New Garden Bed Update

Enough with all this philosophical crap going on around here! My beet seedlings are up. My lettuce seedlings are up too. One kale seedling has made an appearance. The carrots have yet to pop up but they take longer usually and are fussier as to heat and moisture conditions. Even if I don't end up with beets for steaming I will end up with great beet greens to put on polenta this winter. Beet greens are tender and melting.

My winter squash didn't get planted early enough to produce so I will be ripping them out in the next couple of days and putting in more carrot and beet seedlings. Or I could leave the space open for fall planted favas. Hmmm. I may do that.

I Wonder If Jesus Ate Pita Bread

I'll bet he did. And I'll bet he liked it too. Jesus was a Mediterranean guy, after all. One might even speculate that he was part Arab. How likely would it have been for him to be purely of European descent? Philip is telling me that the area in which Jesus lived was, by his lifetime, a real crossroads of cultures already. There were Mesopotamians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Phoenicians, Syrians, Egyptians, and Turks (for a start). Does it still bother some Christians to imagine that Jesus was probably not really white?

I like to imagine him as a blend of ethnicities. Though it would be deeply ironic if there was ever proof that he was of Northern African or Arab ethnicity. How that would make some millions of American and European Christians uncomfortable. Not that it's my life ambition to make anyone uncomfortable.

I like to think about what I brought back with me from my trip to Israel* to visit my father, his wonderful wife, and my half brother. I brought back with me, as souvenirs, a much sharper political understanding of the region, a deeper respect for the diversity of culture and the educational sophistication of that nation, some amazing cheesy Christian holy water and Jesus relic souvenirs which have sadly been lost in the fire, time spent with family which was both wonderful as well as raggedly emotional, and the best thing of all?

The experience of eating pita bread as it is eaten by the people who have been making it for a thousand years at least. It is not a pocket bread as Americans generally think of it. It's a flat bread that is used to scoop food up with. You tear it into pieces and use it to scoop up your meze dishes like Baba ghanoush or lebneh drizzled with olive oil, and maybe you use it to slop up some of the juices from your inevitable lamb dishes.

When you bring home new food ideas from trips abroad they stay with you a lot longer than trinkets do. I came home, found a recipe for home made pita from Deborah Madison's book, and I've been making it for the last twelve years. Every time I make it I think of Israel. I think of my father, his wonderful wife who is beautifully practical and yet also creative, and I think of my half brother who grew up knowing he had at least a brother and a sister but was raised alone. He's a full grown man now and I wish I could have grown up nearer to him so we could have gotten to know each other. Every time I make pita I feel like telling him that I have not smoked a cigarette in over four years now.

Every time I make pita bread I also think about the Arab restaurants where I had this exquisite flat bread and experienced the meze table for the first time. It makes me think of how textured and rich the Arab culture is. It makes me sad that my country is busy gunning it down right now. As though all Arabs were savages. Our government is restricting the seed saving rights of the Arab people we are currently occupying. The seeds we grow say a lot about the culture we nurture just as the bread we make and eat does. You take that kind of autonomy away from a people and you destroy who they are.

I make pita and remember that Arabs, like all other people on earth, have a lot in common with me on a cellular level. They have traditions that are meaningful to them; they have a rich history; they have an amazing culture which deserves to be respected by us all.

I feel confident that even if Jesus wasn't part Arab himself, he most likely ate lots of pita and no Wonderbread. I'm not really into Jesus from a religious perspective, but I'm fascinated by the stories about him and the times he lived in and endlessly riveted by the clash between who he apparently was and how so many Christians are so personally worried about me believing in him but then they ignore everything he supposedly stood for. It's like watching a silent film in which Jesus is doing all manner of peaceful things but the dialog stills are putting these words in his mouth:

"Ye Arabs are hoarding oil and God hates you for that so I am going to bomb your asses until you give it all to me!!!!"

I like to think that bringing pieces of culinary and cultural knowledge home with us from our travels helps us all connect with each other and helps to foster a greater respect for each other across the globe.

