I'm not blogging....but I have pictures!

Listen, people, I'm sorry that you keep checking this blog and finding little or nothing new. It seems I'm really not much for this blogging business - for one thing, it's kinda time consuming, and time is something I'm shorter on lately than usual. I'm the world's slowest writer, I swear. For another thing, I don't think I ever managed to reach a suitable balance between personal and public on this blog. It's like, I want to talk about deep and important stuff, and what's happening in my life....but I don't want to post anything *too* personal, since, uh, it's public, and I don't want to post anything about work, because I'm trying to keep my work identity and my blogosphere identity separate. But, once you eliminate the professional and the most interesting parts of personal, what's left?? Well, not much, apparently - so I'm officially giving up!
I will continue to post pictures and travel writing (if and when I ever travel in the future) as a way of getting them out to all the friends and loved ones who'd like to see them, but I think for the time being, I'm done with straight up blogging for its own sake. 'Twas an interesting experiment - thank you all for reading. :)

The latest pictures are about a month old, from my vacation in CA to attend Amy & Chris' wedding. I left most of the picture taking at wedding related events to other people, but there are a few random photos in here worth seeing. :)

Enjoy!

Amy & Chris, SF, etc

Also, some photos from the training I was at in GA recently. These are by a guy named Mark who's in the training with me. :)

Those are my feet, and that is Spirit the dog.

Me at a meal with the crew.

THAT is a BABY SQUIRREL!!

Fire, yeeeeah. We played a lot of Mafia. :)

HOT

It's summer and it is hot hot HOT. Hecklers are out in full force in downtown Raleigh, hooting and shouting sweet nothings -
"Where have you been all my life, angel?!"
"Hello, beautiful!"
And the best one, from a young man waiting out front of a store on Wilmington Street yesterday - "right now I'm wishin' I was a little older!"
He was very young and cute, so that one was a little more sweet than icky. Just a little.
Shucks, fellas, thanks.
But generally, they're not so bad - there's not a whole lot that could scare me in broad daylight on a busy street. It is strange behavior, though. Does that ever work, do ladies ever go for a random catcaller on the street? Doesn't it scare off more ladies than it attracts?
Anyway, high temps mean the garden is growing at what seems like warp speed, weeds and all. Check out the giant, GREEN tomatoes. We keep thinking, oh, they'll turn red any day, but they don't. They just keep getting biggeR!

Garden6-28-07

I'm headed to the beach for the weekend, but not for fun.....for work! Not that work won't be fun, it will, and not that I won't squeeze in a little beach time on the side, I will, but it's less fun to go to the beach without friends, or even the dog. AND I have to wake up at an ungodly hour of the morning tomorrow. Bleh, I am so not a morning person.

Gigante

The garden is GIANT. Seriously. I am overwhelmed by how quickly things are growing, and by the quantity of food that is coming out of it. Aye carumba! Back when it was mostly dirt, it looked so modest. Just a few seeds thrown in, then little sprouts, and I thought, sure, what's one more tomato plant, or a few more lettuce seeds, throw 'em in there.
Well, we now have a lot of food. And, most of the kids have been at summer camp for a couple weeks, so they haven't been around to help with the eating of stuff.

Garden6-15-07

In other news, Amy and I had an anniversary yesterday. No, not the date we met, not the day we hatched our greatest scheme or anything like that. It was the 5th (is it 5th??) anniversary of the day we got ridiculously horribly obscenely publicly drunk by drinking alarmingly cheap bai jiu in a plastic squirt top bottle, a.k.a. "The infamous bai jiu incident." We meandered through the sleepy little town of Kangding, drinking our portable stash (it's what squirt top bottles are made for, baby!) and yucking it up in two languages. I remember skipping, I remember song and dance, I remember talking to random people, I even remember stopping to use the bathroom - one of those terrible stinky pit toilets where you have squat and suspend yourself over the chasm...in the dark...and somehow, our drunken selves did not fall in. It was a rather amazing night, right up until Amy got sick (ahem) and sorta passed out. From there on out, it was scary. It's a kind of horrible, but also kind of wonderful anniversary. Why do we remember such a painful day with such glee? Maybe we are so ridiculously squirt-top-bottle-half-full about life, we still appreciate the joy of that night, even though it ended so terribly. Or maybe we're secretly giant lushes.

