Eventually my eyes will stop watering.

I really thought I'd have more glamorous shit to report from our New Life In The Country, as it's been called, but who the hell knows why I thought there would be glamour in the country.

Mostly we just have skunks.

Hey buddy! NO THANK YOU.

OH MY GOD THE MOTHER FUCKING SKUNKS.

Remember how I got so over our old house projects before that I never wanted to hear the word, "kitchen", again? Or garage. Or bathroom. Or porch. Or fireplace. Or bar.

Because of the all-consumingness of those projects? Because we were spending all of our waking hours discussing the ins and outs and details and plans for those projects? Those projects that were going to result in a remodeled kitchen, a garage with electricity, a bathroom without a time machine shower,  a not-collapsing porch, a push button fireplace and an effing BAR?

OH TO BE SAYING, "BAR", OVER AND OVER RIGHT NOW INSTEAD OF, "SKUNKS".

And then to get a fabulous new BAR instead of...just not skunk smell.

Yeah. So, we're there with the skunks.

These sick bastards went to absolute town on our house one week before we moved in.

Sprayed the garage. Sprayed the guest house. Sprayed the deck.

Our eyes are watering, but still - COCKTAILS ON THE DECK. MUST HAVE IT. NEED THOSE ONION GOGGLES. Also, please enjoy our ski fencing while the deck railing is finished. 

I'll just say that moving day was fragrant. Eye-wateringly so.

Yay.

So yeah - all the glamorous fun projects like tearing out miles of heinous carpet, redoing a tragically tiled kitchen, setting up a media room or staking out my new garden has taken an abrupt backseat.

Because WHY DOES IT STILL SMELL SO BAD?

See...glamour. It's my life.

Thankfully, we now have A Skunk Guy.

We have traps set and they're baited with hard boiled eggs (I almost vomit a lot) and they're sitting out waiting to catch us the grand prize of a funking skunk.

That will probably spray again when The Skunk Guy comes to take him away.

Hooray.

At least we got the garbage disposal fixed on the home buyer's warranty!

Oh, not glamorous either.

Ceiling fan spins now?

OK, also boring.

New propane tank!

Snore, I know.

But the stairs! We had the hilarious contractor built us some awesome stairs! And they're pretty!

You'll have to do.

And he had his painter do the painting part and OH MY GOD LOOK A THE PAINTER GUY'S DOG:

I'm sure you realize that I cuddle raped the absolute pants off of this dog.

And then we've had some good looking sunsets.

Nicely done, Country.

And twilight turkey hunting.

And Jada's kinda in heaven.

Plus, we're managing.

Beer is why country dog walks are superior to suburban dog walks.

So fuck the glamour.

We have skunks, sunsets, stairs, turkeys, a happy dog and beer.

CATCHING

I looked like this all day.

Here I am with 45 minutes until a friend shows up and I've done all the shit I set out to do today and instead of watching the first 45 minutes of my favorite Bubba's Away Movie (Cold Mountain - he hates it now after the 435th viewing. Slacker.), I'm writing this post.

For you guys.

BECAUSE I'M NICE LIKE THAT.

Actually, no, I just want to get the random post trend started back up again now that the whole pesky BIG HUGE THING NEWS event of 2012 has come, gone and resulted in gainful employment.

Thank the maker that shit's over. Now we can talk about important random shit like HEY I CAUGHT A BOAT LOAD OF FUCKING FISH WOO!

Yeah, that's right, I got to go fishing. And, to quote my beloved hilarious slightly miffed father, "This is called FISHING, Jessie (my dad calls me Jessie. NOT YOU GUYS. Or anyone other than immediate family that has known me since I was wee. So shut it all up.). You're just CATCHING. You're doing it wrong."

Which he screamed from his boat on Father's Day morn as I caught, along with Bubba and my sweet uncle on our boat, "All the fish in the lake so that no one else had a fucking chance."

Or so says Finny's dad.

Salty sailor, this guy.

You may be getting an idea about from where I get this spicy language. Go with that. You're on to something.

Anyway, yeah. Bubba planned a very lovely Father's Day fishing trip for my dad and uncle to Crowley Lake (just outside Mammoth, CA) and let my brother and I tag along.

I saw it as a very sweet ruse to get me out on a boat for a day of guided fishing, but that's because I see all outings in which I participate as outings created with only me in mind.

Because it's all about me.

You know this.

But did you know that I kissed all the fish in the lake?

Well, I tried, anyway.

This guy was ready for me. Look at that come hither maw.

