Little Vespa In A Big Truck Town

I believe I am developing a quiet reputation for lunacy in my small town. I am always toting awkward and interesting loads on my Vespa down Highway 99 and have garnered slack-jawed idiot stares especially from all the baseball capped burly men looking down at me on my bug sized scooter from the majesty of their giant trucks. They don't bother trying to look intelligently curious.

But in all fairness? I give them the exact same looks when they load their one delicate small bag of groceries and their twelve pack of Coors Lite into their capacious nearly empty truck beds.

Most recent venture was bringing home two plum trees from the nursery. It was awkward as ass but once I balanced us all together and ordered the Elephant Heart plum to stop whipping me in the face...it went smoothly enough.

I love it when Capello shares with us all the queer searches that lead people to her site. Since I copied her and got myself the same site counter, I can find out what searches people are doing on google that are leading all ten of them to me and I think you'll agree that the world is a very strange place indeed. I will tell you the three most interesting ones:

"Spike heeled boots crushing balloons"

I admit that's a topic constantly coming up in conversation around here at Dustpan Alley, especially since balloons are one of my least favorite things in the world. You might even say I have a deep antipathy for them and I harbor deep resentments for Trader Joe's always sending my boy home with them. Those were very dark days. Plus, anyone who knows me knows that spike heeled boots are my greatest fashion fascination of all time.

Right after bowl hair cuts.

"yellow mustard dripping from a dead dog"

It is very difficult for me to imagine what could cause a person to google such a sentence in the first place and it may be one of the deepest mysteries in the universe how it happened to lead someone to my site. Did someone happen upon a dead dog who was dripping yellow mustard and wondered if this has ever happened to anyone else, or did someone PUT yellow mustard on a dead dog? Either way? WTF?!

But the best one by far....

"huge penis"chihuahua"blog"

Seriously, people. I don't even know what to think. My mind is flying to every corner of the world to figure out how this can not be really sick and twisted. Is this a frequent topic of conversation on people's blogs? Are huge chihuahua penis' the new Paris Hilton of fashionable conversations? Is this something we should be discussing here on Dustpan Alley instead of insects, food, and my sadly non-lascivious fantasy life? Dudes- am I missing out on something really good? You'd tell me if I was...right?

And here I was thinking it would be cool to do a post on how to tell the difference between false dandelions and the real ones.

So, I'm off to my master gardening class today. There are only two left I think. Then it's all about the volunteer work which I plan on bestowing almost solely on working the desk (only when required) and working at the community garden which will be my real joy.

All conversation seems dull after huge chihuahua penis'.

I give up.

You people are just dirty!

Forty-Two Pecks Of Pickles

Late Thursday morning I got a call from Lisa E. that she had procured two cases of pickling cucumbers and could I come over right away and start canning them up? I had been sitting at my computer kind of staring at it in an abstract way for about a half an hour because I was still getting over the whole stress of the twenty minute bloody nose of Max's. So I wasn't quite ready to jet. I had to gather myself up from the ether where my head was hanging out and eat food and think about how I was going to survive the ride on Highway 240. It was important to take advantage of this opportunity though because this year pickling cucumbers have not been available for picking at my favorite farm (due to crop failure) and it's nearly the end of the road for them everywhere.

You have to understand that Lisa and I both have friends and family absolutely boiling with anticipation for more of the kind of pickles we made last year because they were better than most pickles any of us have ever had. Well, that's what my sister, a pickle connoisseur, thought about them. Then my friend Sid, who I haven't heard a peep from since last April and who I miss dearly, said the same thing. She's another pickle connoisseur. So people want more. Obviously I cannot disappoint anyone.

The scooter ride to Lisa's house would be very pleasant if it weren't for all the cars I have to share the road with. There is a fifty five mile an hour speed limit on highway 240, a small two lane back road to Dundee from McMinnville. My scooter can keep up that speed limit without problems and I manage to hold that speed, sometimes a little bit faster, and yet there is not a car out there that doesn't feel it has to pass me. It makes me nuts. If everyone is going to insist on passing me (something that makes me nervous whether it's legal or not) then I may as well just go forty miles per hour and have myself a pleasant pastoral drive.

