Life:Good

Tipping- Hospitality and Tourism Wiki

2011-04-17T23:28:00.000-07:00

Keeping your Shower Clean

2010-11-23T09:43:00.000-08:00

Cheap, simple solution for cleaning your shower:

(Dear Reena: Can you suggest a substitute for a daily, shower cleaner?)
Ms Reena Nerbas replies:
In a spray bottle, combine 1/2 teaspoon dish soap, 1 cup water and 1/3 cup rubbing alcohol. That's it, that's all you need. I bet you thought I was going to suggest the King of Household Super-stars, vinegar. Well you can always add a few drops of vinegar, but you don't want to clean grouted areas with vinegar, as its powerful cleaning action can etch grout. Happy Cleaning.

-from the Times Colonist, Victoria BC daily newspaper

ABOUT THE HOUSE gets Praise

2010-09-30T21:22:00.000-07:00

Here below is a note of appreciation one happy client sent in to The South Whidbey Record, which is South Whidbey Island's main newspaper. It was widely received with cheers and further appreciation by other appreciative clients. Read on:

Last fall, while spending the weekend at our house on Whidbey Island, I lost a diamond earring. An anniversary gift from my husband, it was precious to me, and my family and I spent hours on our hands and knees, searching with flashlights every spot it possibly could have fallen. An earring which sparkles brightly when worn is impossibly small on the ground, and at the end of the weekend I went sadly home without it. Though my husband replaced the earring at Christmas, when on Whidbey I continued to keep an eye out for a tiny twinkle emanating from our rugs, or a sparkle from a corner.

Then, at the end of June, I arrived at the house to find a note in our kitchen, left by Anne LeDuc and her “About the House” cleaning team. Taped to the paper was my lost earring, and the note claimed that it had been found under the washing machine! After my initial jubilation had somewhat subsided, I considered the text of the note. Under the washing machine? Who cleans UNDER a washing machine??

“About the House” regularly cleans our large, extended family home in the summer, as well as more sporadically during the winter. From June through August, they cheerfully enter a house chaotic with kids, dogs and vacationing adults,and somehow make everything shine despite cleaning in the midst of only slightly reduced family activity. Knowing the caliber of their work, I’m grateful, but not surprised, that they are so thorough as to go underneath large appliances. However, their demonstration of honesty, integrity, and sincere pleasure at being able to return to me something of such monetary and sentimental value is something I will never forget.

My mother (who owns a house down the beach from ours) and I regularly sing praises of “About the House” for their spectacular job in both of our homes. I have always felt comfortable having them in our home to clean, whether or not we were present. Now, however, I know that the professional pride in their work extends to careful stewardship of everything within the house. I feel so fortunate to be able to have Anne and her team “about our house” when I need them. I hope I will have that pleasure and peace of mind for many years to come!

With deep thanks and affection to Anne et all,
Kathy Reitinger
Greenbank, WA

The above was published in the South Whidbey Record, Letter to the Editor, on Wednesday the 09/29/2010.

Clients and friends then commented; Notably this note from Ms Frances Smith, of Langley:

Dear Anne,
Thanks for the wonderful service this summer. I read about the return of the diamond earring in the Letter to the Editor and should have written one myself. I thought i lost a hoop earring one morning when my grandkids were here. It was missing while we were out walking and I was quite upset. When I returned to the house, there it was on the counter. The girls were already gone. So please tell the girls thank you for me.
Please send me a bill. I think I owe for two weeks. Have a good winter. We are leaving this Saturday. Take care and again, thank all who have worked here. They do a great job. Sincerely, Fran Smith

F&B S.
Langley, WA
...

Wow, Anne, what a terrific letter and what a tribute to you and your staff. I don’t know how I missed it since I read the papers diligently. Thanks for passing this along. ...Don’t blush. Pat yourself on the back for running such a top-notch business. Although Deb is the only person on your team I’ve worked with, she has always been professional and has always left me with the feeling that she’s completely trustworthy. Kudos to you!

J.W.
Freeland, WA

...

'Loved the article in the paper. So proud of you and your crew is amazing. This week i was in awe as to how sweetly and neatly everthing was done. I was sick in the den, but when I went out in the other rooms it all looked so nice. I have to leave the wee tip in a better place as they never take it. Thanks for being you love,

V.G.
Greenbank, WA

...

Very nice article about your company, and well deserved.

G.O.
Freeland, WA

...

Hi, Anne -

Thank you so much for your kindness and attention to our friend. He is a dear, sweet man who lots of us care for. I'll be in touch about the gift card.
Bill and I were so happy to see the Letter to the Editor in the Whidbey Record that lauded "About the House." Truly deserved!!

All the best!

C.R.
Clinton WA

...

Anne
Just read about you all finding a diamond under a washer Way to go!!
Really nice that your friend shared about it with the Record. Lovely
letter!!

K.M.
Freeland WA

...

Anne,
Harvey and I LOVED reading this nice piece in the paper. We think you & Debra & crew are terrific.

W.L.
Clinton WA
...

Hi Anne,
That was quite an editorial letter. You can't buy that kind of advertisment! Congratulations! Thanks for the Good Work,
Love,

L.A.
Greenbank, WA
...

Madame!
Congratulations on the letter in The Record!!

C.G.
Freeland, WA
...

Anne,
Congratulations on such a lovely testimonial in The Record!

S.G.
Langley, WA
...

Great Support for What You Do!

S.G.
Langley, WA

...
Very Good! You guys really deserve it!

M.S.
Clinton WA

...

'Loved that piece. And you Do have a Great Team!

C.N.
Langley WA
...

Very happy to read the article. I always enjoy knowing you, such a lovely and sweet person, and hard working (good too). Now I know I am not the only person who thinks so!! Congratulations to you to be recognized! Thank you again to give me a relaxed and enjoyable summer. I'll call you again.

M.H.
Clinton WA

...

Hi Anne!
Congrats on letter to editor. Well deserved!

A.S.
Clinton WA

...

Hello Ann

Thank you - and Congratulations!! You (all) completely deserve it.
xox,

M.S.
Clinton WA
...

Anne,

Those are my sentiments exactly: You are much appreciated!

B.M.
Freeland WA
...

Congratulations on the article Way to Go Anne!

M.M.
Langley WA
...

Thank you for forwarding the article!
Wow! We couldn't agree more!

D.F.
Clinton WA

...

Anne,

That letter in the paper was fabulous! I am so happy that everyone can read how amazing you and your team are!

P.F.
Langley WA

...

...And Congrats on the letter in the paper: Well deserved!

L.S.
Clinton WA

...

Dear Ann,

Thank You. I am very happy with Debra. She is thorough and always pleasant.

B.H.
Freeland WA

...

and this, from a First Time Customer:

"What a Great experience! Your staff person was great! I appreciate your great service!"

-N.J., Clinton WA

...

2010-08-03T19:00:00.001-07:00

2

... What chemistry!
That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which
is so amorous after me,
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its
tongues,
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited
themselves in it,
That all is clean forever and forever ...
-Walt Whitman

The Sink

2010-07-08T14:11:00.000-07:00

The Sink

She loves to talk on the telephone
While washing the dinner dishes,
Catching up long distance or
Dealing with issues closer to home,
The reconnoitering with the long lost
Or a recent so-and-so. She finds it
therapeutic, washing down
the aftermath. And that feeling
she gets in her stomach with a loved one’s
prolonged silence. And under the sink
in the dark among the L-pipes, the confederate
socket wrenches, lost twine, wire lei,
sink funk, steel-wool lemnisci, leitmotifs
of oily sacraments, a broken compass forever
pointing southeast by east, mold codices,
ring-tailed dust motes from days well served,
a fish-shaped flyswatter with blue horns,
fermented lemurs, fiery spectres,
embattled spirit vapors swirling in the crude
next to the Soft Scrub, the vinegared
and leistered sealed in tins, delicious with saltines,
gleaned spikelets, used-up votives….
In the back in the corner forgotten
An old coffee can of bacon fat
From a month of sinful Sundays,
A luna moth embossed, rising-a morning star.

-Catherine Bowman

Security

2010-07-02T08:18:00.001-07:00

INSTALLING a security system has long been considered the domain of professionals — uniformed men and women who build an electronic shield around your home and monitor it from a command center.

At least that is what the commercials always seem to suggest.
But a new breed of home-security systems promises to be simple enough to install without any professional help, cutting the cost of traditional alarm systems by taking advantage of technologies like wireless connectivity and battery-operated sensors.
Some of these systems even allow you to monitor your home yourself, using a Web browser on a computer or a smartphone. Following is a roundup of new ways to keep your castle well guarded.
The First Line of Defense
Companies like ADT and Brinks offer a full alarm installation at a subsidized price, but they more than make up for the discount with their monthly monitoring fees. These systems usually involve whole-home wiring and, although they offer perks like video surveillance and 24/7 monitoring, most of these features can be easily replicated with do-it-yourself kits.
The best thing about the new D.I.Y. services is that they are wireless. While many people actually enjoy drilling holes in doorjambs and walls, most would prefer to stick a few wireless, battery-powered sensors to the windows and call it a day.
There are simple security tools you can add to almost any home without much fuss, and some of them cost as little as $10. General Electric sells a number of inexpensive products under the GE Smart Home name, including an Automatic Security Light Kit ($25) and an easy-to-install Window or Door Alarm ($12) that attaches to your door and doorjamb, and squeals loudly when the door is opened. This is best for rarely used storerooms or closets, as well as gates and windows you would prefer to keep closed for safety’s or security’s sake.
GE also sells a $10 doorstop alarm that activates when someone tries to open a door. Because it is positioned on the floor like a doorstop and requires no installation, travelers can use it to alarm hotel-room doors.
Higher-Security Measures
For those willing to do some work, there are full security systems that take a little effort to install but cost far less in the long run than professional systems, thanks to less-expensive monitoring fees. These kits usually have multiple sensors, including small attachments that monitor windows and doors, as well as motion detectors. Most require few or no tools — a bit of double-sided tape holds most sensors in place — and some are designed for apartment dwellers who don’t want to damage the paint on doors or windows.
All of these systems are almost completely wireless. Except for the base stations, which connect to a landline, the sensors, buttons and keypads rely on Wi-Fi or other wireless technologies to cast a wide net around your house or apartment.
LaserShield (lasershield.net) sells a kit that costs about $700 and includes a base station, three wireless window and door sensors, a motion detector, two key-fob controllers and a smoke detector. It connects to the company’s monitoring service through your telephone line, although a cellular connectivity solution is also available. Monitoring is about $30 a month, and add-ons include wireless cameras and a “flood detector” to alert you to water in low-lying areas like basements.
Another company, LifeShield (lifeshield.com), provides approximately the same package for about $300, including eight sensors, a smoke-alarm siren detector, a base station and keychain remote. You can monitor the system yourself for $20 a month online, or you can pay LifeShield to monitor your system for $30 a month. The self-monitoring plan allows you to receive alarms by text message or e-mail, and you can control the security system from any computer connected to the Internet.
For true D.I.Y. security on a budget there is the Q-See Wireless security system, available at sites like Newegg.com for about $60. The kit includes five door sensors, one motion detector and two keychain remotes. Instead of alerting anyone, the Q-See simply sets off a high-pitched alarm, which may be enough to dissuade casual thieves.
Finally, there’s SimpliSafe (simplisafe.com), a new monitored system that starts at $200 for a portable apartment-dweller’s kit or $300 for a more complete kit with four door sensors, a large panic button and two motion sensors. When you move, you simply remove the sensors and reattach them using double-sided tape. SimpliSafe’s monitoring service is $15 a month and requires no phone line; the system uses a cellular wireless connection to stay in touch with the SimpliSafe monitoring service.
For those looking for video security, each of these kits has a video option. Major manufacturers of Web cams, like Logitech, are also getting into home security with products that will keep an eye on your premises remotely. A new set of Logitech cameras, available in August, will allow you to place cameras indoors and out, and receive e-mail and text messages when something moves in the field of vision.
And a company called Vitamin D (vitamindinc.com) has free software that turns any Web cam and some wireless video cameras into a security camera, allowing your stay-at-home computer to act as a home security system, sending e-mail messages when the software detects unusual activity.
Front Door 2.0
Besides alarms, there are plenty of ways to upgrade the security of your front door. The lock maker Schlage (schlage.com), for example, offers the Link series of push-button locks, which communicate wirelessly with a base station inside your home and allow you to lock and unlock the door remotely over the Internet, from a computer or a smartphone (perfect if you’re expecting houseguests or a meter reader). The system also allows you to connect cameras and automatic lighting-control systems to the base station, so you can program times for the lights to go on and off and create a window of time for a door to be unlocked. (If you add a camera, you can see who is at the door before unlocking it remotely.) Starter kits cost about $300 and include one entry lock to replace your current lock, a base station and a small automatic light-control box. Additional locks are about $200 each.
Kwikset from Black & Decker (kwikset.com) has similar features in a kit for your deadbolt or doorknob that will be available in late July for about $350. It includes keychain remote controls, so you can unlock a door from a few feet away. You can also connect to the lock online to open the door for visitors. Like the Schlage locks, this one can be operated by a computer or smartphone. It will also contact you by e-mail, text message or phone if someone unlocks the door. Video surveillance add-ons are available as well.
Another useful feature of these next-generation locks is the ability to make temporary codes. Because many new models have keypads as well as keyholes, you can create codes for guests or service people like contractors. When they leave, all you have to do is delete the code to prevent reentry. Just don’t try it with in-laws — they get mad.

Ms Green writes about detoxing a home.

2010-06-02T09:13:00.000-07:00

WHEN Matthew Waletzke appeared at the door of my East Village apartment to evaluate my home for what he calls “toxic exposure” — the alternative world’s catch-all phrase for potential health hazards like mold, indoor air pollution, household chemicals and electromagnetic radiation (beware your Wi-Fi!) — I half-expected to see a guy in an “Andromeda Strain”-era hazmat suit.

Mr. Waletzke, however, was dressed casually enough, in a polo shirt and khakis. But the aluminum suitcase he carried was all business, filled with an impressive array of meters, probes and other devices that he proceeded to unpack onto my dining room table.

Mr. Waletzke is a “building biology” consultant, which means he has trained for a year with the Institute for Bau-Biologie & Ecology, a Florida-based, mostly online school that teaches its students to test water, air and building materials for a checklist of toxins and then prescribe a cure. (They will also vet the cleaning products under your sink and the lotions and cosmetics in your medicine chest.)

The training and its tenets are a European import, developed in post-World War II Germany to deal with the problems that emerged as new housing went up and some inhabitants began to suffer what would be later identified as “sick building syndrome,” or a sensitivity to chemicals like formaldehyde used in construction.

I had called Mr. Waletzke not because I’d gone all radioactive, like Julianne Moore’s character in “Safe,” the 1995 movie directed by Todd Haynes about a woman who becomes allergic to her life, but because his specialty seems like an idea whose time has come.

Pollution, we’re learning, is personal. Each year brings reports of a new domestic horror, from the medical waste in the municipal water to the carcinogenic bacteria sprouting in your shower head. Your child’s sippy cup is leaching the endocrine disrupter BPA into his milk (let’s not even think about what’s in his nonflammable pajamas), and there are phthalates in your shampoo (also your sex toys). And if your (bleached, pesticide-soaked cotton) bedding doesn’t kill you, your clock radio just might, say those who classify electromagnetic frequencies as carcinogens.

Books like “Clean,” a “detox” lifestyle guide out last year, blurbed by Gwyneth Paltrow and Donna Karan and written by Alejandro Junger, a telegenic Uruguayan cardiologist, prescribe a course of juice fasting and something more: a whole home detox, with filtered air, filtered water, organic cotton sheets and bleach-free cleaning products.

Dr. Junger, whose own tale of chemically induced irritable bowel syndrome and depression will curl your hair, is certainly not the only home detox evangelist. In “Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things,” out in January, the authors Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie, Canadian environmentalists, embarked on a road test of self-contamination, eating food microwaved in plastic containers, scarfing tuna and drinking out of Mr. Smith’s son’s baby bottles, then testing their blood for levels of phthalates, mercury and other toxins, all of which spiked.

“We have all become guinea pigs in a vast and uncontrolled experiment,” they write, referring to daily life in the average home. “At this moment in history, the image conjured up by the word ‘pollution’ is as properly an innocent rubber duck as it is a giant smokestack.”

I’d been reading these and other books by our new century’s many Rachel Carsons, and I was curious just how “toxic” a New York City apartment might be, with its 80-year-old plumbing, trucks rumbling by and cellphone antennas sprouting from tenement roofs across the street. I’d always been proud of my gritty environment, having long believed that New Yorkers, marinating in stress, soot and other people, must have a Darwinian edge over those living in softer climates.

And if my apartment was as toxic as I was betting it was (“Love Canal” on Second Avenue!), what in the world could be done about it? Wouldn’t it be nearly impossible to detox a prewar Manhattan apartment, particularly on a middle-class budget? Dr. Junger, for instance, is living in filtered nirvana, in an “eco-built” cottage in Venice Beach, Calif. (His “water man,” William Wendling, who told me he has installed whole-house air and water filtration systems for Oliver Stone and Donna Karan, said prices start at $1,000.)

Which brings us back to Mr. Waletzke, a 35-year-old triathlete-in-training with a degree in psychology, who turned to building biology as a way to “detox” Simply Vibrant, his Rockville Centre, N.Y., wellness center. He was treating a lot of autistic children, he said, and after learning that some studies indicate their immune systems have a difficult time processing toxins, he wanted to create as benign an environment as possible there.

And for the last year, as a building biology consultant (healthydwellings.com), he has been seeing couples with autistic children, couples with infants who are eager to make a “safe” environment for their young families and clients like Gary Tuerack, 38, who lives in a Hoboken apartment building that recently installed cellphone antennas on the roof and was worried about his health.

Mr. Waletzke charges $375 for an-in home evaluation, which takes about three hours and includes a written report and detox prescription.

“My goal is to identify the physical stressors in your home,” he told me. “The idea is that the new technologies, all the crazy foods, the chemicals in the products we use — BPA plastics and other things — are stressors on the body. You can’t control what’s outside your home. But inside, you can control what’s called the total body burden of these stressors, identify the ones you come in contact with on a daily basis, and then reduce, eliminate or avoid them.”

He offered up a metaphor: “People have different capacities for toxins, toxins being the water in the rain barrel,” he said. “When their barrel cracks, it can’t hold as much. Or, going back to real life, they can’t handle toxins the way they used to. I know a woman so chemically sensitive she’s living in Woodstock with the electricity turned off because the EMF’s make her sick. She can’t go shopping like a normal person, because the chemicals in the products on the aisles, or the fluorescent lights, set her off.”

“The percent of the population that’s chemically sensitive is increasing,” he added ominously, unpacking his bag of tricks, as he called his aluminum suitcase.

Its contents perked me up: a multidirectional radio frequency meter with a fetching orange bulb; a combustible-gas meter, in fire-engine red, had an anthropomorphic, “Lost in Space” look and a cute silver probe; a simple compass that will vet your mattress for magnetism.

“Here’s something people don’t think about,” Mr. Waletzke said, flattening himself in front of my fridge and unscrewing the grill. “Typically there’s a drip or drain pan in there, filled with water and all sorts of gunk, which the refrigerator fan blows right out into the room.”

Sadly, he couldn’t reach my drip pan. “I can see it, though,” he said.

He checked under my sink for leaks, and behind the washing machine. “Your dryer hose is broken,” he noted.

In the shower, his moisture meter squeaked where the tiles need re-grouting. An inspection of my air-conditioners revealed grimy filters. (I’d forgotten to clean them for, hmm, maybe four years?) He didn’t approve of my candles, which aren’t soy-based (a cleaner burn than wax), though he allowed as how the smell “was really nice.”

But he added sternly: “My general rule is, on a regular basis, candles aren’t good for air quality. Most fragrances have a chemical component.”

Finally, he took up his bright red gas meter, which ticks like a Geiger counter. “It’s not just combustible gases that set it off,” he said, it’s products with high volatile organic chemicals.

He turned on my gas stove and the meter began ticking like crazy. Reaching under my sink, he extracted a bottle of floor cleaner and stuck its silver probe inside. It keened again, and I nearly applauded, until I realized the thing was indicting my cleaning solution.

Municipal water supplies like New York’s are typically treated with chlorine and fluoride, which are possible carcinogens and show trace amounts of arsenic and other metals. Mr. Waletzke couldn’t instantly test my water for these ingredients — that has to be done in a lab and takes two to four weeks, he said, but he offered to do a dissolved-solids test. “Basically, that’s particulates in the water, like rust or dirt.” Mine wasn’t terribly high, he said, at 52 parts per million.

“One of the concerns in old buildings like yours is lead-based solder in the pipes.”

Could he test for that?

No, that needs an expert, he said, as does a test for radon or asbestos.

Mr. Waletzke urged a water filter on the shower, “at the very least,” he said. “Your liver is going to detox what’s in the drinking water, but there is a school of thought that says since your skin is the largest organ in your body, you need to protect it. It doesn’t have its own filter.”

Electromagnetic radiation is a toxic star to building biologists like Mr. Waletzke, “but it’s the one thing that people can’t see, feel or touch, and so it’s often overlooked,” he said. He ticked off some sources. Did I have a cordless phone? Wireless Internet? Dimmer switches? Cellphones and cellphone antennas nearby?

Yes, yes and yes. But research on electromagnetic radiation can take you down a rabbit hole. While doctors like CNN’s Sanjay Gupta have said they will not use cellphones without a headset because of the danger of brain and other cancers, studies linking these devices to cancers have been interpreted every which way.

Later, I called Louis Slesin, a Manhattan industry watchdog who has been reporting on electromagnetic radiation for three decades in his publication, Microwave News.

“You have four billion people using cellphones and we’re living next to towers,” Mr. Slesin said, “and as more than one person has said, this is the world’s largest biological experiment. You are an electrical being. You wouldn’t have a thought in your head or move your fingers without an electrical impulse. The idea that any of these external fields have no influence on you seems to me preposterous.”

Back in my bedroom, Mr. Waletzke was testing my body current with a multi-meter, in a neat display of Mr. Slesin’s thesis. The meter whizzed up when the lights were plugged in and slackened when they weren’t. Good for me, I was conducting, I thought to myself. We tried to test the cat, but he stalked away.

We had already measured the electromagnetic radiation from the fridge — which was high, but petered out a foot away from the door — as well as the microwave, which, when turned on, sent the meter into the red zone even when Mr. Waletzke was eight feet away.

“You see, those doors don’t do anything,” he said, reminiscing about a childhood spent with his face pressed up against his family’s microwave, exploding marshmallow peeps and CD’s. Microwaving CD’s? “It makes the metal crackle,” he said mistily. “It looks like shattered glass.”

We discussed the perils of laptops — just don’t put them on your lap, Mr. Waletzke said. And then, good news: My bed isn’t magnetized, as some can be when the metal coils wear out.

Why are magnets bad?

“They can put your cells in a stress response,” Mr. Waletzke said.

HIS final act, what would be the reveal if we were doing a home show together (and with his biceps and gentle manner, Mr. Waletzke could give Nate Berkus some competition), was to measure the radio frequencies coming from the cellphone antennas across the street.

Mr. Waletzke brandished his R.F. Analyzer and shook his head.

“It’s bad,” he said finally. “It just went up to 2,000 microwatts per meter squared. We like to see readings under 100.”

Can you get readings under 100 in New York City?

“Usually I see about 300,” he said. “I tested an apartment in Brooklyn with two floors of glass windows right in front of antennas on a roof across the street. The meter went wild there, too.”

What did he tell them to do?

“Move,” he said. “But it’s not always feasible to move in New York, and who knows what you’ll move next to? It could be a similar situation.”

For Mr. Tuerack in Hoboken, Mr. Waletzke painted the apartment in carbon-based paint, which is black and very expensive — about $400 for five liters — but “can shield up to 97 percent of radio frequencies,” he said. Mr. Tuerack told me he spent about $5,000 to do this, after which his landlord picked up the cost of covering the black paint in two coats of primer and one coat of white paint. As for the guy in Brooklyn, he is sleeping at the back of his apartment, away from the antennas.