Snow Bird Comes Home
(but without the snow)

It's fitting that after such a rough day yesterday I would wake to a ghost landscape all covered in white; the last gasps of past dreams clinging to stems and freezing in whorls on glass. For a few minutes the sun cut itself a hole in the clouds and made glitter fall from the sky. Tiny icy particles in the air lit by sun as though the finest fairy dust was drifting down. I made Philip look to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. Because that would have been alarming what with me not being on drugs and all.

My garden has been hugely neglected since we've lived here. We have done some things in mad spurts only to have to let it go wild again while we were trying to make the store work out, or looking for work, or making stuff for my business. My last garden got so much more attention and even though I am not the kind of gardener to stay on top of weeds even in the best of circumstances, it was a wonderful place to hang out.

At last I can turn my attention to my house and garden. I can make things for us, rather than others. I can spend more time cleaning up my yard and shaping it. This year is shaping up to be one in which everything is pared down, streamlined, simplified, and returned to some kind of rhythm. It's been a long time since I've had a daily rhythm.

It also seems symbolic that today my first seed order arrived from Territorial. Symbolic because seeds are the ultimate in new beginnings; hope in the tiniest package; promise of abundance and they bring us from the present to the future seamlessly.

Everything still feels raw, which isn't surprising since my whole life shifted yesterday, so I'm not yet feeling the relief of lifted weight off of my shoulders, not entirely. A small little part of me, though, is already beginning to feel a great whoop of freedom explode from my chest. A great big happy holler that I'm so ecstatic to be returning to my life of "drudgery" as:

A HAPPY HOUSEWIFE!

An Urban Homesteader!

Being a housewife or a homesteader is only boring and drudgery if you... damn, I will never understand why some people find it boring. We're all different, let's leave it at that.

I do have to buckle down on Friday to produce a tutorial for Whip Up who have kindly expressed interest in posting my instructions on making bath bombs. But I'm not doing it for pay or for traffic to my blog. I'm doing it because this project I'm going to share is so cool and really fun for kids. I'll keep you posted on when they might post it (which will depend on me giving them the tutorial in a timely fashion!)

A new/old/loved chapter of my life is opening up. I'm glad it's still midwinter so I can adjust before having to kick into gear in the yard. Tomorrow is my Master Gardening class and I intend to bring healthy food so I don't raid their nasty donut stash. So I'm off to make potato salad.

Really, I think my life may have just turned a corner. It's too bad it had to be so painful, but at least I'm home again.

Planning The Urban Homestead Spring Garden
(for the new urban homesteader)

When planning your garden for the upcoming spring season you have to make a lot of decisions about what you're going to plant, whether or not you will be starting seeds yourself or buying transplants, and on top of all that you must figure out where you are going to get your seeds from. For a beginner urban homesteader it can be challenging to figure all this stuff out (though usually it's pretty fun too.) Here is a good selection of vegetables to start with:

Beans. Try growing a couple of different kinds of beans. For the urban homesteader, space is often an issue so if you have space restraints, stick with the pole bean varieties. A couple that I have had good luck with are: Kentucky Wonder (OP) and Blue Lake Pole (OP)

Broad Beans (Fava). Fava beans are very easy to grow and are an incredible treat to eat fresh shelled. Fava beans should be planted in early spring (as soon as your ground can be worked). I have mostly grown one variety and it is not being offered in any catalogs right now so I can't give a personal recommendation for this year but I can tell you that in England the standard is Broad Windsor (OP) and there is one variety that looks a lot the one I've been growing called Negreta (OP) which I will be trying in the fall.

cucumbers. Cucumbers are easy to grow and satisfying to pick fresh out of your garden for a salad. What to choose: slicing cucumbers. A couple of kinds that I have grown myself that were really tasty are: Straight Eight (OP), Fountain (F1), and Armenian (OP)

Kale. Kale is a very easy dark leafy green to grow. There is no better source of vitamin C or calcium in the vegetable kingdom. You can plant it fairly early in the spring as it is a cool weather vegetable and it may bolt in the hottest part of summer. You can do a second planting of it at the end of summer for fall and winter eating. I have (strangely) never planted kale before. I am going to be planting Red Russian (OP) and White Russian (OP)

Lettuce. All you need to think about with lettuce is that if you live in a very hot region you will want to look for slow bolting varieties. All lettuce should be planted in spring, earlier than your tomatoes. I have had good luck growing Simpson Black-seeded (OP), Tom Thumb (OP), Red Sails (OP) and lettuce mixes from a couple of different catalogs.

