A message from the Garden Dog

"Hi, everybody -- if you have a minute you should go look at the garden blog today. There are new pictures of the plants, and a post about the strawberries we planted. Supervising is the hardest job, so I think I deserve most of the credit. Thanks for reading!"

Up next:  rivers of blood

Most of the semi-ancient guards in the building where I work will automatically turn on the television in the break room as soon as they come in to eat lunch. Today, because of the digital conversion, when the TV was turned on, it was showing a Spanish-language infomercial about digital converter boxes. The guard didn't really notice, so when another staff member came in, he tried flipping through the channels. Inexplicably, we had one channel left. It was the CW, home of The Tyra Banks Show.






Yes, our non-converted TV is apparently still beaming in Tyra. It's safe to assume this is a pretty definite first sign of impending Apocalypse, right?

I have seen things that you will never see

Every year as the days get long and temperatures rise, I wait for the return of the fireflies. I have lots of memories of summers running wild with my cousins in backyards and side streets, and almost all of them involve fireflies at some point. But my favorite firefly memory is from much later, the summer before my senior year in high school.

I spent two weeks at Girl Scout camp that summer. The session I went to was based around a backpacking theme, so we spent the first week learning about backpacking and practicing walking up and down horrible hills with heavier and heavier packs. During the second week, we spent four days out backpacking. We ate rehydrated meals and pumped water out of streams with a purifier and peed in the woods and all. It was fun, and it was the first time other than in Taekwondo class that I'd had the experience of pushing my body past what I thought it was capable of, and learning what I could really do. As a 17-year-old, I found it very empowering.

We finished the trek in the afternoon on the fourth day and took showers and camped at the trailhead campground, planning to head back to Scout camp the next morning. We were set up in a large, flat field, perhaps the size of a football field. We put up our tents along the fenceline on one side of the field, facing a line of tall pines trees on the other side. As we lay down to sleep, the fireflies arrived. There must have been thousands of them. Perhaps even tens of thousands. As they flickered and flashed, the pine trees lit up as though they'd been wrapped in twinkling Christmas lights. I wanted to lie awake all night and watch them. I would give a lot to have that memory available on some kind of mental YouTube, safe forever for me to watch whenever I want, for the rest of my life. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.


Reading:  Black by Ted Dekker

Playing:  the Garden State soundtrack and my new blog playlist over there in the sidebar

Photo Friday

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Let me count the ways

It sometimes seems trendy to bitch about one's significant other, and I am the first person to admit that sometimes you just need to vent, but today I feel like I need to sing my husband's praises a little bit.

On Saturday, he got up and took the dog and went out for donuts while I lazed in bed for an extra half-hour. Then, he came out to the garden to help me with the pain-in-the-ass fences for the climbing peas, even though it was hot and the garden is my pet project. (garden photos here, if you're interested)

On Sunday, he went with me to get some freecycle stuff on less than five minutes' notice. Even though it was even hotter, he mowed the front and back yards, and watered the garden for me. While I was in the air conditioning washing the dishes, he took the dog out back and gave him a bath. He went with me to the grocery and to Rural King to get topsoil and a hose reel, and suggested that we make a side trip so that Indy could come along.

And tonight he and BoMB grilled yet another ridiculously delicious dinner on our little backyard grill.

Each item in itself is kind of inconsequential, but I think most people will agree that all together, they make for some severe kickassery.


Reading:  Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver

Playing:  Play by Moby

Photo Friday

View the entire Photo Friday collection on Flickr.

Phoning it in

I had grand plans to write something fancy here tonight, but then we spent almost an hour after dinner trying to buy cat litter and a birthday present for my dad. We went to three stores, one in a different town, and came home empty handed. We watched the Will Ferrell / Bear Grylls Man vs. Wild special to soothe our wounded pride, and by the time that was over it was bedtime.

So...here are five things that have made me happy lately:

1. Today I was driving home and ended up behind a truck. Inside the truck was a big mutt dog, mostly German Shepherd colored, but with floppy ears. He kept sticking his head out the window and letting the wind blow his ears straight up, then ducking back into the truck for a few seconds, and then popping his head back out. I couldn't help but grin.

2. My officemate and I had a long discussion about movies with kickass endings today, and it made me remember how much I love The Usual Suspects. Need to watch that again soon.

3. MB and I went out for dinner at a sit-down restaurant tonight for the first time in...a long-ass time. It was really nice, and the food was delicious.

4. Speaking of my dad, he's been looking at options for part-time jobs since he's retiring in October. For one of the jobs he applied for, he needed an email address. My parents do not have internet at home, and have really hardly used the internet at all even outside the house. My dad has been known to call me to ask if "when I get some time" I can look up directions to this place or that. And he's always amazed when I have an answer for him before the phonecall even ends. Dad is unaware of the power of Google.

