A winter garden after all

So, remember when I said that I wasn't doing a winter garden this year?

Yeah, I vaguely remember that, too. Which means that I'm declaring myself an official liar right here, right now.

Honesty! I'm all about it!

Sort of.

Anyway, this time it's not 100% my fault because I did not have the intention of growing a winter garden, so didn't go down the Adopt a Crop road to having you guys vote for crops because I wasn't going to do it.

I was just going to throw some fava beans in the ground with the intention of turning them under come spring time and then TEE DAH winter would be over and we'd be back to losing our shit over tomatoes, which is how I prefer to live anyway.

But no, my dear, dear friend Elke, who was 100% more motivated to winter garden than I was, went to a fabulous class, planted some fabulous seeds and then sent me a fabulous email to see if I would be interested in adopting some of her fabulous seedlings.

There was absolutely no way I could NOT adopt them - that would have been rude. I know you agree.

Then there was the case of Shopping Without a Short-Term Memory that occurred sometime late in the summer which resulted in my receiving delivery of some garlic. And then some beans. And then some nasturtium which I won't be able to plant until springtime so who knows what the hot rush to order them was all about. And then the grass plugs and 800 wildflower bulbs. OH! And that Siskiyou gaura I ordered on a whim when a Burpee email arrived in my inbox as though it was created for me personally since the only image it contained was one of the only plant I was coveting yet not finding at my local nursery.

The fact that I managed to order all those things and then forget so magnificently about their forthcoming is frankly a little disturbing. Imagine what nonsense we have to look forward to closer to the holidays! I may have already done my Christmas shopping for all I know!

If only.

Anyway, I'm all about coming clean today, so I will show you the little green tinies currently living on strongly in my garden.

I will say, though, that these are photos from the day of planting and don't accurately represent how closely I planted the broccolini over the garlic because now I have green garlic stems weaving their way up through the broccolini leaves.

Will this be bad? No idea. But it will be, regardless.

Clockwise from left: Purple kohlrabi, broccolini, leeks, shelling peas, garlic

I also realize that these are not good photos, but they're what I've got for now and I don't really like posting about new plants without photos and I couldn't go one more second without posting about this garden I wasn't going to grow, so there you go.

I will, however, be documenting via photograph, the ridiculously crappy job I did of spacing the plants in this bed because you'll laugh. Hopefully with me rather than at me, but I'll take it either way.

It has been foretold that the broccolini will taste of garlic, but we shall see.

My Crazy has a uniform

Dear Donk,

I got something totally amusing in the mail yesterday, which I think you'll appreciate in its irony, but we'll go into that another time. For today, let's look at my amusing scarf.

Amusing in the sense that it's basically ugly and it's basically totally unnecessary because I have a hundred scarves and despite these basic things, I still love it because of its weirdness. And its reuse of some favorite shirts that are so soft but so ill-fitting that I never wore them.

Shall I tell you more?

Sure, why not.

So, when I chose this project for this month's challenge, it felt like a no-brainer. Because it was a Tshirt reuse project which I automatically love and because it was not a holiday type project which I would automatically hate.

You know how I get with the holidays - it's a too much too soon thing and I always feel like I'm being bullied into the holiday spirit so I put off getting all into anything holiday-y until, like, later on when I feel like it's time. Or when Christmas is UPON US in the literal sense because it's suddenly December 25th. Then there are years like this one where Hanukkah starts way early and ends up dragging holidayness all through the month of December like a traffic cone stuck under the car and by the time I get to New Year's, The Holidays are worn down to a nub and are all covered in road debris.

And now that you know my detailed opinion on preemptive holiday celebrating, let's look at this scarf-beast.

Let's just ignore how pale and repulsive I look and the fact that my sweatshirt is dirty.

When I finally set out to piece this thing together, I had to have a serious coming to Jesus with my Tshirt drawer. Because, while I don't wear a lot of these shirts very often or ever, I had a hard time picturing myself cutting right into them.

Which makes no sense because wouldn't I get to enjoy them if they were cut out and featured on a scarf? Yes.

So, I make no sense.

Thankfully, I talked myself through it to the point where I choose my softest shirts, which I always wish I *could* wear because of their softness but never *do* wear because of the way they fit me like a big paper sack.

Those I felt OK cutting into. They were going to be swaddling my neck and that would be better than they way they swaddled my midsection when I had the gall to wear them which was never.

Then, when I'd stacked up a nice big pile of shirts, I realized an enormous error in my compiling methods - not consulting with Bubba first.

See, friends, Bubba is a Tshirt man. He has many Tshirts, he wears at least one a day (let's not go into specifics, you'll be happier this way. Promise.) and is something along the lines of a Platinum Diamond Super Special member of the Threadless community - if there is such a thing.

He is also a very good Tshirt selecter, which I know from first-hand experience because he gave me a lot of my favorite Tshirts which I refuse to cut into because of sentimental reasons and because I want to wear them to work on days when my director isn't in the office.

Some may reflect badly on future reviews, is why.

Anyway.

What I'd forgotten, in my haste to select shirts for this Soon To Be Coveted Scarf, was that Bubba was, like, the ultimate collector of awesome shirts worthy of showcasing and also The Great Destroyer of Tshirts and routinely tossed old wrecked shirts into the rag bin in the garage to make way for new awesome shirts worthy of showcasing.

