Last night we went with a friend to see the band Garbage. She and I both parted with $30 to buy concert t-shirts. $30 for t-shirts is insane, but we both really wanted one. The back of mine says Freak. I’m really quite happy about that.
Here they are:
We missed the opening act and we ended up having to stand throughout the show because the place was packed. I used to get upset about missing opening acts, but, honestly, these days if I don’t know who they are I’m not that concerned about it. If I’m supposed to hear their music, I will. Just not last night.
Friday we went to Northern Virginia to help the better-half’s aunt get ready for a party at her house. She broke her foot earlier this summer and although she’s on the mend, things aren’t quite there yet. So we were worked (happily) like dogs until about 12:30 last night. Then we got up bright and early and headed to the Fairfax campus of George Mason to participate in an Out of the Darkness walk.
We were encouraged to bring signs/posters dedicated to our lost loved ones. I think I finished this poster for the better-half’s aunt at about midnight last night. I was completely sick of sitting on the floor. The better-half was sick of scanning old photos and trying to get a POS printer to output. As in just-for-the-love-of-god-please-print-these-damn-pictures output.
The whole event turned out really well and the after party was successful too. We stopped in Ashland at our favorite wine store on the way home and we need to open a bottle. Now.
Over the weekend, as we flipped the calendar into September, I made a decision. I’m tired of waiting on a college or university to decide that I’d be a fabulous employee. The weak response I’ve had so far either means that I’m very unqualified or their mindset is if you’ve never been an instructor in a higher-ed environment then you must be kidding us about working for us in any capacity. Funny, that I used to work for a university and didn’t have to regale anyone with stories of those damn freshmen. Rolls eyes.
We have COBRA for six more months and then something needs to change because I prefer health insurance that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Working for a university really made me appreciate HUGE health plans with lots of members and the power that brings.
Bring on the corporate environment! That was a pretty good life oh so many years ago. Could be again. And, since I already know everyone is going to be out to screw me because I’d be a) new and b) an employee then all will be A-OK. Cynical? Yes. But, really, what company doesn’t want to screw their employees so that the bottom line is enough to let the CEOs roll into work on their high horses?
Raise your hand if you knew this post was inevitable. Yeah, my hand is up too.
I am calling the garden a failure again this summer. This week I’ve pulled up the tomatoes and I transplanted the tarragon to the back herb garden. The basil is going like crazy so I need to process that into pesto or some sort of slurry so we can cook with it during the winter. You know you can grind up basil with water and then put them into ice cube trays, right? Slide cubes into tomato sauce and Shazzam! the flavor of summer basil.
I do have enough Fresno peppers that I’m going to attempt to make sriracha sauce. It calls for fermenting the peppers so unless we have an explosion or just funky ick, I hope to have sauce by the end of next week.
Now about the fail:
5 tomato plants yielded maybe 24 tomatoes. All small, but tasty enough.
2 eggplants yielded ZERO. One of the plants is still blooming so maybe I can expect a late season miracle.
2 cucumbers yielded less than 5 cucumbers.
1 bell pepper has yielded less than 10 peppers. Small but useable and tasted pretty good.
1 pepper plant with an unknown name yielded perhaps 24 peppers. They taste a lot like bell pepper. That’s probably a success.
2 Fresno peppers that I hope will yield enough to make that damn sauce that I mentioned above. I need 1 1/2 pounds. I’ve been throwing them into the freezer. We used a few right off the plant over the season, but not many. updated I don’t have 1 1/2 pounds. I have 10 ounces. AARRRRRGGHHHH!
1 thyme plant that died and 1 parsley plant that disappeared, presumed dead. We once had a parsley plant that grew in our orchard grass for more than one season. How does a parsley plant in a garden just disappear?
So, the fate of the garden is that we are planting 45 garlic bulbs this winter (ordered them from grey duck) and then that is it. No more. We’re going to pull up the fence except around the fruit vines/asparagus and that is the end of that.