One day recently, he called and left me a voicemail with his address, and the next day the bibliophile told me she'd seen him at the library where she works. "Apparently your sister has the job of teaching your dad to use email," she said, in the tone of one who knows what it's like to deal with an internetally unsavvy parental unit. Dad seemed quite pleased to have an email address, though, so I sent him some photos from the turtle rescue. I figured that was a pretty good way to welcome him to the neighborhood.

5. And here's a song that I had forgotten about, but which rocks.

Sometimes the world is full of win

Taran

This is Taran. He's a four-month-old ten-pound something mix (rat terrier and beagle, maybe?) that my family is fostering for two weeks with the option to adopt. I really, really hope they decide to keep him. Look at the ears, for God's sake!

Get me to the church on time

Last Saturday, my cousin Sunny got married in a lovely little Baptist church about three hours away. To account for the long drive and the hour time difference, my mom and sister and I left town at 6:30 AM. I'd called Sunny a few weeks before the wedding to RSVP, and she gave me the address of the church so I could plug it into googlemaps. The trip went off without a hitch, really. The weather was pleasant, we had lots to talk about, and we only hit one relatively short stretch of construction before reaching smooth sailing on the interstate.

We got to the cute little touristy town where the wedding was to be held at about 10:45 local time, almost a bit too early for the 11:30 ceremony. We eyed cute little flea markets and touristy antique shops. We exclaimed over a sprawling bright yellow historic house, transformed into a bed and breakfast. We carefully followed the directions to the address Sunny had given us, and ended up on a narrow backroad surrounded by trees, a machine shop, a storage unit, and a barn. Uh...

We'd been traveling along State Road 4, and there were multiple offshoots marked Old State Road 4, so we theorized that we'd taken the wrong branch. We continued on along State Road 4, and finally conceded that we'd definitely, definitely gone too far. Mom reminded my sister that her iPhone should have a GPS feature, and Sis plugged the address in and verified that we were pretty far off course. We retraced our steps, only to end up on the same backroad by the same storage unit. Mayday! I tried calling Danger, who was at the wedding. No answer. I tried calling MacGyver, Sunny's brother. No answer.

While following our course on her iPhone, Sis had noticed an Old State Highway 4 on the map. Theorizing that perhaps Sunny had made a mistake in the address she gave me -- and realizing that we now had about 20 minutes to get to the ceremony and no choice but to take a wild guess -- we set off again. As we drove, we recalled that Sunny had mentioned that the church was just down the road from the fairgrounds. We had left our invitation at home and couldn't remember the name of the church, but with this clue, we were saved. We pulled over at a Shell station and asked the clerk, a nice lady named Peg, if she knew of a little Baptist church near the fairgrounds. Lo and behold, she did! We hauled ass and found the church, walking in just as the bridal party was lining up in the vestibule.

We later found out that lots of other people had the same problem. Sunny's other brother and one of her aunts had ended up at the same storage unit that we located. Three of her friends got so lost that they didn't even show up until the reception was almost over. Lesson learned? Brides, be EXTRA SURE that you have accurate directions to give to your guests. (And the church's listing on the county website has the incorrect address, too, so it wasn't entirely Sunny's fault.) Otherwise, your guests might be standing by a barn in the woods, instead of watching you walk down the aisle. (Or, you know, shopping at a flea market. Not that we considered that as an alternate option or anything...)


Reading:  The Seance by John Harwood

Playing:  some mix CDs

Photo Friday

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I swear, it was THIS BIG

I called Evil Ducky after work today to tell her I was running a little late to meet up with her for yoga. "The weirdest thing just happened," she told me. "As I was pulling into my driveway, I noticed something moving around in my backyard. When I went to check it out, it was a HUGE SNAPPING TURTLE! What the hell should I do?"

She wasn't kidding. This was a huge fucking turtle. She wasn't really sure how it got into the fully fenced backyard, or why. There was one low spot under the fence that could've provided an access point, and I suppose the turtle's friends could've played a trick on it. Like, I don't know, told it there were some really tasty tomatoes on the yard, or some really gorgeous lady turtles, and then our poor turtle broke in only to find out he'd been lied to. I didn't have my camera, but Evil Ducky documented the interloper. He looks pretty forlorn, I think, and also sort of annoyed, as if he's saying, "Clyde, you son of a bitch, there are no goddamn tomatoes in this yard."


