Saturday, July 5, 2008
Friday, July 4, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Nummy Numbness
I went back to the dentist today and got another temporary crown. It is even more fun the second time around. The dentist worked fast so my jaw wouldn’t lock open like with the root canal. I thought that was very thoughtful of him. Of course I feel like crap almost immediately and I didn’t feel like crap after the root canal, I went back to work. One little temporary crown and I want to die, and going back to work was not an option. On the up side, nothing hurts yet, but my whole head feels offended.
I drove home playing with my numbness Ha! Ha! I think I'm biting my lip really hard and I can’t feel it! Oh, I’ll bite over here and it hurts! Bite here and it’s numb, bite here and ow! Lips are chewy!. I finally got tired of this game and stopped by the Cook Out for dinner, a lovely chocolate chip mint milk shake and went home. I walked in the door, greeted the animals, picked up my mail and collapsed into my chair. I didn’t have the strength or the energy to go further. I sat there until Dogger started to do her I-need-to-go-pee-right-now-or-else song and dance. I asked her to cut me a break and go upstairs and use The Kitty’s box for once, and she growled at me.
I was busy. In the mail were two new seed catalogs! Once they have your name, they all have your name. Seed companies and garden catalogs are like horticultural borg. These catalogs were different then the others, they didn't seem to think we all running our own truck gardens and these companies want to sell me plants.
Burpee will mail me a selection of tomatoes. Two kinds of cherry tomatoes one white and a red that grows in bunches, three larger tomatoes, one orange, one yellow and the largest one kind of a hot pink! The Cooks Garden catalog, which seems a little more hoity toity then the others I've looked at, sells a collection of six varieties of peppers! From large banana peppers to grilling peppers to peppers for stuffing and baking And these just come through the mail! I wonder if Amazon sells plants? I should check.
Seedlings through the mail, it’s like an automatic garden. No dealing with seeds and no having to deal with the non-variety of seedlings in the stores. It costs more up front but pays off in the long run. It just sounds like the coolest thing ever. Burpee will send you a whole seedling garden though the mail and I thought Now, that’s sexy... until I looked closer and it included two varieties of eggplant. Ew. Not sexy.
It’s too late for this year but wouldn’t it be cool for next year? The varied selection was really what I was going for this year but didn’t really achieve. Okay, I haven’t actually achieved anything but three tiny tomatoes and some collard greens, but it’s never too early to begin to think about next year, it would be kind of nice to have a plan in place before I get started. I have all ready learned for instances, that peppers aren’t in love with direct sunlight - they like it, they don’t mind hanging around with it but they aren’t going to ask it out for dinner. It’s their friend they don’t like it like that. Next years peppers are going to go in pots on the front deck where its cooler and they don’t get as much direct sunlight as the sliver of back yard / surface of the sun where this years unhappy pepper plants are. See, I know that now. I have achieved some wisdom all ready. Not much of a harvest, but I have grown some knowledge.
I went back to the dentist today and got another temporary crown. It is even more fun the second time around. The dentist worked fast so my jaw wouldn’t lock open like with the root canal. I thought that was very thoughtful of him. Of course I feel like crap almost immediately and I didn’t feel like crap after the root canal, I went back to work. One little temporary crown and I want to die, and going back to work was not an option. On the up side, nothing hurts yet, but my whole head feels offended.
I drove home playing with my numbness Ha! Ha! I think I'm biting my lip really hard and I can’t feel it! Oh, I’ll bite over here and it hurts! Bite here and it’s numb, bite here and ow! Lips are chewy!. I finally got tired of this game and stopped by the Cook Out for dinner, a lovely chocolate chip mint milk shake and went home. I walked in the door, greeted the animals, picked up my mail and collapsed into my chair. I didn’t have the strength or the energy to go further. I sat there until Dogger started to do her I-need-to-go-pee-right-now-or-else song and dance. I asked her to cut me a break and go upstairs and use The Kitty’s box for once, and she growled at me.
I was busy. In the mail were two new seed catalogs! Once they have your name, they all have your name. Seed companies and garden catalogs are like horticultural borg. These catalogs were different then the others, they didn't seem to think we all running our own truck gardens and these companies want to sell me plants.
Burpee will mail me a selection of tomatoes. Two kinds of cherry tomatoes one white and a red that grows in bunches, three larger tomatoes, one orange, one yellow and the largest one kind of a hot pink! The Cooks Garden catalog, which seems a little more hoity toity then the others I've looked at, sells a collection of six varieties of peppers! From large banana peppers to grilling peppers to peppers for stuffing and baking And these just come through the mail! I wonder if Amazon sells plants? I should check.
Seedlings through the mail, it’s like an automatic garden. No dealing with seeds and no having to deal with the non-variety of seedlings in the stores. It costs more up front but pays off in the long run. It just sounds like the coolest thing ever. Burpee will send you a whole seedling garden though the mail and I thought Now, that’s sexy... until I looked closer and it included two varieties of eggplant. Ew. Not sexy.
It’s too late for this year but wouldn’t it be cool for next year? The varied selection was really what I was going for this year but didn’t really achieve. Okay, I haven’t actually achieved anything but three tiny tomatoes and some collard greens, but it’s never too early to begin to think about next year, it would be kind of nice to have a plan in place before I get started. I have all ready learned for instances, that peppers aren’t in love with direct sunlight - they like it, they don’t mind hanging around with it but they aren’t going to ask it out for dinner. It’s their friend they don’t like it like that. Next years peppers are going to go in pots on the front deck where its cooler and they don’t get as much direct sunlight as the sliver of back yard / surface of the sun where this years unhappy pepper plants are. See, I know that now. I have achieved some wisdom all ready. Not much of a harvest, but I have grown some knowledge.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Seed Thoughts, By Diana Nothandy
I got another seed catalogue today. A big, glossy catalogue full of beautifully photographed vegetables and short on frivolities like flowers. The pictures of flowers in the last seed catalogue I received withered . My house is such a floral dead zone that even pictures of flowers wilt the minute they get inside. It’s very disheartening.
