It Can be Good when a Kitteh Sprays

Tom Riddle

We have this cat that hangs out around outside.

I refuse to adopt this cat.

This cat is an unaltered male and sprays everywhere.  This is extremely helpful to me, as I'm far less likely to let this cat that I absolutely will not adopt into the house.  I mean, I'm not even thinking about it, although it would be easy to do, since we're feeding him.

But we're not really feeding him that much.  Just a wee bit.  He catches rats and mice in the barn, and that's what I'd like him to do--to remain healthy and happy catching rats and mice in the barn, as opposed to hanging around so much on our deck cutely touching noses with the Poop and napping on the deck chairs.

Not that he's cute.  Well, okay, maybe he's a little cute.  But he sprays!  And, I haven't named him, so we're safe.

Actually, he has a name but we did not name him.  I was telling my friend R about him (not that I'm interested enough in this cat to actually talk about him to my friends that much--just a couple of mentions here and there) and she said, so you're not naming He Who Shall Not Be Named.

So I blame R that we call him Voldemort and Tom and Tom Riddle--which, I should mention is particularly fitting, him being a tom and all.

But we didn't name him.  That was R.  Just because he has a name now, it doesn't mean we like him.  We don't.  We just like what he does.  And I don't (usually) talk nice to him or anything, nor do I take any pleasure (well, okay, some) in the fact that I can get closer to him now before he runs off.

But, in the highly unlikely event that I put hands on this cat, he is not coming into the house.  Because, yay!, he sprays.  And even if we fix him, assuming we can put hands on this cat, it would not stop him from spraying.  

So we're never adopting this cat.  He'll stay outside, un-named (by us), forever.

I really, really mean it.

Even if it starts to snow really hard and his ears are folded down and he's staring in outside and we have a snuggly fire.

Because he sprays.

Thank gawd he sprays.

Raccoons

The dogs were going bananas and they just wouldn't quit.  I looked outside.  All their noses pointed in the same direction--the veggie garden.  Oh noes!  The young doe who's been nibbling on my trees and grapes was probably brazenly flicking her tail at them while decimating something even more precious, like my three small blueberry shrubs. 

I dashed out and--

It wasn't a deer.  It took me a while to count them all.  Six raccoons--two adults and four older babies--had made themselves comfortable in one of our silver maples.  

I got the girl and we snapped some photos before I let Chase out so she could sniff around the base of the tree and bark at them.  Then I sprayed them all with water.  We waited about a half hour--shower, rinse, repeat in another half hour.  One of them actually hissed at me.  But soaked raccoons are so cuuuute!  We brought out a stick and a sword just in case they attacked us, but although they were peeved, they didn't get riled enough to want to come down and teach us a lesson.  

The next night, about 3am actually so I guess that would be dang o'clock in the morning, the dogs started up again so I went out.  Just one adult raccoon, as far as I could tell.  I got the hose and sprayed him good.  

I haven't seen the raccoons since.  I hope they stay away.  The hens are safe at night in the coop, but our neighbors have their chickens loose and I don't want another slaughterfest.  Cute, but very, very destructive.

And darling when wet and hissing.

I may add pictures to this post later.  (Posted 8/8/2011)

Soon Now ... WorldCon!

My DH, the girl and I are all sick. Being the last holdout (I really thought I might skip this one) I of course am getting worse about the time that they're getting better. I don't feel too sorry for myself. So far it hasn't been that bad, plus I wasn't ill all winter and spring, so I guess it was about my turn. If these things take turns. Who knows.

The real news, though, is that I'm going to Worldcon in Reno. I've never been to a Worldcon. I've been to a few different ones, namely Norwescon, OryCon, Radcon, Potlatch and a few others, but I have a feeling that this one will be different. First of all, I've heard of all of the GOHs (Guests of Honor) including the musical special guests. That's pretty rare for a con for me. Also, I idolized one of the GOHs since mid-high school. That would be the incredible Boris Vallejo. I greedily absorbed news about him the same way normal people today follow the dramas of rock and movie stars, complete with commentary about artistic choices and yes, I blush to admit, even a bit of his romantic life (to be precise, rumors thereof--there was no Snopes back then to confirm or deny urban myths.) But mainly it was about his art.