Hot peppers. Everyone who loves peppers wants to grow bell peppers but getting good results is tricky. Hot peppers are easier to grow in my experience. Plus I hate bell peppers. Growing your own cayenne is easy and jalapenoes are also pretty easy for most gardeners to get good results. I have not done these from seeds and have bought organic seedlings that were the "Long Thin Cayenne" variety.

Squash. Summer squash is one of the easiest vegetables to grow. Some I've really enjoyed growing are Black Beauty zucchini (OP), Yellow Crookneck (OP), Eight Ball (F1), Cocozelle Bush Zucchini (OP). There are so many other kinds out there and you can do so much with them so don't be afraid to try out a lot of different kinds!

Tomatoes. If you're new at growing tomatoes I suggest you stick to buying transplants from your local nursery. Most nurseries now have a huge variety of both hybrid and heirloom varieties to choose from. The hybrids tend to produce more fruit but in many cases have less flavor than the heirlooms. Here are some of my absolute favorites: Sungold (F1) (an orange cherry tomato), Black Plum (OP), Aunt Ruby's German Green (OP), Siletz (OP), Marzano (OP).

There are so many other things you can plant, such as the root vegetables. My list above is simply a guideline to the easiest vegetables to start with if you are doing a vegetable garden for the first time. It will give you a taste for the possibilities and your chance of success with all of the vegetables I've mentioned above are extremely good. My only caution to the beginner is to not try to grow absolutely everything the first season.

A couple of things I don't recommend anyone try to grow as a beginner is: celery, melons, or fennel. I've been growing a garden for eight years now and I still can't get any of these to grow well in my garden.

What should you start from seed yourself and what should you buy as transplants? I would start off only starting vegetables from seeds that can be direct sewn (put directly in the ground) which includes: lettuce, cucumbers, kale, beans, and squash. In the beginning I would buy your peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants as transplants because they are harder to start from seed indoors and take a long time to get big enough to put outside. Without the right conditions (proper heat and light) the results can be very disappointing.

I've labeled each variety I've listed with information about whether it is open pollinated (OP) or is a hybrid (F1). Does it really matter? Hybrids are not necessarily a bad thing but they are more limiting because until a hybrid has been stabilized over a long period of time, you cannot save their seeds to plant the next year and be sure of what you're getting. Often hybrids don't grow true from seed. When you plant open pollinated seeds you can be sure that if prevented from randomly crossing with other varieties in the same family of plants you will get the same results again and again. As a general rule I prefer to plant mostly open pollinated varieties. Hybrids are not the same thing as genetically engineered seeds.

Genetically engineered seeds are dangerous and evil.

Yeah, I know, you expected me to say that. How do you avoid growing them? You buy seeds only from seed companies that have taken the safe seed pledge. Is this important? It is if you want to keep the environment safe for pollinating insects, for humans, and for other animals.

There are a ton of great seed companies out there but I am going to provide links only to ones that I have had some personal experience with. All of the companies I buy my seed from have taken the safe seed pledge.

Territorial Seed Co. - they are local to me and so carry a lot of varieties of seeds that do well in the Pacific Northwest. They carry predominantly open pollinated seeds and have a very good reputation amongst consumers.

Seeds Of Change - This was my favorite seed company when I lived in California. Their seeds are very good quality and I love their catalog. I don't use them as much now because they carry a lot of varieties that do better in warmer climates than the one I live in now.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds - I've bought seeds from these guys occasionally and was very happy with the results. They carry a lot of weird varieties and the only danger with this company is assuming that "novelty" translates into "tasty". Sometimes there is actually a reason why heirlooms have faded from use. However, for the sake of bio-diversity the work they do to provide unusual and heirloom vegetables is important.