Basically, I realized there was a bin of fab Bubba Tshirts in the garage with fab keepable prints on them that I could totally pillage.

OH.

Out to the garage I went.

And in this pile of shirts I found ET phoning home from a payphone booth (awesome), a list of grievances about the state of today's technology (where IS my jetpack, anyway?), and an X-ray of a dog who'd eaten some delicious homework.

That would do!

Didn't YOU think we'd have jetpacks by now? Yeah, me too.

Then I picked out my favorite soft shirts - the one with the green logo on it and the Mermaid race shirt - and another race shirt that I'd never wear again due to its paper-sack-fittingness from Rock 'N Roll San Jose '08 and my favorite Kauai shirt that had shrunk into a total belly shirt after a roll in the new machine set to HOT/HOT.

The fact that my shirts clash horribly with his shirts makes no difference to me.

I cut them all up, sewed them all together, enjoyed the fabulous coincidence that the super-softest white shirt with the green image on it managed to land square in the center so that when I wrapped it around my neck it looked like I meant to do that, and then basked in the glory of piecing together the reverse side from the remnants of the softest shirts so that I could reverse the scarf or wear it normal but always have the super-softness right there - swaddling my cold neck.

Yay?

Yes, yay.

And now I am the freakiest dog walker in town. Because that's the only time I've worn this scarf so far - was to walk the dog - and I wore it with the sweatshirt in the photo, black sweats, a Steamboat beanie and red mittens.

To say that I look like a lunatic when I walk the dog is an extreme understatement, but at least I'm warm. And crazy!

So, yeah, I made the scarf and it took a lot out of me. More so that it probably would have if I'd just broken down and chosen a holiday-themed project.

What do you want? I'm horribly stubborn. Which you know.

So? How are things going with YOUR projects?

xo

Finny

Running naked

Wow - really? No one was intrigued by the Running Naked comment yesterday at the end of that long ass nonsensical post about cake?

Oh. Maybe that was it. By the time you got to the bottom of that thing, you'd already begun to string yourself up to the rafters with your network cable.

I get it. I'm not offended.

Meanwhile - Running naked - isn't that an interesting and riveting post title? I thought so.

I thought so while I was running along, all naked of the wrist, head and back, being thankful for a nice, non-stressful run where I was simultaneously not timing myself, shading my eyes from the scorching sun ball or sucking hosey water from my self-mounted Camelbak.

Post-race running is the best! Because of the nakedness!

And also because, now that it's fall, the weather is acceptable to me and does not require me to cover my head in a sweaty hot hat or dodge from one side of the street to the other in my ongoing quest for shade.

And then sometimes, when I'm really lucky, I have The Best Run Ever because it's foggy and chilly and sorta drizzly when I set out for my Saturday morning shortish-long run (6M) after sleeping in to the positively restful hour of 8am.

Oh yeah, it was the best - last weekend's shortish-long run. And also where I thought up that lovely and intriguing post title that you all could have cared less about. WHORES!

Kidding. I love you still. In that way where you still love your friend even after she ditches you at the bar and takes a cab home without telling you she's leaving but then texts you in the morning to be like, "Hey! I'm at Taco Bell. Do you want anything?" And because you're so hung over from your extra fifteen minutes of drinking that you forgive her because, after all, she is a nice chick who lends you her cute purse because it matches your outfit and, well, she's about to bring The Great Healer of Hangovers, Taco Bell, right to your doorstep. You feel sorta like a sell-out, but you really want a Crunchwrap Supreme, so you let it go. Still loving her, but hating yourself a little bit at the same time and feeling ashamed you're about to eat something as horrific-ly bad for you as a Crunchwrap Supreme.

You know what I mean.

And, just to refresh your memory, I was talking about my awesome run before I went off about Taco Bell. Sorry. I guess I'm feeling a little random today.

SO - The Best Run Ever - which was the other tantalizing-yet-ignored comment from yesterday's post was, indeed, quite good.

And since I haven't really said much about running since my last half concluded back in the first week of October, I felt I should give some sort of update so that you didn't think I'd hauled off and eaten myself into a chocolate-cake and apple-pie induced coma.

First, in a string of running type updates about which I feel you should be aware, it has become cold out in the morning hours. To the point where I've resumed wearing my fruity running tights and long-sleeves. And, during a moment of clarity while outlet shopping with the girls, I snatched up a pair of running gloves at a nice little price and have found that they are, indeed, something I needed very much.

Which is in stark contrast to what my doubtful mind had me thinking for, oh, the last three winters of running as I repeatedly visited the Athleta site and monitor-molested the gloves they have for sale.

I was, like, $27 for gloves? Come, now. That's ridiculous. They're just going to get all sweaty and boogery (don't act like your nose doesn't run when you're out in the cold) and gross and that's no way to treat an item that costs $27. I'll just let my hands warm up as I run. In fact, that will maybe motivate me to run faster.

Um, no. All these reasons are stupid. The gloves I got are great and are, RIGHT NOW, improving my life as they dry out from this morning's short three miler. I love them, is what I'm saying, and I can't believe I tortured myself for three winters when they could have been had for so little cash.