I have come to realize that people feel one of two things when they share the road with a shiny Vespa: 1) they are scared that they might run into me and so out of deep concern for my personal safety they must pass my flimsy excuse for a vehicle, or 2) it bugs the crap out of them that my waspy little scooter can go fast enough to keep up with traffic and they must show me that they are bigger and faster and pass me and then go fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit to stay ahead of me. I don't find this relaxing at all.

I may as well say here that I am constantly annoyed with people on the road anyway because I don't understand every one's desperate need to go as fast as the cops will let them get away with. It's like a rule with people that they must always go at least fifteen miles faster than the posted limit. Stop rushing around people. A lot of times people will pass me on highway 99 and I'll continually catch up with them at red lights. They jet ahead (oh how attractive that makes them, really sexy, you know?) and show me what they're made of and then I casually end up at the same light as them. Me, who tries to stick to the posted speed limit.

Speed is not sexy to me. This is so far off topic I'm not sure how to get back to the pecks of pickles in question. I guess the only way is to just dive in.

The day was just a jangle of noise and action to me. I had been contemplating getting into bed because I felt a cold coming on and what sounded good was to just stop working. But you can't ignore a pickle emergency so I gathered myself up and it only took me an hour to get out of the house. Like lightning-that's me. I finally arrived at Lisa's house at around twelve forty am. I didn't leave until eight pm. We put up forty two quarts of pickles. I am nervous of the results. Philip says I'm obsessing but the pickles remind me a little bit of shriveled uncircumcised penises. We couldn't get our hands on the freshest cucumbers so we took what we could get and they were a little old. They tell you in all the canning manuals not to use pickles that are old because they will be inferior. They don't tell you they will look like shriveled man parts, though, I guess that's what I'm here for.

A number of you will be thrilled to know that in addition to the dills, we also made a batch of bread and butter pickles. Just to see. Lisa has tried them before and said that even though she doesn't like sweet pickles, she remembers bread and butter pickles being quite savory and good. We cut the sugar in half though. Was that a big mistake?

I feel relieved to have put up the dills. They were so good last year. Even if they aren't quite as good this year because of not being canned the same day they were picked, I feel that we'll all enjoy them.

Confounding Strangers: the little joys of life

A lot of people ask me about my Vespa. I see a lot of looks of longing (because, HELLO!, it's totally flippin' fun to ride one and everyone can tell...) yet they often feel the need to explain to me how come they could never drive one. It almost always boils down to how many groceries they have to buy or the kinds of errands they have to run. I'm not going to argue that it would be challenging to shop for a large family and haul five kinds of mega-jumbo-supersized cereals along with five thousand juice boxes and all the other amazing things us people eat.

And yet...yet I always remember my good friend Sharon (who rode a scooter in Taiwan for several years) telling me about entire families piling onto one small scooter to get places in Taiwan. She would tell me that there really wasn't anything the Taiwanese weren't willing to strap artfully to their beat up scooters. Things like freezers and beds and five children all hanging on where ever they could. It makes me feel like we make a lot of excuses for ourselves and what we aren't capable of doing without Titanic sized vehicles.

This here picture is one example of the interesting things I can drag home from the garden center. I have practiced the art of strapping cargo to my scooter and know the joys of confounding strangers wherever I ride with the image of me surrounded by interesting bags and sticks, boxes of beer and the scooter trunk propped open by intriguing collections of bottles and loaves of bread. I remember people in the parking lot of the Santa Rosa Trader Joe's actually stopping to stare while I would pack my scooter full of five bulging bags of groceries.

I always kind of enjoyed giving them such a curious show.

These are Morello cherries, the classic "pie" cherry. (Some people might argue that Montmorency holds this title. They can argue, it's alright.) They look pretty normal sized in this picture but they aren't. They're tiny. Morellos are small anyway, these ones are almost all pit. They make a damn fine tart cherry sauce to pour over cocoa meringues. I'm not actually sure I'll have enough to do anything with them this year. These make me think of Pam Kitty Morning.*

That is the most lush lettuce I have ever grown. I'm thinning it like crazy but everywhere I have made space it is immediately filled by the growing heads. Oh my, it's so sweet and good.