Yeah, well. I don’t order these catalogs for flowers. They can shove their exotic bulbs right up their manure spreader. I’m not in the market for decorative items. I’m in the market for vegetables.
Do I want to deal with seeds though? They don’t call them seed catalogs because the have pages and pages of interesting seedlings . I’m more of a seedling person I think. I’m not sure I have the patience it takes to grow things from seeds. All the pictures are of these gorgeous, lush, healthy all ready grown and harvested vegetables. There aren’t a lot of pictures of the seeds. They gloss right over the seed stage of the vegetable. I think that's a little disingenuous on their part.
I was thinking about all of this while I was riding my bike. Dogger refused to go for a walk, which was not her being head strong.. Dogger is in the middle of her yearly bout with doggy prickly heat and part of the treatment for doggy prickly heat is massive doses of benadryl. She’s on enough downers to stop a smaller dog or a full sized human in their tracks. When she’s sleeping she’s not itching and when she’s not itching, her rash has a chance to heal. I think walking also exaserbates the problem because the rash is in her little doggy arm pit and walking makes it chafe. She wasn’t so tired that she wasn’t able to run from me when I approached her with her leash for a walk though. Bitch.
But it was way too pretty last night to not take advantage of the weather, I mean really. It would have been wrong to not be outside. When I left for my ride I left Dogger in the back yard and I didn’t even feel bad about it.
And while I was peddling along I was thinking about seeds.
How big a pain in the ass is starting seeds? A 4 or 5 on the PitA scale? Don’t you need light for that? Do windows count? Do I have enough light coming my windows in for that? Peddle, peddle, peddle Do I really see me doing that? And where would I grow them? Peddle, peddle, peddle Would The Kitty agree to a destroying-my-things detente’ and wouldn’t taking care of seeds be almost like taking care of another animal? Do I want dozens of tiny pets? Do I want dirt in my house? Peddle, peddle, peddle And how pissed would I be if I did take on all that and they ended up just being stringy and leggy and later ended up not producing anything or what if they all died? But what if they all lived? I don’t have room for dozens of plants, even really interesting plants. Peddle, peddle, peddle And the interesting seeds aren’t free either and at least with two or three cheap boring seedlings you know the plants are viable and under your control Peddle, peddle, peddle Hey look there’s my Church! I could ride my bike to Mass! But.. pretty much the only way to get really interesting vegetable plants is to grow them yourself from interesting seeds because gawd knows the vegetable seedlings available at the stores are not interesting. I mean, what I’m growing I could buy at the store.
Peddle, peddle, peddle
But there are more than just tomatoes, green beans! Spaghetti squash! Peddle, the squash I have now hates me! Peddle, peddle Garlic! Dozens of different types of garlic! I love garlic. Everyone I know loves garlic. And I’m pretty sure I could grow broccoli here in the fall, I love broccoli! Peddle, peddle, peddle But geeze, I’m all ready going to try growing multiple varieties of garlic over the winter. How much work do I want to do after it gets cold and the garden isn’t green and sexy any more? Answer: Not a lot.
Peddle, peddle peddle.
I got another seed catalogue today. A big, glossy catalogue full of beautifully photographed vegetables and short on frivolities like flowers. The pictures of flowers in the last seed catalogue I received withered . My house is such a floral dead zone that even pictures of flowers wilt the minute they get inside. It’s very disheartening.
Yeah, well. I don’t order these catalogs for flowers. They can shove their exotic bulbs right up their manure spreader. I’m not in the market for decorative items. I’m in the market for vegetables.
Do I want to deal with seeds though? They don’t call them seed catalogs because the have pages and pages of interesting seedlings . I’m more of a seedling person I think. I’m not sure I have the patience it takes to grow things from seeds. All the pictures are of these gorgeous, lush, healthy all ready grown and harvested vegetables. There aren’t a lot of pictures of the seeds. They gloss right over the seed stage of the vegetable. I think that's a little disingenuous on their part.
I was thinking about all of this while I was riding my bike. Dogger refused to go for a walk, which was not her being head strong.. Dogger is in the middle of her yearly bout with doggy prickly heat and part of the treatment for doggy prickly heat is massive doses of benadryl. She’s on enough downers to stop a smaller dog or a full sized human in their tracks. When she’s sleeping she’s not itching and when she’s not itching, her rash has a chance to heal. I think walking also exaserbates the problem because the rash is in her little doggy arm pit and walking makes it chafe. She wasn’t so tired that she wasn’t able to run from me when I approached her with her leash for a walk though. Bitch.
But it was way too pretty last night to not take advantage of the weather, I mean really. It would have been wrong to not be outside. When I left for my ride I left Dogger in the back yard and I didn’t even feel bad about it.
And while I was peddling along I was thinking about seeds.
