A memo to King George

Yo, George. Yeah, you. Your vacation is over -- it should have been over on Sunday night, before Katrina came calling. Forget about bike rides, Cindy, gas prices -- be a man, step up to the plate with something other than platitudes, and do something useful for once.

Yes, more people should have evacuated if at all possible, though many had no cars or other ways out, or were incapacitated, and wow, who would have figured on that? Didn't any of the region's supposedly well-informed and trained public officials figure on trouble when they hastily decided to put these "everyone elses" in the Superdome? And where the hell were the Feds, with all their brainpower and resources? (Well, we know where George was.) Especially since one of the main concerns for New Orleans was that the levees would break and the city would flood? And water and electricity usually do go out when a hurricane passes through town -- lots of known variables here, and still no workable advance solutions. That's just wrong.

Well, it's easy to see in hindsight that the chaos in New Orleans might well have been prevented. But. We elect, hire, and pay for our public officials to have foresight. Oh, look, here comes a Category-5 hurricane that wrought havoc as a Cat-1 in Florida and now is knocking out oil rigs and drawing a bead on the Big Easy. Let's put our heads together and figure out a plan. (They should have had a plan before. But the storm still gave them fair warning.)

What a horrible situation for those thousands upon thousands of people stranded in the heat, the filth, the hunger and searing thirst, the chaos. And I just don't think it had to come to this.

Edited to add links to:
Ways to help:

American Red Cross
American Friends Service Committee
Liberal Blogosphere
The Humane Society

*Alert*: FEMA and some news outlets are directing potential donors to "Operation Blessing" -- which is chaired by Pat Robertson. You know, the guy who said we should assassinate Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Do what you want, but...

Pointed commentary:

"Look, I've seen the conservatives and the Sensible Liberals saying that this disaster shouldn't be politicized. In other words, we shouldn't talk about the decisions that were made beforehand regarding the levee system, and we shouldn't discuss the ways in which the commitment of funds and manpower to Iraq will affect recovery efforts, and we shouldn't discuss Bush's bizarre decision to spend a day giving canned stump speeches before heading back to D.C., and we shouldn't discuss the decisions that will be made in the days ahead--and I say, bullshit. Bush is clearly operating under no such constraint--he's obviously anticipating the criticism and trying to deflect it." -Tom Tomorrow, "This Modern World" (the blog)

"George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.... And nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis." -"Waiting for a Leader," The New York Times

"If you condensed every single official duty of the President of the United States into a list of perhaps four or five things, taking responsibility and management of his or her own citizens' welfare would be one of them. And on that topic the President has... totally failed at this." -August J. Pollak

"I'm 62, I remember the riots in Watts, I remember the earthquake in San Francisco, I remember a lot of things--I have never, ever seen anything as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans. Where the hell is the water for these people? Why can't sandwiches be dropped to those people in that Superdome down there? This is Thursday! This is Thursday! This storm happened five days ago. It's a disgrace, and don't think the world isn't watching. This is the government the taxpayers are paying for and it's fallen right flat on its face, in the way its handled this thing." -veteran newsman Jack Cafferty speaking on CNN (transcribed here among other places)

Dog!

I love my big dog Lucy. Just wanted to share that.

Lazarus went to his first day of preschool this morning, and although he had some anxious moments, he seemed to have a really good time. The teacher was obviously overwhelmed, as I would be were I facing 17 three-year-olds -- 13 boys and four girls (two crying hysterically) -- and my aide hadn't bothered to show up. Gad. My mom and I stayed through breakfast, as did a few other moms and two dads, and at least one mom stayed the whole morning even after a substitute aide showed up.

I didn't cry. Well, I cried last night, because of course I had to start looking at Laz's baby pictures (oh, look how tiny he was! oh, he'll never be that small and tender again!) but also because I still (and will probably always) have some anxiety over his developmental delays. His verbal and cognitive skills seem fine -- definitely a different drummer thing going on, but what could we expect given the boy's heritage -- but his motor skills are way behind, and it's more obvious when he's with other kids who run, jump, dash up steps, and otherwise cavort unfettered. The pediatric specialist we saw in Albuquerque earlier this month did mention the possibility (though impossible to pinpoint or confirm) that something happened during those last few weeks of pregnancy when his heartrate was going irregular, especially after the doc induced labor and things got really dicey. But he came out alright -- I'll always wonder, but he's here, with me, and he's a marvelous boy, and God knows I'm thankful for that.