Don't you kind of feel you could dive into that bed of greens and sleep like the dead? I can't stop looking at it. I'm hypnotized by it's green glow. As the weather warms I fear it's going to do a quick bolt for the sun. What an incredible waste that would be. Salad for lunch an dinner every day is called for.

Finally, look at this little Casserta Mexican zucchini. So tiny, so delicate and fuzzy. I haven't been able to spend much time in the garden this past week so the weeds are almost large enough to choke out a colony of people, yet everything is still thriving. I staked tomatoes, tomatillos, and watered everything. I'm not looking forward to the heat, but the dinners it grows are worth it.

I hope you're all having a great garden week so far!!

*I'm so relieved I'm going to be in a book, because even though Pam pretends to love all her peeps equally, I'm convinced that she has a thing for her published friends. It was all for you my friend!!

Mainlining the American Dream

Right now I have the urge to jump on my sleek Vespa and head out of town. Or perhaps just to drive in the country. Or just to leave. My scooter has no name because in spite of the fact that I tend to relish naming things, it seems too precious of me. Most people name their vehicles but somehow I just don't want it to do it. It's the only motorized vehicle I have ever owned or had a license to drive. Philip doesn't own it. He doesn't have a license for it. It's mine.

Having a vehicle and getting the urge to get in it (or on it) and hit the open road is so quintessentially American that I feel like perhaps I'm pretty much your average Jane after all. It's all about having a perennial escape route. Being unfettered enough to get up and go. To guzzle as much gas as you want. I have to say that writing that down makes Americans sound like paranoid gluttons. Which we are, actually.

Part of me has been happy to rest my Vespa in the garage for the past seven months while trying to track down a new headlight bulb because it's forced me to ride my bike around in the sun, wind, rain, and snow. Yes, snow. (The snow was fine, it was the ice that almost killed me.) I certainly haven't gotten fitter for doing it because I live pretty close to my work, but I did feel better not using another vehicle. We use the car to go to Portland and to see our friends in other towns, but around here, most of the time, we walk and ride our bikes.

It takes no oil to use our legs or our bicycles. I feel good about that.

Yet I have to admit that I missed riding my Vespa. I don't really need it to go grocery shopping with, because I can fit almost anything in or on my bicycle baskets. I didn't miss the convenience of it. I just missed the fun of driving it.

Now I have it back and I want to ride it all the time. Unfortunately, in the time I haven't ridden it the gas prices have gone up quite a lot. Gasoline is becoming prohibitively priced. It cost me over five dollars to fill up my tank which holds about as much gasoline as my bladder holds pee.

I had the chance on Friday to go out for a ride in the sunshine by myself and I chose not to. Later I missed the feeling of the wind rushing by, of turning smoothly down unknown streets, and of hailing the pasture cows as I fly by like a super-bird. Next time I'm just going to take off.

Transportation: what to do if you're not Sonic The Hedgehog

This is my old trusty bicycle and my Vespa. The Vespa has been out of commission since November of 2006 because the head light burnt out. It's illegal to drive a scooter without a headlight. Even during the day. I am nothing, if not law abiding. I don't even jay walk. (Ask my family. They will affirm that this is true and then tell you how ridiculous it is to have to wait at the curb with me for the light to change when there isn't a car in sight for miles.)

I find it hard to believe that not every town has a Vespa dealership and garage, but this is a true fact. No one here in my town sells the bulbs for my head lights. So when we went down to California to visit my mom at Thanksgiving, before we stashed her into our extra bedroom, I ordered (and paid for) a couple of headlight bulbs from the Vespa dealership in Santa Rosa where I bought my stylish ET4. It is now the end of April (in case no one noticed) and I still have not received my bulbs.

We actually made a special trip into Portland too to the Vespa dealership there to get the bulbs but on the particular day we went to the service garage, it was closed so that the mechanic could attend a lousy wedding. So here we are. My Vespa battery has since died. Philip charged it up but apparently not enough to start the engine.

