Something else to do with your junk mail

Despite our dedication to Greendimes and the frequency with which we update our preferences (to tell them which junk we don't want to get anymore), we still end up with some junk in our mail.

Like chocolate in our peanut butter, but less delicious and ideal.

If only junk in the mail was as good as chocolate in peanut butter...that would be incredible. I would love getting the mail. I would love our mailman. Even when he walks across my landscaping and smushes my plants because he's too lazy to use the walkway. EVEN THEN.

But let's stop talking about all that because it's not going to happen. The chocolate, the delicious junk mail or the mailman using the walkway instead of my African Iris for his walking.

Instead, we can make our junk mail delicious in another way. And give it a real purpose in life other than making sure it's plainly obvious to everyone who drives by that we haven't yet picked up our mail so might be out of town and HEY ROB US. Or whatever.

How can we do this? We can use those glossy junkie mailers as stencils, y'all, and monogram things.

Because we all know my glorious history with monograms. Still though, stay with me.

First, bake something you want to monogram. I used cupcakes. Funfetti cupcakes to be exact. For a friend who is having a birthday and who loves Funfetti baked goods with all her heart and soul because she's *that way.*

I'm more of a red velvet cupcake kind of person, but it's not my birthday so weh.

Then, let them cool because otherwise the frosting does that annoying peeling-off-of-the-cupcake-skin thing when you go to put it on and UGH. Annoying. Once they're cool though, go to town frosting them with whatever frosting you want. I used Funfetti frosting because, obviously, and also because it comes with sprinkles whose grand importance will later become obvious.

The Funfetti frosting is really just vanilla. In case you have been fooled by it before. Not that I have. Ahem.

Then go to your recycling bin or mail box and look for a nice piece of junk mail that includes a letter somewhere on it that's appropriate for your monogramming. My friend's name begins with the letter, "A", so I found a nice flyer from Mike's Bikes who was advertising their 45th Anniversary Sale.

No, Mike, I do not want to purchase a $5900 roadbike, but thanks anyway.

Notice that "Sale" has an "A" in it, if you haven't already figured out where I was going there. C'mon. Keep up.

With your Xacto knife/razor blade/ninja sword, cut out the letter to the best of your ability, leaving the rest of the piece intact.

"Best" is subjective.

Now, take one of your frosty cupcakes and place the stencil on the cupcake somewhere around the center of the thing. Kind of push it down on there so it sticks. Don't smash it.

It's also good if your frosting is flat where you put your stencil. Just saying.

Pour some sugar sprinkles onto the letter part of the thing.

I'm not going to tell you how old these sprinkles are because sugar never goes bad. Right?

Press those sprinkles down gently with your finger and don't be judging my little girl fingers because one day I'll be glad I have puny hands. Like when I lose something down a hole with a narrow opening or something.

Also, don't smush too hard.

Now - AND THIS IS IMPORTANT - lift the paper DIRECTLY UP from the corners of the letter in one swift movement. This keeps awful smearing from happening. Trust me.

I'm not going to lie. This wasn't the first one I made. The first one I made is featured at the end of this post as a warning.

Admire your work and then decorate the rest of the cupcake as you wish. Or don't. This is fine as it is.

Now, if you want to use the opposite image, you can do that, too. Just place the letter itself in the center-ish part of the cupcake, sprinkle on some sprinkles (yes, I said that), press gently and remove in the same manner: From the corners, lift directly up, etc.

You can also cut out different fonts of the same letter from other crap in your mail box, if you so desire.

For the cursive crowd.

And when you totally eff one up and you can't even tell what the letter is supposed to be, you can use the sprinkles to cover up your shame. And now you see why I bought the Funfetti frosting - Crucial shame covering sprinkles in there.

This was cupcake #1 and let it be a warning to all of you about what happens when you don't lift directly up with that stencil.

When you're all done making a semi-small mess in your kitchen, put all your cupcakes in your cupcake carrier thingee and try to not drop the whole thing while you're carrying 16 bags of crap to your car.

See how some of them don't even look like "A"s? Yeah. It happens.

Not that I know anything about that.