How big a pain in the ass is starting seeds? A 4 or 5 on the PitA scale? Don’t you need light for that? Do windows count? Do I have enough light coming my windows in for that? Peddle, peddle, peddle Do I really see me doing that? And where would I grow them? Peddle, peddle, peddle Would The Kitty agree to a destroying-my-things detente’ and wouldn’t taking care of seeds be almost like taking care of another animal? Do I want dozens of tiny pets? Do I want dirt in my house? Peddle, peddle, peddle And how pissed would I be if I did take on all that and they ended up just being stringy and leggy and later ended up not producing anything or what if they all died? But what if they all lived? I don’t have room for dozens of plants, even really interesting plants. Peddle, peddle, peddle And the interesting seeds aren’t free either and at least with two or three cheap boring seedlings you know the plants are viable and under your control Peddle, peddle, peddle Hey look there’s my Church! I could ride my bike to Mass! But.. pretty much the only way to get really interesting vegetable plants is to grow them yourself from interesting seeds because gawd knows the vegetable seedlings available at the stores are not interesting. I mean, what I’m growing I could buy at the store.
Peddle, peddle, peddle
But there are more than just tomatoes, green beans! Spaghetti squash! Peddle, the squash I have now hates me! Peddle, peddle Garlic! Dozens of different types of garlic! I love garlic. Everyone I know loves garlic. And I’m pretty sure I could grow broccoli here in the fall, I love broccoli! Peddle, peddle, peddle But geeze, I’m all ready going to try growing multiple varieties of garlic over the winter. How much work do I want to do after it gets cold and the garden isn’t green and sexy any more? Answer: Not a lot.
Peddle, peddle peddle.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
The newby
I have a squash! six thousand squash blossoms later, I have a squash. In my reading I learned that in some varieties the plant will produce 25 male blossoms for every one female flower produced, which gives me comfort that it isn't just me, I was afraid it was, I was afraid I had done something to my plants to alter them in some way or I had bought a whole flat of male flowers and should have known to also buy a flat of female flowers at the same time and that made me mad at the people who sold them to me because why didn't they say anything to me? They saw me wandering away with all those male plants! And they said Lets to haze the garden newby!
It didn't help that I started doing reading and learned that there are plants that really are strictly male or strictly female and that it would be possible to get hosed like that. The book promised if the variety was like that the flat would be sold with both genders of plants. Trusting fools. I mean, my plants are lush and green and the flowers are pretty if you are out and about early enough in the morning to see them and I could conceivably see squash plants as being quite adequate ground cover but damn it, I want to see the produce aisle from Whole Foods in my back yard! Merely being green and pretty doesn't cut it in the Dianaverse.
The book did say that many plants today have been engineered to produce both kinds of flowers and many don't even need any outside help with pollination, a good thing because the bees aren't around to do it for them. My squash need the bees though. I may have found a second female flower on one of my squash plants and in their absents I am so going to artificially pollinate that flower. I feel bad for my squash plants. I had to do some thinning a couple of weeks ago and the main victims were three undersized squash plants that weren't thriving and were getting in the way of my cucumbers that thriving and producing. It wasn't a hard decision. I had one sad little squash plant that seemed to only serve as a host for tendrils of a lovely, but pushy, volunteer morning glory that I am trying to train to grow on the little barrier fence that helps keep the garden in place. Of course the morning glories I planted where it would be more convenient to have lovely vining plants, never came up.
My cucumbers are perking along. Of my three cucumbers, one is growing very well. The two others, I think may need more sun then they are getting, The robust specimen is on a vine that is climbing my fence and it's really doing well, the others are more terrestrial and while they are both older veggies, they are smaller and aren't growing as fast.
Now that everything that is going to grow is growing and has reached its adult state, I haven't had to poison in a weeks but early on when my tiny plants were still tender and alluring, they were getting chewed voraciously. I felt personally violated - Those beasties weren't just chewing on shoots and leaves, they were chewing on me. My very fingers and toes were being munched on! It had to stop. So I poisoned the hell out of them. The first tomatoes I washed three times, the collards went through multiple washing and rinsing cycles before I felt comfortable eating them but it was worth it though because no one else had eaten them before I had a chance to.
Speaking of collards. I babied them, watched them, coaxed growth out of them. I talked with them, visited with them daily and I still didn't like them. And I tried! I put them into a dish I really enjoy and I got all excited and they stilled tasted like collards. Blech. I had thought that after putting all that work into them they would taste like something I do like, like pizza or cheetoes. I guess I had hoped to have more influence over them. I had thought that they would take after the tomatoes, another food I don't usually like. The tomatoes tasted really good, I could almost forget they were tomatoes. They were almost cheeto-like. I don't eat peppers either, but if they ever actually produce I'm going to stuff them with ground beef and force them into being edible. It's a big if though, if they ever produce anything I'll probably end up being so excited that I won't even eat them, I'll have them bronzed instead.
I have a squash! six thousand squash blossoms later, I have a squash. In my reading I learned that in some varieties the plant will produce 25 male blossoms for every one female flower produced, which gives me comfort that it isn't just me, I was afraid it was, I was afraid I had done something to my plants to alter them in some way or I had bought a whole flat of male flowers and should have known to also buy a flat of female flowers at the same time and that made me mad at the people who sold them to me because why didn't they say anything to me? They saw me wandering away with all those male plants! And they said Lets to haze the garden newby!
It didn't help that I started doing reading and learned that there are plants that really are strictly male or strictly female and that it would be possible to get hosed like that. The book promised if the variety was like that the flat would be sold with both genders of plants. Trusting fools. I mean, my plants are lush and green and the flowers are pretty if you are out and about early enough in the morning to see them and I could conceivably see squash plants as being quite adequate ground cover but damn it, I want to see the produce aisle from Whole Foods in my back yard! Merely being green and pretty doesn't cut it in the Dianaverse.
