How my garden does grow

Posted on July 13, 2009 by 8junebugs

Given the travel and stress of recent weeks, I’m hanging on the Eat Local, Real Food wagon by my right pinky. If that gives out, it’s takeout and ice cream until I close Mom’s estate or defend my fucking thesis.

Plus? It’s that gorgeous sort of DC summer that makes you reconsider the value of the Mid-Atlantic region. The humidity, to my knowledge, hasn’t hit 80% yet. I know it’s only July…I do. August looms large and drippy. But seriously? I’m blogging from my balcony with a setting sun behind me, drinking a cider drink and watching my cucumbers grow. My hair ISN’T EVEN IN A PONYTAIL. That’s how clement this DC summer is.

This, for all you Mid-Atlantic folks who haven’t lived in the East Bay, is what it’s like there. If this is the result of global climate change, I may have to tell Al Gore “Thanks, but no thanks. More pollution, please!”

Anyway, I have neither the time nor the energy to be a proper chef. Fortunately, the garden is kicking into (relatively) high gear and I have to think less about what to eat than about which blossoming herb needs to be trimmed back for the benefit of my vinaigrette.

Tonight, it was rosemary. I wound up making two small salads. In the first, I used spinach, tomatoes (balcony!), broccoli and carrot strips (mostly broccoli), and shrimp. With enough willpower (somehow) to set aside the extra shrimp for a lunch salad tomorrow, I just used the broccoli/carrot trips and tomatoes in the second salad, but added a bit of honey goat cheese from Cheesetique.

Currently growing on the balcony:

  • 6 peppers, still green. Remember, though, that I planted Carnival Hybrids, so they could come in red, orange, yellow, white, or purple. Or something in between. It’s a mystery!
  • Two cucumbers, which hadn’t really started when I left for NYC. One is hanging over the balcony rail–I hope I’ll know when to pick it…before it falls on a neighbor’s head. The other is hanging on the safer side. There will be more, I’m sure–yesterday I watched a honeybee handle the dirty work for some more blossoms.
  • A handful of green beans. Only one plant grew, and it’s bearing well, I suppose…the one I ate tasted like a green bean, but I don’t know how many I’ll get out of it.
  • Some lonely strawberries.
  • Countless tomatoes. The plants are hardy–the Napa grape tomatoes grow and ripen even when the branch they’re on is nearly dead.
  • I’ve thinned out the zucchini plants again and cleaned out most of the dead branches and leaves. We’ll see if that helps with bearing, but it looks like this year I’m just growing squash blossoms.

Not a bad haul for the first year. The herbs continue to do well…I’d like to find a way to keep them indoors, once summer’s done. Read more »

Filed under: Tastes Like Chicken | Leave a Comment »

I feel pretty/Oh, so pretty

Posted on July 13, 2009 by 8junebugs

Shotgun’s years as a single woman, I’m happy to report, have been properly feted.

This weekend, thanks to the excellent planning of her maid of honor, we celebrated her upcoming walk down the aisle with a very personalized overnight trip to Manhattan.

We began with a train ride from Union Station to Penn Station, complete with pastries and mimosas low-acid orange juice, and oh, I do so love the train! We judiciously avoided the quiet car, and found out at our destination that we greatly amused at least one of the other passengers. (If I had to guess, I’d say the men on the train were more amused than the women, perhaps because they’re not usually allowed to attend bachelorette parties.)

The biggest surprise of the weekend, I believe, was our first stop after Penn Station–we split two rooms at the Waldorf-Astoria, which is not, in fact, a hostel, as we’d told Shotgun to expect. The Waldorf is all it’s cracked up to be, although I think I might have had overly grand expectations for the rooms. In retrospect, I think I like that the rooms are comfortable and understated. After the grandness of the first impression, it settles the hotel into a more historic experience.

And then they sent up champagne in honor of the occasion. There’s some to be said for good service and a touch of glamor.

(After seeing it up close, I actually want to know more about the Waldorf. For instance, I would like to know why some rooms have mail slots and others don’t. More specifically, I would like to know who stays there long enough to need mail delivered.)

We experienced lunch at Stage deli. I started to write that we grabbed it, which would be accurate–we were on a tight schedule and they do try to get you in and out in less than 30 minutes. But it was an experience. The sandwich, it was as big as my head. I ordered a simple turkey club, being more tomato-friendly than in my younger years, and proceeded to eat more bacon on one sandwich in one city than I have eaten in the last six months combined. This was in addition to the pound and a half of sliced turkey, the three slices of rye, and half a head of lettuce (which I took out, because otherwise the sandwich was too damn tall to do anything more than gnaw away the edges).