“The idea,” Mr. Waletzke said, “is to give your body a break from all this stuff, at least while you’re sleeping, so it can deal with it better during the day.”

He directed me to lessemf.com, a Web site selling products that shield people from electromagnetic frequencies, like slinky boxers made from silver-plated nylon mesh ($90) and tank tops ($64) — you could wear both with a silver-plated balaclava ($59.95). But you’d scare the kids. There was also a very attractive bed canopy that looked like a mosquito net ($999).

I called Mr. Slesin again.

“Now you’re joining the foil heads,” he teased. “And how will you know if these things really work? The reason this is so difficult is there are no clear answers to the most obvious basic questions. The safety standards are based on short-term exposure, but what everyone is worried about is long-term exposure. Look, living where you do you’re getting more than everyone else, but it’s still low compared to what you’re getting from your cellphone.”

Mr. Slesin calculated that the readings Mr. Waletzke received in my bedroom were well below F.C.C. standards for safety (and a spokesperson for the F.C.C. concurred). Mr. Slesin added that he would be more concerned by my cellphone use.

“Cellphones are thousands of times stronger, and you’re sticking them right on your head,” he said. “Worrying about towers is like worrying about passive smoking when you haven’t yet addressed smoking itself.”

“In my understanding,” Mr. Waletzke responded, “the F.C.C. standards look at radiation from a thermal perspective, when tissue starts to exhibit a rise in temperature. Whereas building biology looks at it from when the cell of an organism starts to exhibit variations from a natural baseline, and there are studies that show this happening at lower radiation levels than those set by the F.C.C.”

We impose a hierarchy on our anxieties — otherwise our heads would explode. Prioritizing keeps us sane. Mr. Waletzke’s prescriptions, contained in the eight-page report he e-mailed me a few days after his visit, ranged from the simple and relatively inexpensive — replacing bleach with vinegar, for example — to pricier and more complex solutions, like water filters and electromagnetic radiation shielding devices. (A few of his recommendations are listed above.)

By focusing on the cellphone antennas and Mr. Slesin’s guarded and very conditional blessing of my proximity to them, I decided, I could dispense with worrying about the other issues.

“That happens,” Mr. Waletzke said. “People get overwhelmed.”

If the personal home detox is too daunting, though, what are we left with? The other path is agitating on a civic or federal level for more stringent legislation on a whole host of products and technologies, from plastics to cellphone antennas. The thought of which makes me want to light a few scented candles and retreat to my radioactive bedroom, where I would crawl between my nonorganic, bleached sheets.

Heck, if you offered me a cigarette, I might smoke it.

Cleaning Up Pollution in the Home

Matthew Waletzke, a “building biology” consultant with a practice called Healthy Dwellings, performed a “healthy home evaluation” on my East Village apartment, meaning he scoped out the air, water and building materials, as well as my cleaning products and cosmetics, for toxins. He also tested for electromagnetic radiation and moisture intrusion, and then offered the following prescriptions.

MOISTURE Fix the dryer vent and re-grout the tiles in the shower.

AIR Despite my location on Second Avenue, Mr. Waletzke wrote that “outdoor air is surprisingly half as toxic as indoor air.” He recommended cleaning the air-conditioner’s filters, keeping the windows open and buying a HEPA air filter to use in the bedroom when the windows are closed. He likes Aquasana products, like the Deluxe Air Purifier, which is about $600 at aquasanaforlife.com. However, it won’t win any beauty contests.

WATER Noting the New York City water, like most municipal water, has been treated with chlorine and fluoride, possible carcinogens, Mr. Waletzke recommended getting a kitchen-sink water filter (an under-counter model is about $144 at aquasanaforlife.com) and a shower filter (about $68 at aquasanaforlife.com). But suggested that if I had to prioritize, I should pick the shower. He also advised cleaning the shower head with vinegar and water, since mold can grow there.

ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION The most effective shield, Mr. Waletzke said, is carbon-based paint. It is black, and extremely expensive — $409 for five liters at lessemf.com. Shielding fabric is somewhat cheaper; a silver-plated nylon mesh canopy is about $1,000 at lessemf.com and has an appealing Karen Blixen vibe.

COSMETICS AND CLEANING SUPPLIES Jettison the bleach and the conventional cleaning solutions, he said, and replace them with Green Seal products, or use vinegar. He recommended vetting my cosmetics at cosmeticsdatabase.com, which lists which carcinogens are in which products. I lost heart at my toothpaste.

Written for the New York Times by Penelope Green, originally published on May 26 2010

Oxo is my friend

2010-05-25T17:40:00.000-07:00

Oxo makes products that wet hands can grip; These brushes meet with our approval! The new model, with the rubber tip, is a total hit!

Simple Partition

2010-04-21T18:47:00.000-07:00

A simple paper bag solution to a messy root cellar, or root drawer, is more like it.

Mr. Clean! We love You!!

2010-04-21T07:33:00.000-07:00

Will Power, and maybe a camera, to deal with Junk

2010-03-31T17:13:00.000-07:00

By ALINA TUGEND
I HAVE a strange affinity for those reality shows where teams of people go into incredibly messy homes, see masses of clutter, get it all cleared out and then end up with beautifully redecorated homes that look like stage sets.
I enjoy watching the transformation. And like many other viewers, I also get a sense of smugness by looking at an out-of-control house. It makes me feel competent.
But as I’ve watched these shows, what has stuck with me is not how chaotic some people are, but how much power the things they’re hanging onto — a grandmother’s armoire, a treadmill, clothes they’ve never worn — seem to have over their lives.
That’s because we invest our memories, insecurities and anxieties in our objects, said Jamie Novak, a professional organizer and author of a new book, “Stop Throwing Money Away” (John Wiley & Sons).
We all have items we’ve bought on vacation or received from a good friend or as a token from a wedding, and “the souvenir becomes the physical manifestation of that memory,” she said.
But the object is not the memory itself, Ms. Novak said. She argued that we can still retain our memories of the good times even if we get rid of Aunt Sally’s sideboard or that life-size wooden toucan from Ecuador. If you really want to remember the piece, “take a photo of it before letting it go,” she suggested.
The next challenge is to change our buying habits. On a future trip, for example, refrain from buying anything, or at least anything large. Or maybe purchase something useful, like a tote bag to cart around your groceries. I learned that lesson the hard way. It came in the form of a woolly skirt and vest I enthusiastically bought while traveling in Poland in my 20s. I then wore them to work back in Washington, prompting my former boss to tell me I looked like I had run into a llama.
The same is true with shopping in general. To my surprise, over the years I have found it more satisfying to buy things once in a while, and actually enjoy that I can find them in my closet, rather than having lots of clothes stuffed in there making me feel guilty because I never wear some of them.
More difficult is to discard something a relative or good friend — especially one who has died — has given you, even if it doesn’t fit your style or maybe even your apartment.
But the reality is, “Your mother or grandmother didn’t plan for you to become overwhelmed by them,” Ms. Novak said. “That china set they received — maybe they didn’t like the pattern either. You can take out the one gravy boat that you’ll use and give the rest to charity.”
And don’t dump these items on your children unless they really want them. “You can pass down the stories from them instead,” she said.
Randy O. Frost, a professor of psychology at Smith College and co-author of “Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things,” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) to be published next month, noted that, “For most people, the more you have, the more the meaning of any one piece is degraded.”
Another reason we hate to give things away is the fear that we’re letting go of some of our dreams. That wet suit we bought with the plans to learn scuba diving and the sewing machine we thought would get us started on making clothes, they’re all gathering dust. But if we give them away, what does that say about our aspirations?
“Having a French cookbook does not make you a French chef,” Ms. Novak said. Too many people eagerly run out and buy all the equipment needed for a sport or hobby, as if that alone will ensure they will devote themselves to it.
Her rule is that you have to try something three times, whether it is fishing, knitting or mountain climbing, before you buy the equipment and accoutrements.
If, for example, you think you’ll like camping, borrow a tent or get one at no cost on Freecycle (freecycle.org) “even if it’s not your favorite style or color,” she said. If it turns out that camping isn’t your thing, you can give it away again so it’s not gathering dust and cluttering your home.
Also, because some equipment evolves so quickly technologically, that paraphernalia you bought five years ago is unlikely to be state of the art now. Why not let someone else use it and, when you have the time or inclination to really pursue that goal, buy the more up-to-date gear?
There is also a generational element to how we collect stuff, said Dorothy Breininger, president of the Delphi Center for Organization. Older people, like those who lived through the Depression and World War II, may fear throwing out anything because it’s seen as wasteful. Those in their 40s, 50s and 60s might be storing items from both their parents and their children.
But younger generations, “need none of it,” Ms. Breininger said. “They store everything online,” she said. “The question now becomes organizing everything on the laptop.” Reality television has pursued a more insidious twist on the messy household phenomena: compulsive hoarding, which is considered a mental disorder. It is as different from being merely disorganized as the occasional blues are from clinical depression.
Ms. Breininger say that the popularity of the television show “Hoarders” on A&E, where she appears as an organizing expert, says something about people’s fascination with the subject.
There is a clear difference between compulsive hoarders and people who simply have an excessive amount of stuff, Professor Frost said. Hoarders acquire a lot of things, but even more, they have terrible anxiety about getting rid of anything, no matter how useless it appears to be.
For hoarders, “the clutter interferes with their ability to live — to sit at a kitchen table or to use the bedroom or have people over, because they’re afraid someone might touch their stuff,” Professor Frost said. “Hoarders collect to have the experience of life without really experiencing it.”
Professor Frost, who has appeared as a therapist on the TLC program, “Hoarding: Buried Alive,” said that although we might assume that compulsive hoarding was the result of a materialistic society, that was not necessarily true. “We see this disorder across cultures.”
While there are different approaches and degrees of difficulty in helping the simple clutterbug versus the compulsive hoarder, one thing is true for them both: it is unlikely that a huge one-time cleanup and overhaul is going to be successful without a follow-up.
Ms. Novak, who once appeared as a professional organizer on the HGTV show “Mission: Organization,” said she discovered that when she and other professional organizers returned off-camera to the households they had helped make over, almost all had returned to their old ways.
“You can come in with a team and make a transformation but you’re not showing the homeowners how to do it,” she said. “There is no cookie-cutter way to get organized. It’s how the brain thinks.”
And if your brain refuses to think, you can always sit back, turn on the TV and watch other people get organized.
shortcuts@nytimes.com

The Care of Your Machines

2010-03-16T10:15:00.001-07:00

For the Dishwasher’s Sake, Go Easy on the Detergent
By ALINA TUGEND 03/10/2010
I’VE been writing on some weighty topics lately — too little money, too many choices, too few jobs. It’s time, I decided, to move on to some questions that haunt me almost every day.
How much soap should I put in my washing machine and dishwasher?
Do I need to do more for my dryer than clean that little pull-out lint catcher?
Should I rinse my dishes before putting them in the dishwasher?
Most of us learned how to use a washing machine or dishwasher in our parents’ house many years ago and haven’t really changed our methods, even though most appliances have evolved radically since then. We rarely, if ever, read the manuals when we buy a new one or glance through the instructions on the box of detergent or bottle of dishwashing liquid.
But because we’re probably using these appliances incorrectly, our dishes and clothes may not be coming out as clean as they could be. And we may also be damaging the machines.
Let me start with soap. The No. 1 sin, according to repair people and appliance experts, seems to be adding too much soap to washing machines or dishwashers.
“Nobody thinks they use too much soap,” said Vernon Schmidt, who has been a repairman for almost 35 years and is the author of a self-published book, “Appliance Handbook for Women: Simple Enough Even a Man Can Understand.” But apparently most of us are in denial.
Washing machines and dishwashers are made to use far less water now than older models and, therefore, need less soap. And detergents have also become increasingly concentrated. So a little goes a long way.
“Most people use 10 to 15 times the amount of soap they need, and they’re pouring money down the drain,” Mr. Schmidt said.
Following the instructions on the soap container is a good first step. Christina Saunders, a spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble, which makes Tide, Cheer, Gain and other laundry detergents, said researchers at the company did thousands of loads of laundry to determine the right amount of soap needed.
She said the caps were changed on liquid detergent containers a few years ago to make the lines specifying amount of soap needed for different size loads easier to see.
Mr. Schmidt, however, argues that depending on how hard or soft your water is, one-eighth to one-half of what is usually recommended should be adequate.
Too much detergent can make your clothes stiff and shorten the life of your machine. An excess of soap can also cause a buildup of mold and mildew, said Jill Notini, a spokeswoman for the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, a trade group.
With high-efficiency machines — which includes all front-loading machines and any top loader that specifically states that it’s high efficiency — it’s a good idea to use detergents specifically made for them, she said. The detergents usually have H.E. on the front of the container. But don’t expect to see a lot of soap action.
“If people see suds, they think their clothes are getting clean, but that’s wrong — it means you’re using a lot of extra detergent,” Ms. Notini said.
Here is Mr. Schmidt’s test to determine if you’re oversoaping. Take four to six clean bath towels, put them in your front-loading washing machine (one towel for a top loader). Don’t add any detergent or fabric softener. Switch to the hot water setting and medium wash and run it for about five minutes.
Check for soap suds. If you don’t see any suds right away, turn off the machine and see if there is any soapy residue. If you see suds or residue, it is soap coming out of your clothes from the last wash.
“I’ve had customers that had to run their towels through as many as eight times to get the soap out,” Mr. Schmidt said, who lives in Indiana. He offers other handy advice on his Web site, refrigdoc.com.
Too much soap is also a problem in dishwashers and can cause dishes and glasses to look filmy. Again, check the detergent container for recommended amounts — you definitely don’t have to fill up the entire soap container in the dishwasher.
Also, if your plastic items come out still wet, that doesn’t mean your dishwasher is not doing its job. Most dishwashers today emit less heat than the older models, so plastic doesn’t dry completely.
Loading the dishwasher right will also get your dishes cleaner. When I was growing up, apparently only my mother knew the right way to load. But since my mother can’t get to all your houses, Consumer Reports offers these much-needed tips on its Home and Garden blog. (Please don’t e-mail me if you disagree about these suggestions — like religion and politics, we all have our own views on this matter.)
Load large items at the sides and back of the dishwasher so that they don’t block water and detergent from reaching other dishes.
Place the dirtier side of the dishes toward the center of the machine for more exposure to spray.
Load silverware in the individual silverware slots most dishwashers now include. If you have an open basket, mix forks, spoons and knives to prevent them from sticking together.
Also, remove baked on food and large chunks, but for the most part, everyone I spoke to said prerinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher was not only unnecessary, it wasted thousands of gallons of water and could actually result in dirtier dishes.
“The soap needs something to work against to get the dishes clean,” said Lou Manganiello, who owns Household Appliance Service in Hawthorne, N.Y., and has been doing repairs for 23 years. For full disclosure, he has also ably repaired my appliances from time to time.
Now, on to dryers. I don’t happen to use those fabric softener sheets, but if you do, practice restraint, Mr. Manganiello said.
On the theory that if one is good, five must be better, people throw in a bunch of the sheets. Those liquefy when the dryer gets hot and can gum up the dyer, becoming “almost like tar and feathers,” Mr. Manganiello said.
Also, clean the lint below the removable filter. I bought an item at my local hardware store that looks like a bottle brush, but is longer, denser and has a kind of thin nose. It reaches down and removes lint you can’t get to otherwise.
And think about cleaning lint off the dryer where it vents outdoors.
Of course, the best way to extend the life of your dryer is to use it less often by hanging out your laundry on a clothesline when the sun is shining.
One last bit of advice on an appliance — your oven. Use the self-cleaning mode more than once a year — otherwise, so many food particles have built up that when they burn off, smoke will billow throughout your entire kitchen. But don’t clean right before a big holiday dinner, Mr. Schmidt advised.
That’s because the oven heats so high during cleaning that any weak part will give.
“If it’s ever going to fail, it will then,” he said. “Every holiday we get swamped with calls.”
shortcuts@nytimes.com

First Look: Dyson

2009-10-17T11:20:00.001-07:00

First Look: Dyson’s Blade-Free Wonder Fan Blows Our Minds

Posted using ShareThis

2009-08-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

July 29 09: Heat Wave in The Great Pacific Northwest; Here is Rachel, our California Treasure, wearing protection. The day that photo was taken (*by Halla, also wearing a, err, cooling towel on her head), the barometer had reached 102f.

2009-07-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

The Kitchen; We tore out the "hide behind the counter" island, repaired the oak floor, banished the noisy fridge to the newly created pantry, along with the dishwasher and the microwave, (first, we had to kick the laundry room out of there) and are now busy installing hand made cabinetry and a gorgeous farmhouse sink. Next post: the new and improved miniature kitchen on Pleasant View Lane.

http://chrisbakerstolefromthemaid.blogspot.com/

2009-07-28T10:03:00.000-07:00

http://chrisbakerstolefromthemaid.blogspot.com/

The Office

2009-04-24T08:45:00.000-07:00

It's a short step from the front door to the office. We pulled 'Toinette, The Desk, out of storage and summarly positioned her as our ambassador to all things Grace & Style. It was the master ebeniste, Mr Boulle himself, who directed her construction in the late17th century. Somewhere out there, I've been told, is her mate, a perfect replica of this long legged beauty, but in reverse so as not to waste any tortoise shell or bronze "scraps", a lovely artistic comment on waste management indeed.

Forged from the same rib as they may be, it's doubtful Toinette's counterpart will ever find her here. Like a beached treasure from a forgotten shipwreck, she landed in my life, lost and damaged, although yes, structurally sound. A fine restorer, a bit of love, and she may yet find her way back to the regal surroundings she was born to adorn, though it would be right here, in America, far from her native France.

The leg warmers are unapologetically prophylactic. Dexter the Dog, our sweet unexpected arrival in January this year, immediatly picked up on the fact that Toinette was held together by aging rabbit glue. Those solid but worn out cotton cloths we use in the business of cleaning got applied immediatly, a solid layer of duck tape holds them in place, and a further layer of very hot pepper sauce have dissuaded Dexter from further investigation. Mr Boulle is turning in his grave, absolutely indignant, ah, l'horreur, oui, je sais, je sais...

A year in Freeland

2009-04-21T11:46:00.000-07:00

We're celebrating one full year in our new house; apologies for not updating the blog sooner! Getting to this house has been like a really long marathon, but the bank was kind, and we were granted the mortgage, and Dan helped us move in, and the crew worked extra hard on the floors and the structure, and a dog did find his way to our door, and a young vigorous garden is about to sprout under the watchful eye of Alexis, who has made "sustainability" her senior class project, as mentored by an amazing Barton.

A Clutter Too Deep for Mere Bins and Shelves

2008-01-11T17:21:00.000-08:00

Is clutter standing in the way of your health? Join the discussion.

The country’s collective desire to clean up is evident in the proliferation of organization-oriented businesses like the Container Store and California Closets. Reality shows like “Mission Organization” on HGTV and “How Clean is Your House?” on Lifetime feed a national obsession to declutter. The magazine Real Simple has even created a $13 special issue on cleaning house.

Getting organized is unquestionably good for both mind and body — reducing risks for falls, helping eliminate germs and making it easier to find things like medicine and exercise gear.

“If you can’t find your sneakers, you aren’t taking a walk,” said Dr. Pamela Peeke, assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of Maryland and the author of “Fit to Live” (Rodale, 2007), which devotes a section to the link between health and organization. “How are you going to shoot a couple of hoops with your son if you can’t even find the basketball?”

But experts say the problem with all this is that many people are going about it in the wrong way. Too often they approach clutter and disorganization as a space problem that can be solved by acquiring bins and organizers.

Measures like these “are based on the concept that this is a house problem,” said David F. Tolin, director of the anxiety disorders center at the Institute of Living in Hartford and an adjunct associate professor of psychiatry at Yale.

“It isn’t a house problem,” he went on. “It’s a person problem. The person needs to fundamentally change their behavior.”

Excessive clutter and disorganization are often symptoms of a bigger health problem. People who have suffered an emotional trauma or a brain injury often find housecleaning an insurmountable task. Attention deficit disorder, depression, chronic pain and grief can prevent people from getting organized or lead to a buildup of clutter. At its most extreme, chronic disorganization is called hoarding, a condition many experts believe is a mental illness in its own right, although psychiatrists have yet to formally recognize it.

Compulsive hoarding is defined, in part, by clutter that so overtakes living, dining and sleeping spaces that it harms the person’s quality of life. A compulsive hoarder finds it impossible, even painful, to part with possessions. It’s not clear how many people suffer from compulsive hoarding, but estimates start at about 1.5 million Americans.

Dr. Tolin recently studied compulsive hoarders using brain-scan technology. While in the scanner, hoarders looked at various possessions and made decisions about whether to keep them or throw them away. The items were shredded in front of them, so they knew the decision was irreversible. When a hoarder was making decisions about throwing away items, the researchers saw increased activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, a part of the brain involved in decision-making and planning.

“That part of the brain seemed to be stressed to the max,” Dr. Tolin said. By comparison, people who didn’t hoard showed no extra brain activity.

While hoarders are a minority, many psychologists and organization experts say the rest of us can learn from them. The spectrum from cleanliness to messiness includes large numbers of people who are chronically disorganized and suffering either emotionally, physically or socially. Cognitive behavioral therapy may help: a recent study of hoarders showed that six months’ therapy resulted in a marked decline in clutter in the patient’s living space.

Although chronic disorganization is not a medical diagnosis, therapists and doctors sometimes call on professional organizers to help patients. One of them is Lynne Johnson, a professional organizer from Quincy, Mass., who is president of the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization.

Ms. Johnson explains that some people look at a shelf stacked with coffee mugs and see only mugs. But people with serious disorganization problems might see each one as a unique item — a souvenir from Yellowstone or a treasured gift from Grandma.

Many clients have already accumulated numerous storage bins and other such items in a futile attempt to get organized. Usually the home space is adequate, she says, but the challenge is in teaching them how to group, sort, set priorities and discard.

Ms. Johnson says she often sees a link between her client’s efforts to get organized and weight loss. “I think someone decides, ‘I’m not going to live like this anymore. I’m not going to hold onto my stuff, I’m not going to hold onto my weight,’” she said. “I don’t know that one comes before the other. It’s part of that same life-change decision.”

On its Web site, www.nsgcd.org, the group offers a scale to help people gauge the seriousness of their clutter problem. It also includes a referral tool for finding a professional organizer. But since the hourly fees can range from $60 to $100 or more, it may be worth consulting a new book by Dr. Tolin, “Buried in Treasures” (Oxford, 2007), which offers self-assessments and advice for people with hoarding tendencies.

Dr. Peeke says she often instructs patients trying to lose weight to at least create one clean and uncluttered place in their home. She also suggests keeping a gym bag with workout clothes and sneakers in an uncluttered area to make it easier to exercise. She recalls one patient whose garage was “a solid cube of clutter.” The woman cleaned up her home and also lost about 50 pounds.

“It wasn’t, at the end of the day, about her weight,” Dr. Peeke said. “It was about uncluttering at multiple levels of her life.”

E-mail: well@nytimes.com.

By TARA PARKER-POPE

Published: January 1, 2008

Greetings, Earthlings: Your Self Cleaning Toilet is Here.

2008-01-11T16:58:00.000-08:00

When New York City’s open-armed embrace of tourists finally extends beyond the boundaries of Earth to creatures from outer space, these visitors will find themselves right at home in Madison Square Park’s sleek, shiny new public toilet.

G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times

The first pay toilet at Madison Square Park attended by (left to right) Dept. of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe and Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff.

Indeed, the toilet calls to mind not a port-o-let, but rather the sort of room one imagines adjoined the personal quarters of Capt. James T. Kirk on the Starship Enterprise. It is a 25-cent journey to the future — and, almost secondarily, a not unpleasant restroom.

The restroom was unveiled on Thursday, the first of 20 planned for the city after more than 30 years of false starts and frustrations. It faces Madison Avenue just north of 23rd Street, and at first glance looks like a bus stop shelter.