The book did say that many plants today have been engineered to produce both kinds of flowers and many don't even need any outside help with pollination, a good thing because the bees aren't around to do it for them. My squash need the bees though. I may have found a second female flower on one of my squash plants and in their absents I am so going to artificially pollinate that flower. I feel bad for my squash plants. I had to do some thinning a couple of weeks ago and the main victims were three undersized squash plants that weren't thriving and were getting in the way of my cucumbers that thriving and producing. It wasn't a hard decision. I had one sad little squash plant that seemed to only serve as a host for tendrils of a lovely, but pushy, volunteer morning glory that I am trying to train to grow on the little barrier fence that helps keep the garden in place. Of course the morning glories I planted where it would be more convenient to have lovely vining plants, never came up.
My cucumbers are perking along. Of my three cucumbers, one is growing very well. The two others, I think may need more sun then they are getting, The robust specimen is on a vine that is climbing my fence and it's really doing well, the others are more terrestrial and while they are both older veggies, they are smaller and aren't growing as fast.
Now that everything that is going to grow is growing and has reached its adult state, I haven't had to poison in a weeks but early on when my tiny plants were still tender and alluring, they were getting chewed voraciously. I felt personally violated - Those beasties weren't just chewing on shoots and leaves, they were chewing on me. My very fingers and toes were being munched on! It had to stop. So I poisoned the hell out of them. The first tomatoes I washed three times, the collards went through multiple washing and rinsing cycles before I felt comfortable eating them but it was worth it though because no one else had eaten them before I had a chance to.
Speaking of collards. I babied them, watched them, coaxed growth out of them. I talked with them, visited with them daily and I still didn't like them. And I tried! I put them into a dish I really enjoy and I got all excited and they stilled tasted like collards. Blech. I had thought that after putting all that work into them they would taste like something I do like, like pizza or cheetoes. I guess I had hoped to have more influence over them. I had thought that they would take after the tomatoes, another food I don't usually like. The tomatoes tasted really good, I could almost forget they were tomatoes. They were almost cheeto-like. I don't eat peppers either, but if they ever actually produce I'm going to stuff them with ground beef and force them into being edible. It's a big if though, if they ever produce anything I'll probably end up being so excited that I won't even eat them, I'll have them bronzed instead.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Monday, monday
My house smelled, and not like freshly baked bread or apple pie. Every morning when I came downstairs I was slapped in the face by dawg. If I somehow took a sharp blow to the head over night and managed to forget I had a dog, I would be reminded as soon as I went downstairs.
You know the smell. In a perfect world, when you come into my house I would hope that you would not know I had pets at all, until they come bounding at you and knock you down, Surprise! I have a dog! and a cat! Wanna guess where he's box is?! There is a lot to enjoy about your dog. They are attractive to look at, they are very good burglar alarms, and they have nice, soft fur. Many of your senses are pleased by your dog. Very rarely is your sense of smell pleased by your dog.
My sense of smell was not only “not pleased” it was deeply offended. The only upside of this was if by chance Dogger and I were out of the house and a burglar took it upon himself, and I use the masculine because I have never heard of a woman who was a house burglar, frankly, sure we’ll kill our own young but we aren’t going to steal your flat screen - to break in, one whiff and he would have known immediately that there was dog in the house and it would be coming for him soon, or he had come across the worlds best appointed bear cave - Whatever, something very large and carnivorous and no doubt angry at being disturbed would be along quickly and it was would be looking to tear out his throat and gut him. A smart burglar would leave at this point. And the fact that no pawn broker would buy anything that smelled that bad.
The house was dawgy and had been. Last weekend I was out of town and didn’t get anything done around the house. This weekend I was in town it was time. Okay, one more day and I was going to have to rake the carpets. In the summer I keep the house dark and even in the dark the house looked bad.
So. I vacuumed or swept all the flat surfaces and then laundering everything the dog touches. Sadly, the biggest offender, a large chair and ottoman that Dogger doesn’t know that I know she spends a lot of time on in my absence - that would do well with a good through wash cycle, was too large for the machine. Everything else, house-wide I swept, vacuumed or spot cleaned and I felt pretty good about what I had accomplished, the house smelled like, well, nothing.
.....Until I walked downstairs Saturday morning and my eyes watered. I had forgotten the real offender. I didn’t have a chance to do anything about it on Saturday but Sunday? afternoon, we were on. Dogger didn’t know what to think It’s still light out! I haven’t had dinner! No, no, no! Bath time is night time! Come on! I told her to come on and she had a good bath. Sunday prior to bathtime, I went to Petco and splurged on a $10 anti-itch doggy shampoo to help her out with her recurrent summer itchiness/hot-spot problems. I buy my own shampoo at Poverty Barn for $3 a bottle.
The house now smells like medicinal dog shampoo, but it doesn’t smell like dawg.
My house smelled, and not like freshly baked bread or apple pie. Every morning when I came downstairs I was slapped in the face by dawg. If I somehow took a sharp blow to the head over night and managed to forget I had a dog, I would be reminded as soon as I went downstairs.
You know the smell. In a perfect world, when you come into my house I would hope that you would not know I had pets at all, until they come bounding at you and knock you down, Surprise! I have a dog! and a cat! Wanna guess where he's box is?! There is a lot to enjoy about your dog. They are attractive to look at, they are very good burglar alarms, and they have nice, soft fur. Many of your senses are pleased by your dog. Very rarely is your sense of smell pleased by your dog.