Seed Savers Exchange - seeds aren't just plants we grow, seeds are little capsules of the earth's history. What's magical about heirloom seeds is that in each heirloom seed is the history of someone's family, a history of origin, and a history of human survival and enginuity. A history of life that can be germinated again and again. Seed Savers started as a group of people saving and exchanging family heirlooms and has grown into an organization dedicated to protecting biodiversity and our heritage in seeds. When you buy from them you are supporting their endeavors.

Eating Local Is Changing My Garden

I am a greedy gardener. When I plant a tomato I don't plant a tomato, I plant twenty of them. I couldn't ever possibly have enough tomatoes. Where some is good, more is always supreme. I suppose a part of me would like to think I could grow enough of everything to fill my pantry every year. Some people do that. Either my yields are disappointing, or we eat massive quantities of produce. (Both are somewhat true.) This year I canned approximately five hundred pounds of tomatoes that I bought from Bernard's farm.

Five hundred pounds of tomatoes. (Let that sink into your grey cells for a minute.)

Which isn't even enough to get me safely through to fresh tomato season again. The truth is, I couldn't possibly grow enough tomatoes to provide for my canning needs. I also canned about forty pounds of green beans. Plus at least thirty pounds of pickling cucumbers. (Although I really did get a good yield on the pickles from my garden and the quality was better than what we were able to find from elsewhere- this was not a good year for commercially grown pickling cukes.)

I am not going to be self sufficient in many ways, living on a city lot. I will always be depending on my local farmers to provide me with what they grow. And it works out well that way. I get all my canning produce from Bernard's farm because their prices allow for me to buy huge quantities to can with, and Oakhill Organics for supplementing my daily produce needs as well as my fall and winter produce needs. Needing to depend on local small organic farms is not a bad thing at all, I want to support them, we need them here- prospering. (Having more than one to meet my needs is even better, they do not grow all the same things and it's wonderful being able to buy from them both.)

The realization that I've been coming to in the last few days while I've been perusing seed and nursery catalogs is that my garden needs to shift focus a little bit. I need to see my garden as an opportunity to fill in the blanks that my local farms can't, or to grow things I typically can't afford to buy in quantity from them like potatoes and winter squash. Dried beans for storing are hard to come by with local sources and cost about three times as much as they do in the bulk bins. Can I grow enough dried beans to last me through the winter? It's an experiment worth trying.

Maybe. Maybe if I stopped using so much space for tomatoes. Tomatoes that don't produce as much as they could because they are so crammed in. Tomatoes are one of the most important things I grow in my garden because I love them the best of all summer vegetables (yes, I know it's a fruit) and I wouldn't dream of having a garden without them. I just think I might be able to use half the space I usually use for them for the same yield I'm accustomed to. It's worth trying.

Shelling peas are impossible to find anywhere. Shelling peas fresh from the garden are unbelievably worth the effort. They are tender, sweet, and a different creature from their frozen or canned counterparts. If you've never eaten fresh shelled peas...you really haven't begun to come alive culinarily speaking. I don't know what it's like to eat a heap of them off the plate because I never have enough of them to treat them like anything less than gold. My favorite way to eat them is on pasta with some meatier nuttier fresh shelled fava beans, asparagus, fresh herbs, feta, olive oil, red pepper flakes, and Parmesan.

I plan to dedicate a lot of space to fava beans and shelling peas.

Doing the eat local challenge has got me thinking quite a lot about winter gardens and early spring harvests. Getting through the leaner months has become much more important to me now. I can get a lot of great produce for reasonable prices at the farmer's market during the summer. What I need to focus on is saving more garden space for produce that can be harvested in the winter and early spring when it becomes so much harder to get things like lettuce, chard, leeks, and beets.