Anyhoo. Time for bed. Which means I'll be up for another hour at least. Maybe I'll go downstairs and work on a quilt while Lucy nudges my arm and slobbers on my toes.

Shifting obsessions

Since I'm not working right now (I took a break from one client during the Denver aftermath of chaos and depression and am now waiting on another client to deliver a project for which I'll have to drop everything else), I have time and energy for my projects. Granted, two toddlers (Maggie now has fall-on-the-floor-and-flail tantrums, so I guess her babyhood is just about over) run me ragged much of the time, but I manage to snag time here and there for my own pursuits.

I seem to have three main obsessions -- quilting, knitting, and gardening -- and whether I pursue one or another seems to depend mostly on mood. I haven't wanted to knit, for example, since we were in Denver, probably because of the sunshine and heat (who wants to think of winter, let alone sit with a lapful of wool or mohair, on a warm sunny day?). I'm also finally getting the hang of the quilting thing, making it a far more productive and rewarding obsession than it was before, and on days I do feel frustrated or thwarted with that, I have plenty to do in the garden.

It once seemed pointless to garden in August -- whatever you have by then is all you're going to have by first frost -- but this year I feel, I don't know, empowered by my (very few) successes (gorgeous, sweet red onions! fat, sparky carrots! bushels of basil!) and determined to get in a good fall crop of greens that could, if properly managed, last well into winter. And late summer/early fall is the best time to plant most perennials, so of course I must forge ahead.... Under the guise of taking my mom on a trip to see the arts and culture of Santa Fe next week, I will be making a pilgrimage to not one but two native plant specialists, where I can scarcely imagine the beauty and possibilities that await....

Until then, I'll be planting my mesclun, micro greens, and rainbow chard, giving thanks for the afternoon rains, and scavenging for framing wood and glass panes to make myself some cold frames.

Just thinking of frost, I can feel the urge to knit welling up inside.... Of course Maggie's sweaters from last year don't fit anymore, including this little one, so I'll be needing to get busy soon so she and Laz can be cozy again this winter. I have yarn already, and don't know whether to start with a sassy wool/fluff-trimmed cardigan and hat for Maggie or a cabled pullover for Lazarus using the deep turquoise alpaca/mohair I got from the local fiber mill. Or... well, safe to say, I'm never bored these days....

For God's sake, George, you look like a putz to even some of your supporters (some of whom seem to be vying hard for the title of King Putz). Are you really too chicken-shit to meet directly with someone who disagrees with you and might ask you a hard question or two?

Oh, wait, I just woke up. Back to reality, folks, and you keep on enjoying your vacation, Mr. "President."

It's done!

Last night I finished this:




I'm so proud of myself -- just for finally finishing something. This is my second quilt project, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I hope to hang it today. So I guess my post-Denver convalescence is over.

In other news, um, well, I don't have any at the moment. Oh, I do want to get some pictures of the work Antonio has been doing on our store. He's just about finished laying the brick in one of the rooms, and I need to get a picture before he moves all our crap in there so he can get started on the main room in front.

Well, that's it -- four loads of laundry need hanging out, so I need to go.

Just more pictures

I was trying to figure out how to do a closeup of my Liatris spicata this morning, when a roaming butterfly came by for a drink. A rare moment of quiet for both of us.

And a "Hi, Granna!" from Lazarus:

Giddyap

Have I mentioned how much I love this camera? Not just because it takes great pictures but because it lets me capture moments like these. Jai and Omar came over yesterday with Cebollah (seh-BOY-yah, Sp. for onion), and Laz took a short ride around the field with them:

A thought

Blair's Blowback, by Gary Younge
From The Iraq Project -- an excerpt of an article published in The Guardian on July 11, 2005

"We know what took place [on July 7th, in London]. A group of people, with no regard for law, order or our way of life, came to our city and trashed it. With scant regard for human life or political consequences, employing violence as their sole instrument of persuasion, they slaughtered innocent people indiscriminately. They left us feeling unified in our pain and resolute in our convictions, effectively creating a community where one previously did not exist. With the killers probably still at large there is no civil liberty so vital that some would not surrender it in pursuit of them and no punishment too harsh that some might not sanction if we found them.