There are two architectural flourishes, both on the roof: a small pyramid of glass, like a little model of the Louvre, and an anachronistic metal stovepipe, reminiscent of a cozy shanty or an old outhouse with a crescent moon carved into the door.

But no one goes to a bathroom to look at it. When the green light marked “vacant” is lit, 25 cents — coins only, no bills — starts the visit.

What follows is possibly the longest and most awkward 20 to 30 seconds of a person’s day. The door slips open like an elevator, but then it stays open, to accommodate those who need extra time getting in. Meanwhile, men and women in suits walk past. It is very difficult to look inconspicuous in a bathroom on a sidewalk in New York with the door open. There is just nothing to do but stand there. And the delay will not please those who are in distress.

Finally, the door closes, and the first surprise is the quiet. The walls are padded to dampen street noise, leaving just the hum of a little fan overhead.

Six little lights and the skylight in the pyramid cast a neutral glow over the user’s home for the next 15 minutes, the maximum time limit.

This toilet, which cost more than $100,000, is very spacious, large enough to accommodate a wheelchair. One cannot touch the side walls with arms outstretched.

The floor is rubber and, more strikingly, very wet, but not in a bus-station-men’s-room way. There is an antiseptic, fresh smell to the place.

Sadly, these little surprises are forgotten with the first look at the toilet itself, an imposing, metal, cold-looking receptacle in the corner. There is no little stall around it, and so it looks exposed, like the facilities available in many prisons. It, too, is quite damp, for perfectly good reasons explained later, but the image first evokes a dungeon or a scene from one of the “Saw” pictures.

There is no seat to raise or lower, just the wide rim of the bowl, with covers made of tissue available in a dispenser to the side. Sitting down is a leap of faith, like falling backwards into a stranger’s arms at a corporate team-building retreat.

Turns out, it is cold. But once settled, the visitor finds the seat the perfect place to take in the room’s other amenities.

There seem to be as many buttons as on Captain Kirk’s bridge. Red buttons, blue buttons, yellow buttons, black and green buttons. The red ones near the door and toilet call the company for help in an emergency. The yellow calls for “assistance,” presumably something less dire than an emergency, but nonetheless, a situation. Blue flushes.

Black dispenses toilet paper. One will quickly familiarize oneself with that button, because the designers have deigned a little 16-inch strip the standard helping of paper. A word to the wise: There is a maximum of just three helpings. Another tip: Do not tarry. A grim yellow light turns on when there are just three minutes remaining, and after that, the door will open.

The sink is across the room. The big shocker here is the soap dispenser, which actually emits not a little squirt of soap, but a jet of warm water, with the soap already mixed in. Everything is motion-activated. No knobs anywhere. The warm-air hand dryer seems somewhat slow and weak, especially with that yellow light blinking by the door.

Assuming one finishes before the 15 minutes are up, the big green button opens the door. The horns and sirens and chatter of the city return, jarringly.

When the visitor steps out, the door shuts again, but the “occupied” light stays lit. Strange hisses and spraying sounds come from within — did someone slip past? No, actually, the room is cleaning itself. A robotic arm swings out over the toilet bowl and hits it with disinfectant, while similar jets spray across the sink and the floor. Then, dryers fan hot air over everything, but like the hand dryer, they seem to need more juice.

This is all taken at the designer’s word, for it is impossible to see. The cleanup cannot happen with someone in the room, with sensors below the floor to detect any weight.

After 90 seconds of cleaning, the green light outside comes back on.

Next?

Credit: New York Times;

By MICHAEL WILSON

Published: January 11, 2008

the Idea of Home versus House as perceived in TV Land

2007-03-18T14:04:00.000-07:00

What makes a house a home is a topic suitable for poetry. But a house or a home is always something else. It is property. Does this fact contain poetry? Probably not. But it does contain entertainment. It’s a form of television entertainment I’d never paid the slightest bit of attention to until I got involved in buying property myself, which happened right around the time that the long housing boom was unraveling last year. Previously invisible to me, these entertainments were, for months, the only things I wanted to watch. Buying, selling, updating, restoring and “flipping” for quick profits — it all ran together, but I watched even when I couldn’t remember if the title of a certain show was “Flip This House” or “Flip That House.”

Illustration by Todd St. John

It turned out these were two different shows, and with every “pain of U.S. housing slump” headline, the inventory of real estate entertainment looked a little more glutty. It made me ponder this curious genre’s fate. Like sunny sellers’ agents, television executives and producers assured me that such shows had a post-housing-bubble future that was already in the works. I looked for signs of what that might mean as I watched, and pondered just what it was I was tuning in to see.

HOW TO EXPRESS THE SELF

In the distant world of 1980, episodes of “This Old House” began appearing nationally on PBS stations, documenting the restoration of an 1860 Victorian in Boston. Long, calm, detailed and earnest, the project carried the warm glow of education and New England do-goodism. In time, “This Old House” became a franchise (multiple shows, books, a magazine); its original star, a builder named Bob Vila, left in a dispute over endorsement deals and became a brand unto himself. The Thoughtful Improvement ethic — or at least the phrase “do it yourself” — became a trendy idea.

Entertainment is supposed to be better in the hundreds-of-channels present than it was in 1980, but of course new places for expressing ideas do not guarantee new ideas. The upshot is that what used to be a concept for a show is now the basis for a genre, in the form of dozens of shows, entire channels, a category. The HGTV channel went on the air in 1994 and is now in more than 91 million homes; it’s owned by Scripps Networks (which also owns DIY Network, Food Network and Fine Living). HGTV is a soft, warm, pleasant place where nice ladies make quilts during the day and nice young couples redecorate at night and lots of “tips” are shared. Here the home is an expression of the self: Michael Dingley, senior vice president for programming and content strategy, says the channel aims to “provide ideas and inspiration, to make the home better.” He continues, “And I don’t mean home as in the sense of four walls, but also home in a more emotional kind of way, more abstract.”

In 1999, the channel started “House Hunters,” which is now on five nights a week and is among its most popular shows. On each episode, the hostess, a genial automaton called Suzanne Whang — always shown wandering through some anonymous suburban environment — gives us a chipper sketch of the house hunter and his or her desires (the software engineer seeking a shorter commute, the single mom looking for space, the tedious young English prof who wants to have poets over more often, etc.) and three available choices. She remains in her undisclosed location as we follow the hunter through the houses, scrutinizing pros and cons, while canned music plays just audibly enough to subtly suggest that something is happening. The episodes conclude with a decision, and usually a coda about how it all worked out perfectly.

In part, “House Hunters” simply recreates the way that property functions as entertainment in the real world: like scanning the real estate pages for new listings and going to open houses, it’s a part of the mildly voyeuristic pastime of “seeing what’s out there,” of taking a peek at how other people live, a crash course on the market in Chicago or Atlanta or elsewhere.

Along with HGTV’s home design shows, Dingley maintains, such programming demystifies property, and has “enlightened and empowered consumers.” He uses the phrase “relevant entertainment.” On “House Hunters” you may learn that $379K gets you a surprisingly nice 3 BR, 2000 SF, 1927 Craftsman in Seattle. But by and large these happy families are all the same: enlightened and empowered to congratulate themselves for having the same instinct for which wallpaper is “dated” and which mantle has “a lot of character” that everybody on all the other shows has.

Meanwhile, much is left out. Buyer’s remorse, for instance, never materializes. Almost all of the property shows avoid one of the screaming issues of real-life real estate, which is the neighborhood. No one mentions crime statistics, lousy school systems or proximity to homeless shelters or Superfund sites. In an episode of “House Hunters,” a cute young New Jersey couple move to the shore, specifically to Asbury Park, which Whang brightly calls “a majestic boardwalk town.” Have you ever been to Asbury Park? She adds that the place was made famous by the songs of Bruce Springsteen, and that’s true. For instance, it inspired “My City of Ruins.”

HGTV, Dingley explains, is not a “mean-spirited” place. “We’re not a snarky, mean, nasty brand.” Perhaps the channel offers shelter from gloomy homeowner news. “For most folks, a home is not only the most expensive investment in their lives, it’s also the most personal,” he says, and a rockier housing market sharpens the viewers’ interest in “making the right, prudent decision.” That said, its “relevant” programming has been expanding to encompass a bit more of the things that have dominated property entertainment on those networks that are a little less concerned about how mean-spiritedness might affect the brand: namely, money and drama.

HOW TO BE GREEDIER

The American entertainment consumer surely seeks enlightenment on matters of taste and style, but also on that other key aspect of the self, net worth. The soaring stock market of the late 1990s made CNBC almost as popular as CNN, supposedly because we’d become an enlightened and empowered nation of investors, but really because bull market geniuses loved watching a game they never seemed to lose. Tanking markets cleared up the difference between personal finance and rollicking fun, and CNBC’s viewership retreated to niche levels. The Thoughtful Improvement ethic of “This Old House” and the Something for Nothing ethic of Nasdaq-as-sporting-event come together in the form of the flip shows. Don’t make a home, don’t invest in a house — flip a property: how much money, how fast, for how little effort, can be extracted from a shabby, crumbling residence? Booyah! — as CNBC throwback Jim Cramer might shout — now you’ve got something.

TLC has included home-related programming since 1997 (starting with Bob Vila’s post-“This Old House” project, “Bob Vila’s Home Again”). And its show “Trading Spaces” — in which neighbors redecorate each other’s homes — was a home-entertainment milestone. The network began airing “Flip That House” in 2005. Every half-hour episode features a different “flipper,” some experienced, some with no particular background in real estate or construction but with an interest in what (on television at least) sounds like easy money. We learn the purchase price, tour the generally ramshackle property, and listen to an overview of planned updates and renovations. Usually a demolition montage follows: carpets ripped out, off-trend cabinetry smashed to pieces with a sledgehammer. Episodes involving experienced flippers tend to go rather smoothly, and I suppose the instructional payoff for the viewer comes in the form of tips. These generally involve granite countertops, Brazilian cherry wood floors, travertine tile. Often, the tips are communicated in the form of orders issued to the stoic head of some all-Hispanic construction crew, who simply nods.

The profit motive obliterates home-ness and all other topics. An episode involving a guy named Hay, who is “in the entertainment industry,” and restores houses in the area once known as South Central Los Angeles so he can rent them, begins: “The 1992 riots tore the city apart. But now it’s become an attractive destination for house flippers, hoping to turn their property into profit.” He goes over budget, and we learn to use angled paint brushes. When he’s done, the real estate agent says he can get $1,600 a month for the place.

The vague idea of learning from the pros animates “Flip That House” rival “Flip This House,” which runs on A&E. “We’re constantly looking to evolve the shelter brand,” executive producer Michael Morrison informs me. “And one of the trends in real estate, obviously, is house flipping.” “Flip This House” also made its debut in 2005, and rather than an endless series of flippers, revolves around recurring sets of real estate pros. The first season followed Trademark Properties, based near Charleston, S. C. and run by Richard C. Davis. The second season has focused on two different realty teams, one in San Antonio and one in Atlanta. “Flip This House” episodes each last an hour, and what’s added to the mix of tips are basic elements of drama. Most notably, the stars get more full-fledged character treatment.

The San Antonio shows are the serialized adventures of Armando and David Montelongo, who are brothers, and their wives. The series works more because the people happen to be entertaining than because they happen to work in real estate. Armando in particular has just the sort of polarizing charisma that can carry a show. A charming jerk, he lowballs subcontractors, bullies an unpaid intern and taunts his wife with a fistful of roaches grabbed from the kitchen of one nasty property he has acquired, pausing now and again to reflect on the all-American success story of his life so far.

In one episode, for no obvious reason, the brothers and their wives compete, flipping two houses at once to see who can make more money. By the time girls in bikinis arrive to distract one team’s subcontractors with free beer, the Enlightened Improvement ethic has been reduced to occasional text popping up on the screen making never-substantiated assertions about how much “value” a new fence or windows supposedly add to the final sales price.

Davis of Trademark Properties will be back on television soon enough, as it happens, with a new show over on TLC. It’s called “The Real Deal,” and it will, as he describes it, be firmly about the business of real estate. Davis is a creature relatively rare in entertainment but commonplace in real life: The Southern hustler, who doesn’t care what slow-witted stereotypes you read into his accent as long as he gets your money. Davis — still involved in a lawsuit against A&E that he filed after the channel decided to use those other groups in the second season of “Flip This House” — sounds flat-out thrilled about the end of the housing bubble.

Seven years ago, real estate was dominated by “A players” like him. Eventually, “you got to the point where you got your F players in the game—and making money!” Now that that’s over, “it becomes survival of the fittest, and cash becomes king,” he says, and the banks start telling loan-seeking F players to go back to their day jobs. He believes that this will be good not only for Trademark, but for his show. “Flip This House,” he says, ignored the important point that the key to his business isn’t mere remodeling prowess; it’s knowing how to find properties that are a bargain to begin with. The premise of his show is that he is an inspiring, visionary entrepreneur, and a down market will only make that clearer. “That’s when I’ll entertain you the most,” he says. “My most dramatic deals are always in a down market. That’s when it gets really crazy, and really fun.”

HOW TO ENJOY THE MISFORTUNE OF OTHERS

Watching other people make money because they’re smarter than I am doesn’t actually sound like that much fun, but there’s little danger of it on another flip show on TLC that I found perversely gripping, “Property Ladder.” All reality shows rise and fall on casting, and despite the show-opening tease (“Want to make more money in a few months than you did last year?”), here the producers seem bent on finding “real estate rookies” capable of catastrophe. One episode involved lunkhead buddies who got interested in house-flipping through an infomercial. In another, a newly married couple more or less disintegrate over the course of an ill-fated, months-long flip fiasco. Shouting matches feature prominently in nearly every installment.

Like “Flip That House,” the show focuses on a different project every week. The twist is an expert named Kirsten Kemp (billed as a veteran house flipper, she also, somewhat curiously, happens to have a bit-part acting résumé that includes appearances on “JAG” and “Married With Children”), who shows up periodically to give advice and pass judgment. My favorite episode involved a Simi Valley couple who bought a “wrecked” and “abandoned” house for $435,000 and not only planned to flip it for $600,000 after putting in $50,000 worth of renovations over 10 weeks, but pledged to do so in an eco-friendly manner. “We’re really supporting the planet this way,” the wife cheerfully explains, wearing an unconvincing smile that stays frozen on her face through the many disasters that follow.

Kemp openly scoffs at the particulars of their budget and makes a face when told about plans for a solar panel. She tells them they’re better off putting French doors in the master bedroom — that way they will actually add some value. Perhaps what ensues can be characterized as advice. The smiling wife buys eco-trendy bamboo flooring but “violated her green ideals,” as the near-mocking narrator puts it, when tiles made from recycled material prove too expensive. They also blow off some “energy efficient” windows in favor of the French doors that Kemp suggested, and of course they give up on the solar panel scheme as time runs short and their spending balloons. And when Kemp returns toward the end of the show, they inform her (big smile from the wife here) that not only did they opt not to install air conditioning, but they’re going to sell the house themselves so they won’t have to pay a real estate agent’s fee.

Kemp is TV-attractive, articulate and informed, but her most fascinating quality is her two-faced snakiness. She hugs her amateur charges, softens her stern advice and raised eyebrows with compliments and smiles - and then, alone with the camera, coldly enumerates how they blew it. In this case, Simi Valley’s summer highs average 91 degrees, and the for-sale-by-owner approach just proves that in addition to being naive, the eco-flippers are greedy. It will end up costing them money, she announces. And indeed, the show closes with a montage of months passing with no offer; an end note says they finally went with a listing service, and found a buyer, after more than six months. Cackling on my sofa, I’m pleasantly blasé about where I stand in the property zeitgeist. Aside from inspirational business savvy or handy news you can use, here’s another thing that’s entertaining: schadenfreude.

HOW TO ESCAPE REALITY

Property shows seem so profoundly American — it is our manifest destiny to own a 4,000-square-foot place in a good school district within five years of obtaining a college degree — it’s a disappointment to learn that the contemporary property entertainment model is largely an import. “Hot Property,” which first aired on Channel 5 in Britain in 1997, involved a prospective home buyer looking at three houses. The original “Property Ladder” runs on Channel 4.

Fenton Bailey is one of the founders of World of Wonder Productions, which creates programming for both the American and British markets. He’s British, and he lives in Los Angeles. Not everything works in both markets. A World of Wonder show that aired in Britain, “Housebusters,” addressed the problems of various homeowners — can’t make friends in the neighborhood, can’t seem to save any money since moving — by bringing in supernatural types like a “geopathic stress” expert, an electromagnetics guy, a feng shui advocate, a psychic and even a witch. Americans, he says, seem uninterested in home solutions that are less tangible than, say, buying a plasma-screen television, and Bravo passed on a United States pilot.

But the markets also have much in common. The key to property drama, Bailey says, is the key to all drama: transformation. “Very little of what’s on television is about accepting who you are and being happy with it. The old you, the threadbare you — no one wants to know about that.” If anything, he says, the British housing market has been even more overheated than the United States market, and got that way earlier. And finally, he says, “The destiny of television is to put everything on television,” so housing shows had to happen at some point.

“Buildings and interiors have been only something the very rich can enjoy,” Bailey continues. “They formed an elite pastime that’s been absolutely democratized by television.” World of Wonder also happens to be responsible for “Million Dollar Listing,” which ran on Bravo last year and probably made real estate more entertaining than any other single show, not least because it took place in Malibu, a world well beyond the reach of most of the democratized audience.

Over the course of six episodes, “Million Dollar Listing” deconstructed transactions and failed transactions in astonishing detail, giving a more complete version of the harrowing mix of emotions and egos and half-truths of the property drama. Getting suitable access to so many buyers, sellers and agents consumes a great deal of time, and Bailey says the first season of “Million Dollar Listing” took nearly a year to complete; a second season is being cast now. Bailey doesn’t sound worried about what effect the housing slump might have on the show, and it’s easy to see why. “Million Dollar Listing” deals with falling property values by unfolding in the borderline freak show of high-dollar Southern California, with characters who make Armando Montelongo look like a cream puff as they whine and wheedle in the never-ending sunlight of this promised land. By now we are far from “This Old House,” where an earnest discussion of cabinet installation might last three or four minutes and include the phrase “medium density fiberboard with a thermofoil wrap.” The only practical bit that I picked up from “Million Dollar Listing” was the superiority of “whitewater” ocean views to regular old ocean views. You can’t get any further away from everyday reality without actually making things up.

“Many citizens set out to buy a house because of an indistinct yearning, for which an actual house was never the right solution to begin with and may only be a quick (and expensive) fix that briefly anchors and stabilizes them, never touches their deeper need, but puts them in the poorhouse anyway.” So observes Frank Bascombe, narrator of Richard Ford’s novel “The Lay of the Land.” Bascombe drifted into realty in Ford’s earlier novel “Independence Day,” and while he may have done so in order “to keep something finite and acceptably doable on my mind and not disappear,” he is perhaps the wisest observer of property drama we are likely to have.

The agony of property, for example, is rarely more visceral than in the long episode in “Independence Day” in which Bascombe deals with a Vermont couple whose problems will most likely not be solved by a new home in New Jersey. “The realty dreads,” in his view, are never about lost money or the wrong house, but “in the cold, unwelcome, built-in-America realization that we’re just like the other schmo, wishing his wishes, lusting his stunted lusts, quaking over his idiot frights and fantasies, all of us popped out from the same unchinkable mold.” Thus when Bascombe successfully leads clients “toward a feeling of finality and ultimate rightness,” he achieves an outcome that is “not poetry but generalized social good with a profit motive.”

Television, however, differs from literature in the following way. The dramatic shows, for all their tears and shouting matches, in the end, read as harmless, campy cartoons. It’s the happy shows full of smiles and high-fives -- the ones that loudly promise us that you need not worry about unchinkable molds when you can consider how much airier the living room will feel if you simply move that sofa -- where, every so often, thin cracks in the happy facade can reveal things wholly unintended.

One of HGTV’s newer hits, for instance, is the perfectly upbeat “Designed to Sell.” A relatively winning host named Clive introduces us to someone who is having trouble selling a home and brings in experts to improve things as much as possible for $2,000. One step in the process involves the homeowners watching a videotape of a real estate agent walking from room to room, enumerating what they’ve done wrong. The basic lessons recur over and over: reduce clutter, define the space, brighten up this bedroom, do something about the dated window treatments, and please, American house sellers, pack away your myriad collections of weird figurines immediately. What we learn, in other words, is that despite the supposed home-design revolution, you people have not gotten the point.

Clive and a rotating crew of design experts soften the blow by reminding the homeowners, and us, just what the point is: money. “More light, more space . . . more money,” one designer announces. Replace this “losing-money lime” color with a “money-making mushroom” hue, Clive advises, and “Top dollar!” he says, many times. So the homeowners shrug off the remarks about their grandmotherly decor by smiling and saying, for instance, “Ka-ching!’ Or in one episode, huddling with the design team and chanting, “One, two, three — money!”

A remarkably similar show called “Sell This House,” on A&E, stars Tanya Memme, a high-energy party girl type who favors plunging necklines and has no obvious skills, and a bulbous-muscled bear named Roger, identified as a “home design consultant.” In this version, the flummoxed homeowner listens to the snide, videotaped remarks of random prospective home buyers. The most crushing episode involved a faultlessly polite Southern woman whose wallpaper looked to be 31 years old for the simple reason that she had never stopped liking it. Other features of her long time home include shag carpeting, a mind-boggling menagerie of tchotckes and a mailbox done over to resemble a fish. The videotaped critiques are much what you’d expect, with the added insult of some ill-mannered oaf saying that the place “smells like old people.”

“I will admit,” this sweet woman tells Tanya Memme, “I did cry.” She knows full well that her things might seem idiosyncratic — but they are her things. And she cannot for the life of her see what difference that makes. “If they buy the house, there won’t be any of this stuff here,” she says, reasonably. “That was my version.”

Here we learn the ultimate lesson of these shows: You can look at a free-standing building wherein some persons reside, and you can spin house-or-home poetry out of that all day long. But at the end of that day, property is what it is. Your home can look like an expression of you, but your property needs to look like a Pottery Barn catalog. Your wallpaper decisions may have expressed your individuality when you made them, but you are not an individual anymore, and no one wants to think about you. Stop expressing yourself. This place you live needs to look, in fact, like the total obliteration of “you,” because selling property is about someone else’s dreams of self-expression and taste.

Tanya and Roger rip up the carpet and consign to storage every object that means anything to the nice Southern lady. When the show ends, Tanya brightly informs us that prospective buyers are giving it “a second look.” In other words, it hasn’t sold. One imagines the dignified and bewildered owner imprisoned there still, looking around at the catalog pages that have become, not so much her home, but merely the place where she lives.

-Rob Walker writes the "Consumed Column" for The New York Times Magazine. This gleaned from the March 18th'07 edition.

Winter coats are a'sheddin: Which vacuum can help?

2007-02-19T07:51:00.000-08:00

By MICHELLE SLATALLA

Published: February 15, 2007, The New York Times

I ARRIVED home, opened the front door and stepped into what looked like the set of a movie being shot on location in the Old West.

Huge tumbleweeds of dog fur rolled across the floor. Every step I took created a dust storm. Searching for the source, I made out the faint outlines of furniture — yes, that was the piano in the distance — and a snoring lump of something brown and molting, sprawled in a warm spot under the window.

My dog Otto napped peacefully, unaware that he was casting off so many fistfuls of fur that he looked like a plush toy whose stuffing was leaking.

How I dread his annual molting season. Some pet owners face an even greater challenge — I realize it can’t be a picnic to remove an abandoned snakeskin from a cage — but my situation has been exacerbated by a vacuum cleaner crisis.

Call me indecisive. For years, I have been trying to buy a new vacuum cleaner. But which one? I flirt with fancy, high-price models with “high efficiency particulate air” exhaust filters, like the Nilfisk Silver Bullet ($1,095 at bestvacuum.com). I keep up with the latest ratings on consumerreports.org, which warns that “high-priced, feature-laden machines don’t necessarily deliver better cleaning.”

