Veggiemite

Dear MoveOn Member,

This weekend, we're kicking off a history-making general election season with an event for the ages: nationwide "Hungry for Change" bake sales to raise money for MoveOn's innovative (and massive!) campaign to help elect Barack Obama and other progressives this fall...The money we raise will go to our cutting-edge campaign to elect Obama—and win enough seats in the House and Senate to give him the votes he needs to end the war, pass universal health care, and make real progress on the issues we fight so hard for.

Okay, I would argue how “cutting edge” holding a bake sale is or how very sad it is that we are going to war armed with chocolate chip cookies. I fear for us if we are funding the progressive movement with bake sales, are we all going to join hands and sing One date bar at a time sweet Jesus?

How do you do a “cutting edge” bake sale? Is it all organic? Vegan? The bakers promise to use only Certified Free Trade frosting? I don't care! I wanna do this! I wanna make pink cupcakes! I want to make pink cupcakes with chocolate icing! And sprinkles! Pink sprinkles! Damn the democrats for scheduling the state convention the same weekend. I mean, it's not fair! bake sale! convention! bake sale! convention! bake sale! I can’t do both. You would think Moveon.Com would have checked, made a couple of phone calls asked or something! There are a dozen pink cupcakes out there that will never see the light of day now. I have been desperate to bake something and this could have been my chance! I blame this on Tiny E. She said “cake” the other day and now I hear this tiny voice begging for cake!cake!cake! all the time. No cake for Tiny E, no cake for Obama. Damn you scheduling Gawds!

There will however be vegetables for Tiny E. Lots and lots of vegetables. I decided it was time to stop consulting books on flower arranging for advice and get serious and look for books about actual vegetable gardening. Books as in plural. Oh, yeah, that’s right. I’m hard core now. This gardening thing is bordering on an investment now.

I had questions and for a fee, they had answers. Lots and Lots of answers. Answers to questions I didn’t even know to ask, like why the carrots I grew in the past all suffered from awful deformities not at all like the ones in the stores, answer : Evil Corporate Carrots. I learned that not all plants need bees to do their dirty work for them and that I need to have some patience with my plants, I need to stop begging them for grandveggies and let nature takes it’s course. The neighbors will appreciate a break from the Barry White I’ve been blasting at my plants 24-7 in hopes it would get my plants in the mood.

I also learned that should have provided trellises for my cucumbers to climb on and I haven’t used as firm a hand with the squash as I should have, and I should have planted my collards in the fall, not the summer, but I could start harvesting the leaves at anytime and of course, if I were a “real” farmer of collards I would have planted more than four plants, Oh well. If I were a real farmer I would have more than four feet of arable ground to cultivate.

I have other questions for the books. Like who killed my baby squash?, I had a baby squash and then I didn’t have a baby squash. It was there and then it wasn’t -Something squished my squash! It was like a vegetarian chuchabra came along and sucked its little squashy essence right out. It made me fear for my two or maybe three tiny cucumbers, I now where two are and I think I had another, I can’t remember! I am a bad vegetable mother! I think someone cold cocked my cuke! I haven’t seen anything wandering around, but it could have been anything in the nasty, gnarly bug family. They are all nasty and gnarly but only a select few truly suck and that’s what it looks like something did to my veggies. I’m only going to have a very few of them total, you would think Mother Nature would be cooler about it.