We decided to wait and attempt to capture the turtle after yoga class, figuring there was a slim chance it would find its way out of its predicament by then. Of course, it didn't. Now, in a strange and interesting twist of fate, just last week I help transport three turtles from my workplace to a pond out in the country, one of which was a snapping turtle. Granted, I did not actually capture that turtle myself, but watched as the reptile intern I'd called in from the local nature center took care of the dirty work. Also, our turtle at work was quite a bit smaller than Evil Ducky's new pal. Anyway, technicalities! At this point, I was the closest thing we had to a turtle wrangling expert.

For scale, here's the turtle with my size 7 / 8 flipflop:


Luckily, this turtle was relatively chill. I lifted him up a little bit by the shell (he didn't even try to take my hand off), and we managed to get him onto Evil Ducky's snow shovel. After rapidly discovering he was NOT going to fit into the large bucket we grabbed from the garage, we wedged him into the Sterilite tub I had in my car, the same tub I'd used to transport the snapping turtle from work, just a week ago. (Fate!) I still can't believe this turtle fit into the tub. It was a very close thing.

(See? HUGE!)

With the turtle thus captured and a bit of OMG HOLY SHIT DID WE JUST DO THAT screaming out of way, Evil Ducky drove us all to a nearby park so we could set the turtle free near the lake. She has a photo on her blog of me letting the turtle go. Unfortunately, giant snapping turtles are not very fleet of foot. The turtle sort of tipped over, fell out of the box, landed on his back, flailed, then rolled down the short slope and landed in the water, upside-down. It was pretty much the least elegant, least photogenic, least Animal-Planet-worthy release ever unfortunately not caught on film. No worries, though, he quickly righted himself, blew a few bubbles from his surprisingly adorable nostrils, gave us the finger, and swam away. A bit anticlimactic, but dude. We totally kicked ass.



Reading:  An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Playing:  the Garden State soundtrack

Also, new post up at the book blog if you're into that sort of thing.

Photo Friday

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Third Thursday lolkitters

(belated and backdated, but still fabulous)


View the collected Third Thursday lolkitters on Flickr.

Oh, happy day!

My hilarious and awesome friend Rachel, previously known as kittyb (and "Brown's mom" and "funny Rachel") has finally started a blog of her own. Trust me, you want to read it. For her first entry on the hysterically titled Turds and Whey, she talks about finding a roach in her hair. And despite the horror, she makes it funny, I promise.

Hesitation, loss

This abandoned house fascinated me for years, even before we lived four blocks away. It always surprised me that it was still standing, situated as it was on one of the busiest streets in town, at the end of a nice block in an established neighborhood. I always wanted to do a series of photos of it, but it took me until this past April to finally get organized and brave enough to go snap some pictures.

And then, last Friday, somebody tore the house down. I drove by on my way to my parents' place, and the house was a pile of bricks and rubble under the treads of an excavator. All morning as I planted my flowers, I could hear the rumble and clang of bricks being loaded into a dumptruck. By mid-afternoon, the lot was cleared, leveled, and covered with straw. I can't say the house is any great loss, but I do regret the loss of the photos I never took. It reminded me of other photos I didn't take, perfect shots that I didn't take the time to turn back and capture. The similarly abandoned house out at the intersection of two of the biggest commercial roads in town, last house for miles around. For years I thought about what a good subject it would be, and then I went away for the summer and came back to an empty lot. The lone tree left standing when an old farmstead was cleared for a parking lot, noble and tragic against the Spring sky. It was gone two weeks later. The most beautiful old tree in Louisiana, draped with Spanish moss in a way that looked almost staged. Why didn't I ask if we could turn the car around for five minutes?


How about you guys? Any missed shots you regret?

Where the dog ran

On Thursday, I spent a few hours outside planting vegetables in the garden while Indy hung out and played in the yard. Since his clodhopper paws always seem to find their way onto my plants, I set up the rabbit fencing so that it was looped around the raised bed, almost entirely blocking access to the garden patch. Notice the almost. I figured Indy wouldn't be interested enough to wriggle through the gap between the holly bush, the downspout, and the fencing to get into the garden, but at one point I heard a noise and looked up to find him standing in the barely-Indy-sized space between the fence and the garage. Not wanting him to gallop through the raised bed his way in, I got up to shoo him away.

As he backed out of the gap to return to the yard, he somehow managed to perfectly capture a plastic hanging pot that was sitting nearby, snaring its hanging hook on the leash ring of his collar. So there he was, backing away in terror while this 10-inch pot of half-dead plants bounced along merrily in his wake, attached neatly to his neck. And of course, the more nervous he got, the faster he went, and the faster the diabolical attacker chased him. Chunks of potting soil were flying every which way, Indy's eyes were growing comically wide, his ears were set to Very Very Alarmed. I was laughing so hard I could barely see, but I did the right thing. Instead of pausing to snap his photo, I went to his rescue, then laughed some more as he sidled away, eyeing the hanging pot warily.

