granola, anyone?

for the past couple days, brooke's back has been hurting her a lot & drugs haven't even taken the edge off it. i even gave her some codeine that she got when she broke a bone over a year ago. no help. i filled up a fluffy knee sock w/ black eyed peas & stuck it in the microwave for a minute & brooke mashed herself all over that thing for half of yesterday & all night long. the feeling of the heat w/ the pleasant sensation of the beans moving around & clicking together made her very happy. the only downside was the funky odor. i'm sure my couch probably smells like musty beans now (they've been in the cupboard for approximately 8 years & have lived in 5 different houses), but please don't tell me if you come over & notice it. maybe i'll febreeze it if i remember before my nose becomes immune.

i mentioned this in my facebook status yesterday because, well, some of my friends are smart & might have something helpful to share on the topic. i had a few different people suggest essential oils for pain which is something i'd never even considered before. of course, since i'd never thought of it, i didn't have any in the house, but i did a bit of research (including calling my mom who's been suggesting oils for the past few years) and figured out where to go & what to buy this morning.

we hit up a health food store in the area called greenlife grocery and had some fun browsing through all the healthy goodies. we've been there a few times before & it's always rather like a field trip through the fabulous cheeses & organic produce. we smelled the oils until our sniffers couldn't snuffle any more due to nostril confusion.

whenever we go there, we always notice how most of the employees look rather... well... natural. there are a lot of dreadlocks, head wraps, gray hair & loose, flowing clothes. today was no exception & when we left there, the topic of "hippies" came up. i asked brooke if she knew what hippies are (her grandparents once told me they had a report of her calling a kid in her class a dirty hippy when they took her to sunday school at their super conservative church, so i know she's used the word) and she didn't. then i found myself trying to explain what a hippy is.

let's see... they tend to be more natural in their lifestyle. what does that mean? umm... they think it's more important to hang out w/ nature than to acquire lots of stuff. and they are pretty green about water conservation. and soap conservation. and they generally don't color their hair or wear makeup or bras. and maybe they wash their clothes less often than some other people.

by that point i felt like i was giving hippies a bad name, so i tried to redirect so brooke wouldn't think that i was saying they were just a dirty, unattractive, droopy boobed sub-culture. so i said that they like to find ways to do things more naturally rather than chemically, like using fewer drugs when they're sick & not immunizing their kids. and they like to eat healthy food & less processed junk. they'd rather spend time outside than in front of a tv. they are less likely to drive than to walk or ride a bike for the purpose of polluting the environment less.

somewhere during the second half of the explanation i realized that there are a lot of things about hippies that resonate with me. even if i don't eat only health food or shun the tv, those seem like really good things. i think we land pretty squarely in the middle of the road between hippies & whoever their opposites would be. compared to some of my friends, we're very crunchy w/ our vegetarian, homeschooling, non-immunizing ways. but compared to our friends who only eat organics, never watch tv & never used disposable diapers, we're practically a detriment to society.

anyone up for some granola?