I love riding my bicycle. Especially since it doesn't require gas. Which is annoying to get into a scooter here in Oregon where you can't pump your own gas, because a lot of the attendants do not understand fractions. As in: "Could you give me one and a quarter gallons of premium please." Gas attendant: "huh?" Me: "You know, 1.25 gallons. My engine only holds 1.5 so if you fill it more than 1.25 it might splash out." Gas attendant: looks longingly at the muscle car that just pulled up at the next pump. Clearly wants to run from fractions. Muscle cars don't require fractions, you just fill that deep tank the hell up with dead bodies a whole barrel of oil and you're good to go.

However, I miss riding my scooter. As far as gas munching vehicles go, it is extremely efficient. Plus, Jesus!, they're so stylish it just kills me. I've never driven a car*. I've never had my car license until Oregon graced me with one by accident**. I still mostly think I don't ever want to drive a car. They're useful. I'm not a jerk about this, I'm glad Philip drives. There are a lot of times when having a car is a god-send. But I'd be happy to spend the rest of my life zipping around on the power of my own two legs, and my Vespa. If it ever gets fixed.

I clearly need to call the dealership in Santa Rosa. But haven't I mentioned yet that among the evils of being me is a pathological need to avoid phone calls in which I am either requesting that I receive services already paid for, or trying to return anything. I am aware of how stupid this is. But that's what makes being me so much fun.

Max is watching Sonic The Hedgehog now. This morning as I snapped this picture, I realized that my alter ego just might be "Angelina The Flame Retardant Human". Doesn't that have a nice ring to it? It just came to me in a flash.

Wouldn't it be cool if I could teach Chick to ride on the back of my scooter? Oh my god, I can totally picture her ears flapping in the wind! She has been a very naughty dog for the past few days. Chewing up everything within reach. I think her legs are growing because she's reaching things she didn't used to be able to reach. I haven't told Max that she ate his tooth brush last night because Max is not a kid who takes these things lightly. In fact, he usually sentences Chick to a life in jail every time she gets hold of one of his toys, or when he thinks she might have gotten hold of something of his. Max doesn't insist on proof.

This kind of thing used to disgust me down to my bones. Being licked by dogs. Dogs eat things like cat feces. They also eat all kinds of rotted goods. I like to think of my change in attitude about dogs as "The irony of the black dog". Chick changed a lot of things for me. I still don't actually enjoy being slobbered on by animals (or people). Saliva drippings just don't do it for me. Which is funny because almost all the dogs in the world I'm most attracted to have droopy lips from which copious amounts of drool leaks all day long. Chick doesn't drool much though. Only when she's sees her lunch (or our cats) coming. But she'll cop a lick any chance she gets, like any other normal dog. Wouldn't "The irony of the black dog" make a great title for something, like maybe a book?

Maybe I'll write the great American novel after all. Naturally it will have to test the outer limits of my vocabulary and be full of really maladjusted characters who have really twisted relationships. I'll probably have to commit suicide after it gets published if I want to have it be really successful. Or just fall apart spectacularly.

Yesterday was brilliant. I want to say a HUGE thanks to a few marvelous people who put the spark in my day: Alice at Future Girl for making me a button to put on my blog to link to our web store. Check it out! She wasn't the only one to offer to do this for me, by the way. Michelle from Green Kitchen also offered. I can't even tell you how much I appreciate having such amazing women helping to support our endeavor. Not only that, we sold another Futuregirl handbag and this time it wasn't to a family member either. YAY!

But that's not all. We also got our first two orders for Peace aprons from two people who also read my blog. Plaidshoes (who doesn't have a blog at this time or I would link to it) bought a blue Peace apron which will be sent out today, and Karmyn from Dreaming What Ifs bought a yellow one and a blue one which should also be sent out today. Thank you so much, ladies, both for supporting Dustpan Alley, and also (somewhat more importantly) Peace!


*Not strictly true. In fact, when I was sixteen I drove my mom and my siblings over Mt. Tam and almost killed us all. I've also driven cars in a multitude of parking lots during the time I was still pretending I wanted to learn to drive.

**True fact. I don't blame Oregon for not noticing that my California license was for motorcycles only. Who only has a motorcycle license in this country? Me, that's who.