A few years back, after I got a $100 repair bill for my ailing vintage Electrolux canister model, I even went so far as to phone Jeff Bagnall, a vacuum specialist who at the time operated a bricks-and-mortar store called Sweeps Vacuum Center in Hudson, N.Y., and had the foresight in 1993 to register the domain names vacuum.com and vacuums.com.

After hearing my tale of woe, Mr. Bagnall asked a few succinct questions (“How big is your home?” “Carpet or wood floors?”) and then recommended an immediate vacuum upgrade. But in the end, I balked, not only at the price but also at the overwhelming range of choices.

The age-old question — upright or canister? — was just the starting point. Shoppers also face lures like vacuum cleaners that wash floors (like the Hoover FloorMate SpinScrub, $169.99 at target.com) and robotic vacuums like the Electrolux Trilobite, $1,689.99 from Ace Digital Club, an amazon.com retailer.

But we all have our breaking points, and I reached mine, it turns out, when I walked into a living room that had been transformed into a bleak landscape that more resembled the O.K. Corral at high noon than a place where you might want, say, to put your feet up.

I had to get rid of those tumbleweeds of fur.

Being a longtime canister person or, as consumerreports.org summarized it, a person who always needed a machine that was “best for cleaning bare floors, and stairs, drapes and upholstery,” I ruled out uprights, which are best for deep-cleaning medium- and deep-pile carpets.

But beyond that, I needed to ask Mr. Bagnall a few more questions. In search of him, I went to both vacuum.com and to vacuums.com, only to find that both had become useless domain name parking sites full of automatically generated ads relevant to the word “vacuum.” There was no sign either of Mr. Bagnall or of his small-town vacuum store.

I panicked. What would I do without expert advice? Luckily, I found Sweeps Vacuum in the phone directory, and called.

“What happened?” I asked Mr. Bagnall.

“I sold both,” he said. “We don’t sell online much anymore. We operate, well, we operate a store.”

“But a few years ago, you were selling 20 vacuums a day online,” I said.

“Go to Google and type ‘vacuum,’ ” he said. “At the top of the page, it says 1 through 10 results of how many?”

“76,200,000,” I said.

“I rest my case,” he said. “What happened with the Internet is it almost turned in on itself, with everybody and his brother having an Internet site. The only way to prosper now is to pay for ads on Google and Yahoo.”

“But you still sell online?” I asked.

“Now I have sweepsvacuum.com, and some people still find me,” he said. “And if I recall, you have pets. Any new pets?”

“Same shedding pet,” I said. “Same house. Same hardwood floors. A few rugs.”

“No allergies?”

“No allergies.”

“Then the Miele S251 Plus vacuum I discussed for you back then is still the one for you,” Mr. Bagnall said. “It’s the least expensive Miele that comes with an electric power nozzle. I seem to recall a conversation about pet hair, so you need a power nozzle.”

“Lots of less expensive brands have power nozzles,” I said. “And what about a vacuum that also steam cleans, or is a robot or cooks dinner and folds laundry, too?”

Mr. Bagnall recommended I stay focused on the task at hand — banishing the Badlands from the living room — and avoid getting distracted by gimmicks.

“Any vacuum will break at one point or another,” he said. “A Miele will break less often. And any decent vacuum that you get from a quality vacuum store will have enough suction and power to pick up the dust bunnies.”

“Tumbleweeds,” I corrected.

“The next question is how much of that is contained in the vacuum as opposed to being thrown back out into the environment you’re trying to clean. With Brand X from Wal-Mart, you will do an excellent job of pulling in, pulverizing and then dispersing back into the air all the dust, where it will linger for 8 to 12 hours. With a quality machine, it will keep the dust inside.”

“The Miele S251 doesn’t have the fancy filtration system of the more expensive models,” I said.

“The least expensive Miele canister has better filtration even without a HEPA,” or a high efficiency particulate air system, which you need if you have allergies, Mr. Bagnall explained. “It has a filtration system to handle anything that’s one micron or bigger. Let’s put things in perspective. I’m bald. When I used to have hair, the average hair was 70 to 80 microns in diameter. At 10 microns, something becomes invisible to the naked eye.”

The Miele S251 cost $529 at sweepsvacuum.com. It cost $499.95 at vacsew.com.

I could save $30 by comparison shopping. But Mr. Bagnall’s advice was worth at least that much. So I bought the vacuum from sweepsvacuum.com. Then I went to look for Otto’s hairbrush.

E-mail: Slatalla@nytimes.com

Seeing Red for Valentine's

2007-02-06T19:16:00.000-08:00

Valentine’s Day is nearly upon us, that sweet Hallmark holiday when you can have anything your heart desires, so long as it’s red. Red roses, red nighties, red shoes and red socks. Red Oreo filling, red bagels, red lox.

As it happens, red is an exquisite ambassador for love, and in more ways than people may realize. Not only is red the color of the blood that flushes the face and swells the pelvis and that one swears one would spill to save the beloved’s prized hide. It is also a fine metaphoric mate for the complexity and contrariness of love. In red we see shades of life, death, fury, shame, courage, anguish, pride and the occasional overuse of exfoliants designed to combat signs of aging. Red is bright and bold and has a big lipsticked mouth, through which it happily speaks out of all sides at once. Yoo-hoo! yodels red, come close, have a look. Stop right there, red amends, one false move and you’re dead.

Such visual semiotics are not limited to the human race. Red is the premier signaling color in the natural world, variously showcasing a fruitful bounty, warning of a fatal poison or boasting of a sturdy constitution and the genes to match. Red, in other words, is the poster child for the poster, for colors that have something important to say. “Our visual system was shaped by colors already in use among many plants and animals, and red in particular stands out against the green backdrop of nature,” said Dr. Nicholas Humphrey, a philosopher at the London School of Economics and the author of “Seeing Red: A Study in Consciousness.” “If you want to make a point, you make it in red.”

What is it, then, to see red, to see any palette at all? Of our famed rods and cones, the two classes of light-sensing cells with which the retina at the back of each eye is supplied, the rods do the basics of vision, of light versus shadow, tracking every passing photon and allowing us to see by even a star’s feeble flicker, though only in gunmetal shades of black, white and grim. It is up to our cone cells to capture color, and they don’t kick in until the dawn’s earylish light or its Edisonian equivalent, which is why we have almost no color vision at night.

Cones manage their magic in computational teams of three types, each tuned to a slightly different slice of the electromagnetic spectrum, the sweeping sum of lightwaves that streams from the sun. As full-spectrum sunlight falls on, say, a ripe apple, the physical and chemical properties of the fruit’s skin allow it to absorb much of the light, save for relatively long, reddish lightwaves, which bounce off the surface and into our greedy eyes. On hitting the retina, those red wavelengths stimulate with greatest fervor the cone cells set to receive them, a sensation that the brain interprets as “healthy, low-hanging snack item ahead.”

In fact, human eyes, like those of other great apes, seem to be all-around fabulous fruit-finding devices, for they are more richly endowed with the two cone types set to red and yellow wavelengths than with those sensitive to short, blue-tinged light. That cone apportionment allows us to discriminate among subtle differences in fruit ruddiness and hence readiness, and may also explain why I have at least 40 lipsticks that I never wear compared with only three blue eye shadows.

Whatever the primary spur to the evolution of our rose-colored retinas, we, like most other animals with multichromatic vision, have learned to treat red with respect. “In the evolution of languages,” Dr. Humphrey writes, “red is without exception the first color word to enter the vocabulary,” and in some languages it’s the only color word apart from black and white. It’s also the first color that most children learn to name, and that most adults will cite when asked to think of a color, any color.

Red savors the spice of victory. Analyzing data from Olympic combat sports like boxing and tae kwon do, in which competitors are randomly assigned to wear red shorts or blue, Dr. Russell Hill and his colleagues at the University of Durham in Britain found that the red-shorted won their matches significantly more often than would be expected by chance alone. What the researchers don’t yet know is whether the reds somehow get an subconscious boost from their garb, or their blue opponents are felled by the view. After all, said Dr. Geoffrey Hill, a biology professor at Auburn University in Alabama and no relation to Russell Hill, “I’ve seen some of my biggest, toughest students, these tough, athletic guys, faint right to the floor at the sight of one drop of bird’s blood.”

Red refuses to be penned down or pigeonholed. It has long been the color of revolution, of overthrowing the established order. “Left-wing parties in Europe have all been red,” Dr. Humphrey said, “while the conservatives, in Britain and elsewhere, go for blue.” Yet in the United States, the color scheme lately has been flipped, and the red states are said to be the guardians of traditional values, of mom and pop, of guns and red meat.

Context, too, changes red’s meaning. A female bird may be attracted to the bright scarlet sheen of a male’s feathers or of a baby bird’s begging mouth, but will assiduously avoid eating red ladybugs that she knows are packed with poisons.

Given red’s pushy reputation, design experts long thought people felt uncomfortable and worked poorly when confined to red rooms. But when Dr. Nancy Kwallek, a professor of interior design at the University of Texas at Austin, recently compared the performance of clerical workers randomly assigned for a week to rooms with red, blue-green or white color schemes, she found that red’s story, like the devil, is in the details. Workers who were identified as poor screeners, who have trouble blocking out noise and other distractions during the workday, did indeed prove less productive and more error prone in the red rooms than did their similarly thin-skinned colleagues in the turquoise rooms. For those employees who were rated as good screeners, however, able to focus on their job regardless of any ruckus around them, the results were flipped. Screeners were more productive in the red room than the blue. “The color red stimulated them,” she said, “and they thrived under its effects.”

And the subjects assigned to the plain-vanilla settings, of a style familiar to the vast majority of the corporate labor force? Deprived of any color, any splash of Matisse, they were disgruntled and brokenhearted and did the poorest of all.

- found in The New York Times, February 6 2007, and authored by Natalie Angier

New in the Loo

2007-01-25T06:52:00.000-08:00

AMONG the features of the new 6,000-square-foot, $3 million entertainment wing in Kevin Scherer’s home in Plano, Tex., are two bars, a theater, a video game room, a shuffleboard table and a golf simulator that projects images of top courses onto a big screen.

Oh, and a urinal.

“It fit the theme of the golf simulator room, which is a men’s activity,” said Mr. Scherer, a 44-year-old retired Internet executive, speaking of the $1,269 Kohler Bardon urinal he installed in an adjoining bathroom and unveiled at a Christmas party, as though showing off a ceramic trophy. No guy would ever use the toilet, he added, “if he knew the urinal was there.”

While the thought of a home urinal may seem vaguely “Animal House,” Mr. Scherer’s interior designer, Ashley Astleford, wasn’t surprised by his request. This was the second time in the last few months that she was asked to install a urinal in a luxury residential project, and she said she knows many other designers and architects who have been specifying home urinals in their projects. According to Ms. Astleford, who is based in Dallas, home urinals are becoming “a definite must for luxury master suites.”

If an increasing number of men are looking to bring the amenities of a football stadium into their high-end homes, manufacturers now seem ready to oblige. Several companies, observing growing consumer interest in their commercial models over the last few years, have begun to produce residential urinals, bringing a sleek, designer aesthetic to a device long relegated to plumbing supply stores and public restrooms.

Duravit U.S.A., a division of the German bathroom fixture manufacturer — whose headquarters in Hornberg, designed by Philippe Starck, features a gigantic toilet embedded in the facade — currently sells three models for home installation, including the $1,250 Utronic, which has an infrared-triggered flush.

In 2005, Toto U.S.A. began selling the wall-mounted Lloyd home urinal, also with a motion-sensing flush feature, for $975, as part of its luxury bath collection. David Krakoff, vice president of sales at Toto, said the company has gone from selling dozens of urinals a month to hundreds since introducing the Lloyd. And Villeroy & Boch has introduced eight residential urinals in the past four years.

“This is found business,” said Tim Schroeder, president of Duravit U.S.A., adding that residential clients are more receptive to the idea now that they have seen fancy versions in boutique hotels and restaurants.

The new urinals bear little resemblance to the grungy fixtures you might see littered with cigarette butts and hanging from the wall of a truck-stop men’s room. Consider, for example, Duravit’s McDry, an elegant, teardrop-shaped model that sells for $895 and doesn’t require water to flush (instead it uses a biodegradable blue oil, penetrable by a stream of urine, which acts as a barrier to odors).

For the modernist, there is the Spoon, by the British firm Philip Watts Design, made of polyresin, sculptured in the shape of a teaspoon and available in an array of colors for $1,369. Also available are the Contour ($1,674) and the Prizm ($1,431), two stainless steel residential models made by Neo-Metro, a California company known for making metal fixtures for prisons.

Some urinals are even being personalized. When Tad Dinkins, a 35-year-old Caterpillar equipment dealer from St. Louis, remodeled his basement bathroom, he installed one of Villeroy & Boch’s Subway models with an etched image of a golf flag that serves as a target — the finishing touch in a tricked-out bar and gaming space. “My wife didn’t like it, but I put it in,” said Mr. Dinkins, who is not alone in encountering resistance from the woman in his life.

Indeed, there is still a certain amount of squeamishness about home urinals, particularly among women, so marketers are focusing on designer style and claims about cleanliness in an effort to overcome negative associations. Kohler U.S.A., for instance, says that its “human factors group” — a team that studies, among other things, how people urinate — has found the best urinal shape for keeping the bathroom clean. A result is Kohler’s funnel-shaped Steward series, introduced last April.

“When you go at a flat wall there’s lots of splash,” said Shane Judd, product manager of Kohler’s fixtures group, whose job it is to know these kinds of things. “The conical shape eliminates splash.”

The environmental benefits are also an attraction for some, since several of the new models use less than a gallon of water per flush, while an older toilet can use as many as five gallons. Eric Cadora, a 42-year-old actor and consultant on green building, installed a Duravit McDry model, which uses no water to flush regularly, in the 2,800-square-foot home he shares with his wife in Malibu, Calif. He estimates the urinal will save thousands of gallons of water a year. Maintenance, he added, has been minimal; every two months, he flushes the fixture with a gallon of water and then refreshes the sealant. “It never smells,” Mr. Cadora said.

Although the appeal of urinals has more to do with function than form for most people, the notion of the urinal as artwork is being revived by one enterprising sculptor 90 years after the artist Marcel Duchamp unveiled his “Fountain.” Kathy Dorfman, 36, spent $10,000 on a one-of-a-kind urinal hand-sculptured from porcelain by Clark Sorensen, a San Francisco artist, in the form of a pink orchid and gave it to her husband as a gift. The couple plan to install it in the master bathroom in their 11th-floor penthouse in Edgewater, N.J., which is decorated in white and lilac marble. “The pink orchid is the most beautiful piece,” Ms. Dorfman said. “It’s very sexual.”

Until now, home urinals have been installed largely in testosterone-laden basement bars and dens, according to Paul Rice, an architect who installed a urinal in his own home in Amagansett after specifying one for a client in Manhattan. “This is another way to make men feel pampered, the way the bidet made a woman feel her bathroom was complete,” Mr. Rice said.

But as urinals get the high-design treatment, they may increasingly move into master suites and powder rooms. One model with a distinctly feminine appeal is Villeroy & Boch’s Oblic, which costs $910 and resembles an egg. Petite and popular in smaller bathrooms, where it can be mounted in a corner, it is likely to meet the approval of women like Deborah Wiener, an interior designer who said she hides terrycloth slippers in each bathroom of the house she shares with her husband and two sons. “My fourth design mantra is never, ever go barefoot in a man’s bathroom,” said Ms. Wiener, who runs Designing Solutions, based in Silver Spring, Md., and has recommended urinals to clients.

Even developers and builders are taking note. The Duravit Utronic comes standard in roughly half of the 260 units of the new Turnberry Ocean Colony towers near Bal Harbour, Fla., where homes ranging in price from $1.4 to $4 million are almost completely sold out.

So will urinals soon become a mainstay in the American home, as common as the kitchen sink? Ms. Wiener, for one, does not rule it out. “There are many things we have borrowed from commercial design for residential use,” she said. “They start slowly and expand.”

- (no comments!) found in The New York Times, Jan. 25th 2007

Proof

2006-10-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

Catherine, the main character in a movie titled "Proof" and performed by Gwyneth Paltrow is a fragile woman.
We're not sure if she always was or if the grieving for her father's long death (a descent into madness and then a death) has made her so.
What we know is that she has genius, mathematical and otherwise, and that the only equal and opposite reaction to her woundedness is her mental ability to find her way and will clear to the light.
She sums it all up for us, at the end of the movie (a John Madden film) when she places herself at the treshold of...a house...not knowing whether or not it can all make sense.
Here is a quote from David Auburn's screenplay, who also wrote the stage adaptation of his play, which also starred a winning Paltrow.

..."How many days have I lost?
How can I get back to the place where I started?
I'm outside a house
trying to find my way in
but it's locked and the blinds are down
and I've lost the key
and I can't remember what the rooms look like
or where I've put anything
and if I dare go inside I wonder
Will I ever be able to find myt way out?"

Now we know that the perspective is correct, now we relate to a feeling (the whole movie is about relationship...s to people/things/ideas...) so universal that we instinctively are grateful for the knowing we do have of our intimate spaces. Now, that they are not too big, humble of proportion & built according to a human scale (*see earlier posting on Alexander's work) and somewhat organized, warm and welcoming in nature, re-assures us and allows us to go on in peace.

We could not resist adding another quote from the movie, from the scene where Catherine meets her father's madness face to face (Anthony Hopkins plays the father's part here).

(The Proof:)

"Let X equal the quantity of all the X's.
Let X equal the Cold
It is cold in December
The month of Cold
equal November through February
There are four months of cold
and four of Heat
leaving four months of indeterminate temperature
In February it snows
in March the lake is a lake of ice
In September the students come back
and the bookstores are full
Let X equal the monthfull bookstores
the number of books approaches infinity
as the number of months of cold approaches warmth
I will never be as cold now
as I will in the future
the future of cold
is
infinite
The future of Heat is the future of cold
The bookstores are infinite
and so are the numbers of
books
in
September."

Never has life made so much sense.

-The House

The proper care of your Maid.

2006-10-22T22:30:00.000-07:00

(Caution: this is a serious article, gleaned from "Lilith Magazine: Independent, Jewish & Frankly Feminist" and may affect your perceived view of the known domestic world.)

I’m sitting in a Brooklyn diner having breakfast with Marlene Champion, 61, a tall, striking woman from Barbados. Champion makes her living as a domestic worker, and right now she works as a nanny caring for a 4-year-old girl in Brooklyn Heights.

Champion is also an active member of Domestic Workers United (DWU), a Bronx-based organization fighting for domestic workers' rights. In the 16 years since she immigrated to the United States, Champion has worked in four households, all Jewish. With the exception of one family that treated her badly, she says she's had good relations with all of them.

Champion felt especially close to a Dr. Steiner, whom she took care of for six years, until he died at 92 with Champion at his side. She was in charge of all his care, prepared his meals, did the laundry and kept his apartment clean. She accompanied him to all the family weddings.

He had specialized in the study of tuberculosis, and he used to tell her stories about his work. Sometimes, he showed her his old slides. You'd make such a great doctor, or nurse, he used to tell her. Champion still keeps a picture of Steiner on her wall, and stays in close contact with his children.

After she finishes telling me her story, I say that my family had a housekeeper when I was growing up. I also say something that she probably already knows: that hiring domestic help is fairly common in Jewish households. And then I ask her what is special, if anything, about working for Jewish families. She smiles. "We're of different races," she says. "But I think we have a lot in common."

When Jews hire people to do household jobs -- anybody who cleans, cooks, does the laundry, cares for children or elderly parents -- we are the ones who represent the privileged class, with the funds to hire help. Jews today are generally wealthier and better educated than the majority of Americans. But the widespread practice of having "help" goes all the way back to our grandmother's day, when even Jewish families in modest circumstances very often had cleaning ladies, perhaps because the wages for domestic work were so low that even working-class families could often afford this small luxury.

"It wasn't as if you were putting on airs," a Jewish lady in her 70s told me. "Having a cleaning lady was socially acceptable."

Yet even the term "cleaning lady" indicates the awkwardness employers feel in the presence of a rather un-American class system. We don't need to call the electrician the "electrical fix-it gentleman," after all.

Today, two-career households need housekeepers and nannies and cleaning ladies even more than the stereotypical clean-floor-obsessed housewives of a previous generation might have. Indeed, some of the backlash against the women's movement focuses on this issue: The gains of middle-class women during the last three decades, critics charge, were achieved through the exploitation of other, less fortunate women. And despite the energy that fueled the 1970s efforts to elevate the status of housecleaners -- stating that being paid fairly for a job responsibly done was no different if you were a housekeeper than if you were any other kind of laborer -- those early efforts to make the relationship between employer and employee more businesslike never took hold.

Our relationship with the women who work in our homes is still inherently an unequal one. This fact makes many of us so uncomfortable that some Jewish women refuse to have household help even if they can afford it. Breena Kaplan, 65, is an artist on Long Island who has always done her own cleaning, "It's my schmutz, so I should take care of it," said Kaplan, a "red-diaper baby" who grew up in "the Co-ops," two Bronx apartment buildings populated in the 1940s and onward largely by left-wing Jews.

Her father, who came from Russia, a card-carrying Communist, made "a good living" in the textile business, and he insisted that Luba, his wife, have help in the house. Kaplan remembers Elizabeth, a tall black woman who smelled of starch and soap, standing over the sink, scrubbing the family's wash. But Elizabeth didn't last long, because Luba couldn't stand the humiliation she felt at a black woman coming into her home and slaving away for her in, of all places, the Co-ops.

Some Jewish women attempt to deal with the discomfort they feel at the imbalance of power between them and their domestic workers by reframing the relationship as a collaboration. Carla Singer, a film producer in New York City, employs Grace Smith -- not her real name -- as a twice-weekly housekeeper. Singer says she really only needs Smith one day a week, but, "this is tikkun. I know where my extra money is going -- to support Grace and her son. If I send it to a charity, I don't know where my money is going."

Singer feels that the tikkun, or repair of the world, is mutual -- Smith helped her out at a very difficult time, after Singer had just made a hugely dislocating transition, she said, moving to New York from Los Angeles with her teenage daughter. One day, as Smith was helping them settle into a new apartment, Singer, stressed-out, snapped at her.

Smith shot back: "You know, Carla, we're partners in this."

"She was right," Singer said. "In a sense, she doesn't work for me."

Except that Smith does work for Singer. And it's time, especially in the context both of the global discussion of immigration laws and the more local desperation of working mothers juggling many needs, to talk openly about the relationship between Jewish women and the help -- almost always female -- we employ in the intimate settings of our own homes and families.

According to DWU, virtually all domestic workers today are immigrants, the vast majority of them undocumented, which makes it all too easy for employers to exploit them, wittingly or not. The good news is that there's movement to encourage Jews to treat those who work for us with fairness, as we're enjoined to do as a basic Jewish value.

A series of interviews with both Jewish employers and their domestic workers revealed that, happily, the mutual respect between Champion and the Steiner family is not unique. But I also heard awful stories about Jewish families who treat their domestic workers badly, ranging from subtle to not-so-subtle insults -- recalling Philip Roth's cringe-inducting scene of Portnoy's mother and her treatment of the so-called "schvartze" in "Portnoy's Complaint" -- and a real blindness to the basic needs of the employee to allegations of physical abuse.

Some bosses, in flagrant disregard of Jewish teachings and basic consideration, don't pay their domestic workers on time. "Do not withhold the pay of your workers overnight," it says in Leviticus 19:13. Or, in a striking lack of empathy, some employers don't recognize the dire financial consequences to a day worker who may be counting on the next day's wages to pay the rent, or feed her kids, who gets a call the night before, announcing "I don't need you tomorrow."

Some women mistreat their domestic workers in more subtle ways. Gayle Kirshenbaum, 39, who is active in Jews for Economic and Racial Justice, a New York City-based grass-roots group with the stated goal of injecting a "progressive Jewish voice" into New York City politics, once remarked to a friend, also Jewish, how awful it must be for Caribbean domestic workers to have to leave their children back home with relatives. Her friend disagreed.

