Category Archives: garden

Tour Diary

Posted on October 3, 2001 by Pamela

I keep scribbling out little notes of things I want to blog and then I don’t know where I put them. We saw Douglas Coupland read at Powell’s last week. During the day I decided that I wanted to check out the Tour Diary and just punched in www.douglascoupland.com which turns out is some random site that links to this other author — a squatter on his name. I even tried it again to make sure I didn’t screw up. I eventually figured out the other URL and I still haven’t had a chance to read the Tour Diary because it takes about 100 years to download so I’m waiting until I get my DSL which will hopefully be very soon and is a completely different story altogether. Back to DC — at the Q&A or in this case it was an A&Q — I asked DC about it and he was completely unaware and told me he was going to check it out.

The new book is called All Families Are Psychotic and I read the first 60 pages in line waiting to get it signed. I finished it on Friday. It’s over the top and completely funny and, I think, a lot better than Miss Wyoming. FYI — this is the fourth time I’ve seen DC read. A little fixation here.

In other news, I tore out all the tomatoes this weekend, and enjoyed doing it. I picked all the green ones so I’ll be stocked in tomatoes for at least another month. And I’m processing a few for winter. Next year I am sticking to 2 plants and if one ends up to be a cherry tomato, I’m pulling it out.

Posted in doing it wrong, garden | Comments Off on Tour Diary

Cleared a Patch

Posted on May 14, 2001 by Pamela

I got my tomatoes in yesterday. I’m not sure what to do about the cucumbers. I sort of cleared a patch but it’s pretty dry and weedy and rocky and not the kind of place you’d want to raise cucumbers. But I could put the seeds in and let them decide.

I bought this OneClick software years ago and still hardly ever take advantage of it and I’m finally trying to play around with it and can never seem to make it do anything that the books/tutorials suggest. Like it will say, “open the —- menu” and I won’t have that menu which makes me feel like a big fat idiot.

I baked a pie tonight and we’ll be digging in when Simpson’s is on.

Posted in doing it wrong, garden | Comments Off on Cleared a Patch

Wrap Up

Posted on May 10, 2001 by Pamela

I wrote this earlier and my blog got eaten. What a world.

SNACKS
Bob and I have been talking about cleaning out our shop for months. The “shop” is a room off the garage that’s a handy place for throwing empty boxes, broken chairs, old moldy tarps – you get the picture. We never seem to get around to it so I decided to schedule a time. Last Friday I taped a sign to the microwave that said, “Sunday Shop Cleaning 2-4pm, Featured snack: vegan chicken nuggets with dipping sauce.” Bob thought this was hilarious. I explained that I thought a snack would ensure participation.

CINCO DE MAYO
For Cinco I made a bunch of festive foods. I tried a Sunset magazine recipe for Green Chili Rice which came out great even though I didn’t have some of the ingredients and I didn’t follow the directions very well. The recipe said to add to make 3 cups of liquid but I accidentally put in 4 cups of liquid so I just threw in some more rice and we didn’t have long grain so I used short grain — if you enjoy eating it that’s all that matters, right? Then I made sweet potato quesadillas which sounds like a yuppie restaurant food, but we liked it. Next time I’d mash the sweet potatoes better. The last thing I made was chicken posole soup and I used the slow cooker which turned out to be a mistake. But we added green chili rice and salsa to our bowls which perked up the boring soup.

GARDEN
I’m behind in the garden. I got one row of greens in a month ago and now that the sun’s come out they’re growing like crazy. I put in two more rows last weekend and bought my tomatoes yesterday. Earlier I reported that I’d planted about 60 peas and only about 3 have come up — the slugs eat them as soon as they show their faces. Next year I’ll sprout them inside first.

CUSTOMER SERVICE
I hesitate to even write this because that goofy guy from SW Airlines is probably going to come back and beat me up again for having my panties in a wad and wanting the world to run my way. (Well, we all do, don’t we?) But since when did customer service turn into employees running over to you the instant you pause in a store to ask, “Can I help you find something?” Yeah, it’s nice to see there are employees around who can help you if you need it and if I need help I will ask for it, but sometimes you just like to look at the salad dressings to see if there’s a new one to try or you need to stand there for a minute to remember what you need and you’ve got some employee interrupting you and saying, “You look like you need some help.” Sometimes I want to hand them my shopping list and just go wait in the car with a magazine and some cookies. The latest that got me going was this goofy guy in this bookstore downtown who says across the entire store in his priggy voice, “May we help you?” when I very clearly did not need help.

Posted in cooking, doing it wrong, garden, the shop | Comments Off on Wrap Up