lesson from being bike dependent in foul weather: Sometimes going nowhere is the best idea of all.
 

My piece on the butterfly over Scott Stadium got the most response of all my letters published in the Daily Progress. The following, worth repeating, was number two.

When people call on the phone in appreciation, that is significant. Immediately after the shootings in Tucson, people held forth on how the nasty rhetoric in our current politics might encourage violent acts like this. Mark Shields, a public tv commentator and as reasonable a man as you can find, believed it could influence unstable
characters.

His main point was that the dehumanization, even demonization, of those on the other side makes it so much easier to hate and dismiss them as people. This, of course, is the propaganda technique used during wartime.

I recently learned of an inspirational story of someone who transcended that impersonal barrier. He is Jim Zumwalt, son of renowned Naval Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, brother of Elmo III who died from Agent Orange in VIetnam and himself a Vietnam veteran. He had great resentment toward the enemy and it was a burden to him. In 1994, he was in Vietnam on hid father’s insistence and he met a former North
Vietnamese general.

In the course of their conversation, a tear came to the general’s eye when he mentioned his own brother’s death. They both had lost brothers. A door had opened. Jim, for the first time, saw the human side of the enemy. It was the beginning of
a mission. He went to Vietnam 50 times interviewing the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army. The result is a remarkable book, Bare Feet, Iron Will… Contrary to some vets’ criticism, his goal was to humanize the enemy, not glorify them.

There has been a lot of hateful talk in this country. Even some of the Tucson tragedy talk has veiled venom in it. Yet, if even the most hateful sat down for an informal talk to get to know one of those demonized enemies (your daughter went to UMich., too?, my uncle lived in Erie, been there many times, you have back problems, too?, your
father died in Korea?), this primitive dialogue might become civil.

Look how Orin Hatch and Ted Kennedy were pals, one of the most unlikely duos of all time. The got to know each other beyond political stances. One of Kennedys’ greatest strengths. Jim Zumwalt is a proud warrior and a gentle, thoughtful man. For me, he is a hero. From early on, I thought that the VIetnam war was an ill-conceived, awful endeavor. It has been the moral touch stone of my life. However, I always understood and respected the guys sent over there. In a touching gesture, Jim asked me and another vet, also burdened as Jim was, to go with him on a book tour of VIetnam That is beyond civility. It bespeaks wisdom.

Value assessment authorities in the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County are releasing the results of their annual reassessment of residential and commercial properties.

The total value of the city’s taxable property decreased by 1.22 percent, a reflection of national trends in a slow economy. Existing residential property declined in value by 3.08 percent, but commercial property increased in value by 0.84 percent.

Charlottesville Commissioner of Revenue Lee Richards encouraged residents to take advantage of existing financial assistance programs, including the Real Estate Tax Relief Program and the Charlottesville Housing and Affordability Program.

Recent assessments in Albemarle County reflect the “continued softening of the real estate market being experienced locally as well as nationwide,” according to a press release. The county’s total “Taxable Assessed Values” base declined by 3 percent, with residential properties reporting a decline of 3.05 percent. 

Each of the county’s seven magisterial districts showed decline in the past year, from 0.98 percent in the Rivanna district to 3.68 percent in that Jack Jouett district. The biggest decline, 4.52 percent, was registered in the Town of Scottsville. 

Reassessment notices for county residents will be mailed this week.
 

There’s a canning blog I just got turned onto called Food in Jars, and a post this week has (at this writing) garnered no fewer than 781 comments. The commenters are chiming in because the blogger is giving away a copy of a pretty nice-looking canning cookbook, and they’re all hoping to win. But the blogger asked them to name their favorite wintertime meal, so the comments amount to a survey of what people are eating.

Basically, it’s a cavalcade of soups. Chili, stews, gumbo, clam chowder, lentil soup, potato soup, pea soup, chicken and dumplings……all meals that come in a bowl. And people are chowing on lots of bread, too.

Here’s an interesting one: "Oden, which is a Japanese winter time stew made with root vegetables, fish cake, yam cake, hard boiled egg, and whatever else. The broth is sweet salty made from fish, kelp, and/or shitake mushrooms. Eaten with spicy yellow mustard while hot and steamy."

I also liked this: "I love pulling out a frozen batch of garlic scap pesto & have it with pasta. It’s like a big bowl of Spring!"

And this: "My new favorite wintertime meal is a fabulous hearty, tasty crock-pot quinoa casserole, full of filling quinoa, tempeh, figs, tomatoes, spinach, feta, and a bunch of my favorite spices like cinnamon, cumin and coriander."

I dig soups too. But my favorite wintertime meal, at least from recent days, was pancakes with blueberries that we froze last summer, along with local bacon and tomato juice from the garden.

What are you eating these days?