Running update: Month of 12s

Last Saturday I spent my 12 miles thinking not so much about oh my god I have so much farther to go but rather trying to rationalize not doing any hill training for this race that I know to include hills.

You'll remember my ambitious Month of 11s idea to go run The Dish as training for this hilly race and how I was going to be out there, rainstorm or heatwave, battling it out getting my hamstrings all in shape to cope with the 175' gains of the Seattle RNR.

Yes, well, that idea sounded less and less appealing as the time approached to actually go do the training, but not for the reason you think.

I mean, of course running hills sucks. I'm not going to be one of those people that's like, "Oh, running hills isn't that bad - in fact, I kind of like it because it gives my quads a break." because that is something an asshole who has never run in my legs would say.

A break? Over a 375' gain? Um, no. That is a lie. There are no breaks for anything when you're fighting gravity for 375'.

No, the thing that has kept me from doing this The Dish training is the drive.

That's right - the drive TO The Dish is a much bigger deterrent than actually running The Dish.

See, I'm an exerciser of convenience and efficiency, people. I think the only reason that running has stuck with me as a form of exercise over the last few years is because all I have to do is put on my shoes and trot out the front door.

Similar to my other routine exercise activities, this doesn't require me to have any extra special equipment or travel extended distances for something that will take me less than 30 minutes to complete.

And if you take a look at my race history, you'll notice that all but one race happened within a 20 minute drive from my house. And that So Far Away Race was my first race ever and the race that cemented in my mind how silly it seemed to drive for 90 minutes to run a race for 60 minutes so that I could drive 90 minutes home.

Now, I'm not so hot with numbers, but that seems like a pretty bad return on investment for an activity that's ultimately just going to torture me.

Instead, I prefer races that are close by so that I can limit the amount of torture to the race itself without having to tack on hours of car travel or, say, trying to find parking in San Francisco, which GAH.

And the plan for running The Dish included driving at least 30 minutes and trying to park in an area well known to be a supah pain in the ass.

And so died the plan of running The Dish.

Also, I ran the elevation on my long runs and found that over the course of 12 miles, I gained and lost around 100', which is only 75' short of the gains I'll encounter in Seattle, so meh, I'll probably live. Even if I have to run reallllllllllly slow and potentially hate myself for the few hours I'm out there.

Bubba sealed the deal when he said, "Hey, remember, you hiked up some pretty steep inclines when we were in Yosemite and you were wearing a 40+lb pack at the time. I'm sure you'll be fine."

That man, he always knows just what to say.

So now I'm not running hills at all. Instead, I'm running my 12s for the first few Saturdays of June before I taper off and go for 13.1 in Seattle. Where I hope I haven't horribly misinterpreted the elevation map for the course or, more likely, wildly underestimated my coping abilities when it comes to Pain By Hills.

And just to rebut the comments I'm sure to generate with this declaration of, "I don't travel for routine exercise even though I'm about to fly to another state for a race", I'm tacking on visits to two of the most important people in my life while I'm in Washington, so I'm not so much flying to Seattle for a race, as I am flying there to see my sister and close friend during which time I will also be running around their city trying to not die.

See, it makes sense.

As for other running updates, people have stopped just staring at me like I'm a freak and have instead begun saluting.

Really. True story.

I've been saluted twice now, by different people, during my short tempo runs and I haven't the foggiest as to why anyone would be moved to do such a thing. It's not like I wear a USMC tshirt or carry a flag or run whilst resting my hand just above my brow.

No. I wear my usual tank top and shorts (yay! bare leg running is the best!), carry nothing and am usually lip-syncing along to some foul-mouthed Seether song when this happens, which you can imagine makes me feel a little like a fraud.

Here I am silently mouthing "...you're such a fuckin' hypocrite" and some nice older gentleman in a newsboy hat and scarf is saluting me, in all seriousness, as though I'm doing something salute-worthy, which I'm certainly not.

It's not like the chick I saw out running on Saturday who was getting on at a good clip WHILE PUSHING A DOUBLE STROLLER FULL OF TWO KIDS WHOA. Yeah, that girl got a nice big, "Right on!", from yours truly because HOLY - you're running fast and pushing two kids in a stroller so you are rad.