My sense of smell was not only “not pleased” it was deeply offended. The only upside of this was if by chance Dogger and I were out of the house and a burglar took it upon himself, and I use the masculine because I have never heard of a woman who was a house burglar, frankly, sure we’ll kill our own young but we aren’t going to steal your flat screen - to break in, one whiff and he would have known immediately that there was dog in the house and it would be coming for him soon, or he had come across the worlds best appointed bear cave - Whatever, something very large and carnivorous and no doubt angry at being disturbed would be along quickly and it was would be looking to tear out his throat and gut him. A smart burglar would leave at this point. And the fact that no pawn broker would buy anything that smelled that bad.
The house was dawgy and had been. Last weekend I was out of town and didn’t get anything done around the house. This weekend I was in town it was time. Okay, one more day and I was going to have to rake the carpets. In the summer I keep the house dark and even in the dark the house looked bad.
So. I vacuumed or swept all the flat surfaces and then laundering everything the dog touches. Sadly, the biggest offender, a large chair and ottoman that Dogger doesn’t know that I know she spends a lot of time on in my absence - that would do well with a good through wash cycle, was too large for the machine. Everything else, house-wide I swept, vacuumed or spot cleaned and I felt pretty good about what I had accomplished, the house smelled like, well, nothing.
.....Until I walked downstairs Saturday morning and my eyes watered. I had forgotten the real offender. I didn’t have a chance to do anything about it on Saturday but Sunday? afternoon, we were on. Dogger didn’t know what to think It’s still light out! I haven’t had dinner! No, no, no! Bath time is night time! Come on! I told her to come on and she had a good bath. Sunday prior to bathtime, I went to Petco and splurged on a $10 anti-itch doggy shampoo to help her out with her recurrent summer itchiness/hot-spot problems. I buy my own shampoo at Poverty Barn for $3 a bottle.
The house now smells like medicinal dog shampoo, but it doesn’t smell like dawg.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Garden Update III
Since the last time I've reported on Garden 2008 - The Greeninging , I have staged my first harvest! It wasn't exactly a record breaking haul.
But aren't the cute? Have you ever seen cuter tomatoes? I think not! They were the smartest tomatoes in their class. So I spent all this time worrying on them and watering and fertilizing and obsessing over them, and then I ate them. It seemed wrong, it seemed carnivorous some how. Here was these things that I worked so hard on and spent watching them grow from tiny little nubs into a condiment. I put a lot of effort babying them along and I ate them. I felt like after all of that, I should put them in a scrapbook instead of a sandwich.
I was so proud. I very carefully took them off plant and brought them inside and washed them clean and then I looked at them. Hello little tomatoes! Welcome to the inside of my house! . I actually took a picture of them sitting on the counter. I was at loss as to what to now . I mean, I had a total of three tomatoes. It's hardly like I had enough to make tomato sauce or even whip up some dip or something. You can't even make a salad with three small tomatoes, And? I don't even eat tomatoes. I mean, I eat tomatoes but usually after they disguised. I certainly didn't want them to go bad, but really... What do you do with three tomatoes?
You chop them up and add them to your tuna, is what you do with them. They were nummy.
Three down
Many, many, many to go. And that's just the little ones. I have big ones too and they are getting bigger everyday. They aren't getting red but they are getting big. They're supposed to Goliath tomatoes but right now I think they're more like David tomatoes.
The cukes are trying to catch up. I mean, you can tell they really, really want it bad but they just aren't as ambitious as the tomatoes. The tomatoes are the star players of Team Garden and the cukes know it, and they feel bad. My garden books swear and declare that the cukes will grow and that I will need to stay on top of them and harvest every couple of days. Well. We'll see.
I have three and that's the big daddy one. The other ones are just little. I put a saucer under it because one of my books suggested that I keep them off the ground to protect them from insects and other dirt born terrorists. Sigh. I'm go to all this trouble and then I;m going to eat them. Or someone is going to eat them, I don't even normally eat disguised cucumbers. Maybe by that time I'll figure out how to put them into scrapbook.
The squash plants themselves are very green and leafy and every morning when I go out to visit with the garden before I leave for work the squash blossoms are splendid. They aren't producing any actual squash but I have read where the flowers are edible. Speaking of flowers the eggplants are waking up!
They, like the squash are producing very pretty flowers early in the morning. This picture would have been much prettier if taken in the morning, had I thought about it.
The peppers. The Peppers. Nothing. They are doing nothing. I mean, even the eggplants are doing something. The peppers are so far, really disappointing. Even the collards are producing! I harvested some collards today! A lot! Many leaves! They will probably shrink down to nothing cause that's what collards do, but still! I'm going to add some sausage and it's going to be great.
The peppers make me sad.
Since the last time I've reported on Garden 2008 - The Greeninging , I have staged my first harvest! It wasn't exactly a record breaking haul.
But aren't the cute? Have you ever seen cuter tomatoes? I think not! They were the smartest tomatoes in their class. So I spent all this time worrying on them and watering and fertilizing and obsessing over them, and then I ate them. It seemed wrong, it seemed carnivorous some how. Here was these things that I worked so hard on and spent watching them grow from tiny little nubs into a condiment. I put a lot of effort babying them along and I ate them. I felt like after all of that, I should put them in a scrapbook instead of a sandwich.
I was so proud. I very carefully took them off plant and brought them inside and washed them clean and then I looked at them. Hello little tomatoes! Welcome to the inside of my house! . I actually took a picture of them sitting on the counter. I was at loss as to what to now . I mean, I had a total of three tomatoes. It's hardly like I had enough to make tomato sauce or even whip up some dip or something. You can't even make a salad with three small tomatoes, And? I don't even eat tomatoes. I mean, I eat tomatoes but usually after they disguised. I certainly didn't want them to go bad, but really... What do you do with three tomatoes?
