May 13, 2008
Nature has a sense of humor.
Is zucchini a weed? In the past I have only had this level of gardening success with weeds -- I have grown weeds that would make you cry with joy (or pain.) But I have never successfully grown many useful things -- case in point: all of my watermelon plants have died. AGAIN.
You may be wondering how they could die AGAIN, but this is just another year in the long sad cycle of me and dead watermelon seedlings. I try every year and still they die. Every year.
Look how dead they are, there is not even a sign that something green used to be planted here:
Obviously... I am growing dirt.
So I had two big empty patches of dirt where the watermelon plants were supposed to be happily growing and waiting for their squareness to begin. But no luck. I decided to go out back to the Back 40 and look at my raised bed garden to see how the one lone zucchini outrider -- that I did not plant -- and my two pumpkin plants were faring. I expected the zuke to be alive and the pumpkins to be dead.
The good news: The pumpkin vines are still hanging on! The bad news: There are five more seedlings just sprouting from the barren ground and they are suspiciously zucchini-like. One can safely assume that nature thinks this is hilariously funny and wants me to be afraid of my backyard.
Just to recap:
1) Sometime last fall the gardeners got tired of looking at the scary huge-ass zucchini plants that were taking over the back backyard and while I was away they cleaned the whole thing out including about two inches of my organic dirt.
2) There was nothing in the raised bed garden all winter.
3) Just dirt and probably bug poop.
4) Then one day I noticed a green thing growing in there. It was a zucchini plant.
5) I did not plant this zucchini. I did not plant any zucchini seeds. I did not water, fertilize or even look at the back backyard.
6) Now there are MORE mystery seedings!! Popping up from the dustbowl of barrenness and despair!!
I am a little afraid, because I have never in my life had wild zucchini sprouting up here and there, it is not normal for plantlike things to flourish in my presence. I have already lost a thyme plant and a whole marjoram that was eaten in one night by a fat neon green worm. Later I thought it was kind of sad that I don't live in a worm-eating culture because he was probably really tasty, having been seasoned from the inside out with pure organic marjoram.
ANYWAY, this coming weekend I will move the two zucchini seedlings (or at least I suspect that is what they are, they could be body-snatching plants WHO KNOWS, time will tell) into the watermelon patch on the sunny side of the yard and another seedling over to the shadier side of the yard. What I am saying here is that I am going to have a houseful of zucchini again, I have just resigned myself to the idea that I will have to learn how to cook. Or better yet, I should learn how to make biodiesel out of squash and then learn how to single-handedly convert my Jeep to run off zukediesel insted of gas and then I could have a neverending zuke-based economy!!! Or, you know, I could learn to cook.
OR, maybe they make good wine!! That would be a self-sustaining economy right there. Zucchini wine!!!
Posted by laurie at 11:14 AM | Comments (61)
Tuesday winner!
Congratulations to Suzi in Fullerton, your package is in the mail ... tomorrow because I totally forgot to bring a book in today. I need an assistant! Named Julio, who is 18 and very tan....
New winner tomorrow! Read about the sweepstakes if you haven't already, and enter to win right here.
If you have already entered your name is still good to go for the next drawing. Except Suzi, who already won. And Julio.
Posted by laurie at 10:53 AM | Comments (15)
May 12, 2008
Put that in your bag and smoke it!
The cool people at Envirosax contacted me a few weeks ago (just after I extolled their mighty nylon virtues right here in a fit of earth-friendly happiness) and they offered to provide me with five sets of rockstar Envirosax to give away to my readers. Each set contains five bags from the Green Grocer collection:
And it was smart of them to offer up the Green Grocer bags, they're colorful but not printed with a pattern so that if you aren't a floral fan or mad about mod, you're still winning a great bag. The only nit is that the handy carrying cases for the set are backordered so the winners of this here sweepstakes will be carrycase-less. But still, winners will be five Envirosax richer!
So go over and enter the give-away today at crazyauntpurl.com/sweepstakes. There will be five winners and each winner will get a set of five cool Envirosax plus a signed copy of my book just because. The book has nothing to do with Envirosax but I like to give, and I only have three cats so ... books it is!
The rules are pretty simple:
• You get one entry per email address (the duplicates will be filtered out.)
• Any person from anywhere on planet earth is eligible to win.
• I will draw one winner at random starting tomorrow morning and do so for five days (math challenged? that means the final winner will be announced on Saturday morning.)
• All email entries from any day of the week are eligible for each drawing, meaning that if you enter today you will be eligible for all five drawings!
• As usual, I never re-purpose, re-sell or re-distribute your email address. I have enough issues with spam, I certainly wouldn't spam you!
So that's the big Monday goings on here at Chez Bagpipes, and each day this week I will draw a new winner's name from the pile and announce it here in between the normal goings on which tomorrow involve zucchini. Or at least I think they're zucchini. God only knows what is happening in my yard.
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Posted by laurie at 08:43 AM | Comments (79)
May 09, 2008
When Soba runs for office...
... this will be her campaign poster:
Republicat or Democat? No.... definitely Dictatorcat!