It's in the eyes here. Or, eye, rather.

Asking for it with those sexy spots, I say.

I mean, really, with the way they dress these days.

Just a little peck!

Whore.

 Also, Bubba took his turn making out with fish.

Full tongue on the first date? Suh-lut.

This one was not of age for kissing.

Practically begging for it.

First we fold the fish, then we kiss the fish.

Mmmmmmmmm...folded fish.

We all kissed this fish. It was the winner of the day - 19" rainbow.

And my uncle is not a fish kisser as much as he is a fish CATCHER.

LINE 1's FOR YOU, MAN!

No kissing. Only catching.

Quick march with the photo, woman! There are fish waiting for my fly!

And back into the lake with you, ya big tease.

No time to waste. In the net, photo taken, BACK INTO THE WATER STAT.

He's a mean tease, my uncle. 

That was the long swear-y way of saying that I finally got to go back out on a guided fishing trip (even made the guide's website) after the awesome one we took with the same guide outfit back in 2012 and HOO BOY was it great.

I love fishing. And catching. And hanging out on a boat all day while someone else does all the work of untangling my shitty casts (Thanks, Jerry! You're really patient and not at all giving me the hairy eyeball every time I fuck up my cast! Thanks for that. Sheesh. I'm a mess.).

Happy Father's Day again, dad. Sorry I caught all of your fish. I mean, it was a trip for me, right?

More PING, less sense-making

Since the random fashion by which I've been attending to this blog is being received fairly well, I'm going to keep rolling with it since the time has not yet come when I can form a coherent post on a single subject.

Deep breath.

Random thing #1: Skiing is fucking happening

You may not be aware of the dire lack of snow in Lake Tahoe and California in general but let me assure that it is indeed DIRE AS FUCK.

Not even close in the DIRE AS FUCK department

Like, we have had our season passes since, like, June and we haven't skied a single day. We haven't even been tempted to go ski a single day because we like our bodies and ski equipment in its mostly functional condition and throwing our bodies and equipment down any ski run in Tahoe right now would render all of our warranties and well-being completely null.

We'd die, is what I'm saying. And fuck our gear up to the point of replacement. Which is, no.

So, since we can't ski here, we're going to the only place of reliable snowfall with mountains in this great country of ours and that is Montana.

Glorious, snowy, cold, We're Actually Having A Proper Winter, Montana.

We're leaving our absurd busy schedules, life complications, unanswered emails and untended responsibilities to drive for two days so that we can experience the activity known as skiing and snowboarding on actual naturally fallen snow.

Skiing is fucking happening and I am at the point that I don't care that we have to drive almost to Canada for it.

Random thing #2: I'm going back to the podiatrist and I'm bringing my aluminum bat
If only I had an aluminum bat.

I've been telling Bubba for 14 years that my preferred weapon of self-protection is an aluminum bat, even though I have the world's shittiest eye-hand coordination, and yet still I have not received one for any gift giving occasion.

Which is too bad because I feel like that may be the only way to keep the podiatrist from mishandling my feet when I show up tomorrow to be fitted for my orthopedic I'm Old As Fuck insoles.

As in, he grabs my feet haphazardly and PING I knock his block off.

NO! You do not just grab a person's feet when you know them to have bone spurs and arthritis. NO! PING AGAIN FOR GOOD MEASURE.

So we'll see how that goes.

Until then, they're staying swaddled in down and CRAZY.

Random thing #3: It's go time. Like, for reals.
Remember how almost 2 years ago I was all, Hey! I quit my job and am getting a horticulture degree!?

Yeah, you remember.

Well, the last semester of that degree begins in less than two weeks and the graduation date is only a scant 4 1/2 months away which is, handily, the same time that I'll need to be starting a job in this new field and WHOA the flying time is a bit freaky.

So, I've written up cover letters and customized resumes for a handpicked number of places I'd like to work and now I'm just sitting on them like some kind of nervous hen, waiting for them to hatch into viable jobs without my having to actually send them out into the real world where they may receive nothing but rejection, or worse, no response at all.

That's right, folks, I've done the research to find places I want to work, sourced respectable references, written up cover letters, customized resumes and I'm sitting here not sending them out because WHAT IF NOTHING HAPPENS.

Do you like the self-fulfilling prophecy I've created? It's a goodie.

I imagine I'll freak out about this a lot while we're driving for two days each way to Montana, where I won't be able to do a damn thing about it from the passenger seat of the truck, and then come home and, before unpacking a single thing or even letting the dog out of the truck, will send all the resumes out in a rage of WHAT IS MY FUCKING PROBLEM SOMETIMES.