Bottoms up, love!

PS: I miss Wu Bangfu, Amy. Among the many hilarious Mr. Wu stories I have, there is one from the morning after the infamous bai jiu incident, when he got called in to "handle" the situation (at 9 freakin' AM the next morning!!). After we'd had the formal meeting with the assistant headmaster and English department chairs to express the school's concern for our safety given our (admittedly ridiculous) behavior of the night before, Mr. Wu and I were left in the office alone. He said to me: "you must not be feeling so well." And I: "uh, no." He: "Well, me neither. I drank a lot last night, too, and they woke me up very early to come down here!" Me: cracking up. Mr. Wu: "One time, I got so drunk, I was sick for two days. But really, I'm a very good drinker. Next time you want to drink, you should be sure to invite me." Then, he bought me breakfast and laughed at me all the while, as it became apparent to both of us that I was not in fact hung over, but rather still somewhat drunk. Ah, Mr. Wu. I love that guy.



Wu Bangfu plays a little ditty on a tin whistle, drunk from the bottles of beer which he uncapped with his teeth. Don't ask me how - the man was just a little bit bionic. He also walked very fast.

strawberry smorgasbord

Kate and I went strawberry picking on Friday at Hilltop Farms! What started out as a royally disappointing afternoon turned into a pretty gorgeous evening. We'd been planning this strawberry picking trip with the garden crew from the Boys' Club for at least a month. The kids got their permission slips all filled in and planned out the questions they were going to ask Farmer Fred about his all-organic farm....and then the trip got postponed because of bureaucratic issues at The Boys' Club. Oh, how they whined. But we rescheduled.....only to have the bus break down the day we rescheduled to. Kate and I, upon learning this, were already convened and ready to bolt from work early to head down to the farm. After a brief spell of whining ourselves about the poor kids, we said, hey, let's go anyway and pick strawberries for the kids. And we did.

When we arrived, Farmer Fred happened to be giving an interview for a local newspaper about strawberries, and the whys and wherefors of organic food. Media darling that I am (hah!), and long-time member of Fred's CSA, I contributed my two cents and posed pretty for the camera.
Then we picked strawberries. Oh, glorious Sweet Charlies, oh heavenly blue evening, thou didst make all my troubles melt away. Strawberries plucked from the bushes and eaten immediately are mind-blowingly good.

strawberry picking 5/18/07

Then, after a mellow round of strawberry picking, we were invited in for beers and got to hear about Farmer Fred's nomination to be part of the 100 People Project. Have you heard about this? I had a vague recollection of hearing the words before, but didn't really understand what it was about, still don't entirely, but damn, does it seem cool.

The [100 People] project will find and capture in film, photography, music and text 100 individuals who represent the global population, proportionate to annual global surveys and statistics. This World Portrait will be used to make an introduction between the peoples of the earth and to facilitate a greater understanding of the diversity and the commonalities among us.

Check it out, it's quite cool. And, under the "videos" tab, you can see some beautifully done trailers, a piece from Niger, AND a piece from NC featuring our own Farmer Fred. It makes me get all misty, it's so beautiful.

Tomorrow, we make strawberry shortcakes and spring salad at the Boys' Club. I'm still disappointed the kids couldn't have come to the farm, but I hope eating the strawberries will be a halfway decent consolation prize.

Coming 'round the bend....

Ah, I'm coming 'round the bend in that funky little side track I've been on the past month or so, and it feels really nice. It's hard not to feel kinda nice on a day like today - it's cloudy and breezy and mild, the world is lushly green and still dripping from yesterday's thunderstorms, and the air has a quality that it occasionally gets in Raleigh, it's refracting light in just such a way.....it sparkles just a little when the sun comes out, and everything looks as though it has just a bit of a sheen. Not quite a glow, it's less like light and more like energy. Like auras. It's very animate, though it is air and trees and clouds. It's really beautiful. Makes me think of....