I righted the pot and set it down directly in front of the gap in the fence. Strangely enough, he seemed to lose interest in investigating the vegetables after that.




New post and photos (including a few of Indy) are up at the garden blog.

* title from a favorite star myth that I tell the kids at work

Photo Friday

Model:  Danger's cat Domino
View the entire Photo Friday collection on Flickr.

Eff off, Mr. Lorax

As I believe I have mentioned before, I am in charge of the recycling at work. Because we don't have a pickup contract, I have to suck it up like a good little treehugger and take everything home to put out with my own stuff for the curbside collection every other week. If I miss a week or if someone cleans out their files, I end up with an assload of paper to haul. That's what happened last time recycling day came around, and I ended up with a kitchen cart completely loaded with bins. They were two or three deep on the top of the cart, and stuffed as full as they could be stuffed. Because it was windy, I had used heavy catalogs to hold down the top layers. Everything was neatly sorted and contained and ready to go.

We're having utility work done on the parking lot and therefore all the staff has to park really far away from the building. I didn't want to battle the wind and push the ginormous cartload of crap past the construction workers, so I pulled my car up to the front and went back in for the cart. And then, the topheaviness of the cart, the ridiculous wind, and the shallow curb all came together in the worst possible way and -- you can probably see where this is going -- the whole fucking thing tipped over sideways. All the paper bins dumped into the gap between my car and the curb, in the middle of 20 - 30 mile-per-hour wind gusts.

So there I am, on my knees scrabbling after goddamn fliers and envelopes and fuck-all else, dirt blowing up in my face, hair getting in my eyes, hoping my asscrack isn't hanging out of my jeans, trying not to cuss like a sailor out loud and who pulls up? The DIRECTOR. Who then runs around in his chinos and polo shirt gathering up scraps of paper from the landscaping. Meanwhile I'm still shoveling the shit into bins, throwing it into the back of my car, and I'd really just like to set the whole mess on fire and roast marshmallows by the flames and kick a few endangered species while I'm at it. And then? Two construction guys on their way to lunch stop to help. Which, okay, is totally rad and restores my faith in humanity somewhat but Jesus. H. Christ. I don't think I've wished that hard for the earth to swallow me whole since the 7th grade.




(Don't worry, endangered species, I wouldn't ever actually kick you. Or the Lorax. Though I sure felt like I might enjoy it.)



Reading:  Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce

Playing:  my Pearl Jam station on Pandora

Photo Friday

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I'm gonna eat your brains!

Due to a must-finish task taking much longer than expected, I went to bed about two hours later than I prefer -- which is already about an hour later than I probably should go to bed. Just as I was drifting off, a thunderstorm crept up on the house. I love to be lulled to sleep by the sound of rain on the roof and grumbling thunder, and so I was pleased. For about ten minutes. Then the storm morphed into this epic, Apocalyptic deluge.

I didn't mind, but the dog sure did. He spent the next forty days and forty nights pacing from the bedroom to the hallway to the bathroom to the bedroom to the hallway. He whined. He looked concerned. He pawed at the pet gate. I got up to try to convince him to come in and lie on the bed with us. More pacing and whining. MB got up to try to convince him to come in and lie on the bed. More pacing and whining. Then the cat decided to play along, and he started pawing at the damn pet gate.

So there I am, at this point three hours past my bedtime, listening to a lullaby of GRUMBLE CRASH / whine whine whine / rattlerattlerattle / pace pace whine whine / rattlerattle. And of course instead of enjoying the thunder and the pounding rain, I lay there awake contemplating which pet would make the best pair of fuzzy mittens. I didn't get to sleep until the storm finally passed and the dog finally recollected the tattered threads of his lost shit, and by that point I think it was about 3:30 in the morning.

If you hear any shuffly, moany zombie noises this morning, do not fret. It's only me and my lovely new mittens.

Not very friendly

Things are good, but free time has mostly been spent working outside and watching Battlestar Galactica on DVD. I was going to try to come up with a funny story to post, but I've got a card to make for a newish baby and some naturalist group minutes to send out. And then Jonniker posted this on Twitter, and I just cannot compete with this level of Awesome:



Oh! And it turns out my camera is not dead (woohoo!) but the battery seems to be on its last legs (boo!). Hopefully we'll have a few more months together, at the least.


Reading:  The Mystery of Grace by Charles de Lint

Playing:  some mix CDs

Photo Friday

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Velocibadgergirl and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day evening

It all started when the printer ran out of ink. I knew it was coming, but it just had to happen in the middle of MB printing out his students' papers to grade. I offered to make a run to get more ink, though it was my preference that instead of spending $60 on ink for a printer that produced crappy printouts and that MB regularly bitched about, we just spend a little more and get a brand new printer. There was a discussion, which grew a bit heated. The dog was a bit worried. Finally, it was decided that I would go to Walhell and enlist BoMB's help in either picking out a new printer or finding the proper ink, depending on the price of each option.

