I received an update to the latest electric vehicle statistics for Prince Edward Island this week:

Rekka Bellum and Devine Lu Linvega, Hundred Rabbits, spoke at XOXO in 2019 (video) about their lives working and living on a sailboat.

During the talk Lu Linvega spoke about their approach to dealing with broken systems on the boat—water pump, fridge, etc.—and how they often opt not to repair them:

Over time, we were like, we – we could pay, we could work more to get more money so we can repair, to address that issue, or not, and try to live without. And a lot of the situation that we encountered, it turns out it is a lot healthier for both of us to optimize, to need less, than trying to optimize to make more money. And this lifestyle forced us into that mindset.

It struck me that this notion—the “negawatts” approach to personal finance—is completely missing from mainstream financial planning advice.

When I consulted a financial advisor earlier in the year, his schtick was, understandably given his role, all about maximizing growth—optimizing to make more money. Every time I enter that world, I end up feeling dirty all over, as it inevitably means balancing two evils, risk (and the evils of anxiety) vs. reward (and the evils of supporting various degrees of capitalism).

Optimizing for less seems like a breath of fresh air by comparison. Indeed not only does it seem like a solid, ethical personal finance philosophy, it seems like a solid, ethical political framework too.

Today I’m in a “what’s my status” moon, and following on from setting my Slack status if I’m in a Zoom, here’s an AppleScript to find out whether I’m in a meeting or not:

-- Am I in an event, according to my Calendar?
set now to current date
set theEvents to ""
tell application "Calendar"
	set a_calendar to first calendar where its name = "Peter Rukavina"
	tell a_calendar
		set the_events to (every event whose start date < now and end date > now)
		repeat with an_event in the_events
			set theEvents to theEvents & summary of an_event
		end repeat
	end tell
end tell
return theEvents

With that script in place (and edited to identify you particular calendar in place of mine), you can retrieve your current status from the command line with:

osascript am_I_in_an_event.scpt 

This will return nothing if you’re not in an event, and the name of the event if you are (if you’re in more than one event at the same time, it will simply smush them together).

Prompted by Aaron Parecki’s efforts, I set out to conjure up a system to set my Slack status when I’m in a Zoom meeting.

Like this:

The secret sauces turned out to be:

• Slack status updater, a well-documented shell script that allows setting Slack status.
• Hammerspoon, a Lua-based Mac automation tool that the Slack status updater includes a helper for.

After configuring everything up, every time I start a Zoom meeting my Slack status gets updated to “In a zoom meeting,” and when the meeting ends it gets removed.

Automation for the win!

I’m in the home stretch of cleaning up Catherine’s studio, and one of the last items to need a new home is this wooden drafting table. It’s obviously been well-used, but it’s solid. The table-top is 3 feet by 4 feet, and the surface is adjustable from 45 degrees to flat, and can also move up and down.

It’s yours for the taking, for free, if you can come and pick it up this week. I’ve found a new home for it: thanks, Internet!

The trails at Brookdale Nordic are in full-on late stage foliage right now, and if you visit at the weekend you can profit from the presence of Cynthia King and her Bits ‘n Bikes kiosk, dispensing snacks, good coffee, and mountain biking supplies and advice.

From the Risbridger, I made a squash and chickpea pie for supper tonight: onions, garlic, squash, chickpeas, Parmesan, heavy cream, white wine, thyme, smoked sea salt and nutmeg with a puff pastry top.

When you’ve ignored cookbooks as fascist rigour all your life, it’s a whole new world once you let your guard down.

As part of Waste Reduction Week, the City of Charlottetown organized a Curbside Giveaway today:

A curbside giveaway will take place on Sunday, October 25. This event provides Charlottetown residents a new way to get rid of clutter and find new treasures. Those wishing to participate are encouraged to place unwanted items that are in good condition at the end of the driveway/curb and follow all Curbside Giveaway etiquette, as detailed at the City’s website below. All items must be cleaned/disinfected before being placed at the curb and after taken to their new home. All unclaimed items must be removed from the curbside by sundown on October 25.

I’m on a critical path schedule to empty Catherines studio before the end of the month, and so this came along at exactly the right time.

And it worked: by the end of the day everything I put out was gone, save a microwave oven and a teapot.

Among the things that found new homes: three armchairs, two desk chairs, a wooden stool, an old wooden barrel, an electric drill, an electric jigsaw, a desk lamp, a set of IKEA shelves, two artist easels, a cobbler’s clamp, a shoe rack, a whiteboard, a box of extension cords, three large colourful pillows, two fleece blankets, and a framed watercolour.

I would have taken a photo of everything, but as quickly as I brought things to the sidewalk, they were gone.

This was a huge help: it was the push I needed toward the cleanup finish line, it kept things out of the garbage, and a bunch of people got things they needed, for free.

Word on the street is that the Charlottetown Farmers’ Market will move back inside next week, making today the final iteration of the COVID-inspired outdoor rearrangement.

I managed to convince myself, and then Oliver, that we should bicycle to the market this morning, as it would be our last opportunity to cycle all the way out to the industrial edge of town to pick up smoked salmon bagels before Gallant’s comes back to the market with everyone else.

When I say that I “convinced” Oliver, that’s something of an exaggeration; despite his (occasionally very loud) protests about the cold, and his sore hands, however, he did it. All 7½ km, including a jaunt out to Riverview County Market (where Oliver executed a completely independent pumpkin purchase), and a visit to the Receiver Brass Shop for bread (all but gone from the shelves by the late hour of our arrival).

As in all previous such days that started sideways, we ended the trip tired but content.

While I know many market vendors are looking forward to moving back inside, leaving the need to set up tents and tables, to say nothing of the wind and rain, behind, I will miss the outside. Much less claustrophobic, much less COVID-nervousness-inducing, and with the bonus of breaking us out of longstanding habits and buying from vendors we’d long ignored for no other reason than well-worn ruts in our Saturday routine (yes, curried ketchup vendor, I’m looking at you!).

See you next Saturday.

Refika Birgül’s video guide to making right proper hummus has dramatically upped my hummus game.

Ever since I started using chickpea water in place of eggs I’ve had chickpeas coming out of my ears; hummus has been one outlet for them. Alas my hummus was the consistency of stale Play-Doh and tasted not much better. Until I followed Refika’s guidance.

The key points that took my hummus to another level:

1. I removed the skins from the chickpeas. Previously this had seemed absurdly time-consuming, and I’d never done it. Refika’s video shows a really easy way to do this.

2. I used garlic. Even though garlic is one of the foundational ingredients of hummus, I’d always left it out as a “nice to have.” Turns out it’s a “need to have.”

3. A full eight minutes in the food processor, with an ice cube added every few minutes to keep things cool. That’s about 4 times longer than my usual, and the extra time transports the hummus from Play-Doh to silky smooth, rich, and heavenly.

The hummus I made today was so good that it’s what we had for supper: hummus with warmed bread, hummus with carrots, hummus with apples, hummus with crackers.

Pro tip: you can get twice as much tahini, that’s twice as good, from Brighton Clover Farm.

Thanks to Thelma for starting me down this road.