You chop them up and add them to your tuna, is what you do with them. They were nummy.
Three down
Many, many, many to go. And that's just the little ones. I have big ones too and they are getting bigger everyday. They aren't getting red but they are getting big. They're supposed to Goliath tomatoes but right now I think they're more like David tomatoes.
The cukes are trying to catch up. I mean, you can tell they really, really want it bad but they just aren't as ambitious as the tomatoes. The tomatoes are the star players of Team Garden and the cukes know it, and they feel bad. My garden books swear and declare that the cukes will grow and that I will need to stay on top of them and harvest every couple of days. Well. We'll see.
I have three and that's the big daddy one. The other ones are just little. I put a saucer under it because one of my books suggested that I keep them off the ground to protect them from insects and other dirt born terrorists. Sigh. I'm go to all this trouble and then I;m going to eat them. Or someone is going to eat them, I don't even normally eat disguised cucumbers. Maybe by that time I'll figure out how to put them into scrapbook.
The squash plants themselves are very green and leafy and every morning when I go out to visit with the garden before I leave for work the squash blossoms are splendid. They aren't producing any actual squash but I have read where the flowers are edible. Speaking of flowers the eggplants are waking up!
They, like the squash are producing very pretty flowers early in the morning. This picture would have been much prettier if taken in the morning, had I thought about it.
The peppers. The Peppers. Nothing. They are doing nothing. I mean, even the eggplants are doing something. The peppers are so far, really disappointing. Even the collards are producing! I harvested some collards today! A lot! Many leaves! They will probably shrink down to nothing cause that's what collards do, but still! I'm going to add some sausage and it's going to be great.
The peppers make me sad.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
The Red Shoes Diary
Tiny E needed some new shoes. Not just “shoes” she needed red shoes and not just any foot coverings designed to protect her feet from the environment, she needed faux craux, the cheaper version of the real thing. The cheap plastic shoe the rich and dumb buy $50 a pop can be bought by the frugal and the smart for $5, a cheaper, greener alterative to the over priced retail version. For your $5 you get shoes that when exposed to natural sunlight will actually begin to compost themselves! The real shoes can take months to do that.
Top be honest, I don’t know how much real crocs cost. Until a few months ago I didn’t know croc shoes from a crock of shit. If whatever it is isn't being sold 75% off at Poverty Barn, chances are I'm not going to know about it. In the three seconds of thought I spent to the issue I thought maybe crocs were some kind of new-fangled duck shoe thing. I certainly didn’t know they were talking about and buying bling for, plastic shoes. I kind of take it that crocs are the beanie babies of the early 21 century.
Myself, I don’t wear plastic shoes. I’ve done the whole plastic shoe thing, I had a plastic shoe collection which I wore with my Mexican wedding dress collection. I also had a new blister every day and walked with a limp. It was 1985-86 and the plastic shoe de’jour were called Jellies.
But Tiny E doesn’t know from Jellies. She is still too young to know about the pleasure/pain relationship our kind has with shoes. She does however know a cute shoe when she sees one. While she’s too young yet for really hard core shoeage, she is too old for Heelarious Heels
If these had been on the market two years ago, I would have bought her a pair. She would love these, if she had a pair of these, I can guarantee she would have learned how to say CUTE months earlier then she did. They are a little Cathyish, on closer inspection, but I think that can be overlooked. A girl can never start to build her collection of nearly identical black pumps soon enough.
But. Lets talk reality. In reality, as cute as those shoes are, she wouldn’t have gotten a lot of wear out of them. These shoes are not made for walking and Tiny E will walk right over you. It’s who she is, she has places to go and Gawd help you if you are in her way. Girl has an agenda and a Black Berry and she’s interviewing assistants and she has a flight to catch and a new Signing Time downloaded onto her Iphone and you are making her late. She needs shoes she can walk in, run in, jump into puddles in and that’s not going to happen in pumps, even those ones they advertised as being pumps you could play basketball in because I bet they don’t come in childrens sizes . So for the time being Baby Girl’s athletic shoe needs will be handled of by these
...And her $5 Wallyworld faux crauxs. She has meetings to go to and classes to attend and every weekend another birthday party. Girl baby is on the go, and she can’t go anywhere without the right shoes.
Tiny E needed some new shoes. Not just “shoes” she needed red shoes and not just any foot coverings designed to protect her feet from the environment, she needed faux craux, the cheaper version of the real thing. The cheap plastic shoe the rich and dumb buy $50 a pop can be bought by the frugal and the smart for $5, a cheaper, greener alterative to the over priced retail version. For your $5 you get shoes that when exposed to natural sunlight will actually begin to compost themselves! The real shoes can take months to do that.
Top be honest, I don’t know how much real crocs cost. Until a few months ago I didn’t know croc shoes from a crock of shit. If whatever it is isn't being sold 75% off at Poverty Barn, chances are I'm not going to know about it. In the three seconds of thought I spent to the issue I thought maybe crocs were some kind of new-fangled duck shoe thing. I certainly didn’t know they were talking about and buying bling for, plastic shoes. I kind of take it that crocs are the beanie babies of the early 21 century.
Myself, I don’t wear plastic shoes. I’ve done the whole plastic shoe thing, I had a plastic shoe collection which I wore with my Mexican wedding dress collection. I also had a new blister every day and walked with a limp. It was 1985-86 and the plastic shoe de’jour were called Jellies.