My interest in collecting his books, scanning new books at the bookstores searching for his latest covers, buying posters and calendars waned over the years, but the admiration never flagged, so I'm excited to see what's been going on this past decade or two that I've been utterly ignorant of. I'm sure he's grown and changed, as artists tend to do, just as I've watched in awe as the core skills I coveted now carry through with even greater refinement.

Some of you might have caught that 'decade or two' and may be wondering just how old this guy is. Well, for your info he's been amazing the world with his work for a looooong time, well before I became aware of him. In fact, his career began before I was born. His entire family, including his wife, are all creatively talented. It's pointless to be jealous of him, though now (and correct me if I'm misusing the slang) I can say his art is sick and mean what I really mean--that it's beauty is beyond what I can describe in non-slangy terms without using terribly purple prose.

Will I walk up and say hi, or ask for his autograph? Heck no! Well, maybe, if I don't actually have to say anything. He's one of the few people that can easily turn me into a stammering idiot, so I won't even try to speak if I bring one of his books with me to sign. I'll just put a post-it note with my name spelled correctly and hope for the best. I think I'd have a better chance of saying hi to Johnny Depp than I would to Mr. Vallejo. It would probably come out mmmgggnnn-eep-myfriendwasyurbiggestfan-er,I mean metoo, ImeanIwas except I lost track and I don't have all your books or anything-- and then I would have to hide for the whole rest of the con to avoid the possibility of making eye contact with him thereby reliving that awful awkward moment.

I like the post-it plan. Let's go with that. I might even dare to put a smiley face on it.

I'll probably go through a dozen post-it notes before I make a smiley face worthy of him. Argh!

Being Weird

Every once in a while I'm reminded that I have a weird brain.  I've had a couple of reminders recently.

A group of young adults who'd just gone through a survival course were on their last leg where they had to survive on their own without adult supervision.  The party was attacked by a bear.  Four were seriously injured, including one person who had a punctured lung and bite marks in his skull.  The other six managed to escape without injury.  They turned on their emergency beacon at 9:30pm, and were picked up about 3am.  They used their recent skills to perform life-saving first aid, including dealing with the punctured lung.  No one died.  My first thought was, wow, that's an amazing survival school--they really taught them some serious skills!  I think most people will react with how irresponsible the instructors were to leave them alone out there without proper protection.  I expect the school will be sued and will fold as a result.  sigh

Today I had one of those moments when I couldn't wait until the end of my shift, and as often happens when I wish the time would fly by, I reminded myself that I wouldn't want to rush through the last hour of my life.  If anything, I would hope that the hour went by long and slow and among loved friends and family so that I could be with them and hold them until the hour stretched into infinite.  So why the hell would I want to rush this hour?  I made the most of it.  Yes, I was at work, but we have great customers and a great team and I tried to enjoy my time at work as much as I could before I clocked out.  On my way out the door, I wished my coworkers a good night, and that I looked forward to seeing them on Friday.

I don't mind being weird.  And I bet there are other weirdos out there just like me, so maybe I'm not all that weird.  I wonder how many offbeat ideas are out there that people never voice, because they're afraid that everyone will think they're stupid or morbid or naive ...?

Thunder, Lightning and Yum

I woke up early this morning to lightning and thunder.  I love thunderstorms, but I couldn't keep my eyes open long enough to see a flash except through my eyelids.  I still got to listen to pounding rain and the thunder, and listen I did for probably far too long.  

So I was groggy woman at work all day today.  (Totally worth it, btw.)  