The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty in the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Ah.
Doesn't that just open something up inside you and make you want to sigh with relief?

This funk I've been in, it's got me thinking about funks and how they come and how they (hopefully) get gone. It's so easy to get ourselves stuck in a funk, easy as a habit. But the getting unstuck, that takes some time and effort and faith and hope. Hard. I think that one of the most important things that we can learn to do in life is to help ourselves out of a funk, to have a forward orientation and put one foot in front of the other and climb up out of a stuck place, get back up someplace high enough to see what's on the horizon. We need help, we all do, but ultimately, we have to do the climbing ourselves.

So here's to getting un-stuck, to the hope and faith in ourselves and the ones we love and the world that helps us get through the stuck times, and to all the good teachers who've helped me get un-stuck from previous funks. I'm really proud to say that I learned something. :)

UPDATE: Relatively recent garden pictures from 5/14! I think the way this slide show thingy works, is if you click on a picture, it'll take you to the site where all the pictures are posted. Check out the pumpkin jungle, I think that's my favorite picture!

Horoscope and gratuitous dog pictures

Rob Brezsny prognosticates for Sagittari this week:

Poet Kay Ryan told the Christian Science Monitor that her poems often begin "the way an oyster does, with an aggravation." Her ultimate intention, however, is to liberate her readers. "I like to think of all good poetry as providing more oxygen into the atmosphere; it just makes it easier to breathe." I believe this progression from aggravation to liberation is a strategy you could profitably pursue in the coming days, Sagittarius. If you agree to absorb what's bugging you, you'll ultimately create an expansive new swath of breathing room for yourself and everyone around you.

Hmm, well, which thing that is bugging me should I be absorbing and liberating the world from? Lord knows there's plenty. Some things very superficial. Others run much deeper, and make me feel like a petty asshole for being annoyed at small things. I mean, come on. Spring is a season of birth and also death, oddly. I have been, am, overwhelmed.

In completely unrelated news - another Sagittarius I hang out with is an established poster dog for Independent Animal Rescue. Every six months or so, I'll run into a picture of her somewhere out in public and think, "what a cute dog! Oh wait....that's my dog." So here are some glamour shots of the model herself. I particularly like the picture of the back of her head. It's rather funny looking.

Indiana Glamour Shots

More pictures of the garden coming soon, so stay tuned.

Big Dig

Garden time at the Boys' Club is shaping up to be my favorite part of each week. There have been lots of complications: the garden was hijacked for an hour by a rogue digger once and it took us two hours to get it back the way we had it....the faucet for the hose is broken and we have to use a screwdriver to turn the water on and off....pollen season is upon us and one kid can't come outside until it's over because of severe allergies....the kids are unruly and easily distracted..... but they are so genuine and sweet and smart, and they are LOVING the garden. Ah, it's so good, it is making me so happy.

Here are photos from the Big Dig a couple weeks ago -

Big Dig, 3/13/07

And here are more from garden club activities over the past couple weeks:

Boys' Club Garden - 3/07

Yesterday, we planted most of our seeds in the ground. Planting was always my favorite part of gardening when I was a kid, but then I think I was the type to map everything out on graph paper and measure and plot and all that nerdy stuff. Planting seeds actually seemed to stress the boys out yesterday.....the seeds are too small, the spacing is hard to get right, they'd cover seeds up and then forget where they'd planted.... When all was said and done, though, it doesn't matter a whole lot where your seeds end up, so long as they're in there somewhere - we can transplant the strays later.
So, one of the boys was planting onion sets with me yesterday. He was squatting on one side of the bed, and I was on the other. He said to me, "you know, I'm thinking about planting a garden at home."
"Oh yeah?" I said, "what kind of garden?"
"A vegetable garden. I was telling my family about this garden and my aunt asked me to help her plant a garden."
"That's great!" I said.
"Yeah, I think gardening is pretty fun. Maybe I'll plant tomatoes. Or squash."