From Stage, we hoofed it to Palace Theatre in Times Square for a matinee of West Side Story. I know the storyand I’ve seen plays and musicals, but somehow, I’d never seen one on Broadway before.

(This was a grievous oversight on my part. Now that I have recognized this, I feel it should be addressed. I won’t live within a quick train ride of Broadway forever, and we don’t have to stay at the Waldorf every time…)

There’s something about it, Broadway. I mean, a theatre’s a theatre’s a theatre, right? Mezzanine here means mezzanine there. Modern acoustics and stage design allow the possibility of building a better theatre in Boise than in Manhattan. But the lights, the history, and the sheer accomplishment of the performers in reaching Broadway just gets to you.

Especially if, say, you were once an adolescent girl with dreams of going to the Jellicle Ball.

Shotgun cried, and not just at the end (which is when I cried because TONY!). It might have been Maria’s voice, or the pit’s performance. Or it might have been the picture of her bachelorette coming together in her mind, and the love and memories that her sister put into planning it.

Maybe.

Back at the hotel, we freshened up or changed clothes and gathered up another friend who came in for the dinner portion of the weekend, then headed back to Times Square for dinner at The View, the rotating restaurant at the top of the Marriott Marquis.

From that perspective, even New Jersey looks good.

If you should choose to take on the buffet at The View–which I can recommend, as it’s the only buffet in 10 years that hasn’t upset my stomach–I urge you to remember that the elevator that gets you there, the express elevator that rockets you upward as if launching you into space, will also carry you back down. At the same pace.View

Just a friendly tip.

We were there at about sunset, and the view was incredible. You know the scene in Mary Poppins where they’re up on the rooftops with the chimney sweeps, marveling at a historical and somewhat mythical city, seeing it from a different, seemingly secret angle? It was like that, but with less soot and more martinis.

On average, we’re about five years past the stay-out-all-night-then-nurse-a-hangover stage, we were back at the hotel between 12 and 1 with the bachelorette’s blessing. The evening ended on the same note the wedding will strike in less than a month–classsy, sophisticated, and very full of love.

Filed under: A life less ordinary, Friends Like These | Leave a Comment »

Bzzzzzzz

Posted on July 10, 2009 by 8junebugs

Today is National Don’t Step on a Bee Day. I don’t know what your community is doing to celebrate, but Alexandrians can head down to Buzz Bakery on Slaters Lane (mmm, red velvet cupcakes) for bee-themed treats. There’s a free-beeeeee for the kids, too, while supplies last.

I used to spend summers working with bees buzzing around and landing on my hands. I worked (starting at the age of 8 or 9) with my oldest friend and her mother (my “sister” Rach and my Maralee-mommy) making shaved ice at fairs and events around Vermont. Not the packed sno-cones you get at the stands run by carnies, the ones with flavors that all taste like lipstick–real Hawaiian shaved ice, with, at one point, more flavors than Baskin Robbins.

In the early years, we used squeeze bottles for the flavors, which, just so you’re aware, required five pounds of white sugar per gallon. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a shaved ice whenever you can…I generally do…but, you know. Brush your teeth.

Between leaks, stray squirts, and moving quickly to keep customers happy, it only didn’t take long for our hands to turn brown from the sugar and the mixed artifical colors. If you were a bee, which stand would you flock to? Every Memorial Day, Independence Day, County Fair, Reggae Fest, Aquafest, and points between, there we were, making sugared ice bombs with up to 10 bees on our hands at any given time.*

It scared the shit out of the customers. We learned to stay calm and be careful. Eventually, we started using hard plastic bottles with liquor spouts. Between that and the fact that Rach and I got stronger, faster, and more coordinated, and the bottles and our hands stayed cleaner.

In the seven or eight years I worked for Rainbow Ice, I only got stung once. We were taking down the canopy after a long, long day at some event (they all blended together after a while), and one lone bee was stuck up in a corner of the tarp. He was trapped, I put my hand in, and I couldn’t really blame him. Fortunately, there was ice handy.

Hence, I learned that bees aren’t evil or scary and couldn’t care less about stinging you. If you’re allergic to the stings (and KidBrother was…deathly so), I can understand being fearful, but otherwise? Just bugs. Cute and helpful ones. Don’t step on them.

Read more »

Filed under: Rearview Mirror | 1 Comment »

One of six

Posted on July 8, 2009 by 8junebugs

Thirty-two years ago today, a then-unlikely thing happened. I was born.