Meanwhile, I am a little proud that I held out and got the Nike ones for less than $20 because they also have a key pocket on the palm and a soft nose-wiper on the thumb. Handy and gross! Plus, I look like I think I'm a superhero or something wearing these things with my tights and my breathy long-sleeve top and we all know how much I like looking like a fucking idiot while running slowly around town.

So, whatever, it's not my favorite time of the year for running attire, but it does mean that the likelihood that I'll be running in the fog rather than under the blast furnace of an angry sun is very good. I like that. Running in the fog. Though, when it's foggy like it was last weekend, to the point where it has begun to drizzle, it means I can't wear my sunglasses without them hazing up.

I have yet to come across a pair of acceptable shades with a good set of lens-mounted wipers, so I'm left to prop these babies on my head and wait until the drizzle passes. Which it did last weekend, at about mile 5.5. Which - big whoop - because I was only out for an hour, which equates to 6 miles. Oh well. Small price to pay for an hour of foggy running goodness.

Another helpful update, more for me than you (sorry), is that I broke down and got another pair of my regular running shoes even though I said some things about moving over to trail running after last month's race.

Well, so you know, I haven't taken my show on the trail yet, so to speak. I figure that will probably come sometime in the spring when I have the wherewithal to drive to a running location rather than just run out my front door onto the paved streets of San Jose.

Plus, and this is pretty mind-bending for me, I'm back to enjoying my runs. Like, I don't begin to dread my Saturday morning long runs on, like, Wednesday, because I'm only going out for six miles and WHATEVER I'll be back in an hour, so no need to call out the cavalry if I don't drag my lifeless corpse back down the driveway in two and a half hours.

Which is what it starts to get like at the end of my half marathon trainings. It's all dramatic and annoying and I'm sure Bubba wants to stab me when I start clanging around in the kitchen at 5am so that I can get in the miles before the heat takes over.

No - now it's like super easy. And I've been expanding the ease at which I partake in my shortish-long runs by not only dissing the Camelbak and Luna Moons, but also leaving my watch behind (don't worry, we'll be back to Garmin-fueled running in no time) and forgetting the hat.

All these things make me feel more like I'm out doing something I want to do rather than something I've forced myself to do because one day I got all Big Ballsy and signed up for another half marathon because it seemed, like, so far away what's the big deal?

I can be such a jerk sometimes.

Anyway, I guess that's it for running updates. It's cold, I'm dressed like a freak, I have new gloves and shoes that don't leave my shins ON FIRE with splints and in a few weeks I'll go back out and trot for turkeys so that I can eat fries on the way to my mom's for Thanksgiving dinner.

Hey - at least we're consistent around here.

*I made a really good cake

*This title is stolen from a good friend who also made a really good cake this weekend.

Y'all, this was a very nesty weekend. Nesty in the sense that I did not leave my nest for any three dimensional interaction (beyond The Best Run Ever, which happened on Saturday morning in the fog) until Saturday evening when Bubba and I carried some armloads of food across the street to my neighbors' place.

At which time we engaged in some serious Comforting with a capital C, as you can see by the way I spelled Comforting back there in the beginning of the sentence. You get it. I know you do.

Anyway, my Comfort Mode was switched on when my neighbor swung by on Saturday morning just as I was cruising in from The Best Run Ever with news on her post-surgery pooch. He was doing OK (as explained while tilting thy head sideways and wagging one's hand in an unsure manner) after surgery but, according to the vets, "He almost didn't make it. Like a few times."

SADNESS.

But, he was home and bleary and wobbly and they were taking good care by staring at him constantly and making up a very complicated Pill Schedule in Excel so that he got all his meds at the right time and the right dose and all that.

They seemed stressed. And a bit sad. And, to my honed Mother Henning eyes, in need of major league comforting.

Which, if you're me, means food - good homecooked kinda food - STAT.

So, I offered to bring over dinner that night so that we could all keep a watchful eye on their pooch meanwhile propping each other up and raising spirits. They readily agreed and so my day of nesty began while Bubba played Tech Help and Jada and Rocket played I Have The Best Napping Spot in the Whole World in our backyard.

It was quite peaceful and nice and I set out to bring into reality Comfort in food form. And if you're me, this means chicken soup from scratch, home-baked challah and chocolate cake.

Yes, that is the trifecta of comfort for moi, thanks to my mama who produced these lovelies as needed throughout my childhood and, to this day, has the most bulletproof chicken soup recipe which I will even share with you in a future post if you're all a bunch of good little whores.

Wow, did you see how the tone of this post just took an erratic and wildly swerving turn?

That's because I don't want you all thinking I've gone super soft on you and will be doing everything for the good of others without considering my own wanton desires or anything. That would be so un-Finny and I'm sure you'd all leave me.

At the very least, it would be dishonest of me to mislead you in such a way. Into thinking that I'd become all Good and Nice and Altruistic on you just all of a sudden because that's just not true. And of all things that I may or may not be - Honest is something I like to stick with. For good or bad, I'm hanging it all out there for you whores in the honest way, even if it's not nice or good or pleasant to read. Fun!