Yes. That ought to do it.

Random thing #4: I know I owe you guys an explanation about the not-being-a-farmer thing, but I'm not there yet. Soon? 
Yeah, soon.

Meanwhile, enjoy this perfect basil plant that I grew.

Oh noooooooooooooo [Thanksgiving Edition]

There's a reason that Jada's not wearing a collar and it's not because she's a dog nudist.

Like I was saying, last week was going to be soul-crushingly busy and frantic and crazy and then busy some more.

Actually, did I tell you that or was I just thinking it as I was writing that last post of randomness drunk with the power of a fully functional keyboard?

I can't remember.

Either way - last week was a self-proclaimed hell week of shit to do, people to not kill, events to not ruin, crops to harvest, a house to de-Addams Family, tests to study for, projects to finish, holidays to not destroy and mother-in-laws to not offend.

We got so close.

Bubba mastercrafted this amazing trip for his mom so that they could drive up the coast from Pismo Beach and stop at all of the monarch butterfly migration sites, eat artichokes, visit me at the greenhouse and just generally enjoy some California in November which is noticeably different from Kansas in November, which I'm sure you can all imagine.

Think sunshine and shirt sleeves instead of bitter cold and I NEED ANOTHER DOWN JACKET STAT.

You get it.

And they got it. The trip was perfect. Better than I could have hoped. The butterflies were present and accounted for even though everyone was all ready to ruin our parade by saying that "Oh, they're early/late/extinct this year. They won't see any." (thanks, asses), they ate many artichokes and artichoke-filled foods, they came by the greenhouse and botanic gardens for a tour during gorgeous weather - it was great.

I was feeling like not a failure as a daughter-in-law except for the whole working-the-whole-time-she-was-here thing.

Whatevs.

Then, much to my surprise, the success and not-fucking-it-upness of the week continued. We managed to get the turkeys we'd smoked (we = Bubba with a side of me sitting on my dead ass) sliced and packaged up with the other Thanksgiving-y things we were bringing to my folks'. We got to my folks' place in good time and, despite the crowd, talked to most everyone we'd set out to. We ate Thanksgiving-y things (but not too much somehow). We drank drinks (and not too many)(except after the oh nooooooo, which obvs.).

Does seeing this much turkey make you want to barf now?

We thought we were in the clear.

My MiL was leaving the morning after Thanksgiving, so as we sat down to have the festive holiday pie course (SO MANY PIES WHY?), I'll admit that I jinxed the crap out of us.

I thought to myself - we've made it. We did not fuck up my MiL's trip. We did not forget anything we were supposed to bring. We are not the most annoying ones at the party. We're golden.

And then it hit me.

The smell.

Of skunk.

And terror.

I bolted to the living room to find Bubba outside waving his arms maniacally, eyes bulging (and watering dramatically) and the dog throwing herself frantically against the deck, face first, trying to rid her puppy eyeballs of the two barrels of skunk spray eating through her mucous membranes.

It was not a pretty/welcomed/pleasant sight. As you can probably imagine.

Imagine this cute face looking as sad and eye-drooly and foaming at the mouth as you can. Then know that it was much worse and gross smelling.

I think you know that my first reaction, upon seeing Bubba outside trying to find a lighter so that he could put himself out of his misery, was to bellow a hearty, "Oh noooooooooooooo" while simultaneously removing the suede boots I was wearing for the first time in months.

I certainly wasn't going to be bathing a skunked dog in suede boots. Or the silk dress I'd put on in an effort to appear like a girl for once.

After the initial reaction, I think that you also know that there was a loud "FUCK" as I ran back to my mom's room to find some old clothes to change into, a bunch of old towels, baking soda and peroxide and a change of clothes for Bubba.

I'll spare you the grim details of the dog bathing, but suffice it to say that the 2 1/2 hour ride home in Bubba's new truck, dog sequestered in the back with the window down on a rubber mat, and my MiL (who does not enjoy pets to begin with) up front sitting quietly waiting for it all to just be over with pretty much blew the doors off of our Successful Visit With Mom.

We were so close.

And after tallying up the damages (bras, underwear, jeans, shoes, shirts, belts, collar, towels, bottles of Tecnu, peroxide and baking soda), this one skunk + dog that knows better than to play with the stinky black and white kitties cost us around $500.

Plus the forever ruining of our nostrils and the forthcoming cleaning bill from the shop for whenever Bubba gets his truck in for service.