Carrying babies to term was not something at which my mom excelled–I learned later that this wasn’t at all uncommon. When my cousin Rob was born, the November before my birth, my mother was dilated about as much as his mother was, so the story goes. That was about a month after I was conceived.

(I dated a boy in college who was born roughly the day I was conceived. I was less well-matched with him than with the boy who was born six days after I was.)

After a dismal history–three miscarriages by then, to my knowledge–a doctor new to the area decided to sew Mom’s cervix shut until I was viable. I don’t know who told him to try that…I don’t know if it was normal. But it’s the reason I’m here.

Birthdays are hard for me. The reasons are mixed and fading, but mainly it’s that I’ve had some crappy ones. I’ve had some fantastic ones, too–friends and boyfriends have thrown surprise parties, I’ve been treated to excellent meals, I’ve received lovely and thoughtful gifts…and yet the painful ones always stand out more, don’t they?

It doesn’t help that I don’t like being the center of attention. I don’t mind being a storyteller or making people laugh in small groups, but I really hate parties all about me.

The thing is, Mom did the birthdays. We always had a family party and tried to have a friends party when we were kids–sucks to be a kid with a summer birthday, though. You never get to bring in cupcakes, and there’s always one friend who spends every July in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, or something.

But Mom made birthdays special, especially after Grand died. As she often did, she went above and beyond what was expected, and usually beyond what she could do.

When I turned 30, she gave me a lovely set of pearls. I didn’t want a gift, but she wanted to do Something Big.

Last year, I was in Vermont for the week of the 4th and my birthday. Mom set up a surprise dinner at my favorite Middlebury restaurant. I felt like it was selfish to go up to Vermont and have my dying mother throw me a birthday party, but I think that may have been exactly what she wanted most. I didn’t want a fuss, but fussing about birthdays and other parties is what Mom did. I think she enjoyed it…even if not, it was critical to who she was.

She was doing chemo by then, I think, and was hoping the margaritas wouldn’t taste like metal. She’d shaved her head. I remember thinking she looked younger and more glamorous than she had in a long time that week in skinny jeans, a Wild Mountain Thyme shirt, and the turquoise-and-sequins hat I’d sent up.

She called it her “go to meetin’” hat.

Read more »

Filed under: If it's not one thing, it's your mother, Old Enough to Know Better | 2 Comments »

Estate real estate

Posted on July 7, 2009 by 8junebugs

Sometime during my trip, the realtor I hired to sell my mom’s house decided to dump me. I imagine it had something to do with the last email I sent to her before I left, in which I disagreed with her assertion that advertising the property once a month qualified as “regularly.”

I also pointed out that she had said she would put the listing on craigslist, but didn’t.

And I insisted that she edit the listing description as previously requested–I’m new to this whole real estate thing, but I’m pretty sure “might need to cut some trees to enhance view” isn’t a selling point.

I had been pressing for data and feedback–I found out that at least one website that carried the listing offered metrics for free. I requested those.

And then she dumped me. (I never got those metrics. I got “The house was shown on Monday. It went okay.”)

I am aware that, by some standards, I might be a high-maintenance client.

Over the past six weeks or so, I have been documenting the issues I’ve had with her service in order to get out of the contract. She came highly recommended and, as far as I know, is a very nice lady (and related to at least one friend, because that’s how it goes in a small town). But I asked for weekly reports because–

  • The house has been on the market for six months without even a low offer. I am aware that the economy sucks and unemployment is high. I also know that people are still buying houses.
  • It’s been shown fewer than 10 times in those six months. If it’s been shown more than that, I don’t know about it, because she wouldn’t give me any data until I demanded it, and what I did get was sketchy and incomplete.
  • Her listing was inaccurate: there’s no carpet anywhere in the house and there is no fireplace (although there is a hearth and a chimney from when we had a coal stove).
  • The price is undoubtedly still too high. The priority for the estate is to liquidate the only remaining asset, not wait for an unlikely bidding war. I don’t know if she ever understood that.

I need to find a new realtor, and I don’t have any reason to trust local referrals–the outgoing agent is highly respected in the region, but perhaps for reasons that don’t correspond to my particular needs. The outgoing agent has also acted in such a way that I believe she was trying to position herself for a referral fee from the new agent. Given her performance, I didn’t like that idea at all. I got the listing release in writing and had the keys left with my attorney.

Instead, I’m working with one of my surrogate parents, NK, whose real estate career is probably the reason I expect good service and results. Having watched how hard she worked for her clients, I didn’t think it was unreasonable to expect my realtor to return my emails and tell me what people were saying about the house when they didn’t buy it.

