i guess this means we're not getting snow this year

I just looked at weatherchannel.com and freaked myself out.

Because it's going to be 97 degrees tomorrow.

How can this be? How is it that every spring we go from fresh, lovely seventy-somethings tripping through the Mexican poppies la la la...BLAWGH!! NINETY-SEVEN DEGREEEEEES BLAWRGH!! MWUAHAHA!! And all the little Mexican poppies keel over and die.

This sucks.

shower signs

I just saw a hair in the shower shaped liked a Jesus fish, and I thought: I'm one of those people who has Jesus fish sightings! Like the people who see the Virgin Mary in fresh produce!

But then the Jesus fish turned into a balloon, like one of the balloons in "99 Luftballons", also known as "99 Red Balloons", although I've never been clear on whether or not luft actually translates as red and suspect that it does not, and I thought: Wow! A hair shaped like a balloon!

Only, then the balloon turned into an and sign. Like this: & . And I thought: Huh! An and sign. Also known as an ampersand!

And then I washed it down the drain. So now, spiritually speaking, I guess I'm back to square one.

come to think of it, don't read this

Dogs are not smart, the old saying goes. Or maybe it's not a saying. Maybe it's just a fact. And maybe it's a little unfair. Maybe dogs are not as smart as we are, would be kinder. Or possibly dogs are sometimes not as smart as we would like them to be. Or maybe my dog is not the brightest bulb in the three-way lamp. How about, I wish my dog would quit trying to catch that damn red rubber ball of hers in midair because this is the second time it's broken one of her teeth in as many months and I am going to be in SO much trouble when her father gets home. Although, I suppose that really says more about the intelligence of her owners than about her own. Blast! Logicked myself into an embarassing corner again.

one mo' mojito & a check for the zucchini

I'm backsliding! It's these darn addictive chocolate caramel cracker things I made last night. And it's also the first mojito of the season, which just jumped into my mouth. Pesky, delicious things.

Zucchini Update: Pretty soon the zucchini will require its own zip code. Pretty soon I'll be able to say: "When my zucchini plant sits around the house, it really sits around the house." Pretty soon, the zucchini plant will be shaking me down for rent. Pretty soon it's going to get all Third-World inner-city super-gang on me and demand I give it money or it'll come after the citrus trees. Or the dog. Or Raphael. Mark my words. It's growing like there's an alien in there or something.

God, it's so pretty and sunny today. Little cooing doves in the trees, little rustling other types of birds making fierce guerilla-style forays down to Lila's water bowl (and Lila's response about the same as you could expect from a beleaguered dictatorial-type government), the shrill barking of the neighborhood pitbulls and the occasional dogfight over on the other side of our wall, and the low kaboom-thump-thumpa as the gangstas behind us arrive home after a long morning of driving around listening to the bass.

I could sit here all afternoon, it's so pretty, with one hand around my mojito and the other plunged deep into a container of chocolate caramel cracker treats, ruining my diet and slacking on my homework all at the same time.

Hmmm. Think I will.

















Rawwwrrr!

feeling fitty

I've turned over a new leaf. (A basil leaf, to be exact. And there's nothing under there.) Also, I'm doing some things differently around here - and successfully! On top of which, the zucchini is growing like gangbusters! Which is an expression I've never actually used before! And the exclamation points! Wow!

What I'm trying to say is, you're looking at a new Jenny. A Jenny with motivation and zeal for life. A Jenny with plants that are STILL ALIVE and a job that she's grudgingly accepted (after two years) as. You know. Not quittable. A Jenny with citrus trees. A Jenny who feels happy and healthy and successful in many ways. A Jenny who has potential. A Jenny who has a swell boyfriend and a neat (though dusty, and sort of smelly) dog. And also a Jenny who has an extra fitty in her pocket because one of her friends just had sex. So, you know. She's become a gambler of sorts. You can blame her friend. She does. She's supposed to buy shoes with the fitty, but she might just bet on horses. We'll see.

What I'm really trying to say is - you know how life cycles around, and just when you're at your lowest, suddenly things look up and people quit dying unexpectedly and babies start being born and the rain falls in April in Tucson for a change and there's this gigantic triple rainbow when you come out of your office one day and you discover that eating fruit won't kill you and you're all like Life is good? That's me right now. I'm at the high point of the cycle, and I feel like a million dollars. A million and fitty, to be exact.

fruity is the new crazy

If you've never let yourself become addicted to any kind of calorie-counting website, you're - well, you're probably healthier in some ways than I am, for one thing. You also probably don't measure your milk. Or realize quite how much milk you actually drink on a daily basis.

This calorie-counting is fun for me. I think it's my father's mathemathically-based, computerey-oriented, engineering-type genes poking their heads out to see if it's safe.

You see any raging hormones or sobbing or other sorts of emotional activities being engaged in out there?

No - you?

I do not. See any decisions being based solely on pheremones or intuition?

Nope.

So for the first time in thirty-three years we're in the clear?

That's affirmative.

Hot dog! Let's count stuff!

