I was feeling alone the other day.  Alone in the world.  Sad.

So I packed up my wetsuit and dragged myself over to the beach.  Pulled on my wetsuit.  The sun was already slanting in the sky, and it would head down below the horizon within the hour.

I stepped into the bracing water (60 degrees) and did those involuntary quick panting breaths as my feet and ankles felt the sting of it.  The waves were friendly, fun. 

But the best part was, a seal came to visit. 

That’s not unusual, really.  But this day it was different.  I was the only one out there, and he just kind of . . . hung around.  He poked his head up through the surface and just stayed.  Then he dove under, and a few minutes later, he poked his head up again in another spot close by.  That happened three times.  It was dusk and I wasn’t wearing my glasses, so I wasn’t entirely sure about this, but I thought he was looking at me. 

I’m not so self-absorbed as to think that God took time out from the miserable people of Haiti or the floods in Pakistan to send me a seal just because I was feeling a bit lonely.  But I sure did appreciate the little guy even so.  I didn’t feel alone anymore.

After I got out of the water and was sitting on a blanket, a woman approached me.  She said, “That was amazing.  That seal — he just kept looking at you.”  So it was confirmed; he was looking my way. 

I suspect there are many more instances of this — of our interconnectedness — than we generally notice.  It took me being lonely to take note of it this time.  I’ve got to work on that.

With this title, you might think I’d be writing about fun adventures with my gay male friends, but no, it’s actually about those pesky insects that buzz around your head and lay their eggs in the ripening bananas on your counter.

The fruit flies have been taking over my house.  Because of my compost worms. 

Which leads me to a confession: I haven’t been entirely honest about the annoyances attached to keeping compost worms in the house.  I’ve been wanting to encourage others to keep compost worms, too, so we can save the world together — one worm at a time.  So I’ve been hiding one of the pitfalls.  Fruit flies.  I’ve been presenting an utterly rosy picture of blissful communion with my worms.  In fact, I was doing something wrong with my worms to such an extent that for a while, I had a really bad case of fruit flies. 

I kept out a hand vacuum and kept vacuuming up live fruit flies.

And then there’s that book that I wrote called FALLING TO HEAVEN, which is about pacifism, Quakers and Tibetan Buddhism.  Pacifism, even towards insects.  

Oh, and truthfulness in all things – I mentioned that in FALLING TO HEAVEN, too. 

With the thousands of fruit flies I’ve vacuumed up, I’m headed straight for a next life as a fruit fly.  Karma. 

Luckily, my brother-in-law advised me to cover the top layer of my Can o Worms with dry shredded paper to keep the fruit flies out of the compost material.  And voila, the fruit flies have died down considerably.  Thank God.  But the lack of truthfulness, hmmm…my brother-in-law didn’t really help me with that problem, because I wasn’t truthful about it.

My next life as a fruit fly.  Hmmm.  I don’t think fruit flies live very long.  Anybody know how long they live?

I’m always looking for the odd bit of good news — maybe because it’s so hard to find.  You have to look on your own for the good stuff, whereas the bad stuff is easily provided, fed to us by the media and all that. 

So here’s the good news, and it’s good indeed.  Shockingly good, in fact.  At least I think so. 

Here’s how I found this tidbit:

The other day I was parked outside a neighborhood market called Grant’s , and I saw this guy ride up on a bicycle.  He went inside, came out with a box, pulled some vegetables out of the box, stuffed them into satchels attached to his bike, and rode off.

Woah, I thought.  I think I just saw an eco-virtuous act.  I think I just witnessed someone picking up their CSA allotment.

CSA?  A sinister acronym for a government spying operation?  No.  Community Supported Agriculture.  I went inside Grant’s and asked some questions.  It turns out that Grant’s is a drop off site for Suzie’s Organic Farm.  Hmmm.  You sign up for a box of organic produce 2 or 4 times per month, and then Suzie’s drops it off at this site so you can go pick it up.  And you’re supporting organic farming.  Voila. 

A coworker of mine said the other day, “I’ve tasted organic produce and it doesn’t taste any different.”  I wanted to say, “That is so not the point.”  I mean, sometimes the produce tastes better, sometimes it tastes the same.  I’ve never run into organic produce that tastes worse, I have to say. 

My main reason for being drawn to organic foods is simply because instead of exhausting and contaminating the soil with a bunch of chemicals that could make us practically glow in the dark, organic farmers are keeping the soil rich and chemical-free.  I’m not a purist by any means — I still eat a lot of nonorganic things, and I shop at Albertson’s in their organic produce department, which leaves a bit to be desired.  Plus, I’m a cheapskate.  I have to remind myself that there’s an inherent value in organic stuff that makes it worth the extra cost (and I’m lucky enough to be able to afford it, which not everyone can, at this point). 