Sure - sometimes I do nice things. Like make chocolate cakes for sad friends, but make no mistake about it, that cake was getting made one way or another. Though the soup and bread were impromptu additions that brought the whole Comfort theme together.

I'm good. I'm bad. I'm a menagerie of evils. Let's cook something.

So this cake, it was the one from this month's Craft: along challenge - the Chocolate and Roasted Beet Pudding cake - and it was, in a word, FUCKINGAWESOME.

Which is a single word and I defy you to challenge me on this.

And while you may have been thinking, "Duh, bitch. It's a chocolate cake, how could it be bad?" I'm sure you then realized that introducing beets to chocolate could have some unexpected and potentially not-awesome results.

Or that's what I was thinking anyway as I prepared to dump 1/4 cup of roasted beet puree (thank you farmshare for supplying two tons of beets during this summer's share, geez) into the most lovely melted chocolate a soul could want to see. And eat. I ate some of the chocolate off the spoon before the beets went in.

I imagined this would taste like raspberry given the color. It does not.

So, what do you expect? There was melted chocolate and a big wooden spoon in front of me. What - I was not going to sample it? Come, now.

This, however, tasted exactly like good chocolate.

Anyway.

After some thorough sampling (Scharffen Berger bittersweet is quite good. I can assure you.) and then blending in off beets and resampling (have to make sure I didn't just ruin my own good time you know), the little ramekins of dark reddish brown loveliness were set aside to haul over to the neighbors' for our dessert.

And wouldn't you know that I bought those ramekins special for this recipe because I only had ramekins in random sizes and I didn't want to risk getting the small one when they came out of the oven later. I figured the $2/ea price tag was well worth the guarantee that I'd get a Big One for dessert and so I have justified the proprietary purchase. There you go.

The little random-sized ones can hang out in the cupboard for future recipes in which I can risk not getting a Big One - like when I make quiche or something equally sketch.

Moving on.

You know there's something funny in this cake? Actually, there's something funny that's NOT in this cake.

Flour.

Yeah - I didn't realize it when I chose it for this month's challenge, but this is a gluten-free cake. Are y'all shunning gluten, too? I mean, not that I am, I could give a rat's ass about avoiding gluten - friggen mainline it to me - but apparently this is sweeping the nation, the anti-glutenness.

I'm sorry for all you non-gluten eaters. That has to suck. BUT, this cake is gluten-free, so you can just haul off and eat it without incurring the wrath of gluten on your ravaged souls.

Yay?

To clarify, this recipe only contains a small amount of rice flour, which I found in great abundance and variety at Whole Foods, and which I now have stored away in my baking cabinet for future gluten-free baking. Though I have no other gluten-free recipes in which to use it. Except these that I just found on the Bob's Red Mill site. We'll see what lasts longer - the rice flour or the giant bottle of molasses. As of now, it's a dead heat.

So, for those of you for whom photographic comparisons are the true teller of results, please allow me to present my perfect recreation of the Chocolate and Roasted Beet Pudding Cake for your edification:

This is what the real one looks like.

And for those of you for whom the texture is the truth teller:

Pudding-y center. Yes, please.

And for those of you for whom the taste is the truth teller:

Well, you'll have to make it for yourself. Because you can't be shoving a spoon through the monitor and even if you could it wouldn't be hot by the time you got it into your greedy mouth, so it's better if you just make it on your own, then isn't it? Because when it's fresh from the oven, smelling all lusty and warm and richly chocolate, a spoonful scooped direct from the center is like the richest, yet not-too-sweetest, brownie crossed with flourless chocolate cake you could ever want to have in your face.

It's just very incredibly good. Or, FUCKINGAWESOME, as some less eloquent folks (me) might say.

And I don't really know where the beets went in this thing, but the only remnants that really showed through in the final product were in the color of the dessert itself, which was this lovely dark reddish-brown velvet, and maybe the tiniest bit in the vague earthy flavor beneath all that heavenly chocolate.

I can tell you that it didn't taste like dirt, if that's what you're wondering. Which is what Bubba was wondering. Which is why he doesn't like beets and also why he was upset with me fucking up the first chocolate cake I'd made in forever (?) by throwing in a big old scoop of beet puree that was going to render his chocolate as dirt.

To sum it for you - he immediately declared it a winner and asked if I had more beet puree for a rematch. Which I do. Though I'm out of chocolate, so we'll have to deal with that matter separately.

A winner though! A big fat Here's What The F I Do With Beets winner!

I'm sure you'll be just as pleased when you make your own. Because we're not sharing. Because we're not that nice, despite what you've seen here.

And just because I'm a bit behind on telling you the intimate and absurd details of my life, here's some stuff I hope will be coming soon:

Running update on the topics of The Best Run Ever and Running Naked

Bulletproof chicken soup recipe if my mom lets me share it

How I have a winter garden growing even though I said I wasn't going to have one

The progress of NaNoWriMo now that I've stepped back from the ledge

Let's hope I can scratch together some time for these things before they all change.

Do you smell that?

That burning smell? I can smell it. Yep - THAT.

Don't be alarmed - it's just my brain melting down. Because NaNoWriMo is really not going as smoothly as I previously and naively thought that it surely would.