If NK were licensed in Vermont, I have no doubt that the house would have sold before the snow melted. As she’s not, however, she’s doing the interviews and research to find someone she trusts to help me.

Which is exactly what I need right now. Not “I like this person,” not “We always work with So-and-So.” I need the person who’s going to understand what I need to have happen and work toward that. The person who understands that and finds the right agent for me will actually deserve a referral fee.

(That sound you hear is me kicking myself for not asking for her help in the first place.)

Filed under: If it's not one thing, it's your mother, Old Enough to Know Better | Leave a Comment »

Pacific Time

Posted on July 7, 2009 by 8junebugs

I’ve been back nearly a week, but blogging has been pretty low on the list. The trip was lovely and the only drama was self-induced.

The wedding in Monterey was…dude, it was a wedding in Monterey. It was gorgeous. The weather was perfect. The bride was stunning. The groom, whom I’ve known since I was 15 and G has known his whole life, smiled more in the two days I saw him than in the rest of my memories of him combined.

Seeing the other guests was half the fun. The groom’s sister was my color guard instructor senior year, and I LURVE her. We were at the same table, which was fantastic.

Also at the table was, I think, G’s first prom date and…oh, if I have to choose, my favorite of all his ex-girlfriends. You know, other than myself. (That may sound strange, but I’ve known most of the others, too, and gotten along well with them.) We met once before, but it was long ago and very, very far away. She and her husband were just lovely.

I cannot recommend the Cypress Gardens Inn. Don’t stay there. Ever. I am torn about leaving a review–there were significant problems with our room and the manager was quite rude about them, but he did call the next morning to apologize and offer us a new room, which we moved into before G had to be at the wedding hotel for pictures.

Still, though…very rude. Also? Kind of a dump. Don’t stay there. Ever.

***

On Sunday, we drove to San Jose to visit the Pilat household: Jon, Ryan, Leigh, Nathan, and Sam. Brunch with the adults was fun–partly, for me, because Jon and G haven’t seen each other since…Senior Ball, 1995. G and I got into a fencing match that night with our silverware (over the civil rights of vegetables, which he wasn’t eating), and Jon was the first to find band-aids when G sliced TWO OF MY FINGERS with his butter knife.

(Our behavior at the Monterey wedding was vastly more dignified.)

Little Sam, the newest member of Jon’s family, wrapped me right around his little finger. It may have looked like he only got my hair with that grab, but he got the rest of me right along with it. I may be biased, though, because, as we were leaving, Nathan came over and gave G a hug. I got a wave.

G maintains that this is because I was too accessible–I got down on the floor and helped Nathan build an obstacle course, but G stayed up on the couch, remaining somewhat aloof. Also, G knew where trucks would be, which naturally makes him the more attractive adult.

I can be graceful in defeat.

***

The next stop on this whirlwind tour was the Tipton residence, newly reopened after the Fire of 2008. Bean had also not seen G since meeting him the night of Senior Ball…and hadn’t seen me in almost two years. And her husband had never met him, of course.

This seems a little lopsided, doesn’t it? I was excited just to see my friends. But it was definitely a (re)Meeting-the-Friends weekend for both of us, having been apart for so long. Plus, the way our lives were back in Pleasanton, I knew his friends far better than he knew mine; part of why Bean hosted us for a night was because she wanted to actually get to know him.

If G was nervous at all, I think it evaporated when he saw that Bean’s husband, J, has a lightsaber and a giant model of the Millenium Falcon. Kindred spirits, clearly. (Which Bean and I knew.)

I’m sorry. Their son has those things. Right. They’re his. Not J’s.

Riiiiight.

Bean and I ran out to get dinner. By the time we got back, talk of Red Dwarf had begun and G had convinced J to netflix all five seasons of Babylon 5. And then there was pizza.

***

After that, it was puppytime! We drove over to Nevada for the last leg of my trip–relaxing with G, his folks, and the puppy (who is not a puppy, but is a Westie, so it’s kind of the same thing).

As an added bonus, I finally got to see the new Star Trek, which I’m glad to report doesn’t suck at all! And I played Beautiful Katamari for longer than I would care to admit, but it was calming my travel anxiety and G was awfully nice about it.

THE END

Filed under: Friends Like These, Old Enough to Know Better | Leave a Comment »

Wardrobe malpractice

Posted on June 23, 2009 by 8junebugs

I’m endeavoring to let my low-rise jeans just go ahead and rise lowly today, and it’s driving me nutso. When they sit where (Gap says) they’re supposed to sit, they don’t fit the way (my ass says) they’re supposed to fit.