But Tiny E doesn’t know from Jellies. She is still too young to know about the pleasure/pain relationship our kind has with shoes. She does however know a cute shoe when she sees one. While she’s too young yet for really hard core shoeage, she is too old for Heelarious Heels
If these had been on the market two years ago, I would have bought her a pair. She would love these, if she had a pair of these, I can guarantee she would have learned how to say CUTE months earlier then she did. They are a little Cathyish, on closer inspection, but I think that can be overlooked. A girl can never start to build her collection of nearly identical black pumps soon enough.
But. Lets talk reality. In reality, as cute as those shoes are, she wouldn’t have gotten a lot of wear out of them. These shoes are not made for walking and Tiny E will walk right over you. It’s who she is, she has places to go and Gawd help you if you are in her way. Girl has an agenda and a Black Berry and she’s interviewing assistants and she has a flight to catch and a new Signing Time downloaded onto her Iphone and you are making her late. She needs shoes she can walk in, run in, jump into puddles in and that’s not going to happen in pumps, even those ones they advertised as being pumps you could play basketball in because I bet they don’t come in childrens sizes . So for the time being Baby Girl’s athletic shoe needs will be handled of by these
...And her $5 Wallyworld faux crauxs. She has meetings to go to and classes to attend and every weekend another birthday party. Girl baby is on the go, and she can’t go anywhere without the right shoes.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Inhale, Exhale...
They fixed my computer at work, it turned out to be a faulty ping number. I feel much better now.
I didn’t know how vital being in my own space was until I was forced out of it. It was like being a temp again, a few hours at this desk a few hours more that that desk, half a day there, fifteen minutes here. It was unsettling.
I also never thought about how important keyboard placement is to my productivity. It genuinely upset me that the keyboard I spent most of my time on was in the wrong place. I mean, really wrong. My keyboard is on my desktop where it belongs. I can move it to the right, left, up under my screen or into my lap if need be. It’s in the right place. The office I was squatting in belongs to a co-worker who kindly scheduled her kidney stones for the same week I was without a working computer.
This co-worker inherited her poorly designed work space from a past employee who must have been extremely, cripplingly far sighted. I don’t know how the current occupant stands it. I hope when she gets over being the new kid she says something about it and asks to change the set up. I don't think she had kidney stones, I think she was really suffering from a full body cramp from dealing with her rotten set up.
She inherited a desk with an under desk keyboard. Which should work, and would work if the keyboard under the desk was not the most bulbous keyboard ever manufactured. It looks like a Ford from the early 90s, puffy, swollen and bloated - Which would be great if you were hoping to use it as a raft and float down the river on it or had plans to fill it with goose down and take a nap, but it is not something that is designed to fit under your desk. It's supposed to sit top side and look ergonomic.
If its in it’s stowed position, sure you can comfortably work on the desk top, you can’t use the keyboard but you can read your screen, although you will be seeing a lot of 6's, as when the board is under the desk the 6 key is nudged and it makes 6s until the computer itself beeps in frustration. If it’s locked and loaded state the user is forced back to sit against the wall from where you can’t actually see the screen or reach the phone or even comfortably use the keyboard, it does wonders for your posture. It’s also like the most useful, if hard to clean, airplane tray table ever. Every time I had to pull it out I looked for someone to come by with a drinks cart and slam into my knee. There is a middle ground but you have to be very careful to not touch it in any way less it slides under the desk or pops up and out and knocks your teeth out
I just hate everything about being away from my desk. Pens for instance. My pens are where they belong. Everyone else keeps their pens in the wrong place. My co-workers staplers , uniformly, were in the wrong place, they don’t have their own date punch or letter openers or label makers... You don’t know how happy I was to find a label maker at the reception desk! I was afraid I was going to have to hand write all my address labels, if I was afraid, the state of North Carolina was terrified.
There are documents on my computer that I thought since they are on the “share” drive, that we all shared them. We do not. I do see the wisdom in not letting two hundred people have access to survey schedules but it really put a crimp into my day to not be able to pull them up when I needed them. I wasted a lot of time going upstairs to search for a manager that had access to them and would print them out for me. It took forty-five minutes to get a few lines of type it would have taken me forty-five seconds to look up if I was at my own computer. It was one crimp in the schedule after another. I spent two days suffering from full body crimps.
They fixed my computer at work, it turned out to be a faulty ping number. I feel much better now.
I didn’t know how vital being in my own space was until I was forced out of it. It was like being a temp again, a few hours at this desk a few hours more that that desk, half a day there, fifteen minutes here. It was unsettling.
I also never thought about how important keyboard placement is to my productivity. It genuinely upset me that the keyboard I spent most of my time on was in the wrong place. I mean, really wrong. My keyboard is on my desktop where it belongs. I can move it to the right, left, up under my screen or into my lap if need be. It’s in the right place. The office I was squatting in belongs to a co-worker who kindly scheduled her kidney stones for the same week I was without a working computer.
This co-worker inherited her poorly designed work space from a past employee who must have been extremely, cripplingly far sighted. I don’t know how the current occupant stands it. I hope when she gets over being the new kid she says something about it and asks to change the set up. I don't think she had kidney stones, I think she was really suffering from a full body cramp from dealing with her rotten set up.
She inherited a desk with an under desk keyboard. Which should work, and would work if the keyboard under the desk was not the most bulbous keyboard ever manufactured. It looks like a Ford from the early 90s, puffy, swollen and bloated - Which would be great if you were hoping to use it as a raft and float down the river on it or had plans to fill it with goose down and take a nap, but it is not something that is designed to fit under your desk. It's supposed to sit top side and look ergonomic.