I dragged myself through with memories of that storm, and of our first garden soup--cream of zucchini.  Here's the recipe for the curious:

4 cups of water (ish--I don't usually measure.)

3 cubes of chicken bullion (or slightly dilute chicken broth of your own.)

1 medium or 2 small zucchinis, sliced

1/2 of a small onion

1/4-1/2 cup of heavy cream

butter

flour

seasonings

In a small sauce pan, gently brown seasoned zucchini and onion (I like a wee bit of salt, pepper and dill) in a dab of butter.  Don't use too much butter here, you'll use more later.  When the zucchini starts getting golden edges, add the water and bullion (or broth.)  Add seasonings if you like, but be careful with salt as the bullion is usually plenty salty.  Bring to a boil, then allow to simmer for about 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, in another small sauce pan, melt about 3 tablespoons of butter and add about 3 tablespoons of flour to it.  Brown the flour until it smells warm and toasty (as opposed to the raw scent it initially has) and is lightly browned.  Remove from heat.  Add the cream and quickly stir until it's uniform and pretty thick.  Add the soup to the flour/butter mixture and stir.  You may need to use a whisk to get lumps out, but as long as this operation happens off the burner you should be okay.  Place the combined mixture back on the heat and gently warm until it's barely begun to boil again.  Add seasonings if necessary.  You can run it through a blender or strain it if you like, but I like the tender chunks of zucchini as they are.

Great garnishes:  sour cream, chopped tomato, fresh parsley, fresh ground pepper.

Remodeling the House of Pee Pee

Remodeling is always rough, whether you do it yourself or get a contractor.  And I've got to quit fooling myself.  The "oh, I'll just paint the upstairs and put in laminate floors" is a remodel.  

Because doing work like this is never 'just' anything.

So I got myself a crew of hapless teenagers (no, really, we'd love to help! they cried when I told them that they couldn't come spend the night because there's too much work to do.  Bet they're not coming back any time soon) and we painted the ceiling.  So far so good.  Then I started pulling stuff off the walls, filling in holes, moving furniture, you know the routine.

And I thought (this was perhaps my second mistake, the first being that I should start do this as a DIY project in the first place) since I'm moving all this heavy furniture anyway, why move it again when I have to rip up the carpet?  Besides, I'll just have a little peek at the dining room floor and see why it's a little higher than the rest of the floor.

And it was wood.  Not nice, no, not anymore anyway.  So I thought (argh) that I'll just pull up the dining room rug before I put the gigantic table back, and we'll still be in livable space.

I had forgotten something important.

We have six cats.  At one point, before all these six cats, we had a geriatric cat who decided that the far corner in the dining room was actually a cat box.  I'd cleaned up as best I could back there after she passed away (RIP, China kitty) and I figured the scent would have faded.  And it had.  When I pulled up the carpet there, the pad underneath was stained, but it didn't reek.

I'd forgotten, though, that the people before us had all kinds of dogs and cats.

And the wood floors under the pad were, well, odiferous.

I didn't notice at first.  No, it wasn't until I got the idea of first sweeping and mopping and then scrubbing the floor against the back wall that it became eye-wateringly clear.

OMG.

Stay tuned for the continuing story when, after Kami sprays with first enzyme cleaner and then bleach, she says to no one in particular, "does the smell in here just keep getting worse and worse, or do I just have really bad BO?"

"Hide and Seek" Wins 3rd in the Long Short Story Contest

It feels so wildly inappropriate to post this now, but at the same time ... the story is a story about grief and anger and loss and the mysteries of death and life--some coincidences don't feel like coincidences, you know?

I'm very honored to have won third place in Wayne Long's Long Short Story Contest.  You can view "Hide and Seek" for free through the link on the contest page or on his blog.  Check out the website, and if you get a chance, take advantage of a free offer good until July 25th, 2011.  Read Wayne's blog for more details about the free offer.

