We are all connected

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
I was heading to the minivan one day this weekend when something caught my eye.  Parked right behind my vehicle was a moving mural!  If you consider the wall of a truck to be a wall for a mural?  I say so.

The truck was some sort of farm delivery, from what context clues I could gather (outlines of veggies in the art and a box of veggies in the front seat).  Speaking of farms, where would our farms be without bees?  Dead.  That's where.  It was no shock to see the all important bee depicted on this moving mural.

Now, I don't claim to know that much on the subject of bees, but what I have heard is that they are dying at record numbers, a phenomenon referred to as "colony collapse."  I also know that we need them for pollinating our plants.  And I know that all of our food either is plants or lives of off plants.

This all adds up to a huge deal, in my humble opinion.

These are all reasons that I am so happy to have been a small part of my friend's business, Urban Bee Company.  Bob, (also Amy's husband) has hives all around the city of Seattle, and operates a CSA of his honey.  It is a brilliant concept.  What I had the pleasure of doing for this company, was joining with Amy and co-creating a salve using Urban Bee Company's beeswax.

We finally finished up the planning and preparation and really got to work this past weekend making salve!  It was so exciting to see all the beautiful tins of salve being poured and cooled, creating a gorgeous pattern of yellow and silver that turned the blank space into somewhat of a honeycomb shape, like the pages of those "Magic Eye" books that I could never pull off.

I suggest checking out all the current information available on Urban Bee Company's website.  Stay informed and help out the bees!  We are inextricably connected.

I should add that serendipitously, my name means "honeybee" in Greek, as well as the name of the beautiful plant, lemon balm.  Turns out lemon balm got it's name because it attracts bees.  I feel connected, indeed.  What an honor!

Bees, Booty and the Circus

By Amy Baranski

About a week ago or I was at the Urban Bee Co. happy hour. Urban Bee is me and my husband's adventure into urban agriculture. One of the hive hosts - Jessica - was there. I actually installed her hive this year. She has an embarrassing video of me shaking the bees out of the package (yes they came from a package) and getting stung. After watching the video I realized I was really stressed out and am now really calm around the bees. Anyway - I forgot what Jessica does and so asked her again at happy hour--somehow thinking she was involved in the circus. (I live in Seattle people, these kinds of things are totally in the realm of possibility). It just so happens that her sister was involved in the circus...a local circus (no longer together) called Circus Contraption. They were local, small, gritty, melancholy, flexible and real.

And for our next trick we will fly on the trapeze!

Circus Contraption was one of my favorite local acts in the early-mid oughts and headlined one of the best Halloween parties I've attended. It was in the hangar at Sandpoint--the tall ceilings were splendid for their aerial act. That year I dressed as a "Twister Sister" with my friend Karen. We wore Twister boards and bed sheet skirts (hey we were on a budget) and played Twister during the party. People loved it. The costume idea spawned from an epic game of twister Karen and I had once played at the Sky Gypsy Palace (an old farmhouse where a bunch of Slam poets and artists used to live located behind Broadway). Karen's twister style was more yoga while mine was more b-girl, as someone described.

Anyway Circus Contraption played great gypsy circus style music. I've always wanted to learn a concertina or an accordion (must be my Easter European roots). Maybe next year (even though Melissa and Dina already picked "learn to play a musical instrument" as an activity last year). But, as Melissa said the other day, with this blog we can really do whatever we want.

Back to Jessica. She runs Southside Booty Camp. I've heard of this but had never gone, or even on Facebook. She mentioned that there was a free intro class (this morning). So I signed up with Melissa. We got back not too long ago. I slept really fitfully last night and have been awake since 2 a.m. afraid I would miss my alarm at 5 a.m. and not feeling too great from the Mexican food I ate last night.

The booty camp is at 6:15am and is typically held in the park, but on the colder days of the year it cozies up in the Russian Cultural Center on 19th Avenue, just a skip from my house. It's a physical fitness regimen that focuses on cardio and strength building. Typically each day (it runs Monday through Thursday) is focused on a particular area: upper body, lower body, or cardio. Today we focused on lower body with cardio. It kind of reminded me of gym class, or sports practice. I felt totally awkward and uncoordinated. Five days off of yoga and I'm am oddly shaped smurf again. But I really liked it. I guess I typically like anything that is physically challenging. I like thinking that the body (like ones vocabulary) can be altered and improved no matter what age you are. There's always a starting place.

It looks like a first full session for the booty camp (which is a four week period Monday-Thursday) is $240. I wonder if I can swing that. The aerial and trapeze classes are so expensive. I'd be more likely to go to Booty Camp becauase it's outside, it's personal (smaller classes) and it's not a gym. When we start spending money (which we have a lot) on activities realted to this blog it really gets my thinking about what I will choose next year. More on that later...now me needs food.