"The trouble is there is nothing in the last paragraph that could not just as easily be said from Falluja as it could from London. The two should not be equated - with over 1,000 people killed or injured, half its housing wrecked and almost every school and mosque damaged or flattened, what Falluja went through at the hands of the US military, with British support, was more deadly. But they can and should be compared. We do not have a monopoly on pain, suffering, rage or resilience. Our blood is no redder, our backbones are no stiffer, nor our tear ducts more productive than the people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those whose imagination could not stretch to empathise with the misery we have caused in the Gulf now have something closer to home to identify with. "Collateral damage" always has a human face: its relatives grieve; its communities have memory and demand action.

"These basic humanistic precepts are the principle casualties of fundamentalism, whether it is wedded to Muhammad or the market."

More cutie-patootie

And now, a new feature: um, I don't know what I'm calling it yet, but basically I want to occasionally highlight content from the great sites listed over in the right-hand column. So without further ado, today I want to push some good news on a big scary topic that's dear to my tree-hugging heart: global warming.

The Revolution Will Be Localized
from Alternet, July 20, 2005

"Local politicians, from governors to mayors to city councils, have taken the fight against global warming past Washington politics and directly to the people.

"City leaders from around the U.S. were treated to a rare bird's-eye view of the environment earlier this week at the Sundance Summit, a three-day mayors' retreat on climate change hosted by Robert Redford in Salt Lake City and at his 6,000-acre resort nestled beneath Utah's Mount Timpanogos, near Park City.

"...The summit was just the latest in a string of recent efforts to galvanize local action on climate change. This year, at the urging of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, more than 170 mayors nationwide have pledged to adopt Kyoto targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. The New Cities project, launched by Madison, Wis., Mayor Dave Cieslewicz (D), has a network of mayors working to implement on the local level the energy-independence proposals of the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of labor, environmental, and other groups that aims to spur eco-friendly economic growth. The Institute for Policy Studies in June launched a Cities for Progress campaign that's pushing for energy security, among other goals."

New digital camera. Wow. WOW.

I managed to catch this lizard, who's a regular in my front garden, with the camera's great zoom (optical, which really counts). It's the Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z10 -- no, I *didn't* get the $500 Canon Powershot S2. For $350 less, I think the image quality is acceptable... this version is Photoshopped down to user-friendly Web size, but the full-size version is amazing. For my amateur stuff, this camera is awesome.

So here are some pictures (finally) of the play quilt I'm making for the kids:



And the kids (this is from my old camera, but I just got around to Photoshopping them):



More to come later -- Laz and Papa get back from camping today (Omar and Jai took them to Bear Trap Canyon overnight), and Maggie will surely be finished being grumpy after lunch and a nap.

Big. Splinter. Ow. Ow.

Okay, okay, I'll wear real shoes outside from now on. I got not one but two big splinters -- nay, spears -- driven into my right foot this afternoon, and not only did (do) they hurt like hell, I no longer have health insurance. Heh. The first one came right out, being a rather cleanly shorn hardwood fragment, but the second one (which came a mere 20 minutes after I cleaned and slapped a band-aid on the first, then put my flip-flops back on to go finish my yard work) -- holy &#^%. It's all out now, all the nasty disintegrating pine fragments, and both holes have been duly cleaned, disinfected, and covered. I used Laz's neon bandages (I asked his permission, and he was happy to oblige), and tonight he said, "Mama has TWO bad owwies on her foot!"

Yep, Mama's a slow learner.

A Vacation at Long Last... Oops.

We went on a Real Vacation for the first time in... I don't even know. It lasted, oh, about two hours. Fun times.

We left June 16 (that's last month now) to visit Antonio's uncle in Albuquerque and then drive further north to our regional Quaker yearly meeting (our first time going) at Ghost Ranch, just past Abiquiu (it was georgia o'keefe's estate). What a spectacular drive, and we'd just finished dinner and were starting to meet cool people (Quakers are very liberal Christians), and Lazarus was already making friends, and then we got a message to call Antonio's uncle, who only knew where we were because we'd taken the time to visit...