There are so many wonderful short stories out there, and I think it's worthwhile to look for them.  Yes, I love looking at YouTube videos of kittens too, but there's some amazing content out there that isn't visual.  Some folks have picked up on it, while others have yet to discover the incredible wealth of quality writing now available on the internet.  Learn, discover, and enjoy!

And let me know what you think.  Don't worry about hurting my feelings.  Sure, it's possible to do that, but it comes with the territory.  Besides, it would be dumb and narrow-minded and crazy to insist that everyone like everything ever written ... and that's what would be required for writers to never hear a bad word about any of their writing.  I believe in the power and beauty of individual preferences and opinions, even when they're opposite of mine.  Maybe especially.  They help define my place in the universe.  How would I know I preferred fresh fruit if I'd never tasted preserves or artificial flavoring?

Share the wealth and explore the diversity.  There's plenty of fun for everyone.

I Stretch My Arms and Reach This Far

My great aunt passed away.

There's so much I want to say, and all of it feels inadequate.  More than most people, my Teta Maria was a complicated woman with a rich history.  I didn't expect to lose her so soon.  She'd had health problems for a while, most recently an amputation, but she seemed to be doing well ....

I have some wonderful pictures of her while she recovered in the hospital from her surgery.  I'd ordered the girl's graduation photos and had planned to send them to her, along with our most recent family photos (and pictures of the animals--she was always a fan, especially of cats.)  For a while I was angry that they hadn't arrived in time for me to send her a photo album (she didn't use computers,) and then I realized it didn't matter.  After we die we miss so much, but what we miss isn't important so much as what we do, and what we experience in our lives.  She didn't miss the birth of my children, and she got to spend time with them.  She didn't miss my childhood or my sister's--in fact she got to experience a lot more of that than most great-aunts do.  She traveled the world.  She did charity work alongside Shirley Temple Black, and went to state functions in Europe.  She survived a war, and married an amazing and complicated man who I adored and who I still miss very much.  And people loved her.

Her life was too short, but longer than many.  We stretch our arms as far as we can, but they only reach so far ....  I'll miss her, and my children won't really know what they're missing without her in their lives, but that's the way time works.  It goes forward with or without us, and we can't go back.  I'm blessed that I got to spend time with her during her span.

I hope you're safe with Strejda and everyone you've loved who has gone on ahead on the Long Road, my Teta.  Your angel baby loves and misses you so much.  She wishes she could hug and kiss you again, and show you how wonderful life is in part because you were in her life.

Blessed be.  May we meet again.

D*#% Ink!

I ran out of ink--the same ink I always run out of--and so I had to change the cartridge.  I'm already annoyed because I can't use my new laser printer because the toner cartridge ran out and the new toner cartridge is giving me error messages.  I'm additionally annoyed because I like buying ink in bulk so that I save, but the only bulk ink I can find at my favorite savings store sells one of each kind of ink jet ink cartridge instead of sensibly offering two (or three, please!) of the ink I'm always running out of.

And then!

And then I start trying to pry the ink out of the nuclear-bomb-proof packaging without damaging the cartridge, and I have to fight the impulse to tear at it with my teeth like a wild animal out of frustration.  The way the edges and the extruded parts where the ink sits interplay make scissors almost useless, knives dangerous to use, and argh!! My teeth aren't working!!

The scissors finally do it for me, after prying and some ineffectual cutting and forcing blade against seams, and I extract my cartridge.

My nerves, however, are frayed to bits.

And the worst part?

On the front, images of smiling, happy people are mocking me.

But maybe that's not the worst part after all.  You see, I only managed to open one area, which gave me access to two cartridges (one of which I don't need, of course.)  When I next run out of ink, most likely I'll have to open the other area to get to the cartridge I need.

Expletives don't cover it.  I just have to put it away and not look at it anymore, or I'll do something rash like write an angry letter.  

Argh.

I bet they're punishing me for trying to save money.

Argh times infinite.  Poopyheaded packaging designers ...