If its in it’s stowed position, sure you can comfortably work on the desk top, you can’t use the keyboard but you can read your screen, although you will be seeing a lot of 6's, as when the board is under the desk the 6 key is nudged and it makes 6s until the computer itself beeps in frustration. If it’s locked and loaded state the user is forced back to sit against the wall from where you can’t actually see the screen or reach the phone or even comfortably use the keyboard, it does wonders for your posture. It’s also like the most useful, if hard to clean, airplane tray table ever. Every time I had to pull it out I looked for someone to come by with a drinks cart and slam into my knee. There is a middle ground but you have to be very careful to not touch it in any way less it slides under the desk or pops up and out and knocks your teeth out
I just hate everything about being away from my desk. Pens for instance. My pens are where they belong. Everyone else keeps their pens in the wrong place. My co-workers staplers , uniformly, were in the wrong place, they don’t have their own date punch or letter openers or label makers... You don’t know how happy I was to find a label maker at the reception desk! I was afraid I was going to have to hand write all my address labels, if I was afraid, the state of North Carolina was terrified.
There are documents on my computer that I thought since they are on the “share” drive, that we all shared them. We do not. I do see the wisdom in not letting two hundred people have access to survey schedules but it really put a crimp into my day to not be able to pull them up when I needed them. I wasted a lot of time going upstairs to search for a manager that had access to them and would print them out for me. It took forty-five minutes to get a few lines of type it would have taken me forty-five seconds to look up if I was at my own computer. It was one crimp in the schedule after another. I spent two days suffering from full body crimps.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Frustration
I hate computers. Not all computers of course, I’m sure the one you are using is quite nice, I don't hate yours, or course. Your computer is very nice. NASA has many lovely and talented computers at it’s disposal. I on the other hand have only lazy, useless, untalented computers to use.
My computer at home for instances. When your computer is loading your browser, how many does it load?, I would guess that it load a single version of it. You can after all only use one at a time, it only makes sense for it to load just the one. My computer on the other hand thinks that it and by extension, I need as many as 128 to fully realize both our goals. My goals are of course secondary to my computers fear of being alone, or the bastard is getting them together to try to sell them on a pyramid scheme.
I am also pissed that I have all ready seen both the No Reservations they have aired this evening. One of them being Namibia, and I didn’t need to that one even the first time much less a second. Namibia, a place where there is no food and nothing to see. Starving people sitting around with nothing to do. Yay! The Travel Channel should run this episode three, four times a week... Oh, wait, they all ready do!
I can’t even go to work to find comfort in my work computers embrace. My computer at work had a nervous breakdown, a massive heart attack and a massive stroke or some combination of all three either over the weekend or within seconds of me turning it on this morning. I love Mondays. I had the great fun of going office to office eyeing computers like a vulture or Angela Jolie after a particularity attractive orphan - asking when lunch was and why they hadn’t gone yet and when they did go, to please leave their computer on and not to hurry back. We did have two folks out today, which should have been a God send to me, but when I tried to sign on to their computers both machines told me to go fuck myself - It was in binary but it was still hurtful. The IT person finally agreed to do something disgusting to one of them or bribed it in some way , into working with me.
On a day to day bases I have access to two computers in my world and they both hate me.
But all of this has been educational. I learned that my computer has “capacitors” and they can get “swollen” and “leaky”. I did not know this. When IT checked this they found that while one of my capacitors is a little swollen, it wasn’t leaky or swollen enough to explain the overwhelming systematic damage my computer is experiencing.
I’m tired now.
I hate computers. Not all computers of course, I’m sure the one you are using is quite nice, I don't hate yours, or course. Your computer is very nice. NASA has many lovely and talented computers at it’s disposal. I on the other hand have only lazy, useless, untalented computers to use.
My computer at home for instances. When your computer is loading your browser, how many does it load?, I would guess that it load a single version of it. You can after all only use one at a time, it only makes sense for it to load just the one. My computer on the other hand thinks that it and by extension, I need as many as 128 to fully realize both our goals. My goals are of course secondary to my computers fear of being alone, or the bastard is getting them together to try to sell them on a pyramid scheme.
I am also pissed that I have all ready seen both the No Reservations they have aired this evening. One of them being Namibia, and I didn’t need to that one even the first time much less a second. Namibia, a place where there is no food and nothing to see. Starving people sitting around with nothing to do. Yay! The Travel Channel should run this episode three, four times a week... Oh, wait, they all ready do!
I can’t even go to work to find comfort in my work computers embrace. My computer at work had a nervous breakdown, a massive heart attack and a massive stroke or some combination of all three either over the weekend or within seconds of me turning it on this morning. I love Mondays. I had the great fun of going office to office eyeing computers like a vulture or Angela Jolie after a particularity attractive orphan - asking when lunch was and why they hadn’t gone yet and when they did go, to please leave their computer on and not to hurry back. We did have two folks out today, which should have been a God send to me, but when I tried to sign on to their computers both machines told me to go fuck myself - It was in binary but it was still hurtful. The IT person finally agreed to do something disgusting to one of them or bribed it in some way , into working with me.
On a day to day bases I have access to two computers in my world and they both hate me.
But all of this has been educational. I learned that my computer has “capacitors” and they can get “swollen” and “leaky”. I did not know this. When IT checked this they found that while one of my capacitors is a little swollen, it wasn’t leaky or swollen enough to explain the overwhelming systematic damage my computer is experiencing.
I’m tired now.
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