Don't be confused by the word count you see in the sidebar - it may be in the 20Ks, but only two of those words make sense in their context, I'm sure of it.

I mean, I kinda knew I'd be in for some shit once I got through the honeymoon phase of the first few days - with my fresh new idea turning to molten crap right there on the screen in front of me, but I was really a whore about the whole thing in the beginning and was all up to my shoulders in that false sense of supremacy that can only come from someone who has never tried to write a novel.

I was all, Shit - I have this awesome, funny premise and a whole month to write about it, it's going to be kick ass! And, who are all these people complaining - how hard could this be? Losers.

Well, pee shaw - I am the loser now.

And why? Because all the shit that they talk about in the NaNo forums about characters becoming boring and plots losing steam and fingers bouncing off laptops while resulting in zero coherent words on the page are totally a reality in my life now.

And it's all because I never lost that "I am different and therefore will not experience the issues that normal people do due to my specialness" quality that has been a part of my psyche from the time when I was a small child.

Like, you know when you watch a movie and there's a smart girl and a not so smart girl or a powerful boss and a downtrodden assistant or a clever thief and a dumb sidekick or the hot chick and the ugly chick? Well, in my mind, I'm always the smart girl/powerful boss/clever thief/hot chick.

I would always just align myself with those characters even though, as I get older and (one would hope) wiser, I've realized that not only am I not the smart, powerful, clever hottest girl, but I'm not even in the movie. I'm not even in the best seat in the fucking movie theater and I paid $12 to get in here and am wearing jeans with a hole in the crotch and dirty flip-flops with a very old pedicure.

So, what I'm saying is that it has come to my attention that I've spent a lot of my life being very delusional about who and what I am, what I can and can not do (Kung Fu is a good example) and what I do and do not look like and despite that jarring realization and vague but lagging understanding, I still somehow didn't adequately prepare myself for NaNoWriMo, but instead allowed my brain to delude me into thinking that somehow this was going to be easy like Sunday morning even when other people were balancing on building ledges as the task approached.

This also explains why I still take pairs of size 6 jeans into the dressing room with me even though I haven't been a size 6 in jeans since my freshman year of college. So delusional.

What I should have been telling myself was, "Look, woman, it is very difficult to write a novel. That is why not everyone does this. And you are not a fucking superwoman who has unique ideas that no one else has thought of AND the talent to sit down at a computer and put them to the page in an amusing or even relatively meaningful manner. So get off your high horse and go write something for the blog because at least there you can yammer about things you know, like running slowly around the block and spending ridiculous amounts of time planting shit in the ground. Leave novel-writing to the professionals and just go write some bad words for the internet to read because that's where you really belong."

Also, "That Snuggie isn't attractive and might as well be a fucking muumuu for the amount of action you're going to get while wearing it."

It hasn't been a fun ride these last few days.

I've had to take a new tact with the book and this tact doesn't please me. It's basically the Just Write Some Disjointed Stories About Your Characters And Then Maybe Someday Come Back And String Them Together With Swears method and I'm not sure it's going to work out.

I'll say it - I'm tired of these characters. They're not fun enough. And I don't know how to make them fun. I'm tired of the storyline. It's not interesting enough and I don't know how to make it interesting. My original inspiration that flowed from my brain like wine (see, that doesn't even make sense) has abandoned me for other more hospitable accommodations. Like, perhaps inside the head of a person who knows how to write compelling fiction, for instance.

I'm pretty sure my muse took one look at the garbage I was putting down on the page and was like, pfffffffft - this a total waste of my time.

And you know what? I don't even blame her. I'd leave my mess of an imagination right now, too, if I could. Because when I start to try to imagine what should go on with my fucked up story and boring characters my mind inevitably wanders off and starts putting together outfits for events not happening until 2010 or starts flipping through seed catalogs I haven't even received yet. This mind of mine has already decided that it would rather grow some kind of cantaloupe rather than honeydew but it can't make the female lead in this story do anything more interesting that bounce her three boobs around while sprinting across traffic!

It's maddening!

Anyway, I told you all that to tell you this: I've been quiet on the blog this week because all of my extraneous brain power left after work has been fitfully squooze onto the surface of my NaNo novel, leaving precious little left to fill this blog or even scratch out an intelligible note to the cleaning lady about please don't clean the microwave anymore because we don't use it and you keep putting it back wrong so that it clunks around and scares the dog when I try to make popcorn.

So, in a way, I'm sort of doing you a favor by sparing you my mindless rambling and endless whining and pointless bitching because I bet that if I'd shared with you my irretrievable delusions of grandeur with regard to novel writing when I said something about doing NaNoWriMo last month, you'd have told me to stick with the blog and forget about things as grandiose as stringing together 50,000 sensical words in one month's time.

Feel free to give me a good old, "I told you so", now because I totally deserve it. For being such a pompus bitch about this whole NaNo thing, even if it was all just in my head and I never actually said to anyone, "What's the big deal? So you write a book. Big whoop." because that's totally what I was thinking.

More wrong than size 6 jeans or thinking that my new haircut is going to look as good on me as it did on Jennifer Aniston when she cut it short (not The "Jennifer" haircut - that I did not like) and hated it but I thought it was really cute and filed it away as a haircut I'd maybe get one day if I had the balls to cut my hair short.