Meanwhile, Jada's had so many baths that she's gorgeous and fluffy and exhausted enough to allow me to cuddle her but she still smells like rank skunk ass, so no one's cuddling. We're all just eyeballing her and waiting for her to stop reeking so that we can all YAY drive to Montana in a month where she'll get snowed on which will recharge her skunking for our enjoyment.

Hooray holidays.

Don't even look at me, dog. You smell like skunk and shame.

Oh my god I bought so much pork

Hi friends. I have an admission to make.

I bought a LOT of pork.

Which, given my heritage is sort of amusing, but given our pastimes makes total sense.

If you just limit our pastimes to smoking meat and then eating it. Which we love to do!

Because, obviously.

So, yeah, we were about 3/4 of the way through our second split half of grassfed beef when Chestie started to feel lonely.

Empty inside if you will.

And then, handily, my local blogger buddy, IMQTPI, emailed me to see if I wanted in on a hog.

Like, do I want half of one.

DUH YES.

So we did some splitting up of logistics (she goes to the fair to bid on our hog, I go back out to Fair Land to pick it up from the butcher and deliver it) and now we are the rightful and proud owners of half a hog apiece.

Though I will also admit that our half is slightly less than half a hog already because, yes, we dug right into that tasty beast.

Nothing but First class pork for us, thank you.

We are not vegetarians around here. I forgot to warn you. Sorry, meat fearful people - this is a meatful post. Please come back another time when I'm talking gardenblahblahblah and your eyes will be safe from LOOK AT ALL MY PORK:

Why Spreckles, you look different somehow...

Sorry, that might have been scary. But still - you want to know where your food comes from - there you have it. In our house, it comes from Spreckles and YES PLEASE and also thanks, buddy.

Filled to the brim with tasty meats. And also tomatoes, hops and chicken stock BUT NOT ON THE PORK SIDE.

Perhaps more impressive is my anal retentive divider to keep the pork on ITS side and the beef on the other. It's very technological and advanced what with the box from somethingorother that I sliced in half and wedged in there, but nonetheless - it keeps the squabbling meats separate.

MOM! THE BEEF IS TOUCHING ME!

Can't have them mixing together, now can we? That would be wrong. And not kosher at all.

SARCASM, people. Sarcasm. No need to add your corrections to the comments because I'll just roll my eyes and call you retarded from my side of the computer.

Also, fun and anal retentive (yes, these things exist together in my world)(all the time) is my new Pork checklist that is taped to the inside of Chestie's lid above the Pork section of the freezer.

Yes, that DOES say 15 packs of pork chops - two to a package, thankyouvermuchandalsoBACON.

The Beef Checklist is a bit more worn, as you can plainly see.

Notice that the Beef side has its own checklist. ON ITS OWN SIDE.

That's right - we segregate the red meat from the (other, other) white meat. But we love them both the same, which is to say A LOT.

And we have already loved the pork A LOT since it arrived on Wednesday night, as I immediately made some of that hot Italian sausage into the most badass soup (recipe down there, just keep scrolling) and then I made the Burn The Fuck Out of My Left Hand pork chop recipe without WITHOUT burning anything at all.

No hands were irretrievably scorched in the making of this pork chop.

Que milagro.

Now, let me just say that I took some piss poor photos of this soup, so please do not judge me because all I wanted to do was eat the effing thing because by this time I was starved.

I wanted the pork inside of me.

Enjoy that one.

Badass Pork and Kale Soup

Recipe by moi

Ingredients

3 spicy Italian style pork sausages, cut into 1" slices

1 lb of kale, ribs removed and ribbon sliced

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 onion, chopped

1 leek, whites chopped (compost the rest)

6 fingerling potatoes or a normal sized potato equivalent, peeled and cut into big chunks

1 quart of chicken stock

Salt, pepper as you like

2 T Olive oil

To make

In a good sized stock pot, heat oil over medium heat until shimmering and add your onions, leeks and garlic.Saute until soft, about 2-3 minutes.

Add potatoes and stir to coat everything all nice like.

Add your chicken broth and a bit of salt and fresh ground pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes or so, until the potatoes are super soft.

Heat a large skillet on medium high heat and add your sausage to brown it thoroughly on both sides. Keep this browning and cooking while you do all the soup stuff. Keep a friggen eye on it though - if it burns, I will spank the ever-loving crap out of you.

Turn the heat off and, with your stick/immersion blender, go to town blending that soup right in the pot. If you only have a blender for this, pour portions of the soup mix into your blender and puree until smooth. 