So you’re probably thinking, Ummm… what’s the good news?  The cause for hopefulness?   Here it is: I went to the Suzie’s Farm website, and found out that Suzie’s Farm is growing like that proverbial zucchini you left in the garden too long and it’s HUGE.  Here’s what the July Newsletter had to say:

One year ago we had 28 CSA customers. One year ago we were in no Farmers Markets.One year ago we had no chef or restaurant partners. We had no relationships with wholesalers or with grocery stores. One year ago, we had Ellie who worked ten hours a week, and our sister, Johanna,who was filling in during her summer break from college and spent almost her entire summer weeding.  We had a three-person crew hired to work with us at Kiki Town. One year ago I put the girls into full-time care, so I could give full-time care to the farm. One year ago today. Today we have almost 500 CSA customers. We have active grocery store relationships with Whole Foods, Boney’s Bayside Market and Jimbo’s Naturally. You can find Suzie’s Farm at 10 different Farmers Markets. We have at least 20 chef and restaurant partners, with more chefs reaching out to us every day.

In one year, this farm went from having 28 people ordering their produce to 500 people, grocery store relationships, 20 chef/restaurant partners, and 10 farmers markets.

People are jumping on that bandwagon, and we all know that’s what will help make organic farming more affordable for everyone. 

So maybe the world isn’t going to hell in a handbasket after all.  At least not this week.

I wrote recently about how restorative it is to play in the ocean waves.  This past year has been deeply healing for me on a personal level, and aside from the kindness of family members and some caring friends, it is the playful waves which have been a major part of the cure. 

After cavorting in the water, I find myself buzzing with gratitude, my whole body thrumming happily.  And then my eyes settle onto the fast food containers left behind by some other beach-goer.  The self-righteous bit starts up in my head, predictably.  I go pick it up and put it in the trash can, all the while imagining how attracted some fish is going to be to the bright colors of that Taco Bell cup and the straw sticking out of it and then, sayonara, no more fish-y.  

But the self-righteous bit doesn’t go all that far.  No matter how much I do, there are always going to be people who are doing a hell of a lot more to help this planet than I am (like those people living completely off the grid, or, say, the inhabitants of the other 95% of the countries of the world), and there will always be those who keep on collecting those annoying plastic shopping bags because, well, they haven’t made the shift to reusable bags. 

But I’m getting it together, bit by bit — I’m packing up to go play in the waves later today, and one of the things I’m stowing in the car is a trash grabber and a bunch of plastic bags so that every time, after I go in the waves, I’ll pick up a little trash on the beach — as a way of saying to the sea, “Thanks for the good time.”

Several weeks ago, I did finally receive my “Can-O-Worms,” and my worms have settled in nicely.  They never try to escape anymore, as they did when I had them in the tupperware container and had put in too much water or not enough air holes or who knows what other tortures I was subjecting the poor critters to in my ignorance…

As my brother-in-law said, the Can-O-Worms is the “cadillac” worm composting bin.  So now I keep seeing the worms in my mind’s eye, lounging in the back of a Cadillac limo, enjoying the scenery through the tinted windows.

I’m waiting — almost with baited breath — for my COW, aka, Can-O-Worms. The contraption that’s supposed to house my newly purchased red wiggler compost worms. I’ve fashioned a makeshift holding tank for them, tucking them into a bad of shredded wet paper with a few food scraps thrown in. But the stench is overpowering, and the fruitflies have begun loitering in my kitchen. Oy vey! I know that once I get my COW, these problems will be much more manageable, the worms will multiply, so the food in there will get eaten instead of rotting, which is what is causing the smell and the fruitflies. When I told my brother-in-law that I’d ordered a COW, he said, “Ah, that’s the cadillac of composters.” So I have high hopes, but for how long will my critters be homeless?

Specifically, until June 3rd, which is when my COW is supposed to arrive. Oh well, at least the worms are happy now. They’re no longer pulling the “Escape from Alcatraz” routine.

And it’s also fun blogging, because I get lovely comments from people who are trying to help, saying things like, “I came to your reading of FALLING TO HEAVEN. Loved the book. Oh, and by the way, I read about your worm troubles on your blog, and there’s this worm lady in Carlsbad who could help you…”

Life is such an adventure. I love it!

I’m in over my head with the worms, apparently. I had to have a consult with a worm doctor. Luckily, my brother-in-law has been worming for several years, so I asked for some advice about the great escapes that have been happening.

He said, “If they’re escaping, it means they’re unhappy.”

What?