"No, it doesn't bother them," the friend said. "They're not like us."

Another woman spoke of her friend, a Holocaust survivor's daughter in her 50s, living in a New York suburb, who confessed to feeling gratified when she ordered around a non-Jewish Polish immigrant cleaning lady.

The one family that Champion said did not treat her well consisted of two ill and elderly parents, whom Champion looked after for eight months, and their adult daughter who lived nearby. The problem, Champion said, was the daughter.

She would buy only enough groceries for her parents; Champion was expected to get her own food. When Champion lifted the father from his bed to his wheelchair -- something she had been trained to do -- the daughter, likening Champion to a man, would call her "Harry."

And one day, when the daughter was visiting, Champion overheard a conversation between daughter and father. The father was telling his daughter how much he liked Champion, so much that he'd like to give her something. Maybe even some stock that he owned.

The daughter was furious. "Oh, no! They're just the help!" she screamed loudly. Champion, although in another room, could not help but hear. "Give it to your grandchildren!"

Money, of course, is a real issue. Many domestic workers are badly paid. According to DWU, some day workers receive as little as $2 an hour; some live-ins are paid $250 a month. DWU recommends a living wage of $14 an hour.

Even though labor laws technically protect all workers, documented or not, in reality the laws fail domestic workers. Domestics do not have the right to unionize, and most are undocumented immigrants, which makes them doubly vulnerable. These facts make it nearly impossible for them to demand such rights as health care, severance pay, paid vacation, sick days, notice of termination -- all things that we would likely assume were due us if we were the employees ourselves. But how domestic workers fare depends entirely on the will, good or ill, of their employers.

Jeannie Prager of Englewood, N.J., spoke about how these issues play out in her tightly knit modern Orthodox community in a New York suburb: "We are the people who seem to hire the most housekeepers. And we're doing a terrible job."

Prager knows this, because over the years she'd gotten quite an earful, both from Victoria Smith (not her real name), her former housekeeper, and from Smith's schmoozing friends, who often hung out at the house.

Prager recently fired Smith, who had been with her for 13 years, providing care to Prager's ailing nonagenarian mother for the last nine of them.

"It was time for a change," Prager said. "She was always on the phone. Her friends who worked in the neighborhood often stopped by for a bite and a chat on their way home. It was all just too much, too much noise and commotion." Letting Smith go was a tough decision, though. "She was a godsend in many ways. And a 13-year relationship, with two women sharing one kitchen, becomes a very close friendship."

When Prager finally got the words out, she gave Smith two weeks' notice and $5,000, six weeks' severance pay. Smith, also eligible for unemployment compensation, was furious.

"I always held you up on a pedestal," Smith told her employer. "But my friends always warned me. And now I see that they were right, that you're just like all the rest."

"The rest," of course, meant "the rest of the Jews." Prager felt horrible. But despite Smith's anger, she and her family paid a shiva call when Prager's mother died shortly after the firing.

Smith declined several requests to speak with this writer directly, though she and Prager stay in touch.

It took Smith seven months to find a comparable job. Prager said she was the one to find it for her. In the Prager household, Smith had two weeks off annually to start, increased to three weeks at her 10-year anniversary, five sick days, three personal days and "of course," said Prager, paid holidays.

Prospective employers, responding to the ad Prager posted for Smith on the shul's Web site, kept telling her they'd never heard of a housekeeper getting paid vacation.

"These things upset me so much," Prager told me. "They give us such a bad name." Worried, Prager approached her rabbi with the idea of starting a discussion in the congregation about practices around hiring household help.

"I feel that if some of these women could speak in a safe environment and say what bothers them, and likewise for their housekeepers, we would all benefit," she said. The rabbi said her idea was interesting, and that was the end of it.

Prager had nailed it, though her rabbi wasn't listening. But at least one rabbi is: Rabbi Ellen Lippmann of the Brooklyn congregation Kolot Chayeinu devoted last year's Rosh Hashanah sermon to employing domestic workers, not a usual High Holidays theme.

"Since we are Jews sitting here together on a night designated for thinking about doing right, it seems crucial that we Jews be thoughtful about and to the people who work in our homes," she said. And often, she added, we are not. "Not out of malice, but out of busyness and lack of thought."

Lippmann cited the story of Sarah and Hagar, whom the infertile Sarah mistreats when Hagar conceives. The Ramban, Lippman said, "says Sarah sinned when she did this and so did Abraham by letting it happen."

She added: "When we hire someone to work in our homes, we must see that person as fully human, seen by God."

Lippmann, like Kirshenbaum, is active in Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ). Two years ago, the group embarked on a "Shalom Bayit" campaign in partnership with DWU. JFREJ also hosts small group discussions in people's homes, the "living room project."

As part of the campaign, the group's members conduct discussions in synagogues about the just treatment of domestic workers. Last year, for example, Kirshenbaum and DWU members Champion and Allison Julien were invited to visit Temple Beth-El in Great Neck, an upscale New York suburb, for the congregation's social action Shabbat. The women spoke about domestic workers' rights.

JFREJ's membership is decidedly left-leaning. In their shalom bayit, or peace in the house, campaign, the group is consciously trying, says Kirshenbaum, "to broach the line between progressive and more traditional Jews." Because it is clear, she says, "how deeply this issue resonates in the Jewish community" in both directions. Jews are employers, she said, and they also want to do right by their employees.

"Doing right" means putting your money where your mouth is. At the living room meetings, JFREJ organizers talk about the specifics of treating domestic workers in a professional manner. Which means, for example, offering full-time employees a contract. The standard contract, based on a DWU model, specifies, for example, what responsibilities the job does -- and does not -- entail, how many paid sick days and vacation days the employee is entitled to, what the rate of payment will be for overtime work, the medical care the employer agrees to pay for, and what the food arrangement will be.

The document explaining the contract goes out of its way to assure employers that using a contract is good for them, too, leading to more loyalty from the employee, and an end to abrupt departures, as there's a "must give notice" clause.

But it may take a while to shift employers from the more casual -- and less fair, though less costly -- model of doing business. The JFREJ-DWU presentation last year at Temple Beth-El of Great Neck, said social action committee chairwoman Alice Fornari, did not get much of a response.

"The evening ends and then it's over," Fornari said. "Nobody talked to me about it afterward."

Other social-action subjects -- stopping the genocide in Darfur, for example -- get a significant response from the whole community, said Rabbi Darcie Krystal, who with Fornari organized the social action Shabbat and was supportive of the domestic workers issue. With domestic help it's a different matter.

"It's a very risky topic for a social action Shabbat," Fornari told me. "People don't want it in their face." People, she said, would rather hear about, say, Israel. In other words, things and places that are far away.

"I don't think most people care about the rights of domestic workers," Fornari said. "They don't feel it's a topic that's relevant to their lives, even though the women they hire are taking care of their homes and their children. People don't want to talk about it because they don't want to do anything about it."

It is a topic dear to her, Fornari said, because of her involvement with each of the housekeepers she has employed over the years in her own home. She helped one, who came from Bolivia not knowing any English, to get into college; the woman is now a teacher. Extensive interviews reveal that many Jewish employers have tried similarly to improve the individual lives of their housekeepers, to whom they've grown close; Fornari's behavior, like Prager's, is not an isolated phenomenon. Fornari is determined to continue the conversation that she started at Temple Beth-El. She would love to see a living room session in Great Neck.

Kirshenbaum described hosting such a meeting at a friend's home in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a neighborhood where a majority of the women pushing strollers on the streets look to be other than the babies' mothers.

"There were perhaps 11 people there. We raised issues like the fact that if you go on vacation, you need to pay your domestic worker. And people said, 'But no, if I'm going away, I shouldn't have to pay.' "

"But then," Kirshenbaum continued, "I could see people shifting categories, for the first time. It was like lightbulbs going on. These women had thought of their domestic workers as casual baby sitters, not as women who were counting on this salary to pay their own household bills. And now, they were suddenly realizing, 'We are employers and they are our employees, and of course I get sick leave, so why shouldn't they?'"

"There is no shame in hiring someone to work for us," Kirshenbaum said. "The only shame is in not treating them well."

This article is reprinted with permission from Lilith Magazine: Independent, Jewish & Frankly Feminist. www.Lilith.org.

How good Good Service is.

2006-09-02T21:44:00.000-07:00

Shirley Booth as the smart-talking housekeeper in Hazel, the early-60's sitcom.

Maid in Heaven

Imagine the Baxters without the wisecracking hazel in the early '60's sitcom of that name. Or the Brady bunch without the wacky Alice. And where would Sex and the City's Miranda Hobbs be without the meddling magda, who by the end of the series had morphed from domestic dictator to domestic godsend.
That's precisely what super-cleaners are: domestic godsends who buff our tubs, plump our cushions and, if we're lucky, keep our lives in check as well, always at the ready for advice and emotional backup. After all, who knows you more intimatly than the person who retrieves your undies from under the bed, scours your loo and even knows where you stash your vibrator - as Jennifer Aniston did in the recent Friends With Money (Though asdmittedly she isn't exactly what we mean by supercleaner.)
"All the things in the house that you don't want people to see, they see," says Christine Glendinning, a freelance communications consultant who lives in Vancouver with her husband. "I'll always do a quick once-over before the cleaning lady comes in, but still, they do see you at your very worst points.
"Glendinning, who's expecting the couple's first child and is often at home when Ludmilla comes in to work her mop-magic, says that beyond scrubbing her tub and mopping her floors (the two chores she most hates doing herself) lies a real friendship.
"We talk about everything, and she's always giving me local Ukrainian advice, like telling me to put a mustard-and-cabbage compress on my chest when I have a cold. It's the trust and comfort that I value.
"Ludmilla, who is in her mid 50s, visits the Glendinning household on tuesday every two weeks. Her coveted Friday spot belongs to Glendinning's mother, Linda, who's been employing Ludmilla since she emigrated here from Ukraine seven years ago.
I've always done my own housework, so having her these past seven years is like heaven,"says Linda, a retired nurse."friday is my favorite day of the week."
"And the reason why the relationship works is because, like all relationships that work, it is built on mutual respect."Ludmilla comes to me home because i don't make her feel bad about being here, and she doesn't make me feel bad for having her. I pat her an honest wage[$20 an hour] and she does an honest job," Linda says. "It's a really special relationship when someone sees you getting out of bed, knows what you eat for breakfast , sees your bills lying atound and yet never mentions any of it."
And seven years is a long time, certainly long enough to gel like an integral part of the household, as is the case with Viera Kobacova, domestic godsend to Toronto's Maze family. "I make their beds and shine their faucets," says Viers, who admits bo being a bit of a clean freak, "but I don't feel like a maid. I'm more a friend to them, part of the family. And without meaning to brag, I think they'd be lost without me."
Viera, a 36-year old Slovakian immigrant, has cleaned homes since she moved here 14 years ago. A few years ago she took a job as a receptionist at Toranto's Four Seasons hotel, and she has just cut back to just three families. She visits the Mazes once a fortnight, on her day off from the hotel, for a four-and-a-half-hour cleaning spree."
I don't like to think of her as my cleaning lady," says Elaine Maze, an artist, housewife and mother of three. "We all know her as Viera. Even Bailey, our Burnese mountain dog, will practically break the door down to get to her."
And before Viera slips on her marigolds, her yellow cleaning gloves, the two ladies will always make time for a natter. "We'll shoot the breeze about what's going on in our lives, where we're going, what the kids are doing. We've had a long, wonderful relationship, Viera and I.
"And of course, once you find a Viera, you don't want to lose her. "She has mentioned leaving once or twice, but I don't like to think about that," Maze says.
At just under $20 an hour, the Maze family would agree that the meticulous Viera is worth every penny.
And they're certainly not alone. "The percentage of people hirring cleaning ladies is increasing in leaps and bounds, " says Patrick Irwin, president of Ottawa's Windsor Home Cleaning service, because "90% of people just don't like cleaning." In the past five years, Windsor has doubled its volume, Irwin says. Demand is so high the service has waiting lists during busy periods.
In what is estimated to be a $2.5-billion industry, the price of good help can range from $15 to $17 an hour for an independent like Viera to upwards of $40 an hour for the security and anonymity of a large company.
Windsor charges $38 per hour for a minimum of three hours of work, while Molly Maid president Kevin Hipkins says his company charges $85 for just under two hours of clenaing, of which the cleaner is paid $10 to $16 depending on her level of expertise.And while business is booming for what Hipkins calls an "arm's length transaction," many house-holds are looking for a cleaning lady who, like Viera or Ludmilla, will become part of the family.
In Janis King's case, leaving Calgary also meant leaving Nilda, by far the best cleaning lady she's ever employed. "It was like she knew what I wanted before I did it," says King, a 62-year-old retired paralegal who now runs a small bed and breakfast in downtown Ottawa. "She was totally there for me, seven days a week. I would have trusted her with my jewels-if I had any!
"But the truth is supercleaners are hard to come by, which is why some women keep theirs a closely guarded secret. "There's no way I'd boast about my cleaning lady," says a Toronto woman who owns a chic furniture store in Rosedale. "I've made that mistake before and she got so popular she raised her rate and halved her hours."
Some cleaning ladies are so in demand that they interview prospective clients.
"I was so surprised when I heard that, " says 29-year-old Carole Piovesan, who works in Foreign Affairs as the senior policy advisor on Israel. "I definitely cleaned the house before they came!"
"They" are Piovesan's supercleaning couple, Matt and Karen, a husband-and-wife team who, for a flat rate fof $69, do double duty on her one bedroom apartment every month. They even bring their own supplies.
"The first thing I do when I come home is look around, and not because I'm trying to find somehting wrong, but more because I'm so astounded," Piovesan says. "They might come for 15 minutes, I have no idea, but they leave the place spotless, and that's all I care about.
"And there's definitely something to be said for the old adage a clean home means a clean mind.
"I'm a real advocate of that," says Chatelaine's new editor, Sara Angel. With a 21-month-old son and another on the way, she says she feels the need for cleanliness now more than ever. It would be easy for things to get completely out of control.
Sarah Bancroft, Fashion magazine's Western editor, couldn't agree more. "I have had mine for five years and she is the one thing that I insist on even if we are on an austerity budget. I'd sooner pack my lunch every day than give her up.
"We may have seen the rise of the domestic goddess, but not all of us are destined to manoeuvre a mop with the sass and speed of uber-cleaners like Hazel Burke.
The key, Angel says, is to delegate.
"I'm not a good cleaner so I'd rather devote my time to the things I do well, like cook and garden," she says. "Sure, it's a luxury, I won't say it's not, but it certainly frees up lots of time and makes life much easier and more pleasurable.
No longer a discretional luxury, cleaning ladies are fast becoming an essential. As Irwin says, "We've had customers calling us because it's been so long since they used their vacuum, they've forgotten how it works."

-found in The National Post, (Canada) Saturday July 29, 2006

Frida's Colors

2006-05-21T09:18:00.000-07:00

Frida's Colors
page 15 of her diary, circa 1945

-" I'll try out the pencils
sharpened to the point of infinity
which always sees ahead:
Green - good warm light
Magenta - Aztec. old TLAPALI
blood of prickly pear, the
brightest and oldest
color of mole, of leaves becoming
earth
madness sickness fear
part of the sun and of happiness
electricity and purity love
nothing is black-really nothing
leaves, sadness, science, the whole
of Germany is this color
more madness and mysetry
all the ghosts wear
clothes of this color, or at
least their underclothes
color of bad advertisements
and of good business
distance. Tenderness
can also be this blue
blood?
Well, who knows! "...

- found in "The Diary Of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait" published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. and LA VACA INDEPENDIENTE S.A. de C.V.-2005.
The book is a faithful facsimile of Frida Kahlo's journal written towards the end of her life and includes 338 illustrations, including 167 plates in full color. The forward, written by Carlos Fuentes, is a brilliant snapshot back in time to set the journal back in its original frame of war and turmoil and occasional flashes of extreme beauty.

Celebrating Life at the Coffee House

2006-04-09T08:29:00.000-07:00

Celebrating Gina's beautiful life, that is, at the Golden Otter Coffee House in Langley last Sunday.
Around the table(s) were gathered a wide array of women who had come to honor the birthday [girl] with words of love, gentle humor and gifts of art and poetry. I sat and watched, and for the first time in too long a time, put my watercolors to good use.
The act of doing while observing, thus weaving thought into the process embeds the memory deep into the psyche. I can retrieve the clear scent of farmlands and the sun-baked clay roofs of Provence just by looking back at the landscapes I painted while I was there: as an art student, in the mid eighties.
In Eckart Tolle's book "The Power of Now" we are instructed to live...in the moment. My life being the life of a ...HouseKeeper...would, or should, I am told, be filled with all sorts of domestic bliss, but, well...however...my knees hurt sometimes (says she meekly).
As I sat and watched Gina celebrate the passsing of another year, I sat and watched the coffee house fill and expand and grow loud and dim back into its usual book store quietude with unusual grace. Was I watching bliss unfold? and furthermore, whose bliss?
I then made some broad assumptions: These were all working women, these were all mothers, these were all struggling human beings.
And this was a Sunday morning.
Sure, I enjoyed the latte, and the biscotti I dipped into it, and the cake Barton made which Joni brought, and the Neruda quotes that got flung about, but each of those things on their own are mere acts of consumption unless pondered...or shared.
I reached for another color, trying to work fast and get the thought out on paper, worried that no-one would ever see what I was seeing: love unfolding, truly as good as it gets, and oh, how the sun does shine, today, upon this scene.
For my own solace in the end: I need to know that these moments exists, and that the place is near, as near as the next gathering is, as near as the place who will next hold it: the kitchen, the coffee house, the city hall itself perhaps (maybe they laugh there too?).
The brief sketch is like a map recalling me to trace my steps back to the observance of simple gestures, and to stop there, because there is no more to life than that: one itty bitty motion, one step, along the way, and the spirit that animates it, and a string of it that makes a life.
In the end, three of us got up to help Gina: she had yet to perform her duty, as the official in-House-Keeper of The Clyde Theatre, and she was a bit worried about how the job would get done on time/after the party, and before the first show of the day/and in between all those other Important Things.
Like a small stealth navy seal detachment, each woman, familiar with a broom, a vacuum cleaner and a dusting cloth, got to task, and The Clyde got Done.
Parting was difficult. Let's hope I can find my way back.

CONSUMER REPORTS: Don't get sucked in by trendy vacuums

2006-03-15T06:43:00.000-08:00

By the editors of Consumer Reports

Carpets and floors remain a vacuum cleaner's most important challenges. Most upright vacuums are better than canister models for carpets. They also typically cost less and are easier to store.
Canisters, meanwhile, tend to be better for cleaning drapes, upholstery and under furniture, and are more stable on stairs.
After years of testing both kinds of vacs, Consumer Reports has come across a couple of canisters that excel at carpet and floor cleaning, while providing the reach that defines the breed.
At $940, the Sebo air belt C3.1 is one of the costlier canisters tested, yet it doesn't include such conveniences as a switch to turn the brush off (a plus on bare floors and delicate rugs) or manual pile adjustment for carpets.
For considerably less, the Kenmore Progressive 25914 ($500, from Sears) includes both those features. And it rated highest among all vacuums -canisters and uprights- in the magazine's most recent tests.
For even greater savings on a canister, consider the Kenmore Progressive 25614. It scored slightly lower than its brandmate in overall performance, but at just $350 (from Sears) it qualifies as a CR Best Buy.
If you're like most vacuum buyers, however, you'll prefer an upright. Upright vacs are about as apt to have a bag these days as not. CR tests show that models with bags tend to hold more than bagless vacs and create less dust when they're emptied. CR also found that self-propelled uprights ease pulling and pushing- a consideration if your arms aren't strong.
Among high-scoring uprights, the top-rated Hoover WindTunnel Self Propelled Ultra U6439-900 ($250) is both bagged and easy on the arms. It excelled in tests on floors and carpets, and bested all other vacs in how well it cleans with tools.
Trading some suction with tools for less noise, the bagged Eureka Boss Smart Vac Ultra 4870 is a very good performer that -at just $140- qualifies as a CR Best Buy. Another quieter upright model, the Kenmore Progressive with Direct Drive 34922 ($300, from Sears) is better with tools than the Eureka, but slightly poorer on carpets.
Each of these uprights weighs in the neigborhood of 20 pounds. If you want a lighter machine, consider the Riccar SupraLite RRSL3 ($330). It's just 9 pounds but does not accept tools and has few features.
To lighten the impact on your wallet, you might look to two very good inexpensive models from the tests. The bagless upright Bissell Cleanview II 3576-1 ($80) is noisy, but an excellent performer on floors and carpets. The GE 106766 canister ($150, from Wal-Mart) has a bag, but it must be changed frequently.
These down-to-earth machines defy a recent trend among major brands to market vacuums that could have starred in the latest "Star Wars" flick. Sanyo, for example, offers the robotically styled Dirt Hunter SC-F1201 ($150), an upright that looks as aggressive as its name. Yet high-tech doesn't guarantee high performance around the house - the Dirt Hunter scored poorly in our ratings.
And while its large caster impressed some male testers, women found Dyson's new DC15 The Ball All Floors upright ($600) tiring and hard to control.
...

That said, we find that Dyson makes the only no non-sense bagless machine worth looking at: The dirt container holds a lot, is fun to watch (seriously!) and does not create a dust storm when being emptied. We have not tried "The Ball All Floors" but if the new [wheel] don't do the trick, stick to their first ground breaking fun cleaning machine, which does come in a variety of wild electric colors, with performance to match, and all the space age flexibility a housekeeper could possibly wish for.
The machine which has consistently blown our socks off though, no matter what the age or its model number is the Swiss German made "Miele". A bit too thoughtful at times, the Miele people have produced an intelligent machine which really tries hard to get around corners with grace, effortlessly hopping from carpet to bare floors and unto furniture with rarely more than one or two clicks of a button/or tenuous accessory change.
Oreck deserve a special mention, since most Oreck owners swear by them; Oreck's sale support seems to be its most valued properties, and badly does it need it too. Once the Oreck is a few years old, it seems to loose all interest in properly sucking up dirt/or working at all. We like its light weight and maneuvrability, and the fact that it comes with the handheld hose, a small, altogether independent machine that gets slung around the shoulder and which far outweighs its bigger brother in performance and durability.
We have however witnessed the slow death of too many of these machines not to want to stick a warning label on all of them.
- The House, a most assuredly qualified consumer of vacuuming goods.

The Boke of Nurture, c.1460

2006-03-06T20:06:00.000-08:00

If your sovereign will to the bath, his body to wash clean, Hang sheets round about the roof. This is how I mean, Every sheet full of flowers and herbs sweet and green, And look you have sponges five or six, thereon your sovereign to sit, And on it a sheet, so he may bathe him there a fit, Under his feet also a sponge, if there be any to put, And always be sure of the door, and see that it is shut.
Take a basin in your hand full of hot herbs and fresh And with a soft sponge in hand [start] his body to wash. Rinse him with rose water warm and fair upon his flesh Then let him go to bed, but see that it's sweet and nesh. But first set onhis socks, his slippers on his feet, That he may go fair to the fire, there to take his foot sheet, Then with a clean cloth to wipe away all wet.
Then bring him to his bed, his troubles there to beat.

- John Russell, The Boke of Nurture, c.1460

(found in "The Sweet Life", Reflections on Home and Garden, gathered and illustrated by Laura Stoddart)

House Plan with Blood Flows

2005-12-28T22:17:00.000-08:00

Guillermo Kuitca
House Plan with Blood Flows, 1991
Acrylic on canvas, 37 x 27 inches

Collection of Nan and Gene Corman, Beverly Hills, California
Courtesy of Sperone Westwater, New York

The artist is fascinated by cartographical forms, from maps of vast swaths of territory to compressed urban grids to compact floor plans. In many paintings he has reproduced the layout of a small apartment. Here the space is a living, pulsating organism, both nurturing and ominous.