Also, I'm sorry you have to contend with that hateful task. It was the A#1 reason I wanted an immersion blender and BOY HOWDY do I love that thing and thank you, mom, for giving me your old one - best gift ever. Never again with the muther effing blender and shooting hot soup all over my kitchen.

Or whatever! I hear that happens. To other people.

Bring your newly pureed soup back to a low boil and throw all that frightful kale in there, stir it up and put the cover back on so the soup can simmer over low heat for about 10 minutes.

Check on your sausage, if you haven't been all along (SPANKING SONG), and make sure all pieces are nice and brown on both sides. 

After 10 minutes with the kale in the soup, turn the heat off on the soup, add the sausage and whatever pan spackle-y goodness exists in there (there should be some and it is THE MOST. Scrape that pan if you have to. It's worth it.) and stir it all into magic in your soup pot. 

Give it a minute to mingle and get to know one another and then AFTER COOLING IT A LITTLE BIT GEEZ taste the soup and add salt and pepper if it needs it.

It probably doesn't, but I shan't judge you since I'm a salt addict and can't be stopped. 

I'm puffy and defiant!

Whatever.

Now go enjoy your soup with some warm bread or a crisp salad or just whatever the hell else you feel like having. A dirty gin martini? Why, yes, I hear that's quite the accompaniment. 

BIGHUGETHINGNEWS

For a second I was all, “I wonder if it’s even going to seem like BIG HUGE THING NEWS anymore after all of this hype and waiting around and not helpful tweets like this one.”, but then I realized that, No Way.

It’s totally still BIG HUGE THING NEWS.

To me.

And since this blog is all about me and that’s what you guys have been reading about for the last seven years (still wows me, that number), I think you’ll still see it as BIG HUGE THING NEWS, too.

Because the BIG HUGE THING NEWS is all about me and my life and also Bubba and our life and how I’m apparently doing my damndest to change it all.

I’m throwing a curveball, friends, a big fat life curveball and I’m hoping for the best while also knowing that there’s a very real Worst out there that could take over these best intentions of mine and set me back on my ass, OUR asses, like nothin’.

To give you an idea of the big fatness of this life curveball I’m throwing (and let’s not forget for a minute that I have zero eye/hand coordination and that throwing’s not my game to begin with), I already had (and have) a pretty sweet life.

One that didn’t, from an outsider’s perspective, probably need a big fat curveball thrown right at it. No, I imagine that most people looking at my life would have been like, “Hey, that’s pretty sweet. Great job, amazing husband, cute dog, evil cat, fun times galore, much drinking and misbehavior. Good going, weird girl.”

Not, “Ugh, what are you doing with your life, weird girl? Get your shit together. Throw a curveball. Change everything you’re doing because WOW you’re really fucking shit up.”

Which is what I’ve always thought was the premise for changing one’s life - the act of majorly fucking it up for a long time and needing a big fat curveball of change to shove everything back onto the rails.

But my life was great - IS great - and yet still, I’m shoving and curveballing and basically, if looked at on paper, fixing what’s not broken.

Except on the inside, I knew it was broken.

I was, in my early 30s, still living the life that I designed for myself when I was a teenager. Which, if you think about it, is what a lot of people do because that’s what we’re sort of guided along to do, right?

We go through school, all the while being prepped for the idea of college and trying to do things to get into the college that will serve us best in the long run. Which means deciding what we Want To Be.

When we’re, like, 12 years old.

So, shit that’s important and shiny and fun when you’re 12 is what you end up basing these decisions on.

And when I was 12 and impressionable and watched MTV (at my friend’s houses, we never had cable) and went to the mall and did whatever, the shiny interesting shit was what was on TV and blasting out at me from billboards and the radio (terrestrial, since there wasn’t satellite radio then - savages) and Cosmo and what not.

Which is to say - advertising.

I really absorbed a lot of advertising. And not the messages, necessarily - like I was running from one parent or store to another going, “I MUST HAVE THIS THING.” - but the concept of it and its power.

I saw that advertising did, despite folks’ intentions, influence people. It spoke to people. It got into their heads and got them moving. Albeit in some of the most tragic and ill-advised directions, but it got people doing shit.

And not for nothing, the stuff was sorta glamorous and shiny and cool and rad and all of those teenagery things, too.

I wanted to be a part of that. When I was 12.