I finally located a Scrabble-tile necklace I bought about a year or forever ago, the pink one with the Keep Calm and Carry On poster on it, in miniature. People keep squinting to read it and then they compliment me on it, which is lovely, except it weighs nothing at all and I keep forgetting it’s there, and WHY ARE THEY SQUINTING AT ME?!

This shirt? Still one of my very favorites of all time. I have two pairs of non-black shoes that match it perfectly. I had three, but I had to put the pink ballet flats down this year. Fortunately, I still have a million and one pairs of black shoes I can wear with it! Thank heavens.

So, I’m wearing one of those non-black pairs of shoes, but they’re loafers and it’s summer, and I don’t want to wear real socks or go barefoot, so I’m wearing this sock-let thingies, these reinforced non-socks that are about two steps up from what they give you to try on shoes in shoe stores.

They are from hell. The only way they could perform this badly and not be from hell would be if I didn’t have heels on my feet, and my pedicure tech can vouch for the determined existence of my heels.

And she wouldn’t lie.

So the sock-let thingies? From hell.

 

 

*This post was brought to you by my current inability to see past the end of my nose. I’m a bit on the anxious side about things like real estate and the other estate, school assignments, and remembering to pack things like my toothbrush and driving directions for this weekend.

Filed under: Ulcer Training | Leave a Comment »

You know you live in DC when…

Posted on June 22, 2009 by 8junebugs

President Obama takes his girls to your neighborhood frozen custard place, and you take a detour to the grocery store.

Welcome to the neighborhood, sir. Note: Every shop on The Avenue has dog treats that are presidential-puppy-worthy.

I should’ve just stopped and gotten a picture of my own, but seriously? This really does happen all the time. But I suppose it’s the closest I’ve been to Obama. W00t! Still a fan. (And that vanilla custard is good eats.)

Thanks to the muggy weather on Saturday, I was being an industrious American, just down the street, before the Obamas arrived:

I did all of my laundry.

I carried the old TV down to the trash area (and have the bruises to show for it). It was gone in 10 minutes.

I baked three loaves of pumpkin bread with white whole wheat flour instead of AP (because I had it) and flaxmeal instead of oil. I froze two of the loaves. I’d be happier with this recipe if it didn’t contain so much sugar…but the flax certainly balances it out.

I also baked the Weight Watcher chocolate muffins and froze half. I’ve spoken of these before–sheer genius.

I harvested my first balcony tomato! And then added it to a sweet pepper, cucumber, red onion, basil, fresh-ish mozzarella, and balsamic vinaigrette for a lazy variation on Bread Salad.  Instead of making croutons, I’ve just been ripping up raw spinach and tossing in the “salad.” It has been pointed out to me that this is a spinach salad, but that friend has never had Bread Salad and doesn’t understand the need to pay homage.

(I will be eating more spinach salad, though. I grabbed one from “Chaotic Cafe” in Tysons Galleria on Friday, and it’s sparked a craving. I’ve got more red onion, plus mushrooms, and shrimp…)

I went looking for a recipe for something else and happened upon Bread & Honey’s post on “burrito night,” which led to a batch of vaguely Mexican rice, most of which went into the freezer (I froze individual portions with a very handy silicon muffin pan). I think this will help my burritos immeasurably.

These days, between work, school, and upcoming travel, it seems prudent to cook and bake as much as I can when I can, then put it away for later. By Thursday morning of a given week, I am done with the whole cooking/eating…thing. I can’t be bothered. And a slab of homemade pumpkin bread with lots of omega-3s is a hell of a lot better than, say, Famous Amos cookies that have been in the vending machine in the student lounge since the Clinton Administration.

How was your weekend?

Filed under: A life less ordinary, POTUS, Tastes Like Chicken | Leave a Comment »

Poll: On the big screen

Posted on June 19, 2009 by 8junebugs

The new TV comes in today. Assuming I don’t need to call in reinforcements to help me lift the thing to its perch and hook it up to the cable and DVD/VCR, how should I test out its features this weekend?

Filed under: Conspicuous consumption | Leave a Comment »

Justifying social media

Posted on June 17, 2009 by 8junebugs

I was asked to write an article, and it just came out:

SNAP In Touch newsletter, June 2009

Justifying Social Media

Feels great, but also a little funny. I haven’t published anything outside my job description since college.

Perhaps this will show up in my Google results instead of the February 2009 police report for a 20-year-old with the same name? That might be helpful at some point.

Filed under: All the livelong day, Big pimpin', Internets | 2 Comments »

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