You know you've been in the wilderness all day when you're at Hard Rock Cafe for a birthday party, ravenous, thinking "wow, it's really noisy in here." My fatigue from a long day (and from not sleeping well this week) got to me, and I'm home, ensconced in my favorite comfy fleece pants, listening to Rockapella and writing about my plants. I'd be asleep, except one of the neighbors is having a party, and the bass is rattling my windows. Sometimes I don't like living in an old house.
Quick digression. I love Rockapella. There's so much more to them than "Carmen Sandiego" and the Folger's coffee song. I sang in a choir in college, and it's hard to get harmonies as tight as theirs. It's just beautiful music.
My P-Patch is starting to sprout! Hooray! I have little baby kale, lettuce, radishes, and chard! With all the rain, though, my careful labeling of my rows is all for naught. All the pen washed off, so I have no idea what is growing where -- except for the strawberries. I guess I'm going to be surprised once things ripen up!
All of the plants in my raised bed are getting so big! Look at the favas -- they're huge!!! I feel like such a proud gardener. I put some seeds in the ground way back in February, and now I have real, live vegetable plants! I've never grown anything from seed before, so this is awesome.
One set of radishes, as you can see from the picture, is ripe already. Radishes are a nice plant to grow because they tell you when they are ripe. They start poking their little tops out of the ground, saying "Pick me!" I'll eat it in a salad sometime this week.
Now the neighbors appear to have moved from Sublime (I swear they were playing it for the last hour) to something with even more bass. I should counter with Bon Jovi. It will be the epic Wallingford music war.
Speaking of very "Wallingford" moments, I walked into Tweedy & Popp on Friday, and this sentence escaped my lips -- "I need something organic to kill the bugs that are eating my arugula." How Seattle is that? Probably just as Seattle as what I did on Tuesday -- walk around Queen Anne for ten minutes to try to find someone to give my fries to. They gave me free fries at Dicks, and I didn't want them. I couldn't bring myself to throw them away, but it took me ten minutes to find someone to take them!
Anyway, I bought an organic insecticidal soap, and that seems to have done the trick. No more aphids on my arugula. The best part was that the hardware store guy took me to the insecticides, and painstakingly went through the ingredients on all of them with me to make sure I was putting something organic on my plants. Now that's a Seattle moment.
The Garden Hotline got back to me, and the leaves on my tomatoes are yellowing because they likely need more nitrogen. I upped the fish fertilizer in my watering mixture, and that seems to have helped. Except now that corner of the dining room smells strongly of fish goo, and my roommates are probably thinking "that's the last time we let her start tomatoes in here!"
Now my neighbors are distinctly playing "Seven Nation Army." I'm totally going to counter with Bon Jovi, or hair metal, or something else that I'm sure they would find obnoxious. Rockapella at 120 decibels -- bring it on!
I have been listening to Bon Jovi a lot lately. Well, really the Glee cast doing the mashup of "It's
My Life" and Usher's "Confessions." There's a line from the song that just keeps resonating, which is why it has been on repeat. "Better stand tall when they call you out. / Don't bend, don't break, baby don't back down."
I didn't get into Seattle U for teaching. I'm a little bummed, but I was wanting to go to UW Bothell anyway. I was just hoping I would have a choice. I did do a little investigating, and UW Seattle's special ed program lets people in until July 1, if there's space. I'm probably going to put some feelers out and talk to someone about that program this week. I'm volunteering with middle and high school kids with learning disabilities, and I love it. It's a challenge, and I love being able to make a difference. I get to try out new ways of teaching things. It's worth looking at, right? After all, if I can wake up every morning and go do something I love -- well, that's a recipe for a life fulfilled.
And on that note, time for bed.
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