So, I set out on a crash course to become part of that world. I took special classes in high school for graphic design, I went to junior college courses during high school to get ahead, I chose my college based on where I could major in Advertising and Marketing rather than just “Communications”, I steered myself right back to San Francisco’s Financial District as soon as I graduated so that I could work in one of the ad agencies I’d been ogling since my youthful days of traveling to Giants games with my mom, I then worked many long hours in various ad agencies and, when the age of internet advertising came along, I went full force into that world. Then I worked at the hub of internet advertising for nine years all up to my ears in it.

It was fun, thrilling, sucky, stressful, interesting, boring, exciting, depressing, awesome, lame and every other emotion in between. I cheered, I cried, I swore LOTS, I met some cool people and some shitty people and I changed.

Over the time I was living this self designed life of my 12 year old mind, I totally changed.

I mean, truly, I was probably working on this change my whole life, but didn’t really pay attention to it until I was sitting in a meeting in a conference room on The First Day of Spring and couldn’t stop thinking, “I should be outside.”

“I should be outside and my manicured hand that I’m now looking at typing away furiously on this keyboard should be balls deep in my garden knocking down the cover crop that’s rapidly going to beans so that it will have time to break down enough to feed my summer vegetable plants when I put them in the ground in a few weeks and...”

I’m in there with my laptop open, trying to contribute to a day long brainstorm session about online advertising operation strategies with my four inch heels jammed into the low pile carpet while routinely bashing my knees on the sunuvabitching table brace as I swiveled back and forth from looking at the overhead projector to my teammates to the laptop and, eventually to the window so that I could let my little inside voice get a word in edgewise for a little moment.

That was a few years ago.

I was still fully up to my eyes in internet advertising, the world of online technology and all the things that come in that burrito.

And it had started to feel not right.

I started to feel like maybe one day I was going to have to change burritos. I’d been an al pastor for most of my life and maybe I wanted to try being a bean and cheese for a while. Or a carne asada with pico de gallo. Or, maybe what if I was something completely different like a brandywine caprese salad with buffalo mozzarella and lettuce leaf basil...

What if that?

And then the little inside voice started to get not so little and then, eventually, not so inside.

I’ll spare you the intense, mind-numbing, extremely boring-for-people-who-are-not-me rehashing of the very self-reflecty and soul-searchy years that took place during my wind up - from the time when the little inside voice got too loud to ignore and when it became an outside voice making choices and throwing life curveballs and I’ll just cut to those curveballs...

BIG HUGE THING #1
Five months ago I enrolled in college (never thought I'd say that again) to get a horticulture degree in Organic Agriculture and Crop Production.

That's right. I'm going to be a farmer.

BIG HUGE THING #2
At the same time, I started building a business model for the kitchen garden coaching company that I’m about to launch.

BIG HUGE THING #3
And almost two months ago, I quit my job. My very great and lovely job at the very great and lovely company for which I’d worked for nine years.

And then came the pitch: Walking out the doors of the Great and Lovely job and into a life of uncertainty and excitement and passion and dirt and closed toe shoes and let me teach you how to test your soil and can your tomatoes and sow a cover crop and then WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I DONE.

Except, the WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I DONE part has not yet occurred. I imagine that’s on the horizon somewhere.

For now, I’m just basking in the glory of the pitch on its way to the batter.  The curveball is an unpredictable pitch that can throw off a batter something fierce and, in the case of my curveball hero, it breaks late and wears a disguise until it crosses the plate, so you never really know what you’re getting until it’s too late.

Also, I do not know when this became a baseball analogy, but since I do like baseball and I expect you not to argue with me while I’m pouring out my BIGHUGETHINGNEWS soul to you, I’m going to keep rolling with it.

So, quiet you baseball haters. I don’t understand you anyway.

The point is that Bubba and I - and let us not gloss over, meanwhile, the amazing, heart-swelling, superhuman husband strength that this man possesses which is pushing this whole life curveball over the plate that I will cover in many future posts - are changing it up.

(Now that I think about it, I should have used the changeup as my pitching analogy of choice, but I think that the world understands a changeup even less than a curveball, so I’m going to give myself a pass here, so nevermind this.)

We’ve both changed jobs, I’ve started school and a business and we’ve set our futures on a completely different trajectory than it was when we first got together a dozen years ago. We still want to end up in the same place, but our road to get there just now looks a lot different.

And he has finally gotten his true deep-down wish - I am forced to wear proper shoes. 

I will wear proper shoes. BUT ONLY FOR THE FARM TOUCHING. And only under protest.

You just can’t wear flip-flops while working on a farm. Which I was told in no uncertain terms during our first outing to the department's farm for my organic ag lab in my Reefs.