-found in "YOU ARE HERE", Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination,
by Katharine Harmon, published by Princeton Architectural Press.

Feng Shui Me This

2005-12-04T09:52:00.000-08:00

This is an excerpt from the correspondance we have been having with one particular client who has been most receptive to our methods. It spans a period of a few months, and consists of phone calls, e-mails, letters & counter notes.
The client is "D.", the houseKeeper, "A."

Thanks for the possibility of joining in partnership with you in attacking the needs of my house. Right after you left I went to your website. Besides being a well put together site, your philosophy is 'spot on' (or should I say, "spotless on").
Sometimes we need a bit of help from others that can see with a clearer eye. Your ideas, thoughts, suggestions, and any other input you may have, will be always welcome.

Thanx once again for stopping by, and I await your call in the morning.

D.

...

...Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, but I just got back into town last night. I wanted to tell you that the house looked GREAT!
Thank you. I may have to consider this once a month.

I will be putting your payment in the mail today or tomorrow. Hope that is OK.

I'm passing your name on to anyone who asks.

Thanx again,

D.

-Thank you kindly for your good words.
How is Tuesday the 23rd, at 1:30pm?

A.

...

The house is yours.
I don't think that it's as bad a state as it was.
If you have any "Feng Shui" ideas, let me know.
Do you want to set a regular time/day each month, or get back to me towards the end of each month?

Thanx, again. Have a Happy & Warm Thanksgiving.

D.

...

Dear D.

As you stated in your note, your little place was indeed more alive than I had remembered it, and it did not take a whole lot of time to shine it up. I boldly stock the maid's cupboard with the essentials I needed to perform my labor, I hope you will agree with me.

As far as Feng Shui goes (I wanted to write a small note right then and there but chose otherwise, as the pen's ink bled its last drop) I would recommend we start with some clutter managemement. If this house were a boat, it would lists heavily to starboard (the office) and be dragging in the stern (the garbabe area). The Chi' is stale in those areas, draining the energy form the entire house down with it. I detect a desire for order, quickly overun by the emergencies of every new day.

With your permission, I would attack the rear while you slowly make your way through the piles that are building in the office. When all is level, we could then perform some deep clean starting with the kitchen (does a man need 32 mugs in his pocket-size galley?), through the bedroom, and thirdly, through the main living area, these being the main areas of concern to Feng Shui practitioners.

It is only once the house is purged of its basic troubles that remedies can be applied, for which a learned master should be called. This would be a worhwhile endeavor, and bit by bit, one step at a time (say, a cupboard/or a room/at a time) we would eventually free up the stagnation in your house, and quite likely in your life, please forgive my presumption.

Let me know how these ideas strike you,

Happy Thanksgiving, and blessings back to you,

Sincerely,

A.

...

Been carrying the bill around for a week now-and forgetting. Not today!

Place looked GREAT - AGAIN!

You're right about my office & the laundry room, believe it or not, the Office is SO much better than before. I'm working on it - will always accept help.

Let me know about your availability for late December.

Thanx Again

...

Dear D.,

Thanks for taking the time to write that sweet note, and mailing the whole thing off sooner rather than later.
We'll be back on December 20th, to shine the little place up in time for the Holidays.
We'll attack the space one small battleground at a time, (a cupboard here, a closet there) and slowly help you conquer the clutter.
I did see a difference in the office, I suggest a visit to Ikea to help you visualize some permanent solutions to the box collection you are struggling with in that area.
We do have some truly zen houses on our route, I wish I could give you a tour and inspire you further in your detachment.

Visualize your hands, open and empty, ready to receive grace, from heaven, and the lovely stuff falling into it, and staying, because there is, at last, room enough to contain It.

Sincerely,

A.

Home Chemistry (Part II)

2005-10-01T14:38:00.001-07:00

(another image from "The Method" current ad campaign, a green company that boast an enviromental conscience)

Good Housekeeping (Recipes)

Who needs toxic cleaners when some common household items will do? All you need for the following nontoxic cleaning recipes are white vinegar or lemon juice, baking soda, borax, and liquid soap. A naturally occuring mineral, borax can be harmful if ingested; keep it in a labeled container out of reach of children.

All-Purpose Cleaner

1 quart warm water
1 teaspoon liquid soap
1 teaspoon borax
1/4 cup undiluted white vinegar

Mix ingredients and store in a spray bottle. Use for cleaning countertops, floors, walls, carpets, and upholstery.

Scouring Powder

3 parts baking soda
1 part borax

Use as you would any powdered cleanser. For lighter jobs, try baking soda alone.

Glass Cleaner

4 tablespoons lemon juice
1 gallon water

On lightly soiled windows-think greasy handprints-this recipe came out ahead of all the commercial products tested by Consumer Reports for its January 1992 issue. If you're out of lemon juice, mix 1/4 cup white vinegar in 1 quart of water.

Oven Cleaner

1 quart warm water
2 teaspoons borax
2 tablespoons liquid soap

Mix ingredients. Spray on, wait 20 minutes, then clean.

Toilet Bowl Cleaner

1/4 cup borax

Pour borax into toilet towl and let it sit overnight. Then scrub.

- Reprinted from Natural Home & Garden magazine (March/April 2005). Subscriptions: $27.75/yr. (6 issues) from 201 E. Fourth St., Loveland, CO 80537; www.naturalhomeandgarden.com

Home Chemistry (Part I)

2005-10-01T13:42:00.000-07:00

(Current advertising campaign for "The Method", an organic brand which probably does respect its environment but lacks a certain muscle, this in spite of a...shall we say...a kick ass campaign.)

Do you know what's really in your cleaning products?

Most homes may be clean, but few of them are green. Ther're filled with a vast number of synthetic chemicals hidding in popular cleaners, polishes, pesticides, stain removers, and personal care products stored under the sink, in the basement, or in the garage.

The average American household uses 40 pounds of these chemicals each year. When we have a housekeeping problem we often reach for a commercial product concocted in a lab, a brew of harsh chemicals designed to get the job done quickly but almost never gently or even safely.
Since the ingredients of many household products are considered trade secrets, only the manufacturers know exactly what is in them. Consumers often have little to go on beyond mandated signal words like danger, warning, and caution.
These words, and longer warnings on some products, tell us what will happen with acute exposure, but nothing about long-term exposure. Symptoms of chronic chemical toxicity appear over time and can include asthma; allergies; cancer; damage to the endocrine, immune, and nervous systems; reproductive and developmental disorders; organ damage; and the general condition known as multiple chemical sensitivity or environmental illness.
Most of the chemicals found in household products fall into a few major classifications. Many products contain a mix of chemicals that cover more than one category.

Synthetic Organic Compounds
Some of these chemicals are building blocks for detergents and plastics, as well as for propane and other gas fuels, heating oil, and lubricants. They are common in everyday household chemicals. Within this broad class you'll find:
Aromatic hydrocarbons:
Many of these simple organic compounds are known to be carcinogens. They're used in degreasers, deodorizers, and pesticides.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs):
These evaporate easily at room temperature, then may attach to soft materials such as clothes, drapes, furniture, and carpeting. Eventually they dissipate outdoors, where they cause smog.
Petrochemicals:
These are linked to a host of environmental and health challenges, from oil spills and greenhouse gases to childhood developmental problems. They are found in a variety of household cleaners, including floor waxes, furniture polishes, degreasers, and all-purpose cleaners. Watch out for petroleum distillate and naphtha or naphthalene.

Chlorinated Compounds
Chlorine is a highly toxic gas; one of its first uses was as a poison in World War I. Today there are some 15,000 chlorinated compounds in commercial use; some are found in common cleaning products, including sanitizing and bleaching agents, solvents (for dry cleaning, for example), tub and tile cleaners, and pesticides. Chlorinated compounds used in the home enter the environment when they get washed down the drain. Many of these chemicals are strikingly similar to human hormones and may mimic them in the body; chlorinated compounds affect sperm counts, male birth rates, and other biological functions.

Phosphates
Phosphates contain phosphorus, which acts as a nutrient in water systems. An overabundance of phosphorus encourages excessive growth of algae and weeds, robbing less aggressive plants and animals of oxygen, resulting ultimately in lifeless streams and rivers.

Chemicals of Very High Concern
After a 2003 study of chemicals in household dust, Greenpeace compiled a list titled Chemicals of Very High Concern, including:
Alkyphenols:
Found in some cosmetics and other personal care products, as well as in multisurface cleaners, liquid laundry detergent, paints, and floor coverings.
Artificial musks:
Found in cosmetics, shampoo, perfume, shaving foam, skin care products, liquid soap, air fresheners, laundry detergents, and dishwashing soap.
Bisphenol A:
Found inplastics, epoxies, and some skin care products.
Brominated flame retardants:
Found in mattresses, mattress pads, upholstered furniture, carpets, and some elctronics.
Chlorinated paraffin:
Found in upholstered furniture, floor coverings, paints, plastics, and rubber products.
Organotins:
Found in shaving foam, floor coverings, carpets, pajamas, and air mattresses.
Phthalates:
Found in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics, including some children's teething and other toys; shampoo, perfume, shaving foam, cosmetics, skin- and other personal care products; shower curtains; air fresheners and multipurpose cleaners; and food packaging materials.

THE FIRST STEP in green cleaning is commitment. Making a naturally clean environment takes mindfulness in each housekeeping decision. Start by controlling the number of synthetic chemicals you use, elimination this and minimizing that. Look for safer alternatives. Make compromises if you must. When it comes to chemical cleaners, the milder the concentration, the lower the risk.
Like any commitment worth honoring, green cleaning comes with a set of challenges-awareness, education, experimentation, and a bit of elbow grease- but it's worth it. You'll learn that the quality of your life has little to do with using a harsh chemical to clean your toilet. By its very action, green cleaning says there is a better way.

- adapted from the new book Green Clean: the Environmentally Sound Guide to Cleaning Your Home (Melcher Media), by Linda Mason Hunter and Mikki Halpin.
WE, here at The House would lie to underscore the fact that elbow grease really is the ultimate ingredient in fighting a toilet bowl ring, aided by a Lil'Shaw Pad, and that our official cleaner selection is Caldrea, a gorgeous product manufactured in Minnesota, the land of Menonites, and about which not enough good can be said.

'Sweeping Beauty' Cleans Up With Poetry

2005-09-27T08:06:00.000-07:00

(Heard on NPR, presented by Susan Stamberg)

Morning Edition, Spetember 22, 2005 - Housework is a chore for many, an a pleasure for some. Poet Faith Shearin's mother sees it as the former.
"My mother despises what can never truly be done,"Shearin writes in the book Sweeping Beauty. "So she does not care for cooking or cleaning."
Love it or loath it, domestic work is a common experience and it's celebrated in Sweeping Beauty - Contemporary Women Poets Do Housework.
The punch of divorce, the slam of wars at the dinner table, the shroud of a bed sheet; editor and contributing poet Pamela Gemin says women's poems of housework are peppered with harsh realities.
And yet, for many of these baby boomer poets, there is beauty in housework. They find comfort in the rituals of ironing, sweeping and the occasional scrub.

An excerpt from "Sweeping Beauty":

The Idea of Housework
by Dorianne Laux

What good does it do anyone
to have a drawer full of clean knives,
the tines of tiny pitchforks
gleaming in plastic bins, your face
reflected eight times over
in the oval bowls of spoons?
What does it matter that the bathmat's
scrubbed free of mold, the door mat
swept clear of leaves, the screen door
picked clean of bees'wings, wasps'
dumbstruck bodies, the thoraxes
of flies and moths, high corners
broomed of spider webs, flowered sheets folded ans sealed in drawers,
blankets shaken so sleep's duff and fuzz,
dead skin flakes, lost strands of hair
flicker down on the cut grass?
Who cares if breadcrumbs collect on the countertop, if photographs
of the ones you love go gray with dust,
if milk jugs pile up, unreturned,
on the back porchnear the old dog's dish
encrusted with puppy chow?
Oh to rub the windows with vinegar,
the trees behind them revealin
their true colors. Oh the bleachy,
waxy,soapy perfume of spring.
Why should the things of this world
shine so? Tell me if you know.

2005-09-27T08:05:00.000-07:00

Sweeping Beauty

Woman's work

2005-08-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

Commander Eileen Collins at the controls

The first woman to pilot a craft into space 20 years ago, and the first woman to command a space mission in 1998, Ms Eileen Collins and her crew of 8 astronauts successfully landed Discovery on August 9th 2005. This commentary was found in the editorial pages of the National Post (Toronto, Canada) and addresses the torn thermal blanket Discovery endured on its way up and beyond the stratosphere.
It would appear that no matter how far away one may be from earth's gravity, one can not yet escape the gravity of a woman's job.

Zen Shui

2005-07-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

The buddhist principle of Wu Wei frees up a San Francisco home

By now, every architect, engineer, and decorator - and anyone else even remotely interested in design - knows about feng shui. Unfortunately, the ancient Taoist principle of wu wei has not been so lucky. The two share Asian roots, but that is where the similarities end. While feng shui is based on the proper ordering of all things in life, wu wei is concerned with following the somethimes chaotic patterns inherent in the universe. As the Taoist sage Chuang Tzu wrote, wu wei (literally, "non-doing") is "purposeless wandering." Writer, educator, and Taoist priest Ted Kardash goes a step further, explaining that wu wei is "the experience of going with the grain, swimming with the current." So, while feng shui has been embraced by interior designers, wu wei and its more free-form philosophy, unsurprisingly, has not. With no coffee-table books or home-improvement TV shows to its name, wu wei has generally kept quiet, biding its time peacefully in Buddhist temples across the globe.

But San Francisco-based designer Robert Holgate believes it's time for that to change. "I learned about wu wei from my client and friend Wendy Earl, a book publisher, when she asked me to design her loft," Holgate explains. "To start the project, we spent several hours arranging things, getting a feel for what Wendy liked. The time flew by." He continues, "After we finished, she said, "What an amazing wu wei session." I asked what the term meant, and she explained that wu wei is the process of finding the perfect place for things-letting objects go where they want to be in the world. I realized that's the approach I've used intuitively all my life."

Since that moment, Holgate has more consciously incorporated wu wei into everything he does. "When I approach a project, I try to spend some time with the clients-to get a feeling for what brings them joy,"he says. "Loving everything in your living environment is vital. Once I get a feeling for what flows best for my clients and what helps surround them with loving energy, I set out to create a home that encourages that flow."

In Earl's loft, for instance, Holgate created spaces that would allow art to be easily moved when the mood seemed right. Since Earl's art collection is deeply personal-much of it is by friends-it was important to allow the artworks to settle into the rooms where it felt right and not have the space dictate where each piece needed to be. Books are an integral part of Earl's life, so rather than containing them in restrictive cases, Holgate allowed them to form a serene and ever-changing hill of knowledge. Literature currently in favor sits on the surface, then gently falls to the bottom of the pile as Earl's state of mind shifts. There are no final restling places for things in a home guided by wu wei.

This may sound complex and even a bit intimidating to the uninitiatied, but Holgate says that manifesting wu wei in your home is really just about knowing yourself and trusting what comes instinctively to you. "Things drift toward the place with the least resistance, it's just natural," says Holgate. "That's wu wei."

But what about feng shui-the indisputable heavyweight champ of interior-design philosophies? "It's great for some designers," Holgate says. "But I function better with fewer rules. Since so much in life is not perfect, it's best to work with what you have."

- Found in the current edition of "BREATHE" (July/August 2005) and written by Andrew Wagner.

The House notes the existence of yet another neglected cousin of feng shui: Wabi Sabi, the exquisite art of leaving things undone. More on this later...

A House of One's Own

2005-07-09T20:14:00.000-07:00

(a poem for Jimmy) (Carter)

There was a man
Who worked for the phone company
Who lived in a house with his mommy and daddy
With a wife and two kiddie
He said woe is me, life is heavy,
Would humanity build a house
and please give me the key

There was a woman
And one kiddie,
Alone since pregnancy
Who waited years for a honey
And followed him into a new country
but he became a bad hubby quickly
And said good-bye rather abrubtly
Fend for yourself, said he,
I need a new wify.

She got some rags and cleaned many a potty
Called herself a cleaning company
And of many a jean wore out the knee
And then cried mercy, some relief please, from misery,
For the child and her, some peace and safety
A shelter from humanity

There was a dice, and it was flippy
It landed on the man's side, they said sorry honey
A hand up, not a hand out, today we re-define poverty
Come back another day or see the bankie,
This man and his family
need their SUV

End of story.

A. Travestey

- "Habitat For Humanity" is a Christian Ministry started by Jimmy Carter and administered by a network of local chapters across the world. The Ministry "believes that every family on earth should have at least a simple, decent place to live. Implied in that bold goal is that the "simple, decent place" is in a "suitable living environment." (*"More Than Houses"-Millard Fuller, World Publishing, page 54).

Sanctuaries and Inner Worlds

2005-07-03T11:37:00.000-07:00

Emilie's Banner Which hung on a city Lamp Post in Nanaimo BC this past spring and Lily's poem, which her mother forwarded recently:

When I am sad
my wings lift me
into a potter's bowl.
the bowl is as
giant as a castle.
I build my house
in the bowl.
It is my sanctuary.

- The House notes echoes of sadness, but no mere resignation to it: both Emilie and Lily use visualisation to transport them to a place where safety and happiness abound. These places are refuges of sorts and incorporate the yin and the yang of life: a "black" house with yellow eyes (and a blue door) and a "bowl as giant as a castle" where ultimatly the winged creature finds peace from a troublesome world.

The Politics of Clean

2005-06-19T19:32:00.000-07:00

In store: Caldrea

Heard on NPR's Morning Edition on June 14, 2005: San Francisco is about to become a little greener. The city is expected to pass a law requiring all official agencies to buy products that pose only minimal health risks. That includes everything from toilet bowl cleaner to playground equipment. The "green" purchasing law would be the first of its kind in the country. Sarah Varney of member station KQED reports.
(not the full transcript:) Hailed as the nation's first green purchasing law, it is designed to limit the health risks associated with the chemicals widely employed in commercial cleaning solutions from toilet bowl cleaners to glass cleaner.
The city of San Francisco spends $600 million a year in cleaning supplies (288 gallons of toilet bowl cleaner, 5100 gallons of disinfectant and 882 gallons of glass cleaner) and in the pilot program conducted by the city of SF over the last three years, alternatives were found that could significantly reduces the toxic load dumped, as it were, into the environment.
What is a safe amount? The city of SF is adopting the zero toxin approach (spokeswoman for the city says "better safe than sorry") and places the onus on the industry's "inovative manufacturers" to place adequate bids on its $600 million/yr contract & provide fitting alternatives.
Toxic synthetic chemicals can be found in blood, fat, semen and breast milk and are linked to cancer, autism and infertility. Quoted is Dr James Lucky, Enviromental Engineering and Science, Stanford University who blames contamination and body burdens on aerosols and just about every surface the skin comes in contact with.
The new law will also require that ingredients be disclosed on the label.

-The House proudly carries "Caldrea", made in the USA, an aromatherapic solution to mainstream's mostly toxic offerings. The House also offers a number of links on its website to other consciensous manufacturers, please visit www.abouthehouse.com

2005-06-19T19:29:00.000-07:00

The Office Assistant

Heather's Kitchen

2005-06-05T09:49:00.000-07:00

Heather's Kitchen

We were asked to paint the kitchen, but Heather did not want just one color, or two or even three. She wanted the whole rainbow. She wanted the kitchen to sing, and gave no specific direction as per what sort of music might entertain and inspire the cook while the cook is in the kitchen.
And so we imagined Debussy, ordered some Johny Cash and went ahead with a pastoral scene, incorporating wide open spaces in the graphics, along with the familiar creatures that populate Heather's world: Her dog, "Wolf-Dog", the gulls that navigate the cliffs off of Sooke, and the primitive memories of food sources: forest and fields and water teeming with life.

There are 10 panels, each effectively a cupboard door glazed over with several protective layers of varnish.

Heather and her husband Doug are musicians, composers and performers, and teach at the Victoria Conservatory of Music. They have two small children and eat organic.

2005-06-05T09:48:00.000-07:00

"Wolf-Dog", detail, panel #9, Heather's Kitchen

2005-06-05T09:46:00.000-07:00

Seagul, detail from Panel #4, Heather's Kitchen

The Housekeeper's Lament

2005-05-24T15:51:00.000-07:00

"All Hands Around" circa 1990

... 'I've been a hard worker all my life,' she said, seating herself and folding her hands restfully, 'But most all my work has been the kind that "perishes with the usin'," as the Bible says. That's the discouragin' thing about a woman's work. Milly Amos used to say that if a woman was to see all the dishes that she had to wash before she died, piled up before her in one pile, she'd lie down and die right then and there. I've always had the name o'bein'a good housekeeper, but when I'm dead and gone there ain't anybody goin' to think o' the floors I've swept, and the tables I've scrubbed, and the old clothes I've patched, and the stockin's I've darned. Abram might 'a'remembered it, but he ain't here. But when one o' my grandchildren or great-children sees one o'these quilts, they'll think about Aunt Jane, and, wherever I am then, I'll know I aint'forgotten. ...

-unidentified author, in an excerpt simply marked "Quilting in the Litterature of Time" which was passed on to us by a Master Quilter who, when invited to speak on the subject of quilting, opens her sollilloquy with it.
The copy she passed, an old "photostat", was worn out and had been so for years. Susan no longer quilts, her unwilling body having yielded to Parkinson's Disease, and it is we who do the dishes now.
One day, Susan appeared framed in the doorway of her bedroom, heavily ladden with a neatly folded blanket, a quilt she had done for her own bed, but not quite finished properly, or at least, not to her liking.
She explained the design to me, and gave me its name. She pointed out that the outside rim's pattern is made up of fish, of her own design, and she laughed. The quilt now hangs in [my] bedroom, since nothing else would fill that large 10x10 space quite the same way, and nothing else really, would ever echo the same selfless love.

Where Alexander quotes Bachelard on the need for a Secret Space.

2005-05-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

Chapter 204, from Alexander's "A Pattern Language":

Where can the need for concealment be expressed; the need to hide; the need for something precious to be lost, and then revealed?

We believe that there is a need in people to live with a secret place in their homes: a place that is used in special ways, and revealed only at very special moments.
To live in a home where there is such a place alters your experience. It invites you to put something precious there, to conceal, to let only some in on the secret and not others. It allows you to keep something that is precious in an entirely personal way, so that no one may ever find it, until the moment you say to your friend, "Now I am going to show you something special"-and tell the story behind it.
There is strong support for the reality of this need in Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space (New York: The Omen Press, 1964). We quote from Chapter 3:

With the theme of drawers, chests, locks and wardrobes, we shall resume contact with the unfathomable store of daydreams of intimacy.
Wardrobes with their shelves, desks with their drawers, and chests with their false bottoms are veritable organs of the secret psychological life. Indeed, without these "objects" and a few others in equally high favor, our intimate life would lack a model of intimacy. They are hybrid objects, subject objects. Like us, through us and for us, they have a quality of intimacy. ...
If we give objects the friendship they should have, we do not open a wardrobe without a slight start. Beneath its russet wood, a wardrobe is a very white almond. To open it, is to experience an event of whiteness.
An anthology devoted to small boxes, such as chests and caskets, would constitute an important chapter in psychology. These complex pieces that a craftsman creates are very evident witnesses of the need for secrecy, of an intuitive sense of hiding places. It is not merely a matter of keeping a possession well guarded. The lock doesn't exist that could resist absolute violence, and all locks are an invitation to thieves. A lock is a psychological threshold. ...

Therefore:

Make a place in the house, perhaps only a few feet square, which is kept locked and secret; a place which is virtually impossible to discover- until you have been shown where it is; a place where the archives of the house, or other more potent secrets, might be kept.

*secret place*precious objects*life history of family*history of the house*

Classic types of secret places are the panel that slides back, revealing the cavity in the wall, the loose board beneath the rug, the trap door - closets between rooms, thickenning the outer walls, floor-ceiling vaults. ...

