Monthly Archives: April 2008

Stinging Workers

This weekend I did a bit of research on yellowjackets and I found the Schmidt Sting Pain Index. Is it real? Here is part of it:

2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin.

I was stung by a yellowjacket a long time ago and it hurt really bad. I was a fully formed adult at the time and I’m not excessively wimpy about pain and I really wanted to sit down and cry. Even though the sound of wailing children is really annoying, don’t you sometimes envy them? Haven’t you ever been tired and rundown and nothing is going the way you want it to and wished you could just throw your head back and shriek in the middle of the grocery store? I know I have.

I’m glad adults don’t do this because the social boundaries that keep everyday life tolerable are disintegrating fast enough as it is. There was an article in the NYT on Sunday about how liberating young people find it to talk about how much money they make with each other. Good for them. I don’t talk about how much money I make with my husband. I think the world is just fine with things people don’t talk about. Have you ever had one of those awkward conversations where someone you met 5 minutes ago starts telling you about their cysts?

Hm, I’m getting off track here. Back to the stingy thing: for some reason I thought that honeybee stings were negligible. I guess I’ve never been stung by one.

I finished another story this weekend which was why I did the yellowjacket research. It’s hard to have a meal outside at my folks’ house because of the yellowjackets but the university extension had a great tip which involved hanging a fish over a tub of water. I can’t wait to try it.

This has nothing to do with my story. The story is one I’ve worked on and off on for quite some time and it’s not a terrible story but I’m not sure it’s especially creative or has a point but I’m trying to get in the habit of finishing things. Somewhere I have a quote from Ray Bradbury where he said he’d written at least 600 stories but only published 150 (made up numbers because I don’t know where the quote is and besides, it’s probably 20 years old and he’s probably written another 600 stories since then) and he was still learning. At the rate I’m going, it’ll take me 85 years to hit 600 stories.

Update: I found the Ray Bradbury quote and it’s from 1967 and it says he wrote 2,000 stories but published 300. At my rate it will take 200 years to write 2,000 stories.

I know this is a photo of carrots and doesn’t match my title but I usually never plant carrots and these were so cute that I had to try them.

Yesterday I put a garden in. I’m know I’m going to be gone for six weeks but I can’t do nothing. I did decide to skip the tomatoes, mostly because Sunset magazine reminded me that you aren’t supposed to plant them in the same place every year. I don’t plant them in the exact same spot but always in the same general plot so maybe a year off would be good for everyone.

The other reason I went ahead and planted is I bought a bunch of seeds before I knew I would be gone. Plus I found a stash from last year which included about 5 envelopes of beet seeds. I mixed a ton of beet, turnip, carrot, chard and lettuce green seeds in a little plastic dish and then scattered them over half the garden. Then I went to find a rake. When I came back there was already a cheeky bird, going to town. I raked everything around.

Then I went and found all my peas and lemon cucumbers. The past two or three years these have done nothing for me so I planted them all in the hope something will take. I used the same scatter method. I have cages but there are tons of wasps around the shed and I’m afraid to go in there right now so I haven’t set the cages out for the peas, should they decide to grow.

If you’ve arrived at this post looking for gardening advice, I’d suggest you move on. I don’t think you’ll find anything to help you here.

I raked the whole plot and shoved a few wayward seeds under with my fingers and went in the house and announced to Bob that just about the time I leave he will have all the turnips and beets he can handle. This is a joke because Bob will eat vegetables but the idea of him harvesting root vegetables from the backyard is ridiculous. At least the bugs will have something to eat.

Distractions
This is my new favorite snack. I keep a box in my desk at the office. I almost tried the cheese crackers, too, but it seemed like an absurd amount of money to spend on mini-crackers.

Trader Joe’s really let me down this weekend. I have a large number of Spanish wines in my rotation and they didn’t have squat. Not even my third tier choices for when my favorites aren’t available.

While I stood in front of the display, trying to figure out my next move, a lady who works there asked if she could help me. I said I couldn’t find any of my regulars and she asked what they were and since I don’t know my wines by name, I know them by the design on the label, I told her I usually get Spanish wines and she points to the place where I’m looking and says, “This where the Spanish wines are. We don’t have anything else. This is all we have.”

It reminded me of when your Mom and Dad yell at you for something your sibling did. It wasn’t like I was complaining. I tried all new things so it’s not like all was lost.

I [Heart] The Seventies
This is the piggy bank I got for my birthday around the 3rd grade from a kid named Kenny who lived two houses down from us on Aldea Avenue in Encino California. One time he got hit by a car on our street and had to wear a cast. I also remember there was a pool at his house and it was absurdly warm.

This sits next to my bed and I open it once every five years with the thought, “I wonder what’s in this thing.”

Lots of very old foreign coins from various adventures. My parents went to Greece when I was a small tot. My Dad did a job in Kuwait. Lots of European coins that have been replaced by the Euro.

I had some dollar coins and they wouldn’t fit so I made a slot so that you could fit them in. I’m sorry this sounds like an inappropriate euphemism. One of the dollar coins looks gold. Because it is.

Just kidding. It was a necklace which I guess was really bitchin in the 70’s. It had a heavy gold chain. I think I got this as a birthday gift as well.

We have some extended family on my Dad’s side in Virginia and we visted them once. They gave us some civil war bullets and buttons. A lot of those pennies have nothing interesting about them and I’m not sure why I saved them. Maybe for good luck?