We had salad yesterday that consisted of lettuce from Oakhill Organics (not tough either) and pickled beets, two bean home canned marinated salad, some shredded cheddar, grated carrots (also from Oakhill), some of the last of our store of kalamata olives, and a fabulous dressing our friends gave us that they got in Pacific City (it's locally made!!!). Have I mentioned how much I've been craving salad? It's true that the salad had a very vinegary overtone due to all the pickled goods on it, but it really hit the spot.

So looking forward... January is going to be filled with some new and exciting activities: I am going to be doing the Master Gardener program through OSU which starts in January and ends in March (I just found out today that they still have a spot open in the program), and I'm going to make feta. If anyone has any great cheese making books to recommend or knows of any great on-line tutorials for making feta- please share!

For those of you planning your own gardens right now who might be interested in what I'm going to add to mine this year, here is a list:

Evergreen huckleberries (2) (to replace two dead rhododendrons)
gooseberries (1 "Poorman" and 1 "Captivator")
Jersey Knight asparagus (25 crowns)
Fuzzy male kiwi (1)
Saanichton fuzzy female kiwi (1)

Green beans (pole): Blue Lake, Ura, and Violet podded

Runner beans: Scarlett Emperor

Dry beans: Yin Yang, Etna, and Tiger's Eye

Beets: Early Wonder Tall Top (because it did really well last year)

Cucumbers: Wautoma pickling

Summer Squash: Eight Ball, Black Beauty (both zucchini)

Winter Squash: Gold Nugget, Buttercup, Hokkaido Stella Blue

Basil: Mammoth Sweet

Kale: Red Russian

This list reflects only what I'm buying, not everything I'm planting. I still have lots of lettuce, spinach, carrot, some winter squash, and slicing cucumber seeds from last year. I also won't be starting any tomatoes or eggplants from seed myself. I will also be planting seed potatoes that I already ordered from Garden City Seeds.

For my perennial fruits I am really trying to show restraint, not only because of the cost, but also because in my haste to get things established it would be easy to waste money on mistakes. I need to let my garden develop at a comfortable pace. I need plenty of time to track down samples of fruits I'm less sure of to taste and find out what I really think of them. I'm proud of how whittled down my list has become. (It started off at least three times as large as it is now.)

If I get my way, by the end of 2008 I will be a master gardener and a master canner. I would be more proud of that accomplishment than if I actually got myself a bachelor's degree.

The Importance Of Being Seed

I think it's a pretty safe bet that George W. Bush thinks pretty highly of his own seed. I imagine that he treasures his family jewels, maybe even more than his wife does. You can say that people are hard to know, that it's impossible to know what's in their hearts and in their minds. I disagree. While there is a whole universe of knowable things I don't know, there are some things I can't help knowing and one of those things is that men think very highly of their sperm.

If men didn't think their sperm was pretty important they wouldn't dedicate so many hours of their lives trying to plant it somewhere fertile. Or at least somewhere available. Or anywhere, really. And sometimes, unfortunately, everywhere.

These were my thoughts as I knelt on the ground ripping weeds out of the dirt in preparation for planting my medicinal herb and flower garden. Seeds were arcing into the air all around me as I yanked ripe grasses and wild green things out of my fresh soil. Seeds scattered onto my head, stuck to the hideously long hairs on my arms, and fell back to earth to wait for the next rain. Which will probably be tomorrow. The earth's seed is everywhere. It's no more a secret what the earth has planned for them than it is what man has planned for his. These are not unknowable things.

I found myself wondering why Christians often speak as though the seed of man is so sacred. It isn't as though it's scarce. It isn't as though it's wisdomous. No matter how good the sex you're having is, the seed itself imparts no everlasting afterglow of god. Not even if you intend the seed to sprout a tiny human being. There is plenty of seed to be had and generally it is more than willing to travel to all ports of call.

I couldn't get this out of my head. How protective people feel about seed.

About their own seed. These thoughts came to me as I recklessly scattered the seeds of plants I have never formally met before and whose common names I don't know, let alone their formal Latin names. I was essentially performing reproductive services to those that had already produced flowers and were ready to send themselves into the wild wind.