Meanwhile I, of the no-stroller pushing variety of runners, have contemplated my choice of running music, facial expressions, attire and intentions to find the reason why someone would salute someone who's running while singing swears and not pushing a double stroller until I came to the conclusion that my running top must be too tight and they're impressed that someone can drag out such a jiggly midsection to run around the block.

Good for you, Jiggly! I salute your shunning of form-hiding clothes and am impressed that you have the will to haul that around! Also thanks for not wearing your tights anymore! That was gross!

Which is a fine assumption because it means I can go on listening to my raging swearing WAAAAA music without feeling any guilt.

And in case you are awesome and want to suggest some tunes for my race day playlist (HELP ME), here's some of the stuff I just added so you know what I'm looking for and also what I'm talking about when I say, "raging swearing WAAAAAA music":

Seether, "Fake it"
Bullet for My Valentine, "Tears Don't Fall"
Taking Back Sunday, "New Again"
My Chemical Romance, "To The End"
30 Seconds to Mars, "The Fantasy"
Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, "You Better Pray"

And on the lighter side:
Coconut Records, "Microphone"
Franz Ferdinand, "No You Girls"
Spinnerette, "Ghetto Love"
Goldfrapp, "Oh la la"

Adopt a Crop update: Cage-free cucumbers + First beans

I know you're all desperate for a garden update since I haven't talked about it in, oh, five whole minutes, so here I am to tell you that WE HAVE BEANS.


Yes. I picked our first handful of beans this morning while I sat on the garden bed bench amongst the rapidly narrowing paths. It's a time I never think will come when I'm planting seeds in the beds, but inevitably June arrives and thus, the benches vanish into the plants.

See you in the fall.

Soon I'll have to move to my garden chair to eat my breakfast, drink my morning bev, watch Rocket spy on the birds at their feeder and generally hide from reality, since these paths will be nearly unnavigable in a few weeks.

Which is fine. I need tomatoes more than I need sitting places.

Don't worry, the birds are in no danger whatsoever. She's all talk.

I won't lie - sometimes I just hide out there like no one can see me. Like it's my big green fort and I'm seven years old and giving my My Little Ponies punk rock haircuts.

NO BOYS ALLOWED.

This morning while I sat out there, admiring the tall tall beans and picking a few, I realized that, hey, that's not a bean leaf. Nor is it a lettuce leaf or a nasturtium leaf that is weaving its way all through the bed to the other side of the waitaminute...you're a cucumber.

Hello, cucumber plant. I see you.

Yes, whoopsy, I never fully caged in one of the cucumber mounds so, HELLO, it has gone over its short wall and started to climb its way through the nasturtium, lettuce and under the beans to, well, I don't know. Where do cucumbers go when they're not carefully caged in and growing upward?

Wherever we damn well please, that's where.

Well, I guess we'll find out because it's way too late now to do anything about it, so I'm just going to let them do their thing. Maybe they'll climb up the bean tepee and make themselves at home putting out fruit from a more vertical position or perhaps they'll climb out the other side of the bed and just do whatever plants do when they're not under constant surveillance from The Garden Frau (that's me).

Either way, all the cucumber plants are showing signs of future fruit, and the Cage-Free Cucumber has blossoms on it, which means Cucumbers Soon! And then Pickle Chips soon! And good things like that. Yay.

Cage-free is better - or so say the hippies.

And did I mention I picked some beans this morning? The first ones of the season? Yes, well, I could get all revved up about it except that I know that soon we'll have so many friggen beans from our plants and from the farmshare that I'll be wondering why I was so adamant about having a 100% germination rate with the beans when HOLY we don't need so many.

I should note here that, when building the tepee, I thought it was too tall.

Thankfully, when beans run out of line to climb, they just climb each other.

Early spring eyes are often so much bigger than mid-summer bellies. Weird, that.

I expect to have a similar reaction to the tomato bounty that may soon be upon us. And I'm already having that reaction to the lettuce which is impossible to keep up with even with giving it away and eating salads big enough for two people.