Well, I cut it short alright, but it still looks way cuter on Jennifer than it does on me, which is obvious because HELLO she is who she is and I am not her. Which seems like something about which I'd have previously have been aware, but thanks to my amazing self-deluding powers, was totally NOT aware of.

Again, it's been a rough week, delusional-wise.

I think I'll go run around the block. Slowly.

So far it looks like I might not be a loser.

When last we saw the Suck Less landscaping project, Bubba and I had planted 210 (!) low-water grass plugs in the front yard and I was praying that they would establish so I wouldn't look like a loser to all of my neighbors and greater Creation.

Afterward, in order to soothe my grass-establishing anxiety, I did some shopping, as is my way, and ordered "some wildflower bulbs".

Now, because I was mildly ashamed (and afraid) of my shopping trip, I didn't provide any real details about the "some wildflower bulbs" I'd purchased beyond linking to some vague description about the bulbs themselves. What I carefully left out was the amount of bulbs involved in this little Nature Shopping Spree of mine because, well, it was a little how you say, outrageous.

My friends, I ordered 800 (actual) bulbs. Yes. Eight Oh Oh bulbs. Wildflower ones. With the intention of planting them all in the front yard with the grass plugs to hopefully create this bucolic meadow scene sometime in the future.

And then, perhaps as a gesture of fortitude and determination, I also purchased the suggested small bulb planting tool because even then I knew I was in over my head and would need all the help I could get.

And need it, I surely fucking did.

WOW. People, 800 bulbs is a lot. Even when a lot of them are teeny and they all fit in your old broken plastic bucket.

And why would they all be mixed together in a giant bucket, indiscriminately mingling with one another leaving no way to tell (mostly) which were which and when in the springtime they'd bloom and how tall they'd be so that they don't block out the little teeny ones so you know where to plant each individual one for best effect?

Well, to answer that, let's just get on to Step #12 in this process of Sucking Less All The Time landscaping (Steps 1-2 are here and Steps 3-11 are here).

Step 12: Dump the contents of each bag of bulbs into one giant receptacle for planting indiscriminately because any other method would land you in the loony bin.

Box 1 of 2. Lord help me.

See, in my mind, I had originally planned to plant all these bulbs the same way I've always planted bulbs. I was going to take the bags out to the yard and toss them where I wanted to plant them. And then I would take my handy trowel and go from bag to bag (usually there's no more than half a dozen bags) planting the bulbs in clumps.

This has typically taken me about 30 minutes to an hour to complete in my great and untarnished history of planting bulbs.

I always put it off and put it off, but this task that seems like a pain is usually not a pain at all and in the springtime I am rewarded with lovely blooming things in the yard. Yay.

Well, let me be clear that this time, however, it was a pain and I should have been putting it off and putting it off because this time it would have been appropriate given the pain it involved.

And let me be clear that I didn't use this old tried and true method of bulb planting because if I had I would not be here typing this post for y'all to read. No. I'd be institutionalized with other criminally insane gardeners for putting a bulb planting spike through a passer-by's forehead.

It would have been bad, is what I'm saying.

So, thankfully, I opened up about my shopping misstep to our neighbors over dinner one night and they helpfully suggested that, rather than attempting to stage some sort of strategic coup in my front yard with specifically placed bulbs to allow for maximum height, space, design or other perfection, instead I should just dump all the bulbs in a bucket and go to work planting them just however they came out of the bucket.

Oh. You mean, without a plan?

I'll admit, at first this sounded like craziness. Like utter reckless lunacy. I couldn't fathom the haphazardness of this approach at all. Because my mind is small and my A/R is large.

But, when I received and opened the enormous box (like it could have been holding something as large as three Rockets), I knew there could be no other way. My patience would not have allowed for it.

And so sprung forth Step #12: take all the bulbs out of their little bags, pour them in a bucket and store all the bulb tags for future use as bookmarks or as reminders of weak moments of yore.

I swear this seemed like a lot of bulbs.

Lots of tags. For reminder's-sake.

And while it sorta sounds like I made this decision quickly and the ensuing dumping of bulbs into one bucket was a thoughtless, un-mulled scenario, I will tell you that it was not.

Oh no. I mulled it fervently for a solid week, as the box haunted me from my potting bench and then I mulled it some more during my shortish-long Saturday morning run (running update coming soon) and not until the bags were actually being emptied into the bucket was I secure in the knowledge that this is how the bulbs were going to get planted.

Somewhere back in the most A/R recesses of my brain I think I was still contemplating creating a complicated schematic of the yard and all the bulbs' precise planting spots. Because, after all, some of me is always going to be totally insane.

Thankfully we've passed the point in my life where that part of me is running the show. Because it is a scary thing and I don't want to live like that anymore.

Moving on!

Step #13: Take out your pent up frustration on the earth.

STAB.

I started out planting these bulbs in a different way than I finished planting them, and the method by which I finished this project is far superior to the way I started. So I'm going to share with you my finishing method rather than my starting method and if you've managed to follow along in my ramblings thus far, you'll have no trouble at all.

Of course, I'm going to confuse things further by first telling you my starting, and later found to be faulty, method for planting all these bulbs. Because I know you're just dying to know.

