Category Archives: doing it wrong

I’ve been having a small concern with a couple of my teeth so I’ve been a maniac about regular flossing. Normally, I’m a sporadic flosser. My dentist always says my teeth look amazing so I don’t feel bad about being a sporadic flosser.

However, now that I’m flossing all the time, I am working my way through all my floss samples and half-used containers of different brands and flavors. What is a unit of floss called? A reel? A packet? A winding?

There are some crappy flosses out there. One is so thin it disintegrates on the second tooth. Another is more like ribbon but also disintegrates so you get these fibers in your teeth. The best one in my drawer is the Glide.

In other news, the writing project drags on. We’ve had too many things going on and I don’t want to rush the last bit. This weekend is busy, too, so maybe Halloween weekend.

A couple of months ago I watched The Big Chill again for the first time in ages. It came out in 1983 and I remember liking it then and it held up for me, although I think a young person watching it today would lose their mind over an admittedly ridiculous plot point that I am still willing to give a pass to.

It’s a 30-something ensemble movie about college friends who are reunited when one of their group dies by suicide. The wiki article says this film was the inspiration for the TV series 30-something. I did not know that.

The movie has a great cast including Glenn Close, William Hurt, Kevin Kline and Jeff Goldblum, who were all in their 30s when it was made plus Meg Tilly who was 23.

What was interesting for me watching it now vs. watching it 30 years ago, is how after having a bunch of years of life behind me, I now appreciate what it means to have those kinds of friendships. People that you are incredibly close to at one point in your life and years later you get together and they still get you. And also the intensity of your emotions in your twenties and the connections you make. I still remember how dramatic everything was back then. I’m not sad that life is flatter these days.

It was also funny seeing a different time. No seat belts. The smoking. There’s a scene where Mary Kay Place’s character is smoking in her office. I remember my first 2 jobs out of college I sat next to chain smokers. Remember when people smoked in restaurants? Do not miss that.

Bob and I were trying to come up with similar movies since 1983. We came up with ensemble movies with a particular time and place: Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Reality Bites, St. Elmo’s Fire. But none of those are post-college people who have settled into grown-up life and then are brought back together.

For the first time in years, I managed to grow lemon cucumbers.

Today I started setting up technology related to the project of August which later turned into the project of September.

If you’d like an insider sneak preview, (warning: work in progress) feel free to take a peek: Project of Probably Beginning of November.

Don’t try that email because that part is still total fubar. There was a problem that I wasn’t aware of until it was too late and in the process of trying to fix it I messed up something else and I don’t have time to fix it. Or even know how right this second, to be honest.

If you want an advance copy send me a note to my regular email (if you don’t have it, it’s on my bio page). Meanwhile, hopefully next weekend I can make it all work and look pretty.

I have notes to write about something other than the garden and the project of September … soon. Meanwhile:

Who dug up this potato and left it sitting around in the weeds?

Poor shot of baby lemon cucumber. Grow quick!

I tried this recipe for chicken chile verde once and it was spectacular. Now that I have my own tomatilla farm, it’s time to try again.

This is where the yucky apples and leaves get raked. Later when the garden is put to bed it will be transferred there.

I didn’t realize until I was home from trip #3 that I had done three trips in four weeks. All of the trips were relaxing and fun, but involved significant travel time. Why are we wasting time talking about space ships to Mars instead of working on teleportation?

First trip was to Orleans, CA to visit my folks. Second trip was to Ashland, Oregon to celebrate my sister’s birthday. Third trip was to Atlanta, GA to celebrate a friend’s birthday and also a sort-of writing retreat.

Thursday night when I got home from work, I was beat. The yard, however, looked crisp. The weatherman said there was a little bit of rain moving through but it wouldn’t be much and most areas wouldn’t get anything.

I dragged my butt out there and watered (admittedly, did a poor job) and, you guessed it, plenty of rain fell here. Not complaining about the rain, which I love, only about the forecast.

The project of August, now September, is proceeding on schedule. More news very soon.

When I drove up to my folks place I saw this.

I said, please tell me no one is using this ladder to go on the roof.

Like, maybe they had it out for a band of roving teenagers who like roofs. (Is it weird I want to pluralize that rooves?)

My Mom and Dad gave me a guilty look and said, we meant to put it away before you got here.

So then I tell my sister this story and she says, “So, we’ve reached the point when our parents are hiding what they’re doing from us?”

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In other news, the project of August is now the project of September. I have all my notes back and I need to buckle and make my manuscript pretty before it is sent off to the editor the first week of October. Don’t expect much from me.

I don’t think this photo adequately shows how smokey it was in California while we were there. It wasn’t terrible. We have had worse. But there was a haze – it makes the light pretty if you can bring yourself to appreciate such things.

One night we had a Skunk Wars. (Not fire related). Both Bob and woke up to skunk smell. In the morning Mom and Dad said they’d seen the motion lights keep coming on — what was going on? We don’t know. But there was at least one skunk that wasn’t happy.

Later in the trip we had a nice rain storm. The air smelled amazing – sweet, green and clear. You got sorta stoned just breathing it. And the sky was pure blue. It was beautiful.

And we had some major rain on the drive home. As in rain spraying off the highway, white-knuckle driving. I kept saying, “I can do it. I can do it.”

It was so novel it was a treat. Oddly.

I can’t remember if I already posted about this and I’m too lazy to look.

I found a thread online about modern music that sounds like eighties music. Finally, something for me!

I found some music to download.

And to make you cringe: I burned it to a CD so I could listen to it in my car.

I told Bob I was listening to some music that was recording in this year and he said: what does it sound like.

I said, “Eighties music.”