Lettuce is a meal, right?

And the corn. Oh the corn. It looks, in my unbiased opinion, super beautiful. And, much to my delight because I'm a meanie, it's now big enough to rustle. In the wind. So when the breeze cuts through the corn, the leaves all brush together and make, what I think, is a very peaceful growie kind of sound. But, if you're my neighbor, they make The Creepiest Sound on Earth.

*rustle rustle*

He hates the sound of rustling corn. Freaks him right out. Like small glassy-eyed haunted kids are going to come staggering out of the corn all, "I want to eat your brains!" or whatever Children of the Corn say. Which I wouldn't know since I never saw the movie. Thankfully, since I can still enjoy the rustling of corn while sitting amongst it instead of, say, running back inside until the wind dies down.

That's what weirdos do.

And here's one of my garden watchdogs who won't go trampling through the corn in a well-meaning effort to rid the yard of squirrels.

Who said squirrel?

Something to eat if it's summer where you are. Bitches. [RECIPES]

So, not that I'm *really* complaining, because I don't super love the MEGA HEAT of summer all the time, but it's supposed to thunderstorm today and, frankly, it's a little cool for Summer.

According to our weather dude, the Super Tan and Semi-Spicy Steve Paulson who is clearly getting bored with traditional suit attire given his flouncy purple tie the other day, we are in the middle of some sort of low pressure situation which means whatever shit is blowing around over the Pacific is just going to sweep into the Bay Area and give us conditions we usually call, "Winter".

OK, so he didn't call the weather system, "shit", but I kinda did when it meant it was going to be raining when I was planning to be outside FOREVER on my new patio and amongst my very enthusiastically growing vegetables.

But whatever. I suppose rain is a good thing since we're in a perma-drought and we're doing our damnedest to put off mandatory rationing.

The horror of mandatory rationing and not being able to WATER YOUR SIDEWALKS LIKE IDIOTS YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! It's too much.

ANYWAY.

I had planned to do some amount of new recipe trying during my break around here, and since it was scheduled to be summer when I started compiling these recipes, I had set aside one that seemed perfect for MEGA HOT SUMMER weather.

But then it was 70 degrees yesterday, which is dandy since it meant none of us in this unA/Ced house were to face the unrelenting roasting that comes as a result of normal 90+ degree June days, but it also made it seem silly to be making a cold dinner while wearing a sweatshirt.

What to do?

Why, make a warm dessert to accompany my cold dinner and have cocktails to rationalize my behavior, of course!

And since I still had a good amount of cherries left from the ice cream making and a new cobbler topping recipe from Dig up there in Montana, it didn't take too much mind-bending to put together the evening's menu.

Because that's what I do with time off, I plan menus because I'm a loser. SORRY, I LIKE THIS STUFF.

So, whatever, for those of you living through true summer heat or in the market for a cold dinner that's YUM and also uses a lot of vegetables and is great as leftovers and won't heat the living daylights out of your house or self while you make it, might I suggest a lovely chicken salad chock full of every damn thing we had in the house and then a few more things that we decided will go into it next time?

Yes, I think I will suggest it.

Finny's Chicken Salad with a Whole Lot of Stuff in it

Adapted from our farmshare's recipe for Debbie's Chicken Salad with Mei Qing (or Bok) Choi
My changes in BOLD

Ingredients

Salad:
2 shredded cooked chicken breasts
1 T garlic powder
6 diced mei qing choi (or bok choi)
1 diced green onion 1 Diced green garlic 1/2 cup Chopped walnuts
1 handful of Maytag blue cheese, crumbled
1/4 cup plumped dried cranberries and pomegranate seeds (try TJ's for these)
1 avocado, diced*
3 slices of bacon, crisped and crumbled*
* Denotes ingredients we'll use NEXT time

Dressing:
1/4 cup of walnut oil
Zest from a whole orange
½ t honey
1/2 t Dijon mustard
1 T balsamic vinegar
2 T mayo
Salt and pepper to taste

To make
To save your poor self and house from unnecessary heating up - crockpot this chicken while you're at work. Or in the yard eating ice cream. Whatever.