More Work Means No Time to be Bad, Right?

My DH and I found a great deal on just the kind of flooring we wanted, so we bit the bullet and got it. Now I've got thirty (30) boxes of flooring sitting in my living room. And you know, it looks kinda intimidating.

I remember this feeling. This is the same feeling I got when I bought I don't remember how many boxes of various kinds of tile, tiling equipment, backboard, grout, grout sealant, a new toilet seal, paint, a new cabinet and sink and faucet, a new medicine cabinet, and completely redid a bathroom for the first time. I may have even changed the light. It's been a while.

I remember ripping out the floor and old tile with glee, stripping off the old wallpaper with slightly less glee because it didn't want to come off nicely, pulling out the toilet and then looking at the mess and thinking OMG what have I done.

I'm sure I'll have a similar feeling after we take out the old carpet and pad. Not only will it be dusty and stink to high heaven (I remember this from when I had a contractor put in laminate floor downstairs) but then I'm sure we'll discover something. And the something will require more work than anticipated. I figure that something that ought to take about a week will end up getting finished, oh, just in time for Yule if I'm lucky.

About the time that we start really moving on it, though, I know the excitement will carry us beyond the exhaustion to a spectacular finish. I remember that too, when I rented the tile cutter for the finish work and got it all done in two days. Not only did I see that the light at the end of the tunnel was not in fact a train, but at that point the project was so close to being finished that it really, really looked awesome.

I have a few tricks ready in case we need them, like varnishing over pet stains so that the scent is sealed in, and painting the walls the color I want before the floor goes in because after, when you've got a new shiny floor you don't want to scrub off all those little pinpoint speckles that rain down, and you don't want to leave the walls the way they are because all that perfection on the ground really makes the marks on the walls and stains on the ceiling stand out ...

I'm tired already, and we haven't even started yet. Wish us luck!!

Happy Eighteen

Happy Birthday to the Girl.  She's eighteen!  Long after all the cake is gone, I'll still be happy at how well she's turned out.  So far so good ...

The girl says:  The cake is gone.  Why is the cake always gone?

We're very proud parents.  She makes it easy to be proud.

Research

My DH is coming home today after a long absence.  I love the work he does, but I love having him home more.  The relatively quiet winter spoiled me.  He'll be globetrotting most of the summer, and he'll be away more than not.

At least I'll be able to go with him for some of it.  We're going to Worldcon, barring unforeseen circumstances.  I hope we'll see some of you there!

In writing:  I'm researching architecture.  Not just for Masks, but for a bunch of books.  The books I own on it (I hadn't gotten around to reading them yet) are fascinating and easy to understand, at least so far.  I'll review them when I'm done.  

Anyway, research is a dangerous thing.  It can halt a project dead.  Research and writing have to balance in favor of the primary task.  In other words, the writing still has to go onward somehow.  I try to get the 'short answer' quickly (as in within a couple of hours) so I can move onward, and then in the evenings I read up on the subject so that I can embellish the section later.  After all, though I love setting-heavy books, my main focus is on the human characters and what they're doing.  Unless one of them is an architect, I shouldn't have to know everything there is about architecture of my period (or fantasy setting) in order to complete a paragraph.  

There's always a chance that my research will lead me to changing whole aspects of the book, but I don't think it's wise to stop the writing process just because there's a chance (not a certainty!) I might have to rewrite some stuff (or all of it).  If the book really was that dependent on research, I should have done it up front ... and while I'm researching that book, I can be working on another.  I also have to entertain the possibility that if research may change a book that much, there might be a vision issue.  If the book relies too much on things that I don't know, then how do I know my overall concept is sound?  It would be like trying to write a book centered around a dinosaur planet without knowing much about dinosaurs.  If I knew what I needed to know about dinosaurs in the first place, would I really choose to write my book around a dinosaur planet?  Maybe it would be a better idea to write a book set on a world with dinosaur-like creatures, but they're alien enough that they behave like I imagine them to behave.  As our adventurers get into more and more trouble, maybe scientists back home trying to help them keep throwing their hands up in despair because as far as they knew, dinosaurs aren't like that.  And it could work as a story.  Isn't the story the point of writing in the first place?