I've actually doubled my fruit intake because of this website I'm hooked on. Doubled it. Although, eating even a single piece of fruit would be better than quadrupling my previous fruit intake, if I'm going to be all math-ey about it. It would also be better than multiplying it by three-hundred-and-seventy-two. Or adding a whole bunch of zeros to it, as up until a week ago my daily fruit intake was essentially in the negative numbers (mathematically real things that people like my father believe in). If someone gave me fruit, I'd fling it back at them, plus that other fruit that I found shriveled up on the floor of my truck.

Please don't misinterpret me. I like fruit. I have extremely good intentions concerning fruit. I carry it around with me at all times, practically. I currently have an orange and an apple sitting on my desk at work. And I'm saving another orange for later. In my trash can. I also have an apple core in the cupholder of my truck. But it's not me who left it there.

If I could eat only fruit that I find on plants - the wild strawberries that grew beside the house when I was a kid, the blueberries we used to pick from the bushes around my grandparents' house in New Hampshire, the blackberries we found weighing down the bushes of every campsite along the Oregon coast one summer, the sweet-as-candy oranges that grew right off the porch of Raphael's old bachelor pad - then I would be the worst kind of fruit person. I'd be like an ex-smoker, only with nicer lungs.

Until that day, I will continue to regard tasteless Safeway fruit as medicinal at best and eat it primarily to satisfy the needs of my beloved calorie-counting website. Except for the pineapple, which I will grill and eat with a quarter-serving of poundcake and a tangy lemon-lime sauce. As we all know, it's not really fruit if you stick it into the flames and smother it with sugar. I think my website would agree.

ravaged by radishes

My mother. If she had given me radishes as a kid, would I have eaten them? No. Nevertheless, do I blame her for me not knowing about radishes until age 33? Of course I do.

This snack sounds weird. I know it does. But it's...what is it? It's transcendent. Right now, at least, it's transcendent. Actually, it's been transcendent for days and I've been waiting for the transcendency to wear off so I can give you a good, objective review of it. But since it hasn't worn off yet, I'm just going to give you the recipe.

Keep an open mind and you will be rewarded with radishy goodness.

Stick some radishes in ice water for about half-an-hour. Meanwhile, let some good, unsalted butter soften. When the half-hour is up, lavishly butter several slices of fresh French bread and sprinkle some sea salt on there. It's important to use sea salt, I feel, instead of salted butter or other types of wussy, small-grained salt, because it adds a certain layer of necessary salty crunch that you'll thank me for later. Thinly slice the radishes and layer them on top of the butter. Discover why your mother has been hiding all the radishes for herself all these years.

vejables!

Many, many weeks ago - possibly last spring - we built a couple of boxes with the intent of making a raised-bed garden in them. But because I am a deliberate sort of person who likes to think really hard about everything before I do it and because Raphael prefers not to be an enabler (by doing it for me), we have not actually used the boxes to their full potential until now. Mainly, their job for a year has been to hold down rectangular areas of dirt over by the palm tree.

However! Yesterday I was suddenly inspired!

"Do we really need those boxes to hold down those rectangular areas of dirt over by the palm tree?" I demanded of the Guatemalan.
"No," he said.
"Then I shall plant things in them!" I proclaimed, jabbing a finger up into the air and swirling my superhero-like cape jauntily around my shoulders.
"I'll believe it when I see it," he said.

So in order to show him, I went to the plant store and here's what I bought: two types of large tomatoes, two types of cherry tomatoes, red bell peppers, yellow bell peppers, zucchini, jalapenos, and guajillo chiles. And I planted them this morning and they were still alive when I last checked on them, seventeen minutes ago.















I also planted some herbs in pots. I planted: sage, rosemary, sweet Italian basil, Mexican oregano, cilantro, Italian parsley, mint, and strawberries which technically aren't herbs at all. Not that it matters, as I'm sure they'll be dead within three days. "Hi plants!" I'll say brightly on Thursday morning, and they'll gasp audibly and fall over. Just like that.

But my goal is to not kill all my plants by next weekend. My plan is, by August, to have a big, green, fluffy garden with tomatoes the size of my head, growing all over everything, that I will eat warm from the sun, sprinkled liberally with freshly-picked Mexican oregano and sweet Italian basil and drizzled with golden olive oil which I will personally squeeze from the palo verde.

It will be awesome. My other plants will watch and applaud and give me wolf whistles. There will be confetti and dancing. The strawberries will get all flirty, and the sage will offer to do my laundry. I can't wait.

I will wash all my fresh produce down with homemade lemonade from the Meyer Lemon tree I also brought home yesterday. Yes! Now we're the type of people who have citrus trees! We have a Meyer Lemon and an Arizona Sweet Orange, and similarly to the vegetables they are both still alive which is very exciting (and kind of intimidating) for me. In fact, not only are they alive, but there are the tiniest of tiny green lemons and oranges already on the trees. They're the cutest things ever. They're like adorable mini-limes for people who are only six inches tall and need to make teensy margaritas.