I am the wild wind.

There is almost nothing more important to human beings than the protection of all seed. How do so few people realize this? So many people out there think of gardening as a "hobby". Something all of us shriveled up Mrs. Marple types do to pass the time until we die. An unimportant activity. We fuss around with our flowers and our sweet little veggies and have not realized that we've missed out on shaping the world with politics, or by starting a corporation that eats other corporations, or that we could have been spending all our time arranging charities to milk the egos of rich people so that they can feel alright about the fact that many of them and their friends in their swank mansions and their shiny Hummers are living at a much greater cost to us all than just the livings their companies take away from the small fry.

From me. From me in my unimportant sweet little garden full of seeds.

It's not a crime to be rich. That's not what I spent time in my garden to hear the seed say to me. That's not what comes to me today. I would love to be rich. Bring it on universe! I've got my tiara ready.

What I heard whispering along the soft sheaths of evening sun illuminating my vicious work with flecks of gold is that gardening has become a form of rebellion. It's one of the reasons it feels so good to do it. Seeds used to be a stronger currency than coin. Seeds for food and seeds for medicine.

Seeds are life.

You could not have your mansions and your hummers if man had never learned to cultivate seeds for feeding himself. You can thank seeds for giving you your diamond life.

The importance of seeds is implicit in fairy tales: do you think Jack could have sold his cow for a bag of bean seeds if seeds weren't equivalent to coin?

Some of the most important seeds are so small that once you've dropped them carelessly you will never see them again. Human survival hangs on the smallest breath.

All the power in the world is in that knowledge. I hope you already know it. Nature doesn't accept coin because she can't do a damn thing with it. Money is meaningless if there are no natural resources to back it up. Does anyone remember that? Money represents the commodities that humans need in order to live their lives: food, water, shelter, materials to build shelter, the power to do the work to grow the food (horses or gasoline), and the materials to clothe themselves against the elements. Money stands in place of gold. Gold is good for decorating pretty people, but gold is also used in a lot of other alchemical applications. Metals are used for tools.

On and on it goes. As far as commodities go, food and herb seeds are much more valuable than human seed because finding unpolluted sources gets harder every day. There are more people than the earth is comfortable supporting. That's why we have famines. That's why we have plagues. We don't need more people. We need more resources to take care of the people we already have.

Sperm is cheap. Open pollinated seeds are not. The government wants us all to believe that genetically modified seeds are the answer to world starvation. Partly because no one wants to talk about family planning. Partly because there's not enough money in trying to feed people in ways that protect our resources at the same time. Nature doesn't approve of the kind of human industry that destroys her own. There are all kinds of reasons not to support genetically modified seeds or the foods they grow up to be, but the biggest one is that crushing diversity will rape the earth, not feed it. It already has.

Do you believe that all people should be white? Do you think all people should be black? Is it healthy for people to concentrate gene pools? I direct your attention to the large chinned Hapsburgs if you need proof. Do you believe that it was good that the Nazis tried to obliterate the Jews? Do you think it's righteous that Genghis Khan tried to out-breed half a hemisphere of people and kill most of the non-egg producing people at the same time?

Genetically modified seeds are the Nazis of the plant world. And the insect world. And whose world do we belong to? Are there still people who don't see that the plant world, the insect world, and the people world are the same world? To try to breed a master race of corn is no less evil than trying to create a master race of people. Nothing but bad can come of it.

We survive in diversity. We grow stronger by interbreeding. Every race has something beautiful to add to the earth's gene pool. Every plant has something to offer to the soil teeming with life.

Man's seed is cheap.

I'm out there tonight and I can feel the ground murmur. I can hear the din of life evolving with every breath I take. Man is arrogant. And when I say man, I mean man and woman. We are all in this together. Men, women, hermaphrodites. Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, and absolutely every fucking gorgeous color in between.

This is not my party line. I don't have a party line. I'm too busy working my civil disobedience to belong to a party. This is what I hear, what I see, and what I know.