The next week I showed up in my Van’s, worn Atlas gloves and ballcap and promptly shoved my arm shoulder deep into a pile of compost.

I was home.

And now you all get to watch as I take a swing at this life curveball. Enjoy.

I don't even remember what I had promised to blog about

When I set out to DO this weekend, I had it in my head that on Sunday night I would sit down and blog about something specific.

Anyone remember what it was? I really don't.

But, let's imagine that it was about the garden and the bees because that's been my entire weekend.

Come hang out with us! Also, buzz.

From sun up to sun down Saturday morning until, like, 20 minutes ago, it's been nonstop.

Not that I'm complaining, because you know I love that shit like way deep down in my bones, but WOW -- totally knackered.

And I used to hate that word, "knackered", but lately I've been feeling it deep down in my bones and, alas, it has worked its way into my vocabulary.

So, the knackering began on Saturday morning as I set out to sow some peas.

So innocent, the peas.

Which sounds like a pretty easy and innocuous project. Something like, "Open packet of seeds. Push through soil. Water. Peace out."

Except that preceding the pea sowing was a list of miscellaneous tasks that took up most of my morning. Things like finding the pea fence nested alongside the garage with a thousand other poke your god damned eyes out pieces of wire mesh, extracting said pea fence after pruning back the neighbor's tree that had grown through the fence and into the pea fence, turning under the fava beans into the soil, fixing the pea fence, installing the pea fence and leveling it and then fixing where you broke it shoving it in there all too forceful like.

And then the always anti-climatic event of actually sowing the damn peas.

Those bitches better be FUCKING DELICIOUS.

Though, I know they will be. They always are. Which is why I'm OK spending a morning with all those other not-delicious tasks.

Then, after the pea sowing incident that nearly took my life, I thought I would sow some lettuce.

Because the sowing of the peas had gone so smoothly.

Yeah. I don't learn. Even when I've JUST experienced the pain from which I should learn. But I don't. So...moving on.

I went and *tried* to just sow some lettuce seeds, but, since I'm not growing beans this year (another story for another Hi, I'm Crazy day), I was immediately worried about the shade situation.

I mean, you can't just leave lettuce out in the broad throbbing daylight like that. It'll bolt, burn, freeze and a bunch of other unsavory and unlettucy things that will make me mad in a few weeks.

SO - my original plan back in the winterish months when I had nothing but time on my hands to fantasize about all the magnificent gardeny things I'd do once spring showed up, was to build a cucumber trellis like the one everyone keeps pinning and repinning on Pinterest.

What? You haven't pinned this yet? WHAT ARE YOU, CRAZY?

I pinned it off Wise Moon Wendy a while back and damn it all if I don't get a hundred notices every day that someone has repinned it.

It's nice because it has kept it top of mind for me but annoying as fuck because I really need to get into Pinterest and change my notice settings.

FYI: I don't care if people repin my shit. Should I? I can't decide.

Anyway - I've been wanting to make one of these guys for a while so that my cucumbers have a good trellis upon which to grow and my lettuce has a handy shade under which to NOT BOLT RIGHT AWAY THANK YOU SO MUCH and Saturday was the day.

So, when I got done with wrestling the pea fence in a bloody death match (seriously, I'm still bleeding. On my thumb. It's hurty.), I went into the garage to mess around with tools and listen to Phish.

FYI: Bubba was skiing, so he didn't have to shove me out of the way to do real garage work. Thankfully.

Now, I'm warning you to NOT LAUGH when you see my cucumber trellis. Not that it's bad looking, but the fact that it took me almost 2 hours to make it is pretty embarrassing.

I mean, it's just a wood frame with wire mesh staple gunned to it and two hinged legs all salvaged from shit in our garage. In my head, that shouldn't take 2 hours.

NO LAUGHING.

But it does have hinges. Something about which I'm obnoxiously proud.

LOOK AT THE HINGES OH MY GOD AWESOME.

So yeah, Saturday was "Sow peas and lettuce. Build cucumber trellis." And that took the whole effing day.

Which explains why I had a bloody Mary and popcorn for dinner. Because that's what crazy people have for dinner.

WITH my Spicy Green Tomato Pickles as a garnish which is my new favorite garnish. SO DELISH.

Then, today, I set out to Out Crazy my own self. Ambitious, right?

Well, I started off by giving myself a face enema with the front yard sprinklers. I come out of the gates strong on the Crazy.

See, I've been keeping an eye on my dormant front yard meadow and, while it's supposed to be dormant and not great looking right now, a few plants have just plain died. Which isn't like me. I don't generally kill plants.