Coat your breasts (HAAAAA) with salt, pepper and garlic powder and set it in your crockpot at 300 degrees first thing in the morning. When you get back to the chicken later in the day (I'm estimating about 6-8 hours, here), remove your breasts (HAAAA) to a large bowl and shred that chicken until you can shred no more. It's not that hard, I just like to play up the drama. Set aside.

Combine dressing ingredients in a jar with a lid. Shake furiously until you no longer hold ill will against the neighbors who water their sidewalks. ASSHOLES!

OK, I should have spent more time shaking the jar.

Toss chicken, choi, nuts, cheese, cranberries, bacon and avocado with the dressing then serve with some nice fresh sourdough as you preheat the oven for dessert.

Allow me to introduce you to Mei Qing Choi. It's a favorite of our farmshare and one of this year's Mystery Vegetables. Until now.

This is green garlic and green onion co-mingling in a green bowl. I guess I'm not one for contrast.

This is Maytag blue cheese and it is worth whatever price you have to pay. Even if Whole Foods wants your arms and legs in exchange for a wedge. Just pay it and get on with your life.
Chicken shreds up super easy after a day crocking in the pot. Or you could buy one of those Devil pre-cooked chickens at the grocery, but why? Look at all the plastic. Waste.
I always pile my salad ingredients like this before I mix. Because I like to admire the perfect piles. Because I'm a psycho.
The dressing didn't look *right* to me, but don't worry, it definitely tastes *right*.

And now for dessert...

The Hob Cobbler

Topping recipe by Dig
Filling recipe by Finny

Ingredients
Two pints of fresh cherries, pitted and halved
Juice from 1/2 Meyer lemon
1/3 cup of sugar

Topping
2 cup flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks cold butter, cubed
3/4 cup milk

To make
In an 8x8 glass baking dish, mix your cherries, lemon juice and sugar. Cover with plastic wrap and let macerate on your counter for a couple hours. Try not to watch - that's called being a Peeping Tom and I hear it's a crime. Just saying.

Meanwhile, make Dig's cobbler topping and put it in the fridge until your cherries are done with their naughtiness.

Preheat the oven to 375 (like I said to do at the end of the salad recipe. You remember.)

Pat the topping down on top of the cherries which are all nice and level in the bottom of your glass dish (right?) and slam it in the oven for about 45 mins, or until nice and golden on top. If you time it right, it can bake while you have dinner and then, by the time you're done with dishes and have gone outside to admire the corn, your dessert will be ready to eat in front of the latest episode of Deadliest Catch.

Oh that Mike Rowe, I could eat him for dessert, but we won't get into that.

Slice and serve, preferably either next to or beneath some Fresh Cherry Vanilla Chip Ice Cream.

Bubba said he definitely wanted his ice cream on the side because he's a communist.

I wanted mine on top because I'm right. Obviously.

This is why I'm a grown-up.

When I was a kid I used to say that when I was a grown-up, I'd go out to lunch every day. Because going to Jack in the Box with my mom when we were out running errands was THE highlight of my life.

Don't judge me for my fast food ways. There is something cute about a mom pushing a french fry through her daughter's missing tooth hole. There is. Trust me.

Anyway, while I haven't indulged the Going to Jack in the Box Everyday privilege of being a grown-up (because I'm more of an In-N-Out girl now and there's not one close by. Thankfully.) I do sometimes make other childhood-influenced choices.

Like having ice cream in the middle of the day for no good reason other than because I made some.

From fresh cherries picked at my house and my neighbor's.

My house's cherries. Small but delicious.

My neighbor's cherries. ENORMO and also delicious.

Oh yes, friends, it's Cherry Season at Finny's again, and more importantly the beginning of Pie Season. Because the farmshare brings us strawberries every week so we have ice cream and pie and the cherry tree across the street (and now in our yard WOO) are heavy with fruit so we have ice cream and cobbler and also pie and then in no time the blackberry bushes at my folks' will be covered in berries so we'll have cobbler and muffins and blackberry pie.