The most potent rebellion you can engage in now is to grow open pollinated seeds in your garden. Grow food. Grow medicinal herbs and flowers that the insects we depend on for life need to keep on living.

There are moments when I hate George Bush and his sperm that has spawned two really vapid girls. I hate what he stands for. I hate the liberties he is trying to take from us all. He has taken enough.

But when I'm out there grinding dirt into my big knees, getting a grip on hostile weed take-overs, and watching the most beautiful first leaves of seedlings unfold shyly in the late spring chill, what I see is the universe in miniature. It's all right there. All of us. You, me, and Jessica Simpson. I may sometimes hate Bush, but he's human just as I am. He may be misguided. He may smell like evil, but he's like the weeds in my yard. I don't actually desire a yard free of weeds. The weeds are part of an integral system of wildness, of brawn versus delicate balance. The weeds are part of the eco-system just as I am. They belong in the whole melange of life we're living on this planet. They just can't be allowed to choke out the light.

I don't wish harm on Bush. I wish him to be powerless. I wish that he may be cut down to my level. I wish that he may see from a different perspective. I kind of hope his dick will shrivel just a little. But only when I'm feeling really angry and overwhelmed by the stench of war.

My knees are covered with dirt. I have cut a path for the banquet I'm preparing for the bees, lacewings, lady bugs, butterflies, wasps, you, and me. The beauty of us all was right there for me to drink. The bitter, the sweet, the living, the dying, the young, the old, we are all at the same table and I desperately want to share my wealth. Such as it is.

Because even if man's seed is cheap, my life is rich.

Powell Books in Portland

(And how Portland tried to swallow us whole)

On the trip my mom and I made to Portland last week we were driving around the downtown area looking for a bookstore from which to buy some maps so we could explore Portland without getting lost. The downtown area offers endless opportunities to die in head on collisions. It's not as though we've never experienced one way streets, after all, San Francisco is famous for their labyrinth of one way corridors of death. It's just that there were so damn many of them and we forgot how cities plan themselves that way to trap the unwary.

So we got lost looking for a bookstore from which to buy maps so that we wouldn't get lost. We ended up at the Children's Museum where I sheepishly asked for a map, or help, or a ride, or a merciful shot of Vodka, whatever they could spare to end the torment of getting hijacked by the roads that suddenly turn into highways with no way off for several miles. A very nice young man gave me comprehensive directions which I wrote down meticulously. He must have thought that anyone idiotic enough to accidentally end up at the Children's museum couldn't be trusted to write down some simple directions, so he snatched my notebook and wrote them down himself. Just to be sure.

There's no telling about people. Maybe he likes girls to be lost, desperate, and porky and had an instant crush on me. His directions were great and we ended up in the Pearl District at Powell Books. After driving around the vicinity for several hours minutes, we parked in their own parking garage. A book store with it's own parking garage? Wow. We got to park free because my mom is handicapped (for now). I have never been to Powell Books. Most people besides my mom don't know that if it weren't for my zen-like self discipline I would have become a world class bibliophile. I no longer collect ALL books. I don't collect novels, I check them out of the library during those times that I'm not on their most wanted list. The only books I have a lot of are reference books.

Cookbooks mostly. I have quite a few craft and clip art books too. Surprisingly, I have very few garden books. Something I must remedy. Powell Books has already begun to fill this painful gap in my bookshelves. I don't like just any garden books. I like very specific garden subjects. I can do without books about making my garden into an outdoor living room, water feature books are not interesting to me, and forget about "landscaping" books. Any kind of garden design is landscaping, but books that have "landscaping" in their title are usually helping you to design a garden with institutionally bland perennials in a very middle class balance.

I like kitchen garden books. Herb growing books. Herb encyclopedias, vegetable gardens, roses, flowers and any combination of those. Powell Books has four floors of books, so naturally it's a Mecca for ex-bibliophiles. Also a dangerous playground for us. I didn't even have time to graze in the craft book isles (there were at least two isles of floor to ceiling titles. holy Jesus! That's enough to make me pass out with anticipation.) Right next to this is the garden section which is the largest I have ever seen. I found four titles that were used and/or on sale.