Other than the fact that a trip to Walhell is never the best choice for a pleasant activity, things went pretty well. BoMB recommended the same model of printer that he uses at home, which rang in at a truly respectable $29.99. Upon purchasing it and leaving the store, I realized I had left my umbrella in the cart that I took back to the electronics department in case I bought a big printer, and then abandoned when I bought a small one. I sent BoMB a text asking him to retrieve my umbrella for me, but it was already gone.

I was planning to go to a birding talk at 7:30 at the local nature center. There are actually two local nature centers, one about five minutes from our house and the other in a neighboring city, about 20 minutes away. The email that I'd received seemed to indicate that the talk was at the closer nature center, following an hors d'oeuvres reception. Before leaving, I called the car dealership to see if they could tell me when the detailing on my CR-V would be finished. Turns out that even though they took down my number and said they'd call me when it was ready, they somehow neglected to call me. The car was done, but I only had until 7:45 to pick it up, and it was already 7:11. MB had just put a pizza in the oven, and my mom wasn't home, so I decided to get the car in the morning and just head to the birding talk.

By this point it was pouring down rain and I really didn't want to go back out, but I'd skipped yoga class specifically to go to the talk, and damned if I wasn't going to go. As I was getting into the car with my drippy backup umbrella and my bag, I hit my elbow so hard on the doorframe that my pinky went numb for at least a minute. Because I am a master of mature behavior and ladylike stoicism, I shouted at the top of my lungs, "This is the worst fucking day!" Oh, but I didn't even know. I drove to nature center #1, to find the parking lot ominously empty. The padlock was on the gate. I guess the talk was at nature center #2 after all, and it was now 7:28 PM. My elbow was still achy, and my pinky was still tingling. I called MB. "I missed the lecture and now it's too late to go. I AM GETTING AN ICE CREAM CONE, DAMMIT!"

As he was telling me to get a big ice cream cone for my trouble, the network dropped our call. Then the gas light came on. OMFG. I called MB back to wail some more, got $10 of gas, and went to fetch my ice cream. Miraculously, it did not land in my lap as soon as I pulled away from the drive through window, but I did somehow manage to smush it against the CD holder visor thing in MB's car as I was putting the strap of my bag over my shoulder and preparing to get out of the car. (Don't worry, hon, it was a minor smush and I cleaned it up.) I decided to hedge my bets and ate the rest of the ice cream standing over the counter in the kitchen, just in case.

Luckily, things seem to have improved since I returned home. Perhaps my bad luck only applies to stuff I try to do outside of the house? My elbow still hurts, though.


(Oh, and I think my camera died today. It happened out in the yard, so my hypothesis holds true. Goddammit.)



Reading:  It Sucked and Then I Cried by Heather B. Armstrong

Playing:  The Fragile (left) by NIN

Held to my heart

In obedience class, we practiced calling the dogs. We tied them onto 50-foot lengths of rope and let them run off, then called to them. They had to run straight to the owner and sit promptly for praise and a treat. Indy learned to do it every time, on his marks. So the day the electricians left the back gate open and I didn't notice, I wasn't overly worried. But once Indy hit the grassy corridor on the other side of the garage, all his training went right out of his head. He saw the open space and took off. I called to him, keeping my voice cheery, but he ran on, almost making it to the brush that separated the easement from the busiest street in the neighborhood before he heard another dog barking and turned back.

**********
Several of the dogs in our neighborhood are friends, and their owners will often sit and chat while the dogs run around loose in a nearby yard. Indy always wants to join in, and even tries to leap and wrestle as best he can with his leash fastened securely to my wrist. Yesterday we stopped briefly to say hi to two of his buddies, Mikey the border collie and Henry the husky mix. Mikey and Henry were romping in Mikey's yard, and Indy so badly wanted to play. He sat politely on the sidewalk, tail wildly oscillating behind him. "Aww," Mikey's owner said. "Let him play for awhile." But all I could picture was his shiny black coat, his perfectly floppy ears, his magical extra toes, all of it disappearing down the street at a run.