Turns out Antonio's father had died and they found him on Thursday -- if we hadn't stopped to stay with the uncle (who's on the other side of the family, but somehow news got round to him), no one would have known where we were, and. Well. That would have been "bad." So we broke off our socializing, ran back to the room we'd just set up, packed it all back up, and got back in the car at 8:30 p.m. to drive north to Denver. I took the mountain shift (deer and elk really do leap out randomly in front of moving cars). Antonio took over once we hit I-25, and we got to Denver around 2:30 a.m. I did mention to Antonio that I'd like to stay in a hotel instead of crashing at a relative's house, and he agreed, so at least we got a few hours' good sleep.

Apparently, his dad had a heart attack or a roving blood clot and died immediately, which I guess is for the best because Chuck always said loudly that if he ended up in a hospital he'd pull out the damn tubes and be a pain in everyone's ass so they'd just let him go. Antonio is kind of stunned (they've always had a turbulent relationship, so the feelings are both intense and mixed), and I'm sad, especially that the kids won't remember him at all and he didn't get to see them this summer. Lazarus sort of seems to understand what "died" meant, since kitty Georgia and dog Chica both died recently, but he and Maggie were both -- how shall we say -- out of sorts, being away from the comforts and routine of home for so long. We had a lot of stuff to take care of and a lot of time to wait, to think, to miss home, to plot an early escape (that was me after the first week).... It was, of course, anything but a vacation, which is selfish of me to feel and write but DAMN it has been a long three weeks.

Home: a ten-hour drive on a cracked tailbone (I slipped down some stairs while cleaning Chuck's house), with a three-year-old screaming out three weeks' of pent-up frustration and a one-year-old feverish with strep throat, in a car that threatened to overheat if I dared to drive over 65 with the air conditioning on, packed to the roof with crap we don't need but didn't know what else to do with (Antonio drove a truck loaded with the rest of said crap). Home: running on fumes between Belen and Socorro because the power was out at the lone outpost along those 40 miles, and thank God for 32 miles per gallon and a sudden tailwind. Home: to a refrigerator full of food that would have lasted just fine over our four-day vacation but -- yeecchh, and to houseplants that actually survived three weeks of drought (8 of 12 made it, anyway), and to gardens that mostly survived thanks to the drip system I'd just finished (just a few plants drowned or seared because I hadn't yet figured out their adjustable emitters), and to a dog who bounded over the fence and leapt onto the car dancing her happy-dog dance when she saw us pull up.

There's no place like home.

The Foot Bone's Connected to the... Oops.

Dear Anna,

We appreciate that you let us stay bare much of the time, that we can feel the sun and the dry air. If, however, you plan to move rocks -- nay, boulders -- please. put. on. real. shoes. Flip-flops are not acceptable shoes here in rattlesnake/scorpion/giant centipede country, period, let alone for moving massively heavy objects. We don't appreciate being crushed, stubbed, or otherwise mauled when the boulders go astray, as they will do after a long day of your relentless efforts (would you just give it up already and live with the dirt, or put in a lawn or something?), and if you're going to refuse us fair cover or an evening of rest on your plush footstool, understand that our throbbing pain will wake you up in the middle of the night.

Please, we don't want to see anymore boulders hurtling toward us. You have shoes. Use them tomorrow and you can sleep tomorrow night. Don't use them, and you can kiss your gardening days goodbye for a month or two.

Sincerely,
Your Bare Brokendown Feet

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Dear Anna,

We continue to enjoy these well-aired, no-sweat, fungus-free summer days, and we commend you for ceasing the boulder-moving operations until you can find your left boot. We would, however, like to bring to your attention the hazards involved in sawing large limbs off the several elms that you deem to be partially blocking your garden from essential mid-day sunlight. Granted, we feet are mere props in such an operation -- until you start climbing said trees to get at that one pesky limb hanging over your precious heirloom tomatoes, or tromping over the downed limbs to start hacking away at another one.

Lumberjacks, even pretend ones, wear boots. Not flip-flops. As previously mentioned, flip-flops are not regulation gardening attire, even less so considering that you're hardly "gardening" on these days of unbridled landscape alteration. When will it end?

Consider this your final warning.

Sincerely,
Your Still-Bare Too-Many-Close-Calls Aching Feet

P.S. - Your aching, half-locked-up elbows work for us now.