I’m a psychologist, and I can’t keep my worms happy? I had an impulse to throw some Prozac in the bin right then, and if that didn’t work, some Kahlua?…

But I stopped myself and played at being a good parent. “Okay, doctor, how can I make them happy?”

“They need airflow and lots of newspaper.”

Okay. I took to the plastic bin with an ice pick, and put some more shredded wet paper in. And you know, a day later, they do look happier.

Ah, Jeez, when my kids and I got home tonight, we found some of our compost worms had escaped! I wouldn’t have noticed right away if my chihuahua hadn’t been tormenting one on the carpet. Oy vey…

All right, so I know that this is normal for these critters. The instructions say to keep the light on in the room with the worms to get them to stay put (they don’t like light, so they hide). But just for the first 24 hours. It has been 48 hours, and they’re acting like runaways! What have I done that has so offended them? Did they not like my tabbouleh? Okay, it was my first time making it, but most of the humans who ate it liked it.

It creeped me out seeing them creeping about — and unfortunately, I’d put their little box in my kids’ room. My 9-year old said, “Um, Mom, I knew this was not a good idea.” I assured them that the hoodlums were escaping because it was their first time in the dark, so they got cocky. They (my children) finally settled in after I moved the worms into the living room and set them under a light, which made them (the critters) all hide their heads (in shame, I hope).

I had to pick them up and feel them wriggle around in my hand before I stuck them back in their container. Ewww. Yes, I am grossed out. But undaunted. I will not let a bit of skin-crawling drama turn me away from my environmentalist dreams!

Whew. My red wiggler worms for composting arrived safely through the US postal service. I could barely contain myself when I found the little package in my mailbox. It looked like any other cardboard package — it could have contained a book. The only identifying mark on the package was a sticker that said something about the contents being “live.” Wow!

I winced as I hurried back into my complex, because I dropped the box and figured I’d just traumatized the little buggers to death! As if it wasn’t bad enough being stuck in a cardboard box and tossed around in the mail for days, then I had to drop them?! Unforgiveable! Now I would surely be reincarnated as a worm myself!

Once I got into the house, I told my kids, “The worms are here! The worms are here!” My boys appeared instantly at my side, staring at the package with incredulity. “They’re in there?” They asked. “Yes!” I answered breathlessly. Then I carefully tore open the package and looked for the instructions. The worms were in a little cloth sack tied up tight at the top. It looked like the kind of sack a bank robber would use for his loot, or a gold digger might use for nuggets of gold. And that’s kind of how I felt towards the little guys — like they were precious loot.

But really scary and creepy at the same time.

I opened the sack and my two boys and I peered inside. The two of them elbowed each other for a better view. One of them said, “These worms are so good for the earth, Mommy!” The worms were in there all right, looking pretty skinny and anemic, like they really needed a good Jewish mother to fatten them up.

There was nothing but dry peat moss in the sack with them. I got so anxious looking at their emaciated little bodies, because I hadn’t saved up any food for them yet, and their intended container, called the Can-O-Worms, hasn’t arrived yet either. Oh dear!

Luckily, I’d set aside a plastic tub for them, and the instructions said I should just put a half cup of water in with them and then cover them with wet newspaper. Ah, but then I found some tabbouleh and some salsa to throw in there with them, and I felt much much better.

Then I had the urge to say, “Eat, bubbeleh, you think the boys like you so skinny?” But since worms are hermaphrodites, I figured that probably wasn’t appropriate.

Shudder…

I just bought some worms…for composting. I live in a condo, and I’ve been dying to try composting. Not for any plants, because I tend to be lethal to any plants in my vicinity. I bought the worms because I really want to reduce my trash load.

I didn’t expect the evening to turn wormy. I’d had the idea buzzing around in my head for a while, and researching it was on my mental to-do list. I thought there must be some indoor contraption I could use for composting, but vermiculture was not on my radar until I started reading about it as a way of getting rid of food scraps without the smell (the worms eat the food instead of it fermenting, or so I read). Ideal for indoors.

Red wiggler worms. Damn, my kids are going to love this!!

It’s interesting, reading about people’s experiences with indoor vermicomposting, because these people are talking about their worms like the red wigglers are part of the family. They call them “miracle workers” and say “they work so hard.” Like pets. Except that they stay in the composter and you don’t name them or pet them or anything (at least I wouldn’t do that, although I can’t speak for others).

I’m freaked out, though. My stomach hurts, because these worms are going to be inside my house. I’m buying them, for 35 dollars a pound, to come into my house and eat my peelings. I’m even learning the jargon, words like worm castings, which refer to worm poop.

God, life is weird.

But I must be turning weird too, because I’m starting to have little stomach tremors of excitement. I can’t wait to meet my worms. I’ll probably end up naming them too, like all the other nuts I read about.