Going

Dad has had a massive stroke, so I'm off for an urgent trip south with the girls.

Please send us all healing and peaceful thoughts.

Birthday Girl

Two!

a cruise with the neocons

Fascinating, if true.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2766040.ece

[yeah, you gotta copy and paste. I'm nursing right now]

Who, me?

Went thrifting today in the hopes of finding shoes for Lola. Nothing useful, but plenty of kid stress. And crazy lady stress, too.

At the Salvation Army thrift store (love the prices, despise their politics - guess you could call it my personal wal-mart) the kids were busy busy busy! Pearl was into everything, Lola wanted to look at the shoes, I wanted to look at all the $1 per item clothes. So I'm managing all that when the kind old guy who works there gives the kids green suckers. Agh! I graciously accept, they eat them up. No problem. Pearl was delighted to eat a sucker for the first time.

We go to check out, I found two kid things and a great floor chair. As we wait for the persistently sunny check-out guy to come up to the counter, me herding Pearl patiently and repeatedly away from the breakables display, trying to persuade Lola not to eat the free bagels we got from the free table, answering the fifty thousand questions from my bored and anxious 5 year old about checking out, the sunburned bad-hair blonde pasty looking crazy volunteer lady looks at me and says "Liar!". Naturally I assume she has mental development issues and ignore her.

So we check out, I pay for our crap, and put away our cart. The mean crazy lady walks toward us again and sarcastically says something about how the kids definitely didn't steal anything... mumble, mumble, walk away. I barely hear half of what she's saying and I look at the check-out guy and say "What did she say?", unsure she was even talking to me since my back was to her and I was talking with the kids. He looked a little confused, too, and said he didn't know. I looked for her, and she was nowhere to be seen. The check-out guy didn't pursue it, and we left the building.

It didn't dawn on me until we left the building that she was accusing the kids of shoplifting! Which is hi-larious if you knew Lola, especially, the kid who cannot possibly even imagine the concept of theft. She is upset by the character of Swiper in that damned show Dora because he takes things that aren't his. And Pearl, of course, is just busy. But very good at putting things back. Needless to say, no one lifted anything from the thrift store and I'm just irritated that I even had to deal with a crazy person in order to buy our stuff for cheap.

I have no idea why the mystery lady thought they were stealing, but I can't shake the pissed off feeling I carried home with me. And how fucking annoying to accuse us indirectly - not even talking to me or to the paid check-out guy directly about her suspicions.

Bleh.

Bedtime conversation.

Lola: "Look Pearl. I'm holding my new goggles."
Pearl: "My Ho-..."

Lola: "NO! You can't have them!"

Runs away and returns quickly.

"Here, you can sleep with my rubber chicken!"

Why?

Why, Mommy?

Why is my daughter asking why before she's even two???

Whyeeee....

Gardening

Things are pretty busy around the yard!


My beloved empress beans, beleaguered by mosaic virus. But we ate our first beans today. Yum!



The (mostly) sun gold cherry tomatos. They are huge plants - as tall as me - hard to tell from the picture.


Corner shot. The flowers are calendula, and boy, are they pretty! The flowers practically glow. I can't imagine how cool that would look if I were a bee.



The sad zukes. Why do I even try? Poor things.

View of my long plot, with coneflower, asters, and others:

Can you find the peas? I am a messy gardener.

There are peas, a tomato, gladiola, and assorted weeds in that one.

This is a little clearer view of all that chaos:


Clearer view of the coneflowers.

And the lemon balm, started from seed. It smells great, but a lot like lemon Pledge...


Motherwort and catnip, also started from seed. I planted these next to the house, also.

Of course Lola's garden. Nasturtium, beets, carrots, marigold, and milkweed.



The garlic. A hardy, local-climate-adapted variety given to us by the Erdman's. Beautiful and tasty!


Black-eyed susans. The most cheerful spot in the yard right now.


The Front corner. Big milkweed, more beans, some sunflowers, bellflowers and whatever that bush is.