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Dear Feet:

I am in receipt of your letter dated 13 June 2005. I appreciate your concerns and will take them under advisement. Please be assured that I remain dedicated to your well-being and am honored by your tireless service.

Best regards,

Anna

P.S. -- I signed you up for a special new service, which you can access by clicking the link below -- enjoy!

Glad Someone Is Out There Fighting

I've been feeling like an underachiever (nice word for "failure") lately, and although this (below) doesn't help me feel any more successful, it does make my heart glad. This guy John Bonifaz was a high-school classmate of mine, and I'm so glad to read that he's still making (the good kind of) trouble after all these years.

=============================================

After Downing Street: A Resolution of Inquiry

By Steve Cobble / The Nation
June 7th, 2005 12:39 pm

It's not exactly a news flash that the Bush Administration lied to the public before the invasion of Iraq. What should be on front pages, though, is new proof of the Bush Administration's lies brought to light by the previously unknown Downing Street Minutes, recently obtained and printed in the Times of London. (The Downing Street Memo is a transcript of minutes of a secret meeting chaired by Tomy Blair in Britain in July of 2002 to discuss preparations and propaganda before going to war. It was marked "Secret and strictly personal--UK eyes only.")

The Downing Street Minutes are deserving, in the words of constitutional lawyer John Bonifaz, of an official "Resolution of Inquiry directing the House Judiciary Committee to launch a formal investigation into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its constitutional power to impeach George W. Bush, President of the United States."

Bonifaz, who two years ago took the Bush Administration to court on behalf of a coalition of US soldiers, parents of soldiers and twelve Members of Congress (including John Conyers Jr., Dennis Kucinich, Jesse Jackson Jr., Jim McDermott, José Serrano, Sheila Jackson Lee) to challenge the constitutionality of the Iraq war, adds:

"The question must now be asked, with the release of the Downing Street Memo, whether the President has committed impeachable offenses. Is it a High Crime to engage in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people about the basis for taking the nation into a war? Is it a High Crime to manipulate intelligence so as to allege falsely a national security threat posed to the United States as a means of trying to justify a war against another nation based on 'preemptive' purposes? Is it a High Crime to commit a felony via the submission of an official report to the United States Congress falsifying the reasons for launching military action?"

As in previous investigations of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors," such a "Resolution of Inquiry is the appropriate first step in launching this investigation."

Bonifaz's memorandum making the case for launching a Resolution of Inquiry is posted at www.afterdowningstreet.org, a new website founded by David Swanson, Bob Fertik, Bonifaz and others (including this writer), together with a broad array of public interest groups that is posted on the web site.

Our memo is written to Representative Conyers, both because he is the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and because he has been a brave truth-seeker on this issue and so many others. We support his letter demanding answers from the Bush Administration, signed originally by eighty-eight of his House colleagues; his call for 100,000 signatures to back up that letter; and his plan to go to London to seek more answers.

We have also made contact with several other members of Congress, and we believe that it will not be long before a group in Congress officially calls for an ROI.

Unfortunately, as most Nation readers know, the Downing Street Minutes have only been a story in the rest of the world, especially in Britain. In the United States it is taking much longer for the mainstream to pick up on it, and the issue is still being treated far less seriously than the seriousness of the charges warrant.

Fortunately, the blogosphere has found this new proof of George W. Bush's "misleadership" much more compelling than the mainstream press has; writers like Apian have posted incisive diaries on www.dailykos.com, which regularly covers the story, as has Georgia10 and her friends, who founded the wonderful site www.downingstreetmemo.com.

Despite a slow start, the Downing Street Minutes may have a long life expectancy, and the Misleader of the Pack may yet have to confront the truth.

=============================================

Rock on, John.

Grammar Lesson

Okay, so I'm writing these destination guides, and in researching the various cities, I visit anywhere from 10 to 100 Web sites in a day. Some are very polished, with compelling graphics and excellent prose, some are passionate but kind of clunky, and some are clearly slapped together in the "they say we need a Web site so put something up ASAP" tradition. That's okay; I'm just there to get some basic info and move on. But I do have a pet peeve, and I'm appalled to see it crop up nearly everywhere, even on some of the professionally done sites.