(I did not even know she had a black Dictator's Scarf. Who knew!)
- - -
Have a great and furry weekend! ("I am Sobakowa and I approve this message.")
Posted by laurie at 08:22 AM | Comments (56)
May 08, 2008
If Frankie were a professional actress....
... this would be her "wide-eyed starlet" headshot:
Posted by laurie at 08:31 AM | Comments (66)
May 07, 2008
If Bob had a driver's license...
... this would be his DMV mugshot:
Dude, I'm like... all serious and stuff.
Posted by laurie at 08:26 AM | Comments (75)
May 06, 2008
The buck of the collective state of insanity stops... there. Way over there.
I don't want to generalize or anything, because generalizing is wrong (yet so convenient!), but it seems like every human being on the planet is cranky and combative these days. I am rounding up of course, since I have not met every human.
Perhaps it's a widespread low-level depression, or a collective free-floating anxiety. Maybe it is a combination of financial stresses from an economy that is currently at a terror threat level of "Industrial Concrete Grey" -- that is the color they paint the inside of debtor's prison. People at the gas stations all across America are mad, people at gas stations in other countries are mad at Americans for being mad, and people in grocery stores everywhere are downright pissy.
This is because stuff is expensive. I am not so good at math, but I estimate everything at the store to be one gazillion times more expensive than this time last year. Give or take ten dollars.
Or maybe people are overwhelmed from the constant blaring news headlines yelling at us emphatically about how something new is going to kill you, maim you or rob you blind... tune in at ten for more details. (I always want to know... if something is THAT important, shouldn't you tell me now instead of making me tune in at ten p.m.? What if I get killed, maimed or robbed blind between now and ten? Where is your commitment to my well-being?)
People also seem poised to argue any point at any time no matter if that point has any bearing on anything at all. It is kind of like being in high school debate class when you got SO MAD about that thing that time ... and you can't really remember what it was but you were still SO RIGHT. For example, if you say, "Hey I saw a cute movie pre-teen girls might like..." people say, "You're an jerk who is perpetuating stereotypes about the differences between boys and girls!" If you say, "What can I use in this smoothie besides a banana?" someone writes you an email demanding to know what you have against nature's finest fruit. "How dare you malign the poor banana? People in other countries DIE to produce your banana!" And you are left to wonder A) when bananas became so dangerous and B) who has time to sit around scolding strangers about their smoothie contents.
What I am saying here is that everyone is batshit crazy right now and I believe it is global. It cannot possibly be limited to Encino-Adjacent and one block of downtown Los Angeles.
In full disclosure and with a nod to the observer effect on scientific research, I admit that I myself am not immune from the global beserkedness. No, I truly do believe that much like charity, true crazy starts at home. Case in point: last week I passively aggressively confronted the Coffee Pot Bandit. I saw him leave the coffee pot at work dry TWO DAYS IN A ROW and I lost my damn mind. Over a coffee pot. First (on Day One) I just stood in shock that he drained the coffee pot before my very eyes and sauntered off with nary a nod to a coffee filter. When I returned to my senses, I did the only thing I could -- I made faces at his retreating back as I held my empty coffee cup of rage. Later I tried to get my Deepak on and lower my blood pressure by imagining that Coffee Pot Bandit was actually working on a proposal to cure cancer so I cut him some slack and made a fresh pot of coffee and called it a day. Breathe in, breathe out, etc. But then when he repeated his performance the following day, I remembered OH YEAH, I WORK AT A BANK so he was totally NOT CURING CANCER! Then I was mad and confrontational! Later I told a joke about cameltoe. No one laughed. My whole day was just not right.
I would also like to mention I outweigh Coffee Pot Bandit by about forty pounds and he better not meet me in a dark alley. NOT THAT I AM HOLDING A GRUDGE OR ANYTHING.
It just seems like any old thing will set someone off these days ... even though coffee, in my defense, is more expensive per gallon than premium unleaded. (Or at least I think it is, it was a few days ago when I was formulating this hypothesis ... I haven't filled up my Jeep today and I could be wrong.) In just the past week I have seen a man on the bus yell at a woman for talking on her phone, I have witnessed two people get in a fight over a parking space at a grocery store, and I have seen a crazy person confront a poor unsuspecting coworker about leaving the coffee pot dry.
In my scientific reasoning brain, the one I use for making up statistics and also fooling people into thinking I am smart, I have surmised from my serious research of the topic that 97.3% of the population of Earth is collectively disgruntled and we need a vacation.
That is pretty much the end of my research. Because as you know, it's really expensive to fly anywhere or drive anywhere and people are really irritable when they travel. I am thinking a vacation alone in the bathtub might be nice.
I do not know what the solution is... prozac dispensers in the hallways? Rum in the water supply? Gnomes who turn into male dancers named Fox? I do not know, I don't posit solutions I merely observe for science. But we should all agree right now to leave the coffee pot full at all times because until they invent a hybrid version of me that runs on part electric, part caffeine I really need at least that particular cup to runneth over.
