oops

By blanching tomatoes I got to learn something about tomato-ness that I had never known. 

It's good but too sweet.  I never should have followed the sugar instructions.

We theorized that maybe our tomatoes are sweet because they're romas out of the backyard, not round ones from a store.  So we didn't need any sugar at all.

making tomato soup

I had been craving tomato soup.  And we have tomatoes in the backyard.  So I decided to make some tomato soup from scratch.  It smells delicious so far.

We walked to the co-op, the postie, the bank.  Later we'll go to the library.

Here's the recipe I'm using minus the croutons.

http://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/tomato-soup-recipe-restaurant-style

olives

doh

I was reading about how to make red bean paste, and one website said it's traditional to use lard.  I was sad to hear it. 

I want to make my own red bean paste.  But I don't know what to stuff with it.  Maybe just eat it off the spoon.

sudz

This morning I bought an ounce or two of adzuki beans at the co-op.  I asked Ming, "Do you know if you can sprout adzuki beans?" and he said, "Why don't you look it up on your phone?"  Google said yes. 

Now I'm texting silly animals to my mom. 

Our apartment complex's washer broke (again).  So we went to Sudz Yr Dudz this afternoon, which was very nice.  I wrote letters at the cafe next door.  Ming handled the laundry, for which I'm grateful.

too busy

Yesterday I saw a friend for coffee.  We had fun talking, and then Ming showed up to pick me up and take me on a banana run. 

Then we went to our loved cafe for writers group.  It was fun.  I wrote a longish non-fiction thing that I might include in a zine someday.

Then we had to run because we had to cook soyrizo rice for dinner.  It went well.  It turned out tasty.

Then we went to this potluck party and enjoyed meeting some people.  It was at our new friend's place in his big backyard.  He gave a tour of the trees and plants.  People drank a lot of wine.  I liked the people.

Then we had to leave the party for a while to do Food Not Bombs bread pickup.  There was very little extra bread yesterday, so it was easier than usual.

We spoke to lots of interesting people at the party.  Aerial mosquito spraying, Las Vegas, birding, harlequin bugs, veganness, Animal Place animal sanctuary, the leaky paper plates, the food we were eating.

Once home I needed some brainwash because my head was too full of people.  But I eventually settled down.

unpredicted

Football at the high school is loud.  "Holy crap!  How can they yell like that?" I asked Ming about the coaches, an impossible question.  I'm full of them.  I don't like being cranky like this.

We spent our whole free five farmers market bux on grapes and nectarines from one vendor.  Plus an actual dollar.

Yesterday Ming bought some jin duy at the Chinese market that gets it Tuesdays and Fridays.  It's so good! We shared one bun with a friend.

Last night there was unpredicted thunder and a downpour.  I liked it.

pic of seeds

seeds

I thought of something I wanted to blog and then forgot it.  Ming's out harvesting sunflower seeds.  They're little.  Maybe we'll plant them in Las Vegas in the spring.  He says he can't get the seeds without the chaff.  I said we can plant the chaff with the seeds.  But maybe we could sort it out.

One of the things I remember from reading the Bible as a child is this verse where something's compared to the chaff that the wind blows away.  I remember at school we talked about winnowing.  I was very curious.

I wish I went to a school where we did more cool things.  Like grow gardens.

Bed six has been overtaken by grass.  The lemon verbena and rosemary are well.  The walking onions are okay.  The tree collard is quite dead.  I want to pull the grass and plant oregano seeds.  Or something cold weather that's not cruciferous. 

But do I have the energy?  Not really.  The rain yesterday was fantastic but no more in sight.

pink mushrooms

We got these pink mushrooms from the $5 mushroom guy at the Arroyo Grande farmers market.  They were delicious!

bleu cheese almond bread

 

We got this bleu cheese almond bread at the Arroyo Grande farmers market.  It was amazing.

the news

It's raining, my back feels better, and we made a new song.  It's called "we're happy it's raining."  We recorded it and can sing it for you someday.

error

We're home safe.  But my back has erred. 

windmill farms

Today we went to Windmill Farms between Nipomo and Arroyo Grande.  We unlooped the chain on the gate and visited the animals.  Some of the goats are babies.  They were very sweet. 

The animals seemed a little bored.  They trotted over to see us in their pens.  Some had bamboo stalks which they chewed and chewed and banged  on the fence.

"They're doing a thing," I told Ming.  "Why are they doing that?" 

Goats, turkeys, a sheep that didn't want to talk.  There was an egg in the turkey pen.