Some books really do require research, and I wouldn't dare write them without.  But if all my book concepts require massive amounts of research, then I should ask myself if I'm ready to write books.  Maybe writing short stories in the meantime will keep my writing skills honed until I'm ready.  But isn't that a trap?  Maybe I'm not ready to write those stories either because they need research ... and I'd end up being a researcher, not a writer.  

There's nothing wrong with being a researcher.  I could put up an amazing website about my research.  I might even be able to make money through a donation button, or through selling articles as my knowledge grows.  And then I'll really be writing, though maybe not the way I'd planned.

It's all good.  Writing.  Research.  Reading.  Lots of reading.  I just have to make sure that I'm doing my primary thing, um, primarily.  Because, in theory anyway, that's the thing I really want to do.  Right?

On A Lighter Note ...

I'm not sure what this cat is doing, but whatever it's doing, it negates all my thoughts and makes my head kinda cock to the side and then I want to take even more pictures.

And no matter how many pictures I take, even though I use the flash every time ...

freakishly ...

... it just keeps doing it.

And her eyes follow me around the room.

Weird.

Medicine

A lot has happened in the past week, and some of it has been terrible stuff.

I hate to write about it because I don't want to attract sympathy, and I certainly don't want to cause my family additional pain.  But I think I need to write about one of the things because it might save someone some pain and agony.

A relative of mine passed away suddenly.  She'd written off doctors a long time ago ...  

I'm so sad for her family and closest friends.  And I fear there are thousands of people out there who are going to die from treatable, even preventable illnesses because they have a thing against regular doctors.  There are so many people who have no choice at all, and wish they had access to a medical doctor.  It might seem like madness to them to reject water from a pump when you're dying of thirst because you refuse to drink from anything other than a stream.

I have to be okay with it, though.  People have to make their own choices, and it may be that my aunt was willing to die this way rather than see a doctor.  I have to honor that choice, because it is her choice, and I wouldn't want to take that away from anyone.  In the end it was her body to do with as she wished to do.

Having said that ....

I'm well aware of a doctor's limitations, and the dangers of going to a hospital.  You can come out more ill than what you came in with.  I don't think going to the doctor should be done frequently, or lightly.  On the other hand I think it's foolish to refuse things like antibiotics or blood pressure medication or insulin when it might save your life, and it seems very strange to me to take these things without a prescription on your own by borrowing someone else's medicine or getting it on the black market or making it from scratch on your own, as if that makes it better.  

I believe that real naturopathic medicine can be extremely effective, but it's not the only way, or even the best way in a given circumstance.  And I believe that there's a lot of misinformation and delusion in regard to naturopathic medicine out there.  There are bad doctors too, I know.  But clearly, avoiding all doctors to avoid the bad ones is not a path toward superior health.

I hope my aunt lived happily and well and fully, and my heart is with her immediate family.  They all did what they thought was best, and I refuse to point fingers and blame and be angry.  This isn't about me anyway.

What I don't want to see are people convinced that their chosen alternative form of medicine is the only and best option, and that things would have come out far worse if they'd seen a doctor.  If they choose to limit themselves, I hope they do so accepting the fact that it is a limitation in some situations.  Limits can be good, and honestly we're all going to die anyway, so I'd just soon people live the way they want--as long as it really is a choice, and not delusion.  Because, we all know deep down, that living naturally doesn't make us immortal, or better, or cleaner.  And a long, healthy life isn't truly natural.  It's a combination of luck, and resources, and wisdom, and genetics, and ... medicine.