FYI: Don't do it this way. Wait for the Finishing Method. This is just for your amusement.

So, to start, I set my bucket down at one corner of the smaller section of our front yard and began by brushing away about an arm's length of mulch, as I crouched or kneeled on one of those cushy gardening kneeling pad things.

Then, with the yard stabber (aka small bulb planting tool, which I TOTALLY recommend because it works REALLY well), I'd make about half a dozen holes at random in the landscape fabric/tarp/whathaveyou, drop in a bulb (root side down), cover it back with soil and then cover the whole mess back up with mulch - taking care to leave any grass plugs uncovered.

This takes more time than it needs to.

I did this for 3/4 of the entire space. Which was retarded. Don't do this.

FYI: Do it this way. The way I'm about to tell you. You'll be happier in the end. Promise.

So, once I got about 3/4 of the way done, I wanted to be 4/4 of the way done really badly. Like, I took a break from the arduous project just to go find Bubba and tell him how much I wanted to be done.

I'm not a very creative procrastinator.

Also, I got a glass of water and thought longingly about my lunch, which I'd finished at 1/2 of the way through the project when Bubba rescued me with a muffaletta break on our patio.

Let me just say this: Bless the muffaletta. It is so very delicious.

Anyway, once I got back from my lunch fantasizing and water drinking and bitching to Bubba about how much I wanted to be done with this horrible project I tasked myself with, I approached the remaining (and suddenly huge feeling) 1/4 of the yard in a new and more efficient (read: lazier) way.

I just stabbed the ground at random.

Yes. That's it. I just carted the bucket around with what was left of the bulbs rolling around inside and, when I saw an undisturbed bit of mulch, I stabbed a hole in the ground and dropped in a bulb.

Most of the time I made sure the root end was down. And most of the time I only put one bulb in there. The rest of the time? Well, whatever happened, happened. There were 800 bulbs! They can't all be perfect!

You know how I get.

And it all got done, so there you go.

Do you like how this looks the same as it did before? Yeah. Not super encouraging, but I promise it's OK.

Step 14: Water it.

Dudes. I know. This is supposed to be xeric. Low water. Drought tolerant. A miracle. I KNOW. But first, it must establish. And for it to establish so that it doesn't need water in future times from the hose (only the sky), you must water it. You know the song. Sing it - and water the grass and bulbs.

Then stand back and survey your greatness and take note that the watering you did back when you planted the grass plugs (and all the careful step following) seems to be working because the plugs are definitely establishing and putting out some new growth.

See how little he was before? My big boy.

Step 15: Commence finger-crossing and rain dancing.

So now, we wait. We hope that rain comes (because you know I'm not getting out there with the hose if I can avoid it) and waters the little angels so that in the spring time all the bulbs can come up in their haphazard pattern and give my A/R a little something to chew on.

We also shoo squirrels and search the internet for squirrel-shooing curses one can cast from the confines of the workplace.

We pull the random weed. We get down on our hands and knees in our work clothes to inspect individual blades of grass seen emerging in various plugs.

We threaten contractors' lives if they dare step foot on a single grass plug as they dismantle our front porch in the name of structural integrity.

But that, my friends, is another story about which you will hear all too soon.

For now - let's all hope for some rain.

Then we can get on to Step 16: Basking in the glory of your meadow-making prowess.

The tattoo I'd get on my ass if I could get a tattoo, which I can't.

This is not the tattoo.

I like to brag about our neighbors because they are really the best ones a young ill-mannered couple could hope for and also because we spent some time with the worst neighbors a young couple could imagine back in the day and so I feel that we are due.

I'm sure you agree.

Also, these neighbors aren't racist assholes, so that helps.

Anyway, these awesome neighbors (who are different from the awesome neighbors who helped us schlep 3 cubic yards of dirt and mulch across the street and different still from the neighbors who gave us the best tomato cages in all the land) came by on Sunday with a surprise awesome gift.

They called this an "Apple-Warming Gift", as we have an apple tree, three years the junior of their apple tree, and ours has yet to produce a blossom.

Sure - it's only been in the ground for nary a year and we were assured that after a year of establishment we could hope for blossoms, but you know, the neighbors felt that an awesome surprise Apple-Warming Gift would help solidify our chances.

We're not too worried yet, because he's still in the 95% percentile for height, or whatever those measurements are that parents of human children use to rate their kids against other kids to decide if they're normal.

Guess what, folks - they're not! They're all backward! Aaahahah ahahhA HAHAHAH ahaha!

Kidding - I have no idea about these measurements and what they mean or don't mean about whether your child is a future idiot or will grow up to be a super scientist.

Anyway.

So, these nice neighbors just knocked on the door, just as normal as could be, and then proceeded to gift us the most amazing tool imaginable that I actually had imagined buying about a thousand times but could never rationalize because HELLO when am I going to need to peel, core and slice quite so many apples?

I should just tell you now that this amazing surprise gift was The Apple Machine.

Feel free to stand back to properly absorb its glory.

This is the most amazing and wonderful machine of which I am aware.

Seriously, now.