You know what makes my mouth actually water? I hear there's another Powell Books on the East side of town that features MOSTLY home and garden titles. That's where I will go to die.

My seeds from Territorial came this week. When I look at these packets, I don't see seeds, I see all the meals I'm going to make this late spring, summer, and fall. I see the pickles I'm going to be canning and then enjoying this time next year. Pure potential. Potential is such a hopeful word, I love it. It can become anything.

I don't like long hair on the male of our species. Not ever. Not even on gorgeous American Indian men who I'm told are supposed to have the longest most luxuriant hair. I can't stand shaggy locks on guys. I seriously dislike a head of bouncy curls, or straggly strands hanging in their faces. Long hair on men, especially big proud manes of it, make me think of vain peacocks strutting around bathing in their own pool of gloriousness. Sometimes when I see a man with really long hair, or a big fluffy crown of it, I get the feeling that that man would be more satisfied if he could just sleep with himself than with some paltry representative of the females of our species. In my case, I'm just as happy to let them love themselves too.

Luckily for men who are fans of their own big hair, I seem to be an anomaly. Many women think it's really sexy. So no fears to any of you out there with lots of swing to your mane.

Knowing this, you will not be surprised that I love it when Max gets a fresh haircut. It's so crisp and handsome.

For quite a while he was growing out his hair so he could coif it a la Jimmy Neutron. I didn't try to stop him, because that would have been a useless and stupid fight. I waited for months. Eventually I convinced him to cut it. I used some sly method of convincing him.

It's pouring outside. I tried to get a ride to work in the car but our car battery is dead. I don't mind riding in the rain that much, but I was running late and since we're going to our friends' house tonight right after work, it made sense. While riding down here I remembered my friend Chelsea talking about how when she sees a grown man on a bicycle, especially the kind that they obviously borrowed from their ten year old, she thinks "Yep, there's a DUI". She has a point. So I was wondering if anyone driving past me in the pouring rain assumed that I was on my bike because my car was taken away because of a DUI. You would never think that if I was on a ten speed instead of an old cruiser, and if I was wearing some sporty spandex arrangement on my ass.

I ride my bike all over. I love my Vespa, and I really miss riding it*. But aside from my feet, my bicycle is my preferred method of transportation. It makes me think of World War II when a lot of people didn't have cars. They rode jaunty cruisers like mine. They did everything on them. Now a lot of people think they can't do their shopping on their bikes. I understand the usefulness of cars, I'm glad Philip drives one. But I can fit at least five full grocery bags on my bike with the use of a bungee cord. Once I made a huge shopping trip to JC Penny on my bike and I admit it was a curious ride home, with all those bags piled high behind me somewhat precariously. The point is, it's easy to do your shopping on a bicycle. I hate it when people say it's impossible. You just think a little differently about it. You don't buy the hundred pack of toilet paper from Costco. Maybe you make two trips in the week where you would have made one in the car.

It isn't easy to do things like that with multiple children. I wouldn't dream of suggesting that moms with multiple children should all get their asses on their bicycles. And for people who live in icy snowy areas in the winter are seriously limited to car travel as bicycles and ice don't mix.

But everyone ought to try it every now and then. It's a bit of an adventure. Not to mention you get good exercise. Parking is a BREEZE on a bike.

I am just thinking about this because I was riding my bike in really cold wet rain. And it though that is far from my favorite weather to ride in, it really isn't that bad when it's just the best way to get to work.

My eyebrows are unpleasantly hairy today. I didn't have time to pluck. So all day long I'm going to wonder if people are asking themselves why I would let one eyebrow become so awfully apish?

And now I have a ton of work to do. I hope you all have a great Saturday!


*I will definitely get it fixed. Just as soon as I cross off everything from the forty five point list I spoke of yesterday, and plant the garden, and clean the house, and lay the road to hell with all my good intentions.