We like pie here, have I told you?

Anyway, despite our love for pie, the first thing I made with our windfall of cherries was ice cream. Cherry Vanilla Chip ice cream, to be specific.

And I will say that it is quite good. In that, "I am aware that the deliciousness I'm experiencing is the direct result of eating a dish created solely from cream, sugar, vanilla, cherries and chocolate."

I mean, duh. Obviously it's going to be good. Those are all good things that do bad things to my ass. Whatever.

But, in my defense, I did move 2 cubic yards of dirt by shovel and wheel barrow this morning after ripping out half our lawn, so I feel as though I'm cleared for takeoff in the calorie way.

The fact that I have this month's Craft: along recipe for Carrot Cake Cookies on my kitchen counter next to Farmgirl's Lemon Coconut Quick Bread recipe and I'm also at this moment crockpotting some pulled pork for these tacos for dinner IS NOT IMPORTANT EITHER because, well, all the ingredients to make these things are available and fresh and local and ready to make Bubba smile which means that they have zero calories for me because they're offset by my good-doing. And lawn-ripping. And dirt moving. And any other reason I can think of to justify my sinful dietary ways.

ANYWAY.

If you find yourself standing under a very full cherry tree OR if your neighbor was kind enough to lend you his orchard ladder (thanks, Rick!) so that you could get the really good dark BIG cherries from the top of the tree, and you also have an ice cream maker - you could make some ice cream, too. And then sit in your backyard like a Lady of Leisure and watch your dog chase squirrels out of your garden while you eat your midday ice cream.

Or whatever. You could do something else, I suppose.

Cherry Vanilla Chip Ice Cream

Adapted from Cuisinart's recipe booklet for Strawberry Ice Cream
My changes in BOLD

Ingredients
1 pint of fresh cherries - pitted, halved
3 T fresh Meyer lemon juice
1 cup of sugar, divided
1 cup of whole milk
2 cups of heavy cream
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 cup chocolate chips

To make
FREEZE THAT ICE CREAM MAKER BUCKET FOR AT LEAST 24 HOURS. JUST DO IT.

I say that in such a way that you should automatically assume that I did NOT freeze the bucket for 24 full hours and so ended up having to freeze it overnight before I could have some ice cream waaaaaaaaaa. But you know me by now and so I'm sure you didn't need this little explanation. Sorry.

In a small bowl, combine the cherries with the lemon juice and 1/3 cup of sugar. Stir it up and let it sit for a couple hours so it can get all juicy and shiny and irresistible looking. This process is called macerating which, to me, sounds like something naughty and violent combined. Fun.

SPANK ME.

The big one on the left is HALF of one of my neighbor's cherries while a WHOLE one of mine is on the right. Someday...

While your cherries are doing naughtiness, whisk the milk and the rest of the sugar until it's dissolved. Then add in your heavy cream and some of the juiciness from your naughty cherries.

Turn on the power to your ice cream maker (which means the supah frozen bucket is on there and the mixer deal is inside and the dome lid is on) and pour this mixture BUT NOT THE CHERRIES YET through the spout on top.

Let it churn around in there for a good 30 minutes before pouring your naughty cherries in. And, right before you throw in the cherries, toss in the chocolate chips.

And, not that you'd want to, but if you wanted something super "Cherry" looking, you could add food coloring, but I find that to be an affront to nature and will not have it in my house.

Instead, we have the pale-ish ice cream with the dark red cherries and the world continues to spin on its axis. Without any artificial colors. Lovely.

If, for some reason, you get to the end of this recipe and your ice cream is, say, the consistency of soup, cover the bowl with some plastic wrap and tuck it between some big frozen slabs of beef (or equivalent) in your freezer. I've heard it also helps if you stack a frozen pie crust, a bag of frozen pulled pork and a sack of frozen coffee beans on top, too.

BUT THAT'S JUST WHAT I'VE HEARD.

You know.

Anyway, once you're actually ready to scoop yourself some Cherry Vanilla Chip loveliness, I recommend going out to your backyard and sitting in the sunshine where you can see your garden making beans and your dog losing her mind over a shitstarting squirrel.

