warm resting place

jeff and i agreed that watermelon is the smell of summer.

went for drinks tonight with an ex. the first two minutes were the best.. i had just walked into the restaurant and was surveying the bar with squinty eyes as they adjusted to the light and this super bubbly hostess bounded up to me. i told her i was meeting someone but i wasn't sure if he was there yet. she asked "is he tall and very attractive?" yep, that would be him.

funny to reconnect with people after a couple of years have gone by. we had a great time catching up though. and the fish dress made an appearance which is something i always look forward to.

she turned into a cave

i met prince charming tonight. literally.

i signed up to volunteer at shakespeare in the park every thursday night. they needed help and it's fun to get out and do something, be outside, meet people.
(a cucumber!)

so tonight i'm chatting with another volunteer and it turns out he's an actor and his last part was prince charming in the little mermaid. and he was charming, indeed. what a funny thing though.
in the garden, it's megan vs caterpillars of all kinds. there are little squishy black ones with white or yellow stripes. there are fuzzy ones. there are big fat striped gray and brown ones. i probably smush 10 a day. they're decimating my pea and eggplant leaves though.
on a final, random note, today i was cleaning out my purse/room and had to laugh at the number of lists/recipes/notes i found. we all have our ways of keeping organized.

stepped out of a dream

we have peas!! one normal sized pod and lots of little tiny baby ones. the sun is really harsh right now so i might try to take a picture of the babies tomorrow morning when you can actually see them. but yay!

and have you ever wondered what the very beginning of an eggplant looks like?
they're hard to photograph since they hang upside down like that =\ but how pretty.

yellow flowers

funny how now that my quiet days are temporarily numbered, i'm enjoying them much more. it's the best time of year not to have any responsibilities. still nice enough to sit outside in the shade with a book for a while and just relax.

i let ripley out back and she got into troubleee. i think i pulled 30 burrs out of her fur.

jeff painted his nails on a half-hearted dare.
i'm having drinks with an ex on friday and realized it's been two yearsss since i've dated anyone, not counting twbf. people always say being single is a good time to learn how to be by yourself, and i think i understand that in a new way now. it's to the point where i don't care about being half of a couple anymore or need the security or any of that.
a lot has changed about me in the last two years. now i just think it would be fun and i don't think i'd be so quick to try to make them into whatever i thought was best. so we'll see. waiting on sparkles. but whoever is next will be lucky they're benefiting from these years of reflection, introspection and general awesomeness. i mean, the baking alone counts for something.

you are the rake

the compost hole is now complete with worms. every time i think about pitch forking it, all i can think about are the worms. so i just throw scraps in it all week and faj turns it when he's home on weekends. no one said it was a perfect system.

the cat always finds the best spots for naps.
so my big revelation of the day has been how much unnecessary water goes down the kitchen sink every day. just to see, i put the compost bucket in the sink this morning and whenever i could, i rinsed stuff over it and let it catch extra water. i filled up fouuur buckets in two hours just in the process of making zucchini pancakes and bread.
by the end of the day, 7 or 8 buckets had been filled. so i didn't use the hose at all to water the garden today. just the buckets. a little amazing.

ina garten's zucchini pancakes (which are like little soufflés):

this is the halved recipe. it makes 4, 4" pancakes

1 zucchini, grated

2T (or so) chopped red onion

1 egg

3 or 4 T flour

1/2 t baking powder

salt & pepper

drop and cook 2 minutes or until browned on both sides in a butter and oiled pan

we had them for lunch and they were deeelicious and puffy.

garden at 5 weeks

the fun of watching the garden grow hasn't worn off yet. every week there are lots of changes.

the big news this week is the zucchini is starting to flower. no sign of zucchini yet. but we're making slow progress. it doesn't get as much light as the other stuff does since it's on the side.
but look at the yellow squash! it's getting big/there are a ton of them.

the cilantro has had enough of the heat and bolted

early girls
i don't think that teeny cucumber has grown a millimeter since last week
the new york times had a capture a moment around the world with a photo thing this morning so i sent this picture of my cucumbers grabbing onto the fence:
cherry tomatoes
casualty of the week:
isn't it crazy how emerald green everything is? what a pretty color.

i made a facebook album of the progression over the weeks and you can see it right here.

today is national lemonade day. there should be bazillions of lemonade stands around. the austin map makes me laugh. you can't zoom at all.

how hard can it be?

it is the east

this weekend is full of festivals and activities. today i conquered the pecan street festival and the accordion competition [AKA the big squeeze] with patrick. pecan street is what sixth street [now the party street] once was. it runs through the middle of downtown and they shut it down and line it with vendors of all kinds for the weekend. pg and i decided we aren't the target audience. it's full of candles, soap, incense, ceramics, tacky plaques, expensive texasy paintings and light switch covers. we'll check back in 30 years.

the accordion competition was supposed to be good, but we missed the competition section. accordions blow my mind. it must take a lot of coordination to move your arms in and out while playing a keyboard and singing.

this evening i called bank of america after my debit card was rejected for the third time and they said my card 'might have been subjected to a massive scale attack' and i would receive a new one in the mail some time next week. the sound of the guy reading off the form letter and saying the words 'massive scale attack' with zero enthusiasm just made me laugh.

volunteered at austin shakespeare's play in the park tonight. they did a midsummer nights dream with kind of a 60s style. as an english major, i feel like i'm betraying my kind when i say that i have never enjoyed shakespeare because of the way they continually suck the life out of it throughout school. but i think i may have come to terms with it tonight. old english isn't so bad if you actually listen.

garden tomorrow!

p.s. fun facts. they used this term over and over in water for elephants, which is a fast, entertaining read. perfect for a poolside summer book: First of May — A term also used in the carnival, meaning a novice performer in his first season on a show. Shows used to leave winter quarters for their opening spot on the first of May, and there are always some new workers hired on the first of May who have never worked shows before [wikipedia].