I urge everyone to make these choices in an informed way, and to really study all aspects of their health and well-being from a variety of sources.  Health is one of those incredibly valuable things that many people take for granted, and not always in the way that you'd think.  Ill health can be taken for granted just as easily as good health.  Health is not obvious, or automatic ... it's a gift.  May it be yours to hold and keep as long as possible.

Thought and Action--Infatuation vs. Love

I've had lots more fun/progress with Masks.  I never have enough time to write, or garden, or do art ....

Sometimes what I pick shows how much of a priority that takes above the other things, but sometimes it means the opposite.  When a project gets too overwhelming or goes too deep or takes me to scary places, it's funny how important my other stuff becomes.

Which works okay, but I have to be really careful that I come back and finish what I began.  Otherwise, eventually everything that I care about will be put on a backburner until that fictional time period where it will no longer challenge me.  I can't live and create in fictional time.  I have to do that in real time.  I have to work hard and get my hands dirty in the garden.  I have to sit my butt in the chair and write.  I have to get out my ground and my medium and work them together until I finish (or give up, more likely, but at least I'll have gotten to a place where I'm doing more harm than good and I can set it aside satisfied that I've taken it as far as my skills allow.)  

And now I really do have to find out why my dogs are freaking out.  Could it be a deer eating my roses?  Time to get my flashlight (wah, it's all the way upstairs!) and go outside (but it's cooooollllddd out there!) and check it out.

'Cause intent without action means all the roses will be gone tomorrow.  I love them too much to let that happen.  I guess that's the difference between infatuation and love.  Follow through.

She did it!!!!

Congratulations, my daughter.

Your teachers and every member of the tribe is so proud of you.

Especially your dad and I.

Bravo.

Love, Mom

Work and Play

I'm trying to set up a new business and the details are crazy-making! I think I'm going to have to do a lot more research before I can figure out what it is *exactly* that I'll be doing with this.

Advice is welcome.

I had a wonderful time in Seattle. Our hosts were amazing and extremely hospitable. I had some amazing conversations over the weekend, and met a lot of fantastic people. Which reminds me: thanks to everyone there for weathering my sugar-crash on Saturday. I forgot what they felt like.

Note to self: No donut for Kami when she's hungry.

We have ongoing good weather, so I'll be out in the garden a lot. Good grief, the garden ... it either rains too much or not enough. I'm sure the seedlings are very confused, what seedlings I have. It's late, it's late, I've missed my very important garden dates, but it doesn't bother me. I'll plant anyway at this inauspicious time and see what happens.

Gardening would be boring if it turned out awesome every year. I guess that makes gardening something like gambling, and maybe that aspect is part of what makes it so addictive. The other parts? I can go on and on about how huge the peony blooms are this year, and the taste of fresh tomatoes and snow peas, the pleasure of picking fresh herbs to season our meat for dinner, etc.

Besides, I like playing in the dirt. It smells nice.

Tangential Thoughts that don't lead to anything but more thoughts

Long but good day. I had a lot of great conversations during breaks (my DH was teaching and no, I didn't have to be his button monkey.) Some were intense and got me thinking about things I haven't thought about in a long time.

Mostly I had a really easy life, but there were a few hairy patches and some rough and sad times. Who hasn't? I think that it was those hair, rough and sad times that shaped me the most. And people who don't have it tough, who seemingly have everything (nice house, plenty of money, access to good food, medicine, the best education, etc.)--are those of us just misinformed about their behavior or are the privileged kids creating their own problems to weather?

Do we need a certain amount of pain to grow through, and does pain we generate for ourselves actually grow us or is it a sad substitute that doesn't work but is better than nothing?

Stuff to think about.

In which Kami gets Long-Winded

Stress.

Not mine, at least not directly. The girl is experiencing unprecedented levels of pressure, and it's starting to really get to her. Luckily she's got a nice weekend ahead of her with nothing more to do than pick out which book she'd like to read in the shade under our trees.