Outside the store were succulents.  "Which is your favorite?" I asked Ming. 

We went inside the store, where no one talked to us.  We sniffed the candles.  We looked at jellies. 

smoke dream

Yesterday I saw my bestie E.  She gave me presents and drove us to Avila Barn.  She enjoyed feeding the animals.  I think she liked the emus best.

I got an iphone.  I'm learning how to use it--I don't understand a lot of things.  It's yellow.  Last night getting it activated took a long time.  The worker had some trouble--we were there past closing time.  The Verizon store is like a strange alternate reality.

In the night I woke up smelling smoke, but it was only a dream.

Ming

Gmorning, world.  How're things?  Yesterday Mom braided my hair.  We went to the pier.  We took pictures.

Ming wore his climate change shirt in honor of all the marches.

breakfast news

This morning we're making crepes with lemon curd and strawberries.  This afternoon we'll have beach fun with my aunt.  Mom painted my fingernails a glitter orange.  Yesterday I wrote some poems that are not the best, but maybe I can fix them.

more with Mom

selfie with Mom

shit my dad says

"Here's a recipe for Nutella crepes.  Who the hell needs a recipe for Nutella crepes?  Just slap some Nutella in a crepe, dumbass."

today at the apple farm

birthday

It's my birthday, and Mom's making a peach sauce.  My bestie E says it's Lemon Festival in Goleta.  An iphone will be delivered for me today.  And we'll go get it activated. 

Yesterday we went to Michael's and chose a basket for a particular purpose at Mom's work.  I liked all the baskets.  We also picked up eight memory boxes so Mom doesn't have to store her photos in shoeboxes.  Actually one of the boxes was for me. 

A little moth keeps bumping into me. 

And that's the news.

emus

Safe after yesterday's journey, I am doing well.  Yesterday we stopped at Avila Beach and took a walk.  We also took some sits.  I like staring out into the waves. 

Then we went to Avila Barn and looked at the animals.  We looked at the eyes of the emus.

Before that we were at a café for two hours: Kreutzburg in San Luis.  I love that place.  I wrote a letter to my bestie and hung out with Ming.

Olive pizza, laundry, choices of what to do.  Which phone to get.

"The only person I want to run into in San Luis is dead," I told Ming.  We talk about how great it would be to see that person's ghost.

terrariums

This morning I woke up thinking about terrariums.  Would one do well in the desert.  I went through a phase of researching them several years ago but never got so far as making my own. 

Grass Valley

Today we went to Grass Valley to visit Animal Place, this vegan animal sanctuary.  It was fun to see the animals but a little depressing to read the signage about how animals are abused at most farms.  The veal cage was pretty depressing too.

I am intimidated by pigs.  We saw turkeys doing some interesting behaviors.  I liked the distant cows.  One of the sheep was breathing funny.  The bunnies were all hiding.

Then we went to lunch at South Pine and it was okay.  Then we went to the library.  It was hard to park.

After the library Ming read out loud to me the novel we're reading The Professor's House.  I don't like any of the characters are am pretty fed up with the book.  We're more than halfway through now.  I might bail.

Then we drove through Nevada City but didn't stop.  I was pooped.

us at Animal Place today

expense / resources

Yesterday we went to Berkeley to photocopy my new zine.  We stopped in Vallejo to have some coffee.  My bestie sent me some gift cards for my birthday, and one was for Starbux.

Then we made the copies in Berkeley.  Then we had Pakistani food for lunch--it was delicious.  Then we went to the beach at Alameda.  I had never been there, and I was stunned at its beauty.  I was so happy Ming took me there.  I just wanted to hug and kiss him again and again.

We were maybe going to have a houseguest, but he never showed up or called.  I think he might have gotten waylaid, and I hope he's okay.  He doesn't have a phone.

When Ming and I move to Las Vegas, which is delayed because my hearing date is delayed, we will return to the Bay Area to see Ming's kids.  I propose we stay in a hotel in Vallejo.  These trips will be expensive, but we will have more resources then. 

the best jeans I ever had

I had these jeans, the best jeans I ever had.  Two pair, identical.  They belled out a little bit on the legs, fit well, were very comfortable.  But they wore out.  Eventually I threw them away. 

This was years ago, like twelve years ago.  They were soft.  I miss them.

More recently I had some shorts that were my favorite shorts.  They were the best fitting and looked very nice.  But they are worn out now.  There are holes and the edges fray.  I bought an iron on patch.  Should I try to prolong their life?  Or just let them go?  I'm afraid the patch will just complicate matters when it's actually time to say goodbye.