I think probably everyone can relate to the experience of having someone in your household wake up before you. Thus, while you’re still fuzzy headed and not in the mood for talking, smelling, seeing, hearing or otherwise relating to humanity, your spouse/parents/children/roommates/pets and/or other are all energetic and dancing around excited by the new day.

This happened the other morning. My husband boogied into the bedroom while I still had my face pushed into the pillows.

Him: Honey! Do you want me to sing some Elvis for you?

Me: Presley or Costello?

Him: Presley!

Me: No.

Yesterday we were talking about high school and I mentioned that where I went to school there was an alternative high school. I don’t know exactly how it worked but it was for kids who couldn’t deal with regular high school and they could at least stay in school and get a diploma.

But that’s not the story. The story is that I was explaining what this school was like and saying it was more informal and they have, rap circles and stuff. Then I had to explain that back then “rap” was used to mean talk. Then I said, you know, like on Zoom they’d say, “Let’s rap,” then they’d sit around and talk about their troubles with their siblings and how no one understands kids.

My co-worker said he didn’t know what Zoom was.

Then I started singing the theme song for him, and the mailing address (“Zee double-oh em, Box three-five-oh, Boston, Mass oh-two-one-three-four”) and I did that arm thing for “I’m Bernadette” and then I started speaking ubbi dubbi. Then he asked me to stop.

The opening credits to the season I remember are here.

In other ancient history news, one game show I can’t believe hasn’t been resurrected yet is Name That Tune. I liked it a lot when I was a kid and it seems like it could be adapted into one of these big ticket high pressure type games shows that are so popular now. What do I know? Nowadays, I do not watch game shows of any kind. Ever. Even if I was in prison I would not have time to watch game shows.

I’ve been to Yosemite two times. The first time I was very small. How old do I look in this photo? A few months? My Tante Hilla came from Germany and they all did a trip of California-y things. I know they also went to Hearst Castle. Or we, I should say. I’ve only been to Hearst Castle that one time and remember, well, nothing.

This was in 1964 so make sure to dig the little bit of the cars you can see. As I was preparing this it occurred to me that this was probably Tante Hilla’s first visit to California and the occasion was to see me.

We went again when I was in high school. There’s no major point I’m making here, just falling back on old photos for today’s content.

In other news, I just clued in to the fact that Prince Capsian comes out on May 16. That’s less than one month away. I thought I had to wait until December.

To celebrate I did a quick detour to watch the official trailer, fan teaser (first typed fan taser, I think there’s a joke in there somewhere), production blog (nice accent, sounds like Narnier), moneybags slap themselves on the back promo, and the dreamy Prince Caspian promo. Didn’t the book Prince Caspian have the faintest whiff of wuss? I must remember that wrong.

I was in Girl Scouts until I started sixth grade. I think. I seem to remember even in fifth grade my interest was wandering.

I was in Brownies in elementary school. At the end of second grade I got a prize because I wore my uniform, brought my dues (.10¢) and attended every meeting.

This was my prize:

It’s a pin and I still think its cute. This is one of the few relics I have from the early-70’s prehistoric era. Another one is a piggy bank that a kid named Kenny gave me for my birthday one year and I’ll have to take a photo and put it up later this week because it is awesome.

Two other girls also won a pin. One of them was Beth Rosenfield. I remember because here’s our school picture that year:

Yes, we were the two girls who wore our brownie uniforms to school pictures. Even the beanie. The beanie really cracks me up. The third girl must have been in a different class.

Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, I think this is my elementary school which back then was called Rhoda Street Elementary School and now is a school for special needs kids. At least it was in 2003. It doesn’t look that different. I wish there was a photo of the cafeteria. I can still remember how it smelled. Sour milk and creamed corn.

We (me and my sister) usually brought our lunch and we had cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, and/or cream cheese on celery sticks. Sometimes big hunks of lettuce and giant zucchini that our babysitter grew and sliced very thin and we dipped them in a sugary vinaigrette.

I was going to put the entire school photo up and brag about how many of those kids names I can remember except that the name I remember for about 7 of the boys is Stuart. And according to this popular names of the 70’s chart, that’s unlikely.

I walked to school with my friends or my babysitter (But not my sister? Why do I have no memories of going to school with my sister?) and then in 3rd grade I was allowed to ride my bike.

In first grade at the end of school there was this fad (?) called scrubbing and older kids would chase the younger kids and write on their arms and legs with red crayons or lipstick. I was *terrified* of getting scrubbed. Terrified as in jelly knees and knotted stomach. I didn’t get scrubbed.

Tulip Bandit Strikes Again

This is what we saw when we got home from the grocery store last night.

I can’t believe I thought tulips didn’t last very long. These have been going strong for at least a couple of weeks although they’re looking a tad straggly at this point. It’s hard not to think someone is messing with me.

Here’s the before photo again.

I don’t know what to think. These flowers are right by my front door. My neighbor has a big patch of pretty tulips in her yard right by the street. I checked and no one has been picking any of those. If it was kids, why would they just target these?

I’m not really outraged as much as curious. Did the same person come back for more or did someone else see these and think they needed to take some home? I haven’t seen any in this color around. It might be hard to tell from the photos but they are a very dark velvety red. I’m going to dig them up in the fall and put them out back with the pink ones. I’ll get some more daffodils for the front.

This morning I did a tons of errands. I put on my work clothes so I could pick up some manure and stuff for the garden that I’m planting even though I’m going to be gone for 6 weeks. I know the weather is supposed to be doodoo all weekend but I figured there would be time to sneak out and do a little work.

Right when I got to the garden store it started pouring rain and everything was covered and I said screw it. Better luck next weekend.