-The House loves "A Pattern Language" for its entirely compassionate approach to the infrastructure of living. It is one of those reference books on our shelf that is bound to fall apart from constant page flickering.

Our Logo

2005-05-19T15:21:00.000-07:00

The Colour Scheme Bible

2005-05-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

Sophisticated system for combining colours: A new book is packed with pratical advice and a sophisticated mix-and-match system
-by Shelley Fralic, CanWest News Service

VANCOUVER B.C. - Choice, as anyone who has ever faced a wall of paint chips in the home improvement store well knows, can be a burden.
Steel is the new black. Ash is the new white. Marmalade is the new red. Primary, secondary, tertiary, sample pots, matching, tinting...
Color me confused.
If you long for the days when your vermilion pencil crayon was your most colourful possession, and really just need help in finding the right shade for the kitchen, check out The Colour Scheme Bible, written by Anna Starmer and published by Firefly Books ($29.95, wirebound hardcover).
Starmer offers a brief history of colour and then, for the purposes of the book, breaks the decorating choices into 10 palettes - pinks, reds, violets, oranges, browns, blues, yellows, greens, neutrals, greys.
Up front is a gallery of 200 paint chips taken from those palettes. These "main" colours key to pages that show them teamed with two highlight and two accent colours, along with tips on where and how to use the hues.
It's a sophisticated mix-and-match system with some surprising colour marriages.
Because I wish I was one, I picked a soft blond - it's called honey- from the front-of-the-book key and turned to find it matched with accents in cream and chocolate brown, with highlights in raspberry and neon pink.
I'm also going through a pink phase, so chose a tinted pink porcelain chip, which Starmer suggests is best accented with peach-organza and muted peach melba, along with poppy and Japanese lacquered red for highlighting.
Boldly going in fantasy where I'd never go in reality, I then opted for a deep purple as a main colour, and discovered it paired with a hue called bark that was the colour of something a Canada goose might leave behind.
Black and tan are big in home decor right now, and Starmer likes then coupled with violet and cobalt blue.
And so it goes, page after page -256 in all- a paint chip fetishist's gold mine.
The book also touches on the psychology of coulour as a mood enhancer, and how a certain shade can make you feel happy or sad.
For instance, says Starmer, orange stimulates creativity, blues are meditative, violet is sexy and yellow helps the brain work better.
The author thinks the colours you choose for your home should reflect your personality and suggests the use of a "mood boar," a collage of photographs, fabric and wallpaper swatches, paint chips and other bbits and pieces of personal inspiration that will help reveal your inner rainbow.
The book is infused with flowery language and adjectives like juicy and smart and laundered and sugary and flirtatious, all of which are nonsense and mean nothing when you put paint on a roller.
But once you get past its preciousness - we don't really want to eat paint or even date it - The Colour Scheme Bible is a useful self-consulting tool for the typical homeowner seeking adventure in a can of paint.
Starmer, billed as a colour and design specialist who has done work for IKEA, reminds us that it's only been in the past century that colour, once linked to the wealthy, has come to the masses, through television and magazines and the production of plastics and dyes.
Today, it's purported that technology allows us to create about 16 million different colours, any one of which you can choose to transform that kitchen.
Remember, then, the best advice that isn't in this book.
Go crazy. It's only a can of paint.

-found in "The Times Colonist" and dated 03/26/2005

2005-05-03T19:41:00.000-07:00

The House smile

2005-05-03T14:22:00.000-07:00

The Dreamer inside

The Big Book of Natural Color

2005-05-03T13:15:00.000-07:00

...begins in this vivifying way:

"Of all the precious minerals, beautiful landscapes, sights, experiences, and astonishing materials the world has to offer, it amazes me that paint can still exercise a power of wonder over the humand mind. Perhaps it is because paint is a vehicle for color, a conduit for chromatic concupiscence. More probably it's because paint has the power to cleanse, renew, and change our visual world: our walls and homes, cars and fufrniture, our faces and nails.
And paint has always been powerful. Socially, it used to be more influential than it is now. For tens of thousands of years it has been used to mark territory, cover faces, and decorate the otherwise humdrum paraphernalia of our lives..."

- Foreword by Kevin McCloud to a magnificent book titled "The Big Book of Natural Color" written by Elizabeth Hilliard and Stafford Cliff (Matson-Guptill Publications, New York).

The House notes:

The book is indeed big, the photography superb, but it is the thoughtful text that caught our eye and mind. This book may look and feel like a coffe table book, but it would be dangerous to judge it by its cover and dismiss it as yet another splash in the wide universe of ego-centered interior decorators.
It is meant for the avid art student, the eager home maker and any student of nature with a wish to tune in with the rest of the Natural World.
Its clear descriptions of processes and pigmentation will satisfy-not saturate- a curious mind, and its photography will inspire endless and timeless combinations of moods and feelings, mostly by teaching one ...how to look. Now we ask: Where would we be without Color TV?

"We even save marriages..."

2005-03-23T16:34:00.000-08:00

In 1999, somewhere between 14 and 18 percent of households employed an outsider to do the cleaning and the numbers are rising dramatically. Media-Mark Research reports a 43 percent increase, between 1995 and 1999, in the number of households using a hired cleaner or service once a month or more, and Maritz Marketing finds that 30 percent of the people who hired help in 1999 had done so for the first time that year.
Managers of the new corporate cleaning services, such as the one I worked for, attribute their success not only to the influx of women into the workforce but to the tensions over housework that arose in its wake. When the trend toward hiring out was just beginning to take off, in 1988, the owner of a Merry Maids franchise in Arlington, Massachusetts, told the Christian Science Monitor "I kid some women. I say, 'We even save marriages. In this new eighties mind you expect more from the male partner, but very often you don't get the cooperation you would like to have. The alternative is to pay somebody to come in'" (Ambushed by Dust Bunnies," Christian Science Monitor, April 4, 1988) Another Merry Maids franchise owner has learned to capitalize more directly on housework-related spats; he closes 30-35 percent of his sales by making follow-up calls Saturdays between 9:00 and 11:00 a.m.-which is prime time for arguing over the fact that the house is a mess" ("Homes Harbor Dirty Secrets," Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1994).

- footnote, page 91 of Barbara Erenreight's book: "Nickel and Dimed"

In your dreams

2005-03-22T13:55:00.000-08:00

-The house manifest in the dream life as the picture of your psychological framework. Look closely at the details of the house for the real meaning. Find here a dream's analysis presented by Ms Tuula Haukioja, a jungian analyst, for The Globe and Mail.

A strange house

I have frequent dreams, many times a month, of homes. The homes are often in a state of disrepair, but not always. They are always older homes with many rooms, but often one level, more often the top level, is ruined. There is a house on a uphill sloping road that is in good shape with a gravel driveway, but I only ever see the mud room and a dinning-room table, another with a roof I sit on, a little-used road running beside a busy road. Another seems to be on the Mediterranean Sea with whales below the balcony. One of the most vivid was a total wreck of a house with the top floor in an absolute mess, but that one is very confusing in my mind. There are no feelings that I can remember with any house. There are also few colours that I can remember other than dark browns and greys, but the house in the Mediterranean I see is definitely yellow.
(Male, age 53)
When you dream about houses, often you're getting a picture of your own psychological framework. Look closely at the details of the house for the real meaning. An old house or one with antiques may speak to the dreamer's relationship to tradition, stability or the status quo, which may be in conflict with other aspects of the personality which require renewal (renovations/repairs). This dreamer only sees parts of his own inner house, which is off on a side road, yet he has a good perch from which to observe outer life passing by on the main road.
The mud room, a threshold space, could suggest his being stuck, engaged fully in neither his inner or outer life. Feeling (which gives colour and vitality to life) is largely absent. The dreamer could connect to the roots (and probably painful emotions inherent in this situation) by carefully associating to the dream's images and symbols. A fruitful area to explore could be the dining-room table-that suggests issues around nourishment and relationships with family and friends. A central issue for the dreamer lies in the upper levels, the rational and intuitive processes where there is confusion and disarray.
The yellow house overlooking whales in the Mediterranean is a striking contrast to the other images and holds important clues to the nature of the problem as well as its solution. The colour yellow suggests both the sun (associated with consciousness and life-giving energy) and gold, (symbolizing great value). In the inner world, this suggests the spiritual or intuitive parts of our nature. The whales bring to mind the biblical story of Jonah, who in running away from his God-given task brings misfortune upon himself and others. He must pass through the painful darkness (whale's belly) of his nature to learn the lesson of a greater compassion and wisdom at work, which enables him to humbly fulfill his destiny in the world despite his fears, flaws and misgivings.

-found in The Globe and Mail, 03/05/05. Tuula Haukioja is a Jungian analyst. You can send her your dreams for analysis at focus@globeandmail.ca.

The Design of a House

2005-03-16T22:23:00.000-08:00

1.
Except in idea, perfection is as wild
as light; there is no hand laid on it.
But the house is a shambles
unless the vision of its perfection
upholds it like stone.

More probable: the ideal
of its destruction:
cloud of fire prefiguring
its disappearance.

Where value there is
is assumed;
like a god, thehouse elects its omens;
because it is, I desire it should be
-white, its life intact in it,
among trees.

Love has conceived a house,
and out of its labor
brought its likeness
-the emblem of desire, continuing
though the flesh falls away.

2.
We've come round again
to short days and long nights;
time goes;
the clocks barely keep up;
a spare dream of summer
is kept
alive in the house:

the Queen Anne's lace
-gobletted,
green beginning to bloom,
tufted, upfurling-
unfolding
whiteness:

in this winter's memory
more clear than ever in summer,
cold paring away excess:

the single blooming random
in the summer's abundance
of its kind, in high relief
above the clover and grass
of the fiel, unstill
an instant,
the day having come upon it,
green and white
in as much light as ever was.

Opened, white, at the solstice
of its becoming, then the flower
forgets its growing;
is still;

dirt is its paradigm-
and this memory's seeing,
a cold wind keening the outline.

3.
Winter nights the house sleeps,
a dry seedhead in the snow
falling and fallen, the white
and dark and depth of it, continuing
slow impact of silence.
The dark
rooms hold our heads on pillows, waiting
day, through the snow falling and fallen
in the darkness between inconsecutive
dreams. The brain burrows in its earth
and sleeps,
trusting dawn, though the sun's
light is a light without precedent,
never proved ahead of its coming, waited for
by the law that hope has made it.

4.
What do you intend?
Drink blook
and speak, old ghosts. I don't
hear you. What has it amounted to
-the unnegotiable accumulation
of your tears? Your expenditure
has purchased no reprieve. Your
failed wisdom shards among the
down-going atoms of the moment.

History goes blind and in darkness;
neither sees nor is seen, nor is known except as a carrion
marked with unintelligible wounds:
dragging its dead body, living,
yet to be born, it moves heavily
to its glories. It tramples
the little towns, forgets their names.

5.
If reason was all, reason
would not exist-the will
to reason accounts for it;
it's not reason that chooses
to live; the seed doesn't swell
in its husk by reason, but loves
itself, obeys light which is
its own thought and argues the leaf
in secret; love articulates
the choice of life in fact; life
chooses life because it is
alive; what lives didn't begin dead,
nor sun's fire commence in ember.

Love foresees a jointure
composing a house, a marriage
of contraries, compendium
of opposites in equilibrium.
This morning the sun
came up before the moon set;
Shadows were stripped from the house
like burnt rags, the sky turning
blue behind the clear moon,
day and night moving to day.

Let severances be as dividing
budleaves around the flower
-woman and child enfolded, chosen.
It's a dying begun, not lightly,
the taking up of this love
whose legacy is its death.

6.
This is a love poem for you, Tanya-

among wars, among the brutal forfeitures
of time, in this house, among its latent fires,
among all that honesty must see, I accept
your dying, and love you: nothing mitigates
-and for our Mary, chosen by the blind
hungering of our blood, precious and periled
in her happy mornings; whose tears are mine.

7.
There's still a degree of sleep
recalls
the vast empty dream I slept in
as a child
sometimes contained a chaos, tangled
like fishline snarled in hooks-
sometimes a hook, whetted, severe,
drawing
the barbed darkness to a point;
sometimes I seemed merely to be falling.

8.
And I have dreamed
of the morning coming in
like a bird through the window
not burdened by a thought,

the light a singing
as I hoped.

It comes in and sings
on the corner of the white washstand,

among coleus stems and roots
in a clear green bottle
on the black tabletop
beneath the window,

under the purple coleus leaves,
among spearing
green philodendron leaves,
on the white washstand:

a small yellow bird with black wings;
darting in and out.

9.
To imagine the thoughtlessness
of a thoughtless thing
is useless.
The mind must sing
of itself to keep awake.

Love has visualized a house,
and out of its expenditure
fleshed the design
at this cross ways
of consciousness and time:

its form and growth
come to light in it;

croplands, gardens,
are of its architecture,

labor its realization;

solstice is the height
of its consciousness,

thicket a figuration
of its waking;

plants and stars are made convergent
in its windows;

cities we have gone to and come back
are the prospect of its doorways.

And there's a city it dreams of:
salt-white beside the water.

10.
Snow and the house's white make a white
the black swifts may come back to.

- From "Collected Poems: 1957-1982" by Wendell Berry

Intimacy's Dwelling

2005-02-18T21:39:00.000-08:00

The playwright John Guare and the designer Adele Chatfield-Taylor have apartments that share the same service hall. When they got married, her mother asked, "Well, now are you going to live together?" The reply: "Certainly not! Why let a little thing like matrimony ruin a big thing like good design?"
It's a humerous anecdote, but it also reveals a broader truth about the creative ways we can negotiate intimacy and preserve our relationships. Think of Frida Kahlo's Casa Chica, a small blue house that was joined to Diego Rivera's large pink Casa Grande by a third-floor bridge. Or the painter Vanessa Bell, who shared a nighttime house with Clive Bell and their children but lived and worked during the day with Duncan Grant, the father of her youngest child, at their Charleston House studio. (Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell's sister, called the studio "the masterppiece and joint memorial to their left-handed marriage.")
Relationships that work allow room for the imaginal requirements of all parties involved. Otherwise the unmet imagination will begin devising a fantasy of a way out-and the life it seeks will always be elsewhere. A "dream house" should be a house capable of dreaming-a dwelling with room for fantasy, centers of solitude, planes of boredom, a stable for the nightmare, and openings to attract the rooting psyche.
Too many people grow up in houses of wishful thinking instead. Couples who had insurmountable distances placed between them by Depression-era poverty or by the world wars, for example, were often linked by an intense shared fantasy of a peaceful and abundant life together. Happiness could be achieved if only the image were just so-the perfect mate, a perfect wedding, a perfect house.
This blueprint for happiness simply doesn't work, a possibility I was first alerted to when a Quaker Sunday school teacher drove a group of us to the outskirts of our town in New Jersey to look at a new housing development. Houses sat in a row, neat as a pin, exactly the same size. In contrast with nearby older, colonial houses on irregular, deep, and oddly landscaped lots-each featuring nooks for the imagination to dwell-these newer houses appeared lonely: isolated, inorganic, finished, and dead.
How could children, or relationships, so housed possibly survive, I wondered? Architects probably have files on housing design in the 1950's and corresponding divorce rates in the 1960's. Even today, at the start of the 21st century, housing and lifestyle markets continue to urge a stupefying conformity that curses marriage and partnerships of all kinds. Fortunatly, there are architects and dreamers who prevail in pushing the limits imposed by the stereotyped, boxed version of relationship-who succeed in creating spaces to imaginatively house ourselves with room for intimacy.
Architect Christopher Alexander, for example, (see other post on this blog titled: "Building as if Life mattered") attempts in his work to resolve the age-old Njord-Skadi dilemma in Scandinavian folklore: Njord loved the sea and Skadi the mountains. Each was restless and ill at ease in the place of the other, so they established a festival of meeting in between. Addressing the delicate problem of the balance of solitudes, Alexander asks, How large a field is required for companionship? And how much privacy does each person require?
The challenge is to design domains of intimacy rather than to construct close quarters. After all, intimacy, unlike closeness, is never repellent. One of the designs I have lived-in a marriage that works!-extends Alexander's plan in space and time to include a roving shared realm anchored by separate private dwellings. There is my husband's place (in Minneapolis) and my place (in St Paul), and then there are the places in the world where we meet.
Living in distinct dwellings makes it necessary to be taken in to each other's intimacy. Such a design asks me to consider how my house houses him, and how his house houses me. The arrangement is stable but with and added note of impermanence because of the ever-present question "Will you live together someday?"
Separate spaces posit triangles. Whether or not the triangle involves a third person, a third space destabilizes a potentially static "twoness" and generates movement. The desire behind this design was made literal in the '60's ideal of communal life: Everyone lived in separate dwellings linked by a communal hearth, paths from house to house etching triangles in the meadow.
Even if you don't live in a dwelling entirely distinct from your partner's, houses should have structures to enable separation: walls, large work surfaces, different levels, sectioned yards, outside porches or decks above ground, discrete lighting (reading lights for one), solid doors, and window seats. And, of course, elements that encourage touching: couches for two, softening colors, beds, small passageways between some rooms, intimate tables for eating, entryways to facilitate greeting.
Nourishing separate spaces might seem a little too radical for some people, especially those who are married. But, as the impertinent writer Phyllis Rose says, "Whith regard to marriage, we need more complex plots."

-Author Nor Hall has never lived with her husband of 15 years, Roger Hale. After all this time, they still have only the bare essentials-a toothbrush, a bathrobe, a pair of pajamas-at each other's houses. "Our relationship has none of the niggling day-to-day problematics of life,"Hall says. "Coming together is more stimulating." An earlier version of this article appeared in Marriages (Spring 1996) by James Hillman, Ginette Paris, Nor Hall, Rachel Pollack, et al.

-Found in The Utne Reader, November/December 2004 and titled there: "The Architecture of Intimacy"

Mom in Cleaning Prison

2005-02-18T21:03:00.000-08:00

A little girl, on one side of the glass, a weary mother on the other...
check out this funny clip found on ifilm...

http://www.ifilm.com/viralvideo?ifilmid=2647482

Organize and re-vamp your home for fall

2005-01-29T22:31:00.000-08:00

The change of seasons is a good time for...well, change. If your prized possessions have started to look more like ugly clutter, it's time to organize your home and your life. Here are 10 steps to ease the process, from Angelo Surmelis of The Learning Channel's show "Clean Sweep" and professional organizer Cyndi Seidler.

Make the desision to organize your space. Forget about trying to impress guests with a clean home, and focus on the fact that once you've organized, you'll have more time to do the fun things you want, instead of sorting through junk.

First, tackle the room you spend the most time in, or the one that will make you the most productive. Worry later about that basement you've been meaning to redo, and focus instead on that home office so you can get more work done.

Sort junk into three categories: Keep, Sell and Toss. Then organize items into categories such as kitchen, clothes, office, audio-video, etc.

While sorting items, evaluate each piece to decide what value it holds for you. If it has use or importance, keep it and display it proudly. If it isn't going to be used or displayed, toss it.

If you do nothing else, paint. Not only does this add personality to a room and keep clutter from blending into whitewashed walls, but taking everything out of a room helps you self-edit what you decide to bring back.

Every item in a room should have a home. Whether it's a personal piece framed or displayed on a shelf or table, or a handful of craft supplies stored in a clear plastic box or rolling cart, it all belongs somewhere. Store away office supplies to keep clutter off desks, and keep miscellaneous clothing items in clear containers for easy access.

Identify the storage needs of each room you work on, and shop accordingly. Dark wood-accented pieces may work for your living room but clash with kitchen decor. And different-sized boxes and accessories may work best in different places in your home, so take stock before you hit the stores.

Self-editing is key to organizing spaces. Always be conscious of what you bring into a room and where it fits in. Take a little extra time to maintain organization, lest it build up. Five minutes at the end of each day can prevent the overwhelming task of dealing with a monster organizing project.

If you're just completely over-whelmed, consider hiring an organizer or designer to help you out. Or, if you know what you want done, you always can hire the labor to get the project finished. You can find a professional organizer in your area by going to the National Association fo Professional Organizers'Web site, www.napo.net.

Give yourself time. An entire crew working practically around the clock on "Clean Sweep" can get a lot done in two days. But don't expect the same if you're flying solo.

-Found in the Seattle Times, fall 2004. Call "The House" to get an objective perspective on the matter and find the right help: 360-321-4718 in the Seattle area, or visit our website: www.abouthehouse.com, where we address cleaning, clutter, and color issues.

Vincent's Colours

2005-01-20T21:13:00.000-08:00

...My eyes are still tired by then I had a new idea in my head and here is the sketch of it. Another size 30 canvas. This time it's just simply my bedroom, only here colour is to do everything, and giving by its simplification a grander style to things, is to be suggestive here of rest or of sleep in general. In a word, looking at the picture ought to rest the brain, or rather the imagination.
The walls are pale violet.
The floor is of red tiles.
The wood of the bed and chairs is the yellow of fresh butter, the sheets and pillows very light greenish-citron.
The coverlet scarlet.
The window green.
The toilet table orange, the basin blue.
The doors lilac.
And that is all-there is nothing in this room with its closed shutters.
The broad lines of the furniture again must express inviolable rest. Portraits on the walls, and a mirror and a towel and some clothes.
The frame-as there is no white in the picture-will be white.
This by way of revenge for the enforced rest I was obliged to take.
I shall work on it again all day, but you see how simple the conception is. The shadows and the cast shadows are suppressed; it is painted in free flat tints like the Japanese prints. It is going to be a contrast to, for instance, the "Tarascon Diligence" and the "Night Cafe".

-Letter#554, written by Vincent to Theo. Vincent had just spent a spell at the hospital and was mad furious at the "repos" he was "forced"to take there...and at its white walls. He is describing "Room in Arles" later to be recognized as one of his greatest masterpieces, and indeed a portrait of serenity and contentment.

Building as if Life Mattered

2005-01-18T21:56:00.000-08:00

What if the purpose of architecture were not primarily to surprise with unexpected shapes, awe the viewer with the genius of the architect, or keep up with glamorous trends-but rather to add life to our environment by finding and using patterns that are charged with the spirit of life?
That, in a nutshell, is the aim of the humanistic, holistic, integrative approach to building called organic architecture. It's an emerging worldwide movement that traces its origins to the prophetic American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the Spanish advocate of organic form Antonio Gaudi, philosopher and educational theorist Rudolf Steiner, and others, and it's rapidly gaining recognition and momentum. (The first exhibition of organic architecture opened at the Berlage Museum in Amsterdam in April 2003.) Its prime prophet and theorist is the Berkeley-based American architect Christopher Alexander, and he's just completed a four-volume magnum opus that is both a manifesto and an exhaustive demonstration of how and why organic architecture works.
With the September publication of Book Three of The Nature of Order (Oxford) (the first, second, and fourth volumes appeared in 2003), organic architecture has an eloquent theory to go with its practice.
Alexander helped pioneer the practice of organic architecture 30 years ago with the publication of A Pattern Language. He and his colleagues at the University of California School of Architecture rocked the architectural academy with this revolutionary desigh tool-a compendium of some 253 "patterns" that people from every era and every corner of the world love to see and experience in architecture. The patterns, which address architecture at all scales from a town to the details of individual houses, enable anyone to pick and choose time-tested, possibly even archetypal configurations on which to base the design of whatever they are building.
Alexander and crew's demystification and democratization of the design process challenged the whole idea of architecture as the vehicle for idiosyncratic architects to express their idiosyncratic visions. The modernist and postmodernist orthodoxy dismissed Alexander's ideas as derivative, sentimental romanticism. But critic Tony Ward, in a review for Architecture Design, wrote that A Pattern Language "allows any lay person or group of persons to design any part of the environment for themselves...Every library, every school, every environmental action group, every architect, and every first-year student should have a copy."
Now comes the completion of The Nature of Order, the long-awaited and much-delayed 2,150-page treatise on "the art of building and the nature of the universe" that Alexander calls a single, if very long, essay. In it he provides the theoretical basis for the selection of the patterns in
A Pattern Language, and for the creation of new patterns. Alexander claims that the art of building began going awry in the 16th century with the rise of mechanistic scientific thinking. One consequence is that there is now no consensus about which values are most important in making buildings.
For Alexander, however, the choice is clear. The criterion that trumps all others is how much life the building has. He acknowledges that aliveness is hard to measure objectively, but he asserts that most people know it when they see it. When, as part of his research, Alexander set photos of two objects-say, a salt shaker and a ketchup bottle, or a Bangkok slum and a postmodern residence in Massachusetts-side by side and asked people to comment on the juxtaposition, more than 90 percent agreed on which photos had more life.
Drawing on these and other findings, Alexander establishes human feelings as the final arbiter of good desigh. He writes: "I assert, simply, that all living process hinges on the production of deep feeling... Yet perhaps there is no other place in this essay where the intellectual paradigm I offer is more at odds-at least on the surface-with the Cartesian paradigm. At first sight it would almost seem absurd to claim that every living process may be recognized, or measured in its degree of efficacy, according to the depth of its capacity to produce deep feeling. Yet I believe this is so."
Toward the end of Book Four, The Luminous Ground, Alexander makes his greatest, and most potentially controversial, contribution. He asserts that through feelings of reverence, awe, wonder and love, "we somehow come more closely into relation with the underlying ground-stuff of the universe, with the domain of pure unity."
He's saying that in order to create architecture that has life, that connects us to our wholeness, designers need to train their inner spiritual senses and "to make the practice of architecture nothing less than a path to higher consciousness, a path to God."