By the way, I picked three acorn squash off the plant that grew out of the compost and trailed into the weeds/grass at the edge of the yard. One looks like something you’d buy at the grocery store and the other two are a little bit orange and let’s say unique. I’m sure all three will be tasty. But, seriously. That plant grew in a compost heap and yielded better than stuff in the actual garden. GAH.
On Thursday I took a 3+ pound pork butt out of the freezer so we could smoke it on Saturday. The weather forecast was for 84 and sunny. Perfect for sitting in the backyard while the pork smokes. Yeah, only the weather forecasters totally lied because it poured down rain on Saturday. When I checked on the local weather website Saturday morning, the liars were still saying it was going to clear up in the afternoon. Yeah. No. Maybe they should look at the weather map on weather.com like the rest of us.
Not bitter. No. Not at all. Good thing the folks we invited to join us on Saturday were busy anyway, because I’m not sure what in the heck we would have done instead.
Sunday the weather was good enough that we smoked for most of the afternoon and then put the pork into the oven to finish. Then the rain started.
Here’s a cobbled together video I took to show you the smoking process. I am from Virginia, but I have no idea what’s up with the accent in this video. It’s not an accent from nature and certainly not my normal one. The nasal twang is mine, but that accent is from somewhere else.
The figs you’ll see towards the end are from a jar of fig preserves that I made with my mother on Friday.
My mother came over this afternoon and we made fig preserves. She couldn’t find her mother’s recipe so we used one from Emeril. It is dead easy and because of its simplicity that’s why we went with his recipe. It seemed most like Grammie’s.
My mother emailed me the fig cake recipe (also my grandmother’s) which calls for buttermilk. I’ll have to wait to make the cake because buttermilk is not something that’s usually in our refrigerator. But if I buy some buttermilk, maybe the better-half will make some of his stellar biscuits.
I carefully avoided hitting the web with the weed eater. Good job me. Then I bumped it with the push lawn mower. Bad job me. The spider immediately began fixing the web. So all is not lost.
I took some really bad pictures of the spider and the web before I ran into it. Unfortunately the orientation of the spider was such that I had to sort of wing it on the picture taking. I couldn’t see the camera’s screen so I just took as many as I could. OK. Enough excuses. You don’t come here because of my outstanding photos so what am I worried about.
I took a couple of images and turned them into this gif:
We’ve been on vacation this week and the photo below shows where I’ve been most of the week. The chair is on a screened porch that has for most of the week been in the exact right place for breezes. The better-half has been in the house working on a pet programming project. So both of us have been doing things we like best. For me it’s reading and for him it’s figuring out how to do something completely different than his usual programming tasks.
A bit ago I amused him with my hair. I believe it is sticking straight off the top of my head. We took a long walk on the beach this morning and I had on a ball cap. My hair is a tad unruly anyway, but the combo of hat head, a breeze and beach humidity makes it hilarious. I do what I can to amuse and delight…a tough business.
In 2009, we thought we were going to have to pull up the roots of our fig and pitch the dead limbs and roots into the woods. As it turns out, the fig was just teasing us when it made us think it had died. It is now at least 15 feet tall and earlier this year it was filled with figs. Who knew that some figs produce a round of “false” fruit? When we had the tremendous storms in late June nearly all of those early figs were knocked off the bush/tree/monster. It was OK with me because those figs never ripened. They just turned yellow and dropped to the ground. So many dropped onto our pool deck that the yellow jackets and wasps made that area of the deck a bit scary.
Even though one of those storms snapped off a couple of large branches, the fig has been doing well. Yesterday I was walking past it and did a double-take. Ripe figs!
I made a little appetizer of figs, spinach and goat cheese for dinner last night. Delicious.
This morning I ate one right off the bush/tree/monster and brought in four more. I hope there’s enough in about a week so that my mother and I can make fig preserves. From fig preserves comes fig cake. To.die.for.