Seems like lots of my clothes are wearing out at the same time.  If only I had a windfall.

morning affirmation

This morning we walked to the co-op.  We saw on a light post: You are a being of limitless, boundless worth.  It was nice.

I really liked this jean jacket for years but didn't wear it much, and it doesn't fit well anymore, so I'm freecycling it.  I don't need it.  So someone's picking it up at 10:45.  I thought it was too good for Goodwill, that it would get lost among everything.

I started doing morning pages and meditating again this morning.  And I drew.  I enjoyed the drawing.  I like feeling like I'm accomplishing something early. It's better than checking my email immediately. 

The other day after apple picking Ming and I read the Robert Frost poem together "After Apple Picking" and enjoyed it.  I told him how for me it was about teaching  Here's an excerpt.  

For I have had too much

Of apple-picking: I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,

Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall. 

 

He looked up some online cheating website for analysis of the poem, and they just talked about apples and death.  So he doubted me, that it can be about a former job.  I played the master's degree card.

smut

Our corn from this morning's farmers market was smutty.  I tasted the smut.  It was okay.  Then I cut off the smutty parts and ate the rest.  It was good.

I read the wikipedia article about it.  I thought it got people high.  Some places it's a delicacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_smut

Whistling in the Dark -- TMBG

There's only one thing that I know how to do well
and
I've often been told that you only can do what you know
how to do well
and that's be you
be what you're like
be like yourself.
--They Might Be Giants

This is the song that's in my head from my teenhood.

and then

apples realized

We went to the co-op for oatmeal for the all the apple crisp I'll be baking.  Ho ho.

apple time

This morning we went to Apple Hill.  We visited many little ranches. 

We went to Denver Dan's and looked around.  "Do you have donuts?" I asked.  We were directed to Rainbow.

We went to Rainbow and had apple cider donuts, hot and fresh. 

We visited Honey Bear that did not have organic apples yet.  "Next week," the worker said. 

We visited Fudge Factory and had samples.  We bought a square of peanut butter fudge.  It was delicious.

Finally, we went to Pine O' Mine.  There we picked almost nine pounds of red delicious.  What are we going to do with all of these apples?

my typewriter fortune, Ming's typewriter fortune

Is it true I need to be less demonstrative in the expression of my love?

mouse woes

My mouse died, my computer mouse.  It started working badly then died altogether.  The little red light stopped glowing.

But I have another mouse, a cordless mouse.  It's hot pink.  But there's only one problem.  The right mouse button doesn't work.  Why is that?

So I'm trying to work around not having a right mouse button.  I looked up the cut and paste keyboard commands.  I'm still not sure how to open a link in a new tab.

Also in the news, Ming went to Gather and brought home some $5 vegetarian lumpia that was so good.

kicks

Ming has been doing kicks lately.  I got this yoga book from my friend K, and there was this little pullout from Self Magazine stuck between two pages, and it shows exercises for strengthening abdominal muscles.  I guess kicks are good for that.

I went to group yesterday and today.  It's good to have some structure and social times.  Today we learned about the difference between feelings and emotions, which I didn't get and am not sure matters.  And we drew about feelings on the outline of a person.  We used markers.  I'll include mine below.  (There are little hearts on my hands, but the pink didn't scan.)

today

1.  mini-walk
2.  tutoring: phonics, flashcards
3.  group
4.  Anna's Vegan Cafe
5.  library
6.  home
7.  new zines (Vedanta zine and fish letters #3)
8.  leftover banana pecan pancakes
9.  blog
10.  bed

Sacramento Is For Lovers

skunk alert

This morning Ming and I walked near the confluence of the American and Sacramento rivers.  We saw some feral cats.  We went onto this island over Jimboom Bridge.  We sat for a while at a picnic table looking out onto the river. 

Then a skunk came walking toward us.  I think you're not supposed to see skunks in the daytime, so we got up and left.  Then I looked back over my shoulder and saw a black & white cat near where the skunk had been.  But I know it had been a skunk because the black and white were brighter and because of the way they walk.

I am feeling like crap for a variety of reasons and want to hole up and suffer alone.  Weird, huh.  But that's the way it can be, for me at least.  I am underscheduled and lonely.

Musee Mechanique realized

Gmorning.  Yesterday was fantastic.  We enjoyed the Musee Mechanique.  I got a typewriter fortune, so wonderful, for only fifty cents.  I played Bust-a-Move II for maybe half an hour, being challenged by Ming and his second son and beating them both.  Was fun.  But I kind of wanted to play Whack A Mole but didn't.  I listened to a piano play me a song.  I wanted to hear another song but put my quarter in the wrong slot.  So there are reasons to go back.