Finally, in conclusion, ad nauseum, ipsum lorem dolar, I am certain there are people who will argue this hypothesis of mine. They will say, "But you're wrong! I'm not cranky or argumentative! I'm great! I feel happy and joyful!" and there is an explanation for this anomaly: these people are aliens. Because science doesn't lie.
Also if you know about any gnomes that turn into hot male dancers named Fox... do not hesitate to share this data with me. I will research the matter and report back to you. In the name of science.
Posted by laurie at 08:09 AM | Comments (193)
May 05, 2008
Yes we have no bananas today
While I do enjoy my berry good smoothies regularly, sometimes I don't want to add a banana. I may not have a banana, for example. Or I may have them but they're really really ripe ... compost ripe if you know what I mean and I think you do.
But if you still want the creamy goodness that a banana provides and you either don't like bananas or don't have one on hand, what do you add instead to get the smoothie smooth?
Ideas? Suggestions?
Posted by laurie at 09:37 AM | Comments (135)
May 02, 2008
Kid stuff
If you have kids -- especially girl kids -- I cannot imagine how hard it would be to find appropriate movies and TV shows to watch with them. Especially for the tween-age girls. So I am about to admit to how much of a dork I truly am while doing so under the guise of being helpful to moms who have daughters.
You see, I don't do your Netflix or your DVD-watching or general admission movie watching pretty much ever, except on the rare occasion that I need to see a gem like say The Bodyguard, and when urges such as that come over me they are all-consuming I have to see said movie rightnowrightnowRIGHTNOW. But in general I don't have a lot of free time for moviewatching. I think the last time I sat my butt in a real movie theater was when the last Bourne movie came out and before that it was... uh? Probably the Bourne movie before it. I love me some Jason Bourne.
But sometimes I get a window of opportunity and a sleepless night and they collide when the planets align and the stars get twinkly and for that brief interlude I am forever grateful to the human who invented Movies On Demand. I am certain this clever person was an insomniac herself, and she spent many a sleepless night wanting to get wrapped up in some relatively-new-release movie and yet it was 3:25 a.m. and all the stores were closed and like some people we know, mail order is TOO DAMN SLOW to fulfill the one magical window of opportunity.
Movies On Demand is pretty much the best insomniac invention since the Tivo. Or with the Tivo. Tomato, tomahto. While I am trying valiantly to cut back on my TV viewing (and I have) there are still times when it's 3 a.m. and you can't sleep and none of the books on the nightstand seem appealing and your neighborhood is too ghetto to go out and go for a walk or anything productive and you really just want to watch a movie and forget you have to be at work in three and a half hours.
You know?
With Movies On Demand you just scroll through whatever your cable company has on tap (mine has bazillions of movie titles and TV shows and all kinds of stuff) and with a press of the B button (for BUY! Buy!) you get your selection right then and there, delivered to your teevee through the modern marvel of technology. No gas was harmed in the delivery of your movie! The fee shows up as an additional charge on your cable bill and it's usually between $1.99 and $3.99 for a movie.
And that is how I managed to see "Waitress" (cute) and "Michael Clayton" (very good, love you George!) and that is how I found myself one night not too long ago watching a tween movie called "Sydney White
Sydney White is a modern Snow White re-telling, with that frothy cute Amanda Bynes as Sydney White who goes to college to pledge her dead mom's sorority (I'm surprised it wasn't a Disney film ... there's always a dead mom in the story somewhere!) and the sorority girls are meanies and Sydney is banished and ends up in a house with Seven Dorks. And it's actually (and surprisingly) a really charming and cute movie and even I wouldn't be afraid to show it to a kid-sized girl, and I am notoriously fickle about what I think kids should be allowed to watch on the magic screen. (Have you heard of that book, "I was the perfect mother until I had kids"? That's me in a nutshell. Yup.) But it's a cute movie, so even though I'm unmasking myself as the lamest old lady on the block it's for a good cause. So you can thank me when you have one pretty good movie to watch with your twelve-year-old.
That's right, thank the middle-aged insomniac with three cats. There's nothing weird at all about that.
Posted by laurie at 04:17 AM | Comments (71)
May 01, 2008
May Day
May 1st has many meanings. For one thing, it is my mom's birthday, and she is fabulous and I am a horrible child who waits until the last minute to send anything and everything, and thus her gift should be arriving in the mail... shortly.
But hello and Happy Birthday!
Also May 1st in Los Angeles is very exciting because people who apparently do not do such things as "develop secretary spread in stale office air" such as myself take to the streets in the middle of the day and swarm the city with chaos and then people throw coke bottles at the police and then the police shoots them. I have never really understood the whole May Day Melee thing but then again I do not understand quantum physics and still I say things like "entanglement" on a regular basis.
People will hold placards and some will have bullhorns and there will be more sirens than usual and downtown will be a mess. Or not! Because you never know, people might just go get a plate of hotwings and a pitcher and call it a day. The buses may or may not run, the city may or may not perish, and either way... it's still May.
How on earth did we get to May so soon?
Posted by laurie at 08:36 AM | Comments (67)