-found in the November-December 2004 issue of the Utne Reader, written by Eric Utne.

Tibetan Personality Test

2005-01-12T21:49:00.000-08:00

Take your time with this test and you will be amazed. The Dalai Lama suggets you read it to see if it works for you. Very interesting. Just 4 questions and the answers will surprise you.
Be honest and do not cheat by looking up the answers. This is fun to do, but you have to follow the instructions very closely.

Do not cheat.

Make a wish before beginning the test!

A warning! Answer the question as you go along. There are only 4 questions and if you see them all before finishing, you will not have honest results.

Go down slowly, and complete each exercise as you scroll down.

Don't look ahead. Get pencil and paper to write your answers as you go along.

You will need it at the end. This is an honest questionnaire which will tell you a lot about your true self. Give an answer for each item. The first thing that comes to mind is usually your best answer. Remember: No one sees this but you...

(1) Put the following 5 animals in the order of your preference: Cow, Tiger, Sheep, Horse, Pig

(2) Write one word that describes each one of the following: Dog, Cat, Rat, Coffee, Sea

(3) Think of someone, who also knows you and is important to you, which you can relate then to the following colors. Do not repeat your answer twice. Name just one person for each color: Yellow, Orange, Red, White, Green.

(4) Finally, write down your favorite number, and your favorite day of the week.

Finished? Please be sure that your answers are what you REALLY WANT.

Look at the interpretations below: But first before continuing,

REPEAT your wish.

-This "test" came to the House innocently enough, but in taking the test and sending it forth to friends and such, the feedback was amazing. It turns out that intuitively we guide our spirits to whatever spirit calls it, and that the call comes by way of forms, textures, colors and smells: Coffee? All the kids we asked said "arrr, disgusting..."

Read on!

Answers:

(1) This will define your priorities in your life.
Cow Signifies CAREER
Tiger Signifies PRIDE
Sheep Signifies LOVE
Horse Signifies FAMILY
Pig Signifies MONEY

(2) Your description of dog implies your own personality.
Your description of cat implies the personality of your partner.
Your description of rat implies the personality of your enemies.
Your description of coffee is how you interpret sex.
Your description of the sea implies your own life.

(3) Yellow: Someone you will never forget
Orange: Someone you consider your true friend
Red: Someone that you really love
White: Your twin soul
Green: Someone that you will remember for the rest of your life.

(4) You have to send this message to as many persons as your favorite number and your wish will come true on the day that you recorded.

Share this with at least five persons and your life will improve:
0-4 persons: Your life will improve slightly
5-9 persons: Your life will improve to your liking
9-14 persons: You will have at least 5 surprises in the next three weeks.

-and may they all be blessings upon you and your house. Namaste.

Chaos, habit, and The beautiful Human Mind

2004-09-22T18:15:00.000-07:00

The Human Mind

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.
The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid: Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deson't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

...and who said that chaos could not be tamed?

Fire up her libido by mopping floor

2004-09-14T16:20:00.000-07:00

The House notes that we knew this all along: Every guy that's ever donned rubber gloves for us (yes, if Houses have genders, this one is female) has won our hearts... hands down.

Ottawa- A cheeky British book prescribes sharing household chores as the cure for an ailing relationship-an almost guaranteed tonic for domestic bliss.
The sleeper hit of the British book market this summer, How to Satisfy Your Woman Everytime: The Straight Guy's Guide to Housework and Good Grooming, teaches home economics to guys unable or unwilling to iron a shirt, launder their own clothes, or polish brass. Besides going from "slob to suave," it promises that pitching in around the house will "bring your woman complete pleasure everyday."
Titled "Household Management for Men outside of North America", the illustrated book has topped British best-seller lists. It has sold over 350,000 copies worldwide and been translated into 13 languages.
Jane Ellis, publicity director for Cassell Illustrated, the book's London-based publisher, credited its enormous popularity to "the fact that having a clean house is a huge turn on."
"It's very much a gift book."
Fed up with the untidy men in their lives, British women have given the colourful and eminently practical book to their sons, spouses and relatives; a not-so-subtle hint to clean up their messy living spaces.
"It seems to have caught the imagination-particularly of women," said Nigel Browning, co-author of the book. "It's usually women buying it as gifts for men. Perhaps to make them more sexy and to make them more appealing."
He cited several studies to bolster his claims. In the first, three out of four men who help with the household chores for more than two hours each week "last up to 40 minutes longer when making love."
The research gets worse for the slovenly.
"Only five percent of women enjoy lovemaking with men who offer no help around the house," he says, paraphrasing the findings of another study.
"You can safely say that men who do housework...are more attractive to women."
When not playing up the attractiveness angle, the 143-page book gently cajoles men into lending a hand through more practical methods of persuasion-like squeezing in a workout while accomplishing a practical task.
For example, a 30 minutes dish-washing session burns 80 calories.
Advice ranges from the simplistic-emptying shirt pockets of coins and bills before tossing it in the washing machine -to the sophisticated- how to lay out nine pieces of cutlery on the table for a dinner party.
"It's all quite cheeky. That's why it's worked," he says.

-written by David Agren for CanWest News Service and published in the Nanaimo "Daily News" on September 3rd 2004.

The House further notes that last year's non-fiction best-seller in Britain was titled "Domestic Bliss" and was a light-hearted 50's style treaty on domesticity squarely aimed at women too caught up in their careers to notice that the silver in the drawer was tarnishing.

What is it with those Brits... and Germans? (please visit our blogspot on Germany's penchant for cleanliness titled: "Meanwhile in Germany...") though The House does caution North American Males against resting on such laurels as that which is implied in this title ..."Household Management for Men outside of North America".
We say: Three things are for sure in life: Death, Taxes, and Dirt.

The War is never over, and there is no rest for the wicked!

Where "How Big the House Is" matters not

2004-09-01T01:25:00.000-07:00

Wealth and Happiness Don't Necessarily Go Hand in Hand

[The House notes that this is a must- read article for anyone seriously engaged in the long hard pursuit of happiness; unexpectedly found in The Wall Street Journal]

On a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 means "not at all satisfied with my life" and 7 means "completely satisfied," it's no surprise that survey-respondents who make Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans average 5.8, while homeless pavement dwellers in Calcutta average 2.9. All in all, sleeping on sidewalks and starving can't hold a candle to sleeping on satin and splurging.
Not so fast. In the surveys, taken off and on over the last 20 years, the Inuit people of frigid northern Greenland also average 5.8. So do the cattle-herding Masai of Kenya, who live in dung huts with no electricity or running water. And Calcutta's slum dwellers, for whom being only a single economic rung above the pavement denizens apparently makes a huge difference, come in at 4.6.
Does money buy happiness? In particular, does raising a nation's income or wealth, as measured by gross domestic product, raise the population's overall level of happiness? Intuitively, you'd think the answer is a definite yes. After all, classic economic theory holds that additional income allows people to meet additional needs, and the more needs-or even wants-you satisfy, the happier you are. Also, money buys you choices. With $10 you can buy steak or hot dogs, but with only $1 you better hope you have relish in the fridge. The more choices people have, economists assume, the happier they are.

Psychologists suggest that things are a lot more complicated. An ambitious analysis of more than 150 studies on wealth and happiness shows that "economic indicatiors have glaring shortcomings" as approximations of well-being, write psychology professors Ed Diener of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Martin E.P. Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in a coming issue of the journal Psychological Science in the Publid Interest. The studies show that, in many countries, "although economic output has risen steeply over the past decades, there has been no rise in life satisfaction... and there has been a substantial increase in depression and distrust."
You can sure see that in individuals. To be sure, income is an accurate predictor of well-being when it raises someone from, say, homelessness to a janitorial job, because the jump up the economic ladder brings basic needs like food and shelter. With increasing wealth, however, extra money doesn't buy much extra happiness, according to most of the 150 studies. Instead, happiness comes from social relationships, enjoyable work, fulfillment, a sense that life has meaning, and joining civic and other groups.
"Economic success falls short as a measure of well-being, in part because materialism can negatively influence well-being, and also because it is possible to be happy without living a life of luxury," conclude Profs. Diener and Seligman.
Just to make things interesting, studies that find money and happiness go together often suffer from an inability to tell corelation from causation, or what causes what. People who say they're happy typically go on, years later, to earn higher incomes than people who said they were not. That suggests that a sense of well-being boosts productivity, initiative and other traits leading to a highter income, and not (or not only) that higher income buys extra happiness. Contented people are also more likely to get married and stay that way, and to be healthy, all of which tend to increase happiness. Money may not buy happiness, but happiness can buy money.

Government Policies to promote economic growth seem, at first glance, like an obvious way to give people a greater sense of well-being. Economists find repeatedly that, in general, the higher a nation's GDP the greater its population's happiness. While that seems to support the money-can-buy-happiness idea, though, it ignores one thing. Wealthy nations tend to be democracies that respect human rights and have a fair legal system, good health care, and effective, honest government. All of these contribute to well being. When you account for these variables, the effect of income itself on the the citizenry's happiness practically vanishes.
Just look at the world's wealthiest nations. Since World War II, GDP per capita in the U.S. has tripled, but life satisfaction (measured by surveys that ask something like, "overall, how satisfied are you with your life?") has barely budged. Japan, too, has had a stupendous rise in GDP per capita since 1958, yet measures of national happiness have been flat. The same holds for much of Western Europe, finds social psychologist Ruut Veenhoven of Erasmus University, Rotterdam. One reason may be that a rising economy produces rising aspiration. Luxuries come to seem like necessities, canceling the psychological benefits of economic growth.
If psychologists had a seat on a government's economic team, they would point out that, once a nation reaches a certain level of prosperity, further economic growth is unlikely to buy addittional happiness. Instead, Prof. Veenhoven says, increasing the citizenry's sense of well-being requires "less investment in economic growth and more in policies that promote good governance, liberties, democracy, trust and public safety."

- "Science Journal" by Sharon Begley, published in The Wall Street Journal on Aug. 13 2004.

About Stuff

2004-08-31T23:55:00.000-07:00

Home View/Clutter Clusters

With Spring-cleaning season approaching, Web site Home-pricecheck.com surveyed 1,130 people nationwide to find out where in their houses they stored clutter. Nearly half the respondents said most of their clutter was hidden away in either a garage, an attic or a basement. The second most common answer: Clutter is stored "everywhere" in the house, according to 33% of respondents.
The cleanest areas: front porches and hallways, where only 1% of those surveyed said they kept their clutter. Also, 8% said they allowed clutter to pile up in their bedrooms, and a fortunate 12% said they had no clutter at all.

-The Wall Street Journal, February 20, 2004

The House notes... that such findings as a universal need to keep entryways and pathways clear resonates with Feng Shui's law of Moving Ch'i.

Meanwhile, in Germany...

2004-08-31T22:47:00.002-07:00

German idea of reality TV: two cleaning ladies at work

Berlin: The stars of the hottest reality TV show in Germany are not castaways, bachelors or fake millionaires. They are hausfraus-cleaning ladies- who scour the country in search of untidy homes, whip the filthy messes into shape and restore order to the beleaguered homeowners'lives.
Germany Cleans Up, a weekly program hosted by the "Cleaning Commando" Rita Wild and Christel Lutzenkirchen, features the neatly coiffed middle-aged ladies as they drive around Germany, with a duster sticking out of the roof of their red hatchback like a dirt detector, on the lookout for people who have lost -or never had- the cleaning bug.
That the Putzteufel -German for "cleaning devil"- is making a comeback is no surprise to psychologists who say the country's deepening economic woes cause Germans to look for comfort from recession in cleaning.
The passion for cleaning, in other words, has tapped into a national zeitgeist.
"The cleanliness of the house is one thing people can control in times of such uncertainty, and taking care of one's possessions also becomes more important," a recent study by psychologists concluded.
So Germans seem increasingly keen to watch the two hausfraus -mop and bucket in hand- invite themselves into some of the filthiest homes and help people of all walks of life to clean up.
Both know what they are doing. Mrs Wild, chairwoman of the Leverkusen Housewives Association, and Ms. Lutzenkirchen, a former "high-class cleaner," are attracting almost two million viewers an episode, during which they target the "pigsties" of the younger generation who have "never been taught the art of cleaning."
Their "CleaningTimetables"- kitchen on Tuesday and bathroom on Thursday, for example- are being eagerly picked up by a bewildered nation in search of direction.
The candidates are carefully chosen. Most have been nominated by disgusted friends and neighbours. But, say the program's producers, they took care "not to choose psychologically disturbed people and those who take pleasure in being messy."
Ralf was the first victim. The hausfraus examined his apartment, grimaces fixed on their faces as they discovered the half-eaten mouse the cat had left behind the sofa some weeks before, and stumbled over his underpants, "complete with cinnamon stripes!" a horrified Rita declared.
The bathroom was the worst surprise. "I'm not keen on cleaning the lavatory," Ralf said. "That's women's work and not a subject I've dared broach with my girlfriend."
Donning their aprons, the pair got to work, and viewers learned how to clean a mirror with a slice of potato and a piece of paper or how to apply vinegar to lime deposits.

- by Kate Connolly, for The Daily Telegraph, October 30, 2003

S.H.I.T.

2004-08-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

In the 16 and 17th centuries, everything had to be transported by ship. It was also before commercial fertilizer's invention, so large shipments of manure were common.
It was shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than when wet, but once water (at sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, of which a by-product is methane gas.
As the stuff was stored below deck in bundles, you can see what could (and did) happen. Methane began to build up below decks, and the first time someone came below at night, with a lantern, BOOOOM!
Several ships were destroyed in this manner before the cause was determined.
After that, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the term "Ship High In Transit" which meant for the sailors to stow it high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the hold would not touch this volatile cargo and start the production of methane.
Thus evolved the term "S.H.I.T.", which has come down through the centuries and is in use to this very day.

About Gandhi

2004-08-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him (oh, man, this is so good): A Super Callused Fragile Mystic Hexed by Halitosis.

-found in a naturopathic newsletter, August 2004

Into the Wild Housekeeping

2004-08-09T13:43:00.000-07:00

Christopher McCandless sought a higher order in Nature, pure violent, unadultered Nature. He left home, friends and the warmer latitudes in search of Life's Meaning. His "Big Adventure" led him to a rusty old bus in the middle of nowhere that was set up as a shelter for weary Alaskan travelers, where he lived off the land for three months.
Chris did not survive his quest, or rather, he did extraordinarly fine until he came upon a certain berry no-one knew had toxic properties.
While in the bush, Chris lived an extremely pared down lifestyle. Found, written on a parchmentlike strip of birch bark, was the following list of chores:

Collect and store ice from the river for refrigerating meat.
Cover the vehicle's missing windows with plastic.
Lay in a supply of firewood.
Clean the accumulation of old ash from the stove.
Long Term:
Map the area.
Improvise a bathtub.
Collect skins and feathers to sew into clothing.
Construct a bridge across creek.
Repair mess kit.
Blaze a network of hunting trails.

Herein lies the essential. Order thoughts, order surroundings. Ensure warmth. Know where you are. Bathe. Build bridges. Maintain what precious you have. Eat.

Not included on the list, is the importance of reading, which McCandless must have assumed to be a given, since he left all the comforts of civilisation behind but for the printed word, in a stack of books that occupied more room in his backpack than boots...or rice.

Adapted from Jon Krakauer's book "Into the Wild"

Desk versus Toilet and a murderous Teddy Bear

2004-08-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

Desk Germs: Your office desktop is 400 times dirtier than a toilet seat. The average desk has 21,000 bacteria per square inch, or 8,400 per square centimeter, while the average toilet seat has only 50. That's because we don't clean our desks well, or at all, and we do scrub toilet seats. Or at least most of us do. (...)
Stuffed bears are much more dangerous than grizzly bears. Eighty-two Americans were killed by bears between 1906 and 1995, while 140,000 injuries and at least 22 deaths a year are attributed to toys. Most of us know that buttons, eyes, bows and belts on stuffed animals are potential choking hazards, but it seems tripping over bears is the real danger. Notes from accidents: "Fell going down stairs, stepping over a stuffed animal, fell into banister. Lumbar strain" and "Fell over stuffed animal at home, striking forehead against coffee table, contusion face."
There's more. Teddy bears spread disease. Christchurch School of Medicine in New Zealand found "stuffed toys in doctors'offices had moderate to heavy bacterial contamination. Some toys carried lice, scabies, herpes viruses and germs that can cause conjunctivitis."
Teddies in day-care centers and libraries were similarly contaminated.
(...)

From Laura's Lee new book "100 Most Dangerous Things in Everyday Life and What You Can Do About Them", as reviewed in the Seattle Times on Aug. 08 2004.

Thermodynamics

2004-08-09T12:42:00.000-07:00

...The third law of thermodynamics can be roughly paraphrased as:

The entropy of the universe is always increasing.

Entropy is a chemist's fancy way of describing a state of disorder.
In other words, unless you're Mary Poppins, your room won't clean itself.

- Minnesota Dept. of Education, career information system: janitor

Do cows believe in Feng Shui?

2004-07-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

Ms Temple Grandin thinks like a cow. She figured this out early on in life, and in her book "Thinking inPictures" explains how an autistic brain perceives ideas. Images, connected to feelings, yield an interpretation of either peace or danger. Because this process bypasses the normal "rational" sustems of a non-autistic brain which uses language-based labels to define events, Ms Grandin is forever re-teaching herself the notion of safety. Like a cow (or a pig, or a horse...) Ms Grandin is extremely challenged by an "un-natural" environment and its ubiquitous stimuli on the senses.

Taken out of her comfort zone, Ms Grandin will feel un-settled, anxious and jumpy. Her stress level goes up and if she were indeed a cow, her flesh would become unfit for consumption. PSE (pale, soft and exudative flesh) and DFD (dark, firm and dry flesh) meat can taint up to 50% of the harvest, making life difficult for the cattle rancher.

And so they have come to Dr Grandin, who teaches at the University of Colorado, to learn how to handle a cow with decency.

To get an idea of what the lesson is, go to Dr Temple Grandin's web site. You might see there advice that would befit any human indeed. Substitute a few words, and the recipe for a stress-free living environment would go something like this:

No loud noises, use gentle movements around each other, keep surroundings clean and garabage free. Don't hit. Don't overcrowd. Don't put up with sharp protruding objects or things that look like they are. Level the floor, make the way smooth, factor in a flow that is kind to the body and facilitate gentle transitions from one state of mind to the next. Harmonize colors and eliminate openings that yield sights of unrest and chaos. Darkness disolving into light is good, the opposite, cause for concern.

An aerial photograph of a stress-free path to the slaughterhouse shows a sinew walled passage that seems to undulate like a wave. We are reminded of life's twists and turns. We imagine the placid cow walking into a sunset, not minding one bit what truth there is on the other side, being completely satisfied with the Here and the Now.

Oh, that we could ever know such contentment each and every one of our living days.

Proper moments for drinking tea

2004-07-28T23:23:00.000-07:00

When one's heart and hands are idle.
Tired after reading poetry.
When one's thoughts are disturbed.
Listening to songs and ditties.
When a song is completed.
Shut up at one's home on a holiday.
Playing the ch'in and looking over paintings.
Engaged in conversation deep at night.
Before a bright window and a clean desk.
With charming friends and slender concubines.
Returning from a visit with friends.
When the day is clear and the breeze is mild.
On a day of light showers.
In a painted boat near a small wooden bridge.
In a forest with tall bamboos.
In a pavillion overlooking lotus flowers on a summer day.
having lighted incense in a small studio.
After a feast is over and the guests are gone.
When children are at school.
In a quiet, secluded temple.
Near famous springs and quaint rocks.

- from "The Importance of Living" by Lin Yutang

The Art of Living

2004-07-15T08:17:00.000-07:00

Inside the gate there is a footpath and the footpath must be winding. At the turning of the footpath there is an outdoor screen and the screen must be small. Behind the screen there is a terrace and the terrace must be level. On the banks of the terrace there are flowers and the flowers must be fresh. Beyond the flowers is a wall and the wall must be low. By the side of the wall, there is a pine tree and the pine tree must be old. At the foot of the pine tree there are rocks and the rocks must be quaint. Over the rocks there is a pavilion and the pavilion must be simple. Behind the pavilion are bamboos and the bamboos must be thin and sparse. At the end of the bamboos there is a house and the house must be secluded. By the side of the house there is a road and the road must branch off. At the point where several roads come together, there is a bridge and the bridge must be tantalizing to cross. At the end of the bridge there are trees and the trees must be tall. In the shade of the trees there is grass and the grass must be green. Above the grass plot there is a ditch and the ditch must be slender. At the top of the ditch there is a spring and the spring must gurgle. Above the spring there is a hill and the hill must be deep. Below the hill there is a hall and the hall must be square. At the corner of the hall there is a vegetable garden and the vegetable garden must be big. In the vegetable garden there is a stork and the stork must dance. The stork announces that there is a guest and the guest must not be vulgar. When the guest arrives there is wine and wine must not be declined. During the service of the wine, there is drunkenness and the drunken guest must not want to go home.

-as quoted by Lin Yutang in his book: "The Importance of Living", The Classic Bestseller That Introduced Millions to the Noble Art of Leaving Things Undone.

The House speaks

2004-07-10T22:40:00.000-07:00

"A house is but the four walls that protects and nurtures the life inside"

This quote rolled into view, at the end of "Under the Tuscan Sun" and just before the credits. I will track the book down, read it, highlight that passage.

Mine is small. I joke and tell my friends about my front yard, and how planes land on it every day. Little planes, colorful and musical things that lift into the sun, past my window, and touch down too, with little rubberry satisfying sounds.

I live above a hangar, in a house that is not a house at all but which we love anyhow, my child and I, huddled in there during the quiet nights: You see, little planes don't fly at night, and definitly not into small primitive strips that don't have the amenities busier places require.

Here, somehow, the land stretches and disappears into trees which melt into the skyline, and the movement along its lines swirls and vibrates the way Vincent's brush would in the thick paint.

Does peace come from within or from without? In a place like this, it is hard to tell.

my new life...

2004-07-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

I'm new at this, how personal does this get? How deep goes the rabbit hole? anyone out there? There has to be an audience for this to work. Okay, if I scream, will anyone hear me? HELLO HELLLLOOOO OUT THERE,

so I thought, Bill Gates has his own blog, so it's a good idea to have one, right? Why, three months ago, I knew not the first thing about cyberspace. We were open and vulnerable, and one nasty worm did get in. Why, and who, and why oh why?

Sure enough, I see this little laptop developping a personality of its own. I'll learn to fence, and navigate, and why not? blog.

Could this be the start of a new life?