I even told Bubba that, had I somehow invented this machine before anyone else in 1864 (thank you, Google), I could immediately die and be happy and satisfied with my life because this thing is a work of pure genius and obviously something for which its inventor will be forever known, Mr David Harvey Goodell. Don't act like you don't have his name tattooed on your ass cheek because I know that you do.

And if you don't think so then I'll thank you to produce one single other invention that is more ingenius, clever, easy to use, easy to clean and so 100% god damned effective. Go ahead, try.

Here, let me save you the trouble - you're wrong. The Apple Machine is better.

I mean, obviously.

Perhaps I was so bowled over by The Apple Machine at this particular moment because as he stood there just handing this magic machine to me as though it was the most mundane thing in the whole wide world and he wasn't even sure we'd want it (WHATEVER GIVE IT!), I had a whole basket of apples just getting ready to up and die on me.

And you know I don't do waste. Noooooooo.

So, obviously, I thanked him profusely and asked on about his own The Apple Machine and the status of their 2009 Apple Crisis (their tree produces apples, on top of which some of their friends door ditched them a bushel of apples. Woe is them) and then he started to look worried, so I let him say his polite goodbyes and escape to the peace and tranquility and Finny-Free-ness of his own house.

Despite this man's utter and total niceness, I'm not sure he quite knows what to do with me and my cocktail tottering ways.

Anyway.

Upon his departure, I made haste to the kitchen - along the way grabbing all the apples I could carry and crying out to my Joy of Cooking book that it better gird its fucking loins because I was about to bake an apple pie for the first time in about five or so years and it was gonna be a good'un.

And, in case you can't tell, I've been rummaging around in my brain thanks to NaNoWriMo and it appears the drama and Crazy spilling out on those pages is now overflowing here. Sorry about that. Don't mind the mess.

Now, there are a few apple pie recipes in Joy, I believe they are distinguished with numbers like I and II and maybe even III, and I think I went with Apple Pie II, but I can't be certain. Basically, this is the recipe and it's unique (to my small world at least) because it calls for pre-cooking the filling rather than tossing up the apple chunks raw and throwing them and the crust in the oven for the first time together as a couple.

Seems sorta trashy doesn't it?

I thought so, so I went for the pre-cooking the filling method, which seemed more decent and restrained. And we all know how decent and restrained I am.

Shut-up, you whores, I am.

The important thing is that I got to prop up my beloved, stained copy of Joy and commence to coring, slicing and peeling of my apple pile in, like, two minutes flat, because the thing is nearly assembled and ready right there in the box.

Bless it - it doesn't even need to be plugged in. Which, obviously, since it was invented before people had two dozen three-pronged outlets in their kitchens. Or electricity in their houses. Or stilettos.

And don't you judge me - I need all of those outlets. For things. Important, electricity sucking things. Like giant food processors.

Whatever, I'm getting off track.

I'd be lying if I said this was the only picture I took of this process.

Basically, within five minutes of mounting this beauty to my countertop (also mercifully quick and effective), I had a bowl full of perfectly sliced, peeled and cored apples ready to pre-cook with some butter, sugar and cinnamon in the approved holy way.

Just look at that and try to tell me it's not amazing. JUST TRY IT, SUCKAH.

This went into the compost. To make my compost amazing.

And this went into the pie to make the pie amazing.

I think you see where this is all headed.

As though I have any fucking clue what approved holy ways really are.

And, to keep these lovers apart for just a skosh more time - to heighten the longing and desire, I can only assume - I was told by Joy to let the hot, sweet filling cool to room temp in a single layer on a sheet before pouring it into the bottom crust.

Yes, I believe I *have* heard of food porn before.

If that's not good old-fashioned proper etiquette, I just don't know what is.

Though, it's surely obvious that I have ZERO idea what proper etiquette might be. But you knew that.

Sadly, though, I didn't pay so much attention to the warning bells going off in my head as I wandered over to the sideboard to cheerfully (and naively) retrieve the apple pie crust cutter gifted to me by a certain awesome mama.

Looks pretty promising, though, doesn't it?

Now, mom, don't get me wrong, I appreciate the cuteness of this particular item, and while the cuteness has not waned for me, its effectiveness does not, how you say, put it up there in the ranks with The Apple Machine given its general ineffectiveness and ability to destroy a perfectly good pie dough.

I mean, it started off innocently enough - I was even so excited to use it that it was the third thing I grabbed after Joy and the apples - but sadly, it's true vision was not to be appreciated as I dutifully turned my perfect dough into a misshapen wad.

NOT TO FEAR, though - because it was salvageable. And some apples did make an appearance on the final product.

Just not in the way I'd originally envisioned.

And after it baked, it looked as cute and chaste as could be. For a whoring apple pie, that is.

COVER YOURSELF!

Now, sadly, Bubba and I are still at odds over whether to deliver a thick slice of this pie to our Apple-Warming neighbors or wait until I bake another apple-something just especially for them (which could happen soon since the farmshare says we're getting apples again this week).

We probably shouldn't be having this conversation while eating the pie from the dish with one fork and his germs spewing everywhere (he has a cold) because the thought of giving them this germ-soaked masterpiece would probably feel more like a slap in the face than a proper thank you.

So, that seals it, I bake them something anew and won't let Bubba breathe near it.

Done. No repenting necessary.