It's not "it's" or "its'" when you're referring to something and its attributes. As in, "carefully restored to it's 1800s grandeur" -- good God, who gets paid to write this stuff, and who signed off on it? Oh, that's right, the real writers and editors all got laid off as soon as the economy got dicey because it's not that important to worry about grammar and its fine points.

R.I.P., Chica

We had to put our dog Chica down yesterday -- she got hit by a car (I assume) and dragged herself home, two days after disappearing, with a shattered hind leg. Even if we could have afforded to get the leg x-rayed and all that, I doubt it would have been reparable. I feel just awful... she was a pain in the butt a lot of the time (she barked a lot) but she was so sweet, and now Lucy (our other dog) misses her something awful.

Chica was an escape artist, see, and would roam the town at will after squeezing under the gate or through an invisible gap in the fence, often with Lucy who would simply jump over the fence and run with her. I tried everything but couldn't keep her from finding some tiny gap to wriggle through, and she was just dumb about streets, and I so saw this coming. A few weeks ago I bought a tie-out to keep her tied up so she wouldn't keep escaping, but it seemed cruel... and she figured out how to slip the collar anyway (a perfectly fitted choke-chain, no less; she'd already ditched four or five collars by then)... We have a big yard, lots of room to run and play, but it never was enough for Chica, and God forbid we try to take a walk and leave her behind -- I'd be ten yards down the street and I'd hear the gate rattle and then here came Chica loping down the street with her tongue hanging out and her tail wagging in big loopy circles. Every time a car came by, I'd have to call her sharply, grab her collar (if she hadn't ditched it yet) and hold her till the car passed, or she'd just stroll out in front of it.

So, yeah, I saw it coming. I feel bad that I never spent enough time with her, doing some basic training and all that. She needed more than I had to give -- she was always a bit insecure (hence the barking, and also some recent snarling dominance battles with Lucy, who's a good 30 pounds heavier) -- and so I feel like I failed her. She wasn't even two yet -- still a puppy, but starting to mature into a good (if rough-around-the-edges) dog. Chica, I'm so sorry. I miss your pretty blue eyes and happy chatty bark, and I miss watching you and Lucy roughhousing in the yard and, yes, chasing rabbits through the fields across town. Happy trails to you.

A few birthday pictures

We had a real birthday party for Lazarus today -- Jai came over (along with his mama and papa), and several of our friends showed up, too. It was a really, really nice day, especially when Papa brought out the little blue pool. Maggie spent a good two hours splashing around and then in the pool, just having a blast. She crashed out before cake time, which to Lazarus is the whole point of having a birthday. All day yesterday and today he chanted "Happy birthday cake! Happy birthday cake Lazarus!"

I think I got better shots with my "real" camera, but here's one of my favorite moments of the day (post cake, post-pinata):



Yesterday we went for a picnic in Water Canyon -- Laz was so excited to be on a picnic, and Maggie tasted strawberries for only the second time, and it was just a perfect evening.



I also finally wrote out Lazarus' birth story yesterday... gee, that only took me three years. I'm amazed at how much I still remember, but I'm glad I wrote it down finally because some of the details were starting to fade. If you really want to read it, here are parts 1, 2 and 3.

And here's a parting shot, from last week when Granna cut Laz's hair. I love this picture:

Three years ago today...

this little person came to live with me:



I still can't believe how fortunate I am.

Another garden update

This'll be a quick update, which is all my gardening warrants these days because it's so piecemeal (moments stolen from my too-precious work time).

Some chickens flew the coop this morning and got at my brand-new purple and yellow bell pepper plants and cucumber hills. I got mad, almost mad enough to pull out the axe and start hacking. And for me that's pretty mad. Instead I swore a holy blue streak, chased the mean ol' rooster around with a big stick, and built up the coop fencing a bit more. They'd BETTER leave my garden alone, or they'll be next winter's chicken stew, all season long. I don't need their eggs that badly.