**********
We're having my car detailed tomorrow, but I didn't want to be off work and stranded at home without a vehicle, so we dropped the CR-V off tonight and planned to share the Cavalier in the morning. MB had to go into school for a few hours to meet with a student, so I dropped him off and then went home for a bit. When it was time to pick him up, I took Indy along. He's visited the school before, and likes to explore the grassy margins of the lot. The campus is in the flatlands on the far east side of town, so far out that it has an address in the next county. A wide drainage ditch separates the lawn from a scrubby field, and Indy is always exceptionally interested in the ditch. In a perfect world, or a Hallmark channel movie, we could leap over the ditch and hit the field running, roughhousing among the cornstalk stumps and calf-high weeds. But in reality, the ditch is sludgy and smells a little off. I am wearing ridiculously impractical shoes, green leather Ecco wedges that make me feel sexy but would keep me from moving any faster than a quick walk. The field is only 200 yards from a six lane expressway.

**********
The cliché says if you love something, set it free. Sometimes if you love something, the only thing to do is keep an eye on it, check the gates twice, and hold on as tight as you can.




(New review up at badgerbooks if you're interested. It's a great book!)

Wordless weekend

(For the story of how I spent my weekend, go here.)

Photo Friday

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Touché

Because I like to sit "Indian style" or tuck one foot under me with my knee sticking out to the side, I am terribly rough on pajama pants. Specifically, on the crotchular regions of pajama pants. I think I have one pair of pj pants out of about ten that doesn't have a hole in the crotch. Sexy! Recently, one of my favorite pairs -- a cute thin flannel pair from Victoria's Secret -- completely gave up the ghost. I knew that flannel gets weak when it gets old, but I still wasn't expecting my pants to split down the front of one thigh. I conceded that as much as I like them and as much as I don't really have a problem with wearing slightly holey pajamas*, it was time to find a replacement pair.

Last Friday evening I set out with Evil Ducky for dinner and a bit of shopping, and pj pants were the top priority on my list of things to find. At Target, I found a cute and comfy pair that I really liked and ended up buying. They're a rich yellow, about the color of the goldenrod crayon in a box of Crayolas, and they have large white sunflowers printed all over them. I knew MB wouldn't love them, but I figured he's not the one wearing them.

vbg:  So, these are my new pj pants. What do you think?

MB:  They're okay.**

vbg:  I think they're very me.

MB:  Yeah. ((long absentminded pause)) They're kind of loud.




* as opposed to holy pajamas, which is another issue entirely

** his standard response when something ranks anywhere from "meh" to "nearly awesome"



Reading:  The Late, Lamented Molly Marx by Sally Koslow and My Little Red Book by Rachel Kauder Nalebuff

Playing:  No Angel by Dido

"Here With Me", "Thank You" (I can't find anything that will embed)

Mother Ship

Happy Earth Day, everyone! (and Happy Birthday to my dear Danger)

I order all of my sandwiches with mayonnaise

Several of my blogfriends and Twitter peeps answered my plea and asked me questions to help me get past my writer's block. The Cheesefairy asked "mustard? mayo? both? neither? why?"

This question makes a lot of sense, knowing that the Cheesefairy is Canadian. I have heard that Canadians really like their mayo. I went to Canada once (well, twice) and much to my friend Rob's consternation, all the sandwiches on the menus automatically came with mayo. But I have to wonder, why would someone from the land of ketchup flavored chips only ask me about two condiments? It's a mystery.

So, I shall deal with her question and also address the ketchup issue.

Mustard

No, thank you. I am not a mustard fan, other than in deviled eggs (NOM). It's always very disappointing when I ask for no mustard on a burger and get it anyway, because even when I scrape it off with a fry, I can still taste it. Blech.

Mayo

Yes, please. I really like mayo, especially on cheeseburgers. When I get a red meat itch, I go to Wendy's and get a Jr. Cheeseburger with lettuce and mayo on it. Delicious. I'll also take mayo on a turkey sandwich, though ranch is also fabulous in that case. I have to say that I think dipping French fries in mayo is weird, but I guess I shouldn't judge since I haven't tried it.

Ketchup

The only thing I like to put ketchup on is French fries, and I'm really picky about my fries. I don't like them at most places, and where I do order them, they have to be just right -- crispy but not burnt, just salty enough. My sister makes up for my ketchup ambivalence. When she was a kid, she put ketchup on everything, up to and including mashed potatoes, macaroni & cheese, and peas.


I don't think I have any weird condimenting habits, though I married into a family that salts their lettuce and tomatoes.


Okay, y'all. Your turn. Mustard, mayo, and / or ketchup? Are there any weird combinations close to your heart and tastebuds?



Reading:  The Late, Lamented Molly Marx by Sally Koslow and My Little Red Book by Rachel Kauder Nalebuff

Playing:  a little of this, a little of that

Argh

I have the worst case of writer's block, so even though this never works, I'm going to invite you all to ask me questions. Ask me anything!

Also, my blog is super fucked up when viewed with Internet Explorer right now, and I don't know how to fix it. Firefox is better anyway! :P


Edited to add:  I think I figured it out. But Firefox is still superior.