I only vaguely remember that kind of pressure. It's not a success thing, at least not in the usual way I think of success. When you've been living under the protection of adults all your life, it's hard to trust that you've got what it takes to make it on your own. Add to that the sense of permanence to those early decisions ...

I decided that I wanted to be an engineer like my father. I didn't do very well in college in that first year. Better than some, in that I didn't completely flunk out, but my grades reflected my complete lack of preparation for attending a university full time.

It was the end of the world, or so I thought. I bore up well on the exterior (I think) but deep down I felt like opportunity had come knocking and I'd opened the door and accidentally shot it dead.

The girl is trying to decide whether to work, where to work, how to focus her learning and efforts, how to do the college thing both financially and also mentally/emotionally, and I know she feels like whatever she decides in the next couple of months will either make or break her.

Well, yes and no ....

Because all of us who've been there know that things like college and first jobs and where we choose to live when we first set out on our own is just a beginning. That beginning could be really short and actually not affect the rest of your life at all.

My father died. I married and had children. I started writing. I took more college courses, toyed with finishing my degree or maybe starting a new one ... and that life-and-death freshman year in college turned out to just be a brief testing ground. I learned important stuff about myself, but in the grand scheme of things, I doubt that completely flunking out would have broken me. Completing school and getting an engineering degree didn't guarantee success either. I'd have a different life ... but better? Worse? It think that would have depended on me more than what I achieved, if that makes sense. I think that one way or another, wherever I ended up, I'd be happy only if I figured out how to be happy, and I'd be miserable no matter how cushy a job I landed with my fancy degree if I never learned how to cope with failure, and cope with partial successes, and appreciate what I've got no matter how things are going.

That's a really long-winded way of saying, basically, that I think that no matter what the girl decides, she'll be all right. Even if she's not, it may not have so much to do with being stuck with what she decides as being in a particular place at a particular time with a particular skill set. I wish I could help her understand that it's okay, and that sometimes mistakes aren't mistakes, and sometimes the right choice turns out really crummy, and we just have to adapt. Stuff happens. Part of growing up is learning how to take that failure or success or weird switcheroo and make it work out for you, or at least laugh and move on and keep being happy.

As long as there's life, there's hope. Not hope for a happily-ever-after. Just hope. Hope that there's going to be a good day, or hour, or minute ahead, or if not, hope that we can at least say it was all worth it.

Good luck, my children. It's a big world full of lots of things, and I hope you can shake off the stress long enough to appreciate how much of a privilege it is to try, and choose, and be.

Appreciation

I'm on my way to Seattle with my DH. It'll be a working vacation, with lots of writing for me and lots of teaching important stuff for him.

Before we left I took a shot at putting in some veggies. It's so late in the year I don't even want to think about it. Ugh. It's not the latest year, though.

I remember the year we moved to the area. Wind tore the gutter away from the roof on our first night. I'd wondered what the banging outside might be--I was unfamiliar enough with the house that I didn't think it was abnormal.

That year it refused to stop raining, and I didn't know enough about how the planting season worked in our area, or that it would have been better to just turn the sod over rather than try to dig up the grass (which was really more like bamboo at that point) and shake off as much topsoil from the roots as possible--I didn't know anything, actually. I thought I did. I was about to learn that I was a lousy gardener ill-equipped to deal with a large property.

I don't remember if I actually got anything out of the garden that year. Probably not. But I got started. Every spring since then I thought this year the garden is going to be really spectacular. One year it really was, but I didn't realize it at the time. I was too busy battling blackberries.

I don't think this year will be very good, but it may still surprise me. What I have learned, though, is to appreciate the progress. I might never think the garden is really good in a particular year, but even on a cruddy year with mostly cloudy skies, low temperatures, the ground too saturated to dig and/or too cold to plant until June, I can take a look around and think 'this is the best year yet.'

So here's to the best year yet, in gardening and in life. Enjoy the sunshine if you've got it!