Which is why I obviously blamed the sprinklers.

Der.

After many minutes and swears spent inspecting the heads, tubing, settings and valve, I decided that since water STILL wasn't coming out of the sprinkler end, it must be a clogged manifold.

"I shall blow the manifold!" I declared loudly enough to bring raised eyebrows from my elderly neighbor as she passed by on her morning walk.

So, after explaining that I was fixing irrigation and not taking Johns into my bedroom as a side business, I left my neighbor to finish her walk and I unscrewed the sprinkler manifold cover before going into the basement to turn on the line and "blow it" clean.

Can anyone guess what happened?

I mean, beyond the obvious geyser of water blasting out of my front yard?

No?

Let me tell you how bright I am...

Despite the fact that, from the basement on the other side of the property from this geyser, I could hear said geyser rocketing into the stratosphere through my neighbor's very tall Sycamore tree, I did not just turn off the valve from my safe (and dry!) basement location and then go inspect the status of the inside of the manifold.

OH NO.

Because then I would have to...wait for it...come back to the basement YET AGAIN to turn it back on and go about my fixing up in the yard and that extra trip back and forth was totally unnecessary.

Unnecessary if one likes to go through one's life in dry clothes and without having one's sinuses aggressively assaulted by a heaven bound jet of sprinkler water.

But I'm all about saving trips to and from the basement (and apparently NOT AT ALL about going through life like a sane person), so out I went toward the sound of the Bellagio fountain in my yard with the intent of screwing back in the manifold filter and going on about fixing the sprinkler system.

Except you know (and I know! That's the sucks part.) that there's no way in hell to get anything to thread back into a hole from which a geyser is escaping. Imagine trying to thread the bolt back on to a fire hydrant on full blast and you'll get what I'm saying here.

It's not possible.

Though it is possible to become completely soaked and nearly drown in your front yard while trying.

Thank god I was wearing a dark tshirt and pants for this exercise otherwise it would have gotten porny. And thank goodness the sound of water escaping from the center of the earth as though shot through a cannon muffles the pathetic panicked weeping of idiots (me).

Eventually, after I'd soaked everything I was wearing and called attention to myself from all the neighbors who already think I drink at all hours, I went running to the basement and stopped the madness.

Finally.

Then I determined that the manifold wasn't clogged at all. It was just broken. Because it sits at the corner of our driveway and I am not so swift backing into said driveway and tend to run it over. Also with the trash can on garbage day.

Whatever!

I had an extra manifold on hand (thank you, Bubba, for being so forward thinking to buy these things in bulk) and so I replaced it and HA HA magically all the lines worked.

Miracles.

At that point, I felt a bit knackered and had no desire to check the bees, sow another flat of seeds, set up my grow op extension (for peppers and cucumbers, people. Not weed.), deadhead daffodils or do anything else that required being in the yard, so I changed into dry clothes (which, obviously) so that Fester and I could go on a date.

No Bubba? Take Fester.

You know what's the best way to slow the hell down and be happy? Drive an old Volkswagen.

Seriously.

In my flip flops and tank top, I hopped into Fester, rolled back the sunroof, downed the windows and drove all the way across town to my favorite nursery to buy one random plant (to replace one that had died at the hands of the failure sprinkler manifold) at 55 MPH.

Mind you, this was all freeway driving.

Yeah, it's slow. And cheerful. And no one gives you any beef for going 55 on the freeway (OK, sometimes 60) because HELLO you're driving a 45 year old friggen car. Or maybe it's because they feel bad for you while you blast KNBR on your AM radio.

Whatever - there is no possible way to be sad while driving this car with its sunroof down to the nursery. It's just not possible.

I was so cheered up in just a few minutes on the road that I gave those freaks on the highway overpasses with the big Ron Paul and Go America posters a peace sign instead of my middle finger.

How's THAT for an attitude adjustment?

And then I bought a new salvia to replace the one that croaked at the hands of the broken manifold, went to a local market to get my favorite sandwich and sat in the backyard talking to my mom on the phone.

CUTEST.

Pretty fucking awesome.

Then a bunch of other knackery things happened like a beehive check and the setting up of the Grow Op Annex and sowing a ton of seeds and laundry and, and, and...but I'm knackered, like I said, so I'm going to stop now.

If someone can remind me about what I'd promised to blog about, I'll try to smush that and all that stuff I just mentioned into another equally long, equally mind-numbing post that will do not much more than remind you what a nutter I've become.