Photo Friday

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Third Thursday Lolkitters

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A very merry unbirthday

Instead of a present for my birthday this year, I told MB that I wanted to spend a day hiking at one of the coolest state parks I know of, which I haven't had a chance to visit since high school. I called the park office and verified that Indy would be allowed to go on the trails with us, as long as we kept him on a leash. We originally planned to go the weekend of my birthday, but the weather did not cooperate in the least. We tentatively rescheduled for the Saturday of Easter weekend, and I began obsessively checking the ten-day forecast on weather.com beginning around April 1st.

We slept a little later than I had hoped on Saturday, and I came to terms with the fact that just because you can make it out and back in a day to a park that is three hours away doesn't mean you should. Six hours round trip in a car for less than six hours of outdoors time doesn't really add up, you know? But the weather forecast was good and we'd been planning for weeks, so there was no way I was going to spend the day at home. Luckily, a quick google search reminded me that there is another very fine state park just under an hour to the east of us, another park that I haven't visited in years and MB has never seen. And so, we filled my backpack with peanut butter sandwiches and extra water, loaded the pooch into the car, and headed out.

We could not have picked a better day to go hiking. The weather was flawless, and the park was nearly deserted. We started with a 3 1/2 mile hike that ended with a loop around a small lake, and finished the day with a 1 1/2 mile loop around the park's larger lake. The trees weren't leafed out yet and the maples were covered in bunches of bright red seed pods, so the woods looked a bit autumnal, but the effect was tempered by the wildflowers and mayapples growing everywhere. Indy, as usual, was a complete champ. He hiked and hiked and never complained. While we were resting and eating our sandwiches, I realized that our trip marked the anniversary of Indy's last day as a shelter dog -- we adopted him on the second Sunday in April 2008. Definitely a day worth celebrating.



Hiking around the first (small) lake:




On the loop around the larger lake:





Small side trip to an old CCC fire tower:





One last view of the lake, where one of the summer camps I went to as a kid brought us to swim:



Have you ever seen a more tuckered-out dog?



(There are a few more hike pictures on Flickr.)


Reading:  The Ghost in Love by Jonathan Carroll

Playing:  a little bit of everything

April is

When I was a little girl, sometimes the fear kept me up at night. Once I read a book about a scary one-eyed tomcat named Mog, and I imagined him lurking beneath my bedroom window as I pulled the covers tight over my head. My fourth grade teacher told us that when a bear kills a person, it often hides the body in the woods and comes back to snack on it later. I have no earthly idea why she thought we needed to know this, but I remember for weeks I had trouble falling asleep. I'd surround myself with stuffed animals -- old friends to defend me against marauders -- and chant to myself, "Don't think about bears, don't think about bears."

I didn't know, then. I didn't know about the real monsters, the real fears. Even now, I pull the covers over my head, I tell myself they're not real. I pull the covers tight, because if I can just keep my head down, the bad things will turn out to be figments of my imagination. And really, don't we all like to pretend that they are? Husbands don't suffer from terrible changes of heart and walk away from their marriages. Wives don't die in childbirth, not anymore. Sometimes you lose a loved one, but it is always someone who has lived a long, full life. Your great-aunt, perhaps. Or your grandfather. It's never supposed to be your mother, when you don't quite feel ready to face the world alone. It's never supposed to be your father, when you are still just a little girl. And it's never, God, never supposed to be your child.

Because that doesn't happen, not in real life. Sometimes babies are born too early, but they fight, and in the end they win. Sometimes accidents happen, but they are always close calls, never serious. Don't think about bears. Don't think about bears. The worst never really happens. Until it does.

I never knew Maddie Spohr, had never heard her story or seen her face until the news that she'd gone into the hospital hit Twitter. And then, she was gone. I barely knew Thalon Myers. I'd added his mother's blog to my reader a month or two ago, but was really behind on reading through my feeds. And again, it was Twitter that broke the news that he'd been rushed to the hospital. And then, he was gone. I am not a praying person, in general, but my thoughts have certainly been with Maddie and Thalon's families. Think of them, if you can spare a moment, because no one should have to face this kind of monster alone.


      

No pressure at all, but imagine what a dollar from
everyone could mean to them right now, as they face
hospital bills and funeral expenses on top of their loss.

Photo Friday

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Simultaneously the most awesome and the weirdest thing I have ever seen

(seen first on Travels With Smacky)

Love is love and not fade away

I started keeping pen-and-paper journals when I was eight years old, having received a Ramona diary for my birthday from a friend. I really believe it was that little diary, probably picked up on a whim by the friend's mother, which set me on the path to become a writer. That's probably another story for another day, though.