Adopt a Crop update: Plus everything else update, too.

Hi, it's been a while...

When I flew back into the Bay Area on Friday the pilot got on the not-loud-enough intercom to announce that the ground temp in San Jose was a breezy 72 degrees.

Oh sweet mother, that's what I like.

Especially since when I took off from Phoenix, it was an even 100 degrees. And I was wearing a hoodie because apparently I'm easily influenced by the crazy heat-ignorers of the Phoenix area who wear cool weather clothes despite the face-melting temperatures outside.

Do you know that I saw MANY people wearing jeans in Scottsdale? Do you know that my best friend said to me upon arrival, "You're lucky to visit this week - the weather's been so nice - not even 100!"

To which I said, "Hi. Are you retarded?" and then, "I don't think I have enough sunscreen on. Even to be inside."

My skin was scared.

Anyway, I'm home. Back in the Bay Area where it was a glorious overcast 55 degrees for my 11 mile Saturday run in which I did not collapse under the weight of two weeks without a long run (remember Yellowstone and Yosemite? Yeah, no running happened.). Perhaps it was because I have managed to keep up my mid-week runs even though one of them happened in Phoenix and even though I ran at 6am and it STILL turned out to be nearly 90 degrees because WHOOPSY I got lost and ran an extra two miles trying to find my way back to my friend's house amongst a sea of pink and beige single family establishments thus tacking on a few extra minutes during which the sun went into SCORCH EVERYTHING mode.

*Sigh* Sometimes I'm the retard.

But, when I got home from a week of ritualistic sunscreen application (on myself, friends and goddaughter), I was rewarded with a garden that did not miss me one bit.

Go wherever you want and we will, too.

Also, while you were out, we made beans.

And we've been blooming.

And we're shading the lettuce just like you asked.

And we're knee-high by May 31st, which doesn't rhyme but is still impressive.

And we look like balls. Green ones. What does that mean?

And we've making cucumbers.

And we're full of green tomatoes.

And we're all glossy and shit.

And I got off my dead ass and started growing. Finally.

And I'm making up for lost time even though I look like a total loser next to those other tomato plants that MAY be on the 'roids but you didn't hear it from me.

Which is fine. Because I don't need the garden to miss me and throw itself into a Pining For Mama death-fit, I just need it to grow and make food and look all green and healthy so that when the neighbors come over to congregate in our backyard (which is happening with increased regularity what with the new patio) they don't think I'm a shitty gardener who can't even grow the simplest things.

I can't have that. I need them to all think I'm a master gardener even though I'm fairly certain it's all due to luck BUT WHATEVER.

And hey, that's something else - our patio is done. WOO.

Only the patio's done so don't be all "What's with the dead spot in your lawn?" because I'm handling that, OK?

I mean, WOO! Woo the fucking contractors are gone! Woo no one is blocking my driveway with a Bobcat or 5 cubic yards of crushed rock! Woo my neighbors have stopped peaking through the fence and are instead volunteering our backyard for cocktail hour.

"Uh. Hi neighbor. What's that? Why yes I am napping on my lawn at 3 in the afternoon in a sombrero and No, I don't find that strange. Also, feel free to come and go as you please because, you know, mi patio es su patio. I guess."

Oh well. At least I like these people. And at least the shitty neighbors haven't been inspired to make themselves at home over here or add to the ongoing fun-making of Girl Who Sleeps On The Lawn.

And Bubba loves it. The neighbor gathering and all. And I love the patio, so we're even. And I got to buy new patio furniture, which makes everything OK because we're going to be able to eat outside on a table like grown-ups and that is much better than spilling BBQ in your lap when it's acting as a table.

Plus, you know I now get to FINALLY landscape our backyard. Holy holy - that's good times. And what I plan to do for the next three weeks since I plan to do ZERO traveling beyond the library, pilates studio, nursery and perhaps the fabric store.

If you need me, I'll be in the backyard ripping out some lawn and not, say, flying to places on the globe where temperatures are regularly reported in three digits.