My heart swelled. All this kid has done so far in our garden is dig and dig and dig, and then plant seeds and water. It's been three weeks. Nothing has been eaten or picked or even looks like something you could pick or eat yet, and already, he's having fun. Yesssssss!

Salty Dog

Miss Indy had her first visit to the beach this weekend. She loooooved it. :)

Salty Dog

Poor Pablo

Poor Pablo!

Pablo is my 1997 VW Golf. Pablo and I have been together three and a half or four years now. A little over an hour ago, he was parked out front of my house, minding his own business, and a woman in a Mitsubishi rear-ended him. That's right, hit my car, while it was parked, and hit it hard, too. Pushed it forward at least a car length and up on to the curb. Screwed up the back left side of the car so bad, the two driver side doors won't close completely, and metal from the body is now touching the back left tire, rendering the vehichle un-drive-able.

I was on the couch diddling around on this here computer when I heard the CRACK outside and thought, shit, someone got into an accident! Oh wait, shit, my car's parked out there....and lo and behold, it was my poor unassuming Pablo. Shit, shit.

I'm lucky, really. The woman stopped, got out, spoke with the police when I called them, apologized, fretted, etc. She was sweet. Freaking out, but sweet and kind of helpless, it made me feel really bad for her. It appears she is insured, which is good. I've just spent the past hour on the phone with my insurance company and then hers....it's a big damn hassle, and inconvenient and all the rest, but it'll certainly be OK.

I've been feeling antsy and unsettled lately about what I am suddenly acutely aware is relatively stupid stuff. Little stuff, if you will. I'm getting over a case of the sniffles and they've made me grouchy and a bit harried as I try to make up the time I lost at work while I was sick. I have wee fits of envy as people around me are doing really enviable things like buying their first homes, falling in love, and/or having babies, and related fits of insecurity about my own comparatively slow pace of maturation in all those departments. I had the gall to bitch to a 33-year-old over the phone today that I'm going to be 27 in a few months, and gosh aren't I getting old. Wah wah. I miss my ex horribly, and I've almost talked myself into calling him a few times lately, but I know I shouldn't and it'd be a stupid and selfish thing to do right now and so I don't and it just makes me feel icky. Wah wah, woe is me.

So I've been angsty over these minor stupid dramas, but you know what? Life could be a lot more dramatic. I could be uninsured, or she could be. I could have been in the car. It could have been me and Dave and Indy driving around earlier this evening and getting hit. She could have been hurt. She was just talking on her cell phone, the driver who hit my car tonight, just calling her boyfriend to tell him she was on her way home for dinner. That simple. Just a split second. Freaky!

It underscores for me something that I know I should already know - all of life's little stupid things aren't worth sweating over if they keep you from living the rest of your life. I know, I know. I think I do a better job at that at some times than at others.

Anyway, it's too dark to photograph outside now, but I'll post pictures of my poor damaged Pablo soon. Wish me luck.

Finally!

I've finally posted photos from the Eastern Europe trip. Enjoy!

Rednecks at Carolina Beach

Kate and I were rednecks at Carolina Beach this past Saturday. After a long day of putting ladybug tattoos on small children, we slept in the back of an SUV, drank beer, woke up several times to the sounds of bad country music coming from other people's stereos and drunk rednecks screeching down the beach in their cars, and then finally to the sight of the lovely sun rising over the ocean. Deeeeelightful.

For better or for awesome!

From top to bottom: 1) Miranda and Joe, just married. 2) For better or for awesome! A fantastic misquote of strongbad emails. Tee hee. 3) The bride and I cutting it up at "The Log Cabin." That's Gwen on the right.

My best, biggest, most beautiful wishes for an awesome marriage, Miranda and Joe. Thanks for having me to your wedding, I had a blast, daaalings, a total blast. :::mwah:::