I mention it because by early high school, I was realizing how my tastes changed from year to year, and started periodically writing down lists of things in my journals so that I could come back and read them in a few years and see how I felt. The most common list was my top five favorite bands or top five albums I'd pick if I could only listen to five albums for the rest of my life. Someday I'll have to dig out the journals and post the lists, because I'm sure at times they were pretty hilarious.

My musical whims change more frequently now than they did, I think, though now I usually find myself rediscovering albums I've had for years, playing the hell out of them for a few weeks or months, and then rediscovering something else. There are some albums, though, that I feel I will always love, that I have loved deeply for so long that I think they are etched on my bones, never to fade from my life.


The first album is Lay It Down by the Cowboy Junkies. I had only heard of them peripherally, maybe once or twice, but then during senior year, my friend H and I were taking on odd jobs to earn money for our post-graduation trip to London. The teachers involved with the trip knew we were broke and tossed tasks our way, and one Sunday the English team coach paid us to rake leaves and mow his huge suburban lawn. When we were done, he offered us a chance to go through the leftovers of a yard sale he and his wife had just held, and said we could take whatever we wanted in addition to the cash he gave us for the mowing. I stumbled upon a big box packed full of his legendary 80s tape collection, and I had to have it. In the box, I would later find a tape of Lay It Down, which interestingly enough, had been made for the English team coach by another of my favorite English teachers, a guy who I would talk music with for the rest of that year and beyond. I have since accumulated a half-dozen Cowboy Junkies albums and listened to them for countless hours. Their lyrics are aching, haunting, beautiful. The music is ... what? Folky meets country meets rock meets something else? Not sure. But I love it.

The second eternal album that comes to mind is Car Wheels on a Gravel Road by Lucinda Williams. Though she is one of my best friends and something of a soul mate, I did not meet Danger until our senior year in high school. By the end of that year, we were metaphorically inseparable, though not literally, as we would in the Fall head off to universities nearly three hours apart. Because we are slightly old, we started college before the absolute ubiquity of email. We had accounts through school, of course, but at my college the internet was accessed by running a huge multi-pin data cable from the phone in the living room into our bedroom and plugging it into the computer. You had to wait in a queue to get into the school's email server, and often the system would hiccup after you'd been waiting for hours and bump you to the back of the line of three hundred some-odd students. The only chat program I knew about was AOL's instant messenger.

Danger and I did talk on IM, and we did email, but we also wrote letters. Pages and pages of letters. Sometimes I wrote to her every week. We sent care packages back and forth, usually chock full of treats we'd purchased using our meal plan points. And mix tapes. We exchanged probably dozens of mix tapes in four years. One tape she sent me was Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, and it stuck.

The third album that comes to mind (and I'm sure I'll think of others as soon as I hit the publish button on this post) is August and Everything After by Counting Crows. Lyrically, probably musically, it doesn't really stand up against the other two, but I still love it. I think this one is a combination of the album itself and the place I was at in my life when I found it. I got it in earlier high school, maybe sophomore year? And the songs are so ingrained in my true growing-up years that I don't think they'll ever wash out. They are the links in the chain link fence and I am the tree that grew into and through and past the fence, swallowing the metal loops behind my bark. They are not staggering works of genius, but the songs of this album have worked their way into the marrow of me, and I'm pretty sure they're here to stay.

Violets are blue

For as long as I can remember -- probably longer than I've been alive -- my mom has kept a pair of miniature vases on the kitchen windowsill. When we were kids, my sister and I would bring in handfuls of violets and dandelions, and Mom always let us put them in the little vases. They stayed in the window until they were wilted and crispy, and only then would they be thrown out. My mom never complained that dandelions are a weed, she never acted like she was tired of getting identical handfuls of little purple and white flowers.

My mother is not a perfect person. There are things about her that I actively seek not to emulate. But those things are few in comparison to the things that I believe she did right, or at least as right as she knew how. We were never made to feel like our questions were dumb. We were always expected to do our best, to act right, and to be as kind and patient with each other as we could (not always easy when you're the much older sibling). We were encouraged, supported, pushed and pulled, held up and talked down from ledges. And even at our weediest, we were never treated as anything less than flowers worthy of a pretty vase in the window. One of my greatest hopes is that someday my kids will feel the same way.

Oh my frakkin frak

Because we are late to every party, MB and I finally got around to watching the first disc of the first season of Battlestar Galactica. I think we're hooked.


Reading:  Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Playing:  Decemberists, Kings of Leon, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Bok choy! I've always wanted to try it!

MB emailed me a grocery list today and at the bottom he'd added, "Tuna fish and bread (for toast)." If you listen to this song, you'll understand why it's so funny. Probably not safe for work, unless your boss thinks pot is funny. Which come on...who doesn't?

Photo Friday

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