I picked up four heirloom tomatoes on Tuesday -- they didn't have any of the deep purple or tiger-striped kinds on hand, but these'll do nicely:
-Old German (big, tri-colored streaks, sweet)
-Sugar Lump (very sweet cherry tomatoes that probably won't make it into the kitchen)
-Pink Brandywine (big, smooth but complex flavors)
-Rutgers (deep red, abundant, old-time tomato flavor)

I also bought some lavender plants, which I've put with some established Russian sage plants into what's now a rock garden. Use what you've got, right? Rocks, we got rocks. I managed to refrain from stuffing Mom's CR-V full of plants because I just don't have time to dig, amend, plant, tend. That, and autumn is a much better time to plant perennials. Oh, I picked up some herbs, too, including lemon grass. In California, I stuck a tiny lemon grass plant in my back border and two years later it had become tall, majestic and irresistibly fragrant. I know that won't happen here (and I'll have to mulch the heck out of it and the other herbs if I want them to survive the winter), but it's nice to have some on hand. I was going to create an entire rock herb garden from scratch -- dig the (rock-solid) bed, haul the boulders for the perimeter (15 or so at 50 pounds each... uh-huh), amend the dirt, plant the herbs, and fence it off so the damn chickens won't destroy it -- but, uh, no. Not this week, anyway, so I'll just put the herbs in the final garden bed and be done.

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Tomorrow is Lazarus' third birthday. Three years ago today, we spent a wonderful Sunday with friends, and although I wasn't due for another week, I had a feeling something even better was coming, and soon. But it was scary getting there. If I have time tonight or tomorrow I'll try to write about it.

Oh

Okay, so I signed on to post pictures, but my little camera is downstairs (and I'm not even sure where its special USB cable is, which explains why I haven't posted pictures in so long, not to mention the just-realized fact that my new upstairs computer doesn't have Photoshop...)

*SIGH*

Maybe tomorrow. Or not -- I'm taking Mom to the airport (*sniff!!* We miss you, Granna!) and plan to kick up my heels a bit -- um, I mean, take care of some essential business and errands -- in Albuquerque, since I have to drive the 200 miles anyway. In Mom's wonderful new car. With the babes at home in Papa's loving care.

I got me some serious road-trip fever now.

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Garden update:

I haven't been able to work on my gardens (yes, I always use the plural; it sounds more impressive) nearly as much as I'd like, thanks to a busy workload (thank you!!), but I've managed to get in some vegetable seeds and tomato plants, and have the veggie garden drip irrigation system all set up except for two (out of six) beds' worth of emitters. (Emitters get the water from the black tubes snaking across the yard right to the plants, and I just got a sampling of fancy-schmancy ones that only a total gardening geek could appreciate...)

Tomorrow (in Albuquerque, where my choices go WAY BEYOND WALMART) I'm going to get four to six heirloom tomatoes (fancy term for really tasty older varieties that haven't had the taste hybridized right the heck out of them) to replace the Big Boy plants (from WALMART) that croaked seven minutes after I planted them. I also plan to take another stroll through Plants of the Southwest, where Mom and I had a lovely time last week looking at native and drought-tolerant trees, flowering shrubs and such. (Their Web site doesn't begin to do the place justice -- the place is just heavenly.)

I also want to take another look at the Imperial Honey Locust tree I've tentatively picked out for the back yard. That is, for that empty stretch of dust and rock between the house and the shed that currently doesn't even sport weeds because, well, it's an empty stretch of dust and rock that the dogs and the child (the mobile one, that is) and other assorted creatures trample endlessly. The plan: put the tree in once fall comes, then landscape around it, outward, to break up said empty space. So this summer (after I finish this big work project, and the veggie garden, and the drip system for that and the border gardens that currently sport nothing much because it's just about IMPOSSIBLE to grow stuff here) I'll start moving rocks and hauling manure back there to get the space ready.

I know, I'm such a glamour queen.
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House stuff:

I love my little house. It's way too small, but it'll do nicely for now, and with a $450 mortgage (yep, one zero, no numbers missing there) I won't complain. Just for perspective, I took a looksie through home prices in my old California neighborhood, where we bought a cosmetic-fixer for just under $170K in late 2000. Wow. A house behind our former home is listed for $355K -- as is, with "untold potential," in a bankruptcy sale. A full 100K over what we sold our house for just over two years ago. That's just insane. Which is what I thought when we sold the house for 90K more than we paid a mere two years after buying it. But this is more insane. The house wasn't that nice.

No, I do not regret leaving Southern California. I miss my (spacious) home there, but geez. My property taxes there would be more than my mortgage here.

Of course, our street there was paved, too.

;-)