Then Japantown was more exhausting then fun, maybe, and it's always so warm in that mall.  But I looked at some Japanese notebooks (don't need any but like to look) and bought two stationery things at the discount store.  Some red envelopes with pics of Japanese toys on them and some clover stationery.

This morning I was up early from a nightmare about being trapped on an island and realizing we were all going to die.

raw

Today we're going to Berkeley then San Francisco with Ming's kids.  We're going to the Musee Mechanique.  It's a museum of antique machines that you put in a quarter and something happens.  Well, not all the machines are antique.  But it's great fun.  There is a Laffing Sal.

Ming ate some corn on the cob for breakfast and now a raisin bran muffin.  We like our corn on the cob raw.

really

For some reason when my literacy learner is confronted with the word "fix" he says "flix" then "flex."  After a while he says "fix."  I don't know where the "l" comes from. 

Also last time he would see "sells" and say "shells."  He put an "h" in other words too. 

Today I got in the mail a poem my friend in Emeryville sent me.  It's good and reminds me of this other poem--Amy Gerstler's "Prayer for Jackson."

I like the way my friend's note says "Peace" then a little heart.  I think it's good to have a different symbol from the word.  But the two ideas really do go together.

eggplant

The local farmers market changed their rules so the free five market bux when you say the secret word only is one per family instead of one per person now.  But Ming got strawberries, green beans, and corn with the bux.

Now he and the downstairs neighbor are working on the passenger side seatbelt which is f-ed.  Hopefully they can fix it.

loving you

Gmorning.  We have been walking longer walks in the mornings.  It feels good.  This morning we walked to the Fort Sutter post office and the co-op.  It's anti-depression Friday, when everything's 10% off for everyone.  And if you already get a discount, it's an extra 10% off.  So that's good.

This morning I see a friend.  I have a ripe avocado that needs to be eaten today.  Well, I guess I could always put it in the fridger.

Love to all of you readers out there. 

art I drew last night

art Ming drew last night

volunteer

Last night's visit with a friend was great fun.  We drew pictures after dinner.  I forgot the chocolate covered walnuts.

This morning we walked at McKinley Park, and afterward I enjoyed sitting by the duck pond for a while while light shimmered on me.

Then we bought avocados and bananas at Safeway.

Then I cooked up one of the volunteer butternut squash from the backyard.  It's small.  I ate half of it for breakfast.

soyrizo rice etc

This morning we walked to Safeway again.  It's a nice walk early in the morning.  Then I tutored, and it was hard work.

Then we went to our favorite vegan restaurant, Anna's.  Lunch was delicious.

I just got off the phone with my dad.  Health news, family stuff.  With Ming's mom it's the same: health news and family stuff.

Soon I'll be 38.  Dad said it made him feel old.  "Wait till I'm 40," I said.

Tonight we're making soyrizo rice for dinner and bringing it over to a friend's house with some salad stuff. 

Oh, and maybe we'll bring chocolate covered walnuts too.

new pics all taken by Ming

My backpack at the park.

Ming's kids last week at Ben & Jerry's.

Sunday "cronut" which is a dessert that's a cross between a donut and a croissant.  I didn't like it too much.

miscanineropic

This morning we walked to Safeway, which is more than a mile away.  We bought some nice foods. 

I was telling Ming that I feel the world is pretty hateful lately.  I think it had to do with that woman yelling at us from her car the other day.  I'm misanthropic and against dogs too.  Especially off-leash dogs.

wreck

I love this song "South Carolina" by John Linnell.  These are my favorite two lines.

And I won some damages and they were punitive,
by which I mean the punishment was damaging. 

It's about a bike accident.

ps

First day of September and it's supposed to hit 101 here today.  Screw that!

official welcome

Gmorning, friends.  I would like to officially welcome you to September.  I think it'll be a good one.  I was just saying elsewhere how I used to love this month, as a child.  New pencils, new dresses, and second third fourth fifth sixth chances.  The nip in the air.  Cold mornings.  Not really cold but enough to excite me.

Today I need to go through all the stuff I bought and traded for yesterday and get ready to mail tomorrow the presents.

Well, it's Labor Day and we don't have plans.  I called my learner last night to see if he wanted to get tutored today, but he's at a relative's house and we scheduled for Wednesday.  I need a walk.  I need rest.  I need breakfast.

Good almost-fall wishes to everyone.