Ch Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes...

New Roommate is a total gem. He's easygoing, kind, sweet, and considerate. He's also underpaid due to working in the public schools, doing fantastic work with an underserved population. Living here is a stretch for him, and it's not sustainable. I like New Roommate so much that I want to keep him.

In addition, I want to buy a house in the next few years. I'm still recuperating financially from the unemployment days and subsequent fear of house sharing once FreakShow moved out. (Did you know that I PAID him in order to get him to leave? Not much, but it was worth every single fucking penny.) I paid off the credit card in the last two months. WAHOO! MY car will be paid off come October, and I need to begin saving in earnest.

Enter the master plan: we have an extra bedroom. We're going to find Second Roommate, whoever that may be. New Roommate wants it to be a girl. I don't care much either way.

No cats, kids or dogs. (Too small for three people and a dog, sniff). We're laid back but not too slack. We don't want partiers or anyone who's too into illegal substances. We don't want anyone either of us already is friends with to move in. Liberal/progressive-minded is a must.

It's a great and convenient neighborhood and a fantastic house. Really good people live here already. ~$315/month + 1/3 utilities. Shared bathroom. Rent will probably be less than the $315 quoted above. I am extremely comfortable paying more for having my own bath, and New Roommate has the larger of the two remaining bedrooms, so we're going to pro-rate. Neither of us can figure out how to do the math.

1) Know anyone?
2) Can you do the math? If total rent=x, Stew = +$40 for shared bathroom, New Roommate= +$10 for larger than third bedroom, what would each of us owe?

Hankies

Five years ago or so, a Belgian/Spanish friend brought me a couple of hankies from Spain. I'd never considered using them before that, but once I did, I was a convert. Collections of anything really aren't my thing, but beautiful old linens just woo me with their softness and craftsmanship. Tea towels, tablecloths, napkins, aprons and hankies are my downfall.

This weekend I documented most (but not all) of the hankies I use. They were meant to be used, after all, and my deep distaste of collections is mitigated when I can rationalize the purchases as things I use rather than things I just look at. Some of these I bought at thrift stores or garage sales. Some were inherited. Some were purchased. They're all beautiful. Despite the beauty of the old ones, they're usually extremely cheap--no more than $2 each.

NB. I don't iron.

Saturday morning

Just a few things.

First, it's gorgeous out today. I slept in, because I stayed up until 1:30 (!!) last night, had a chat with the roommate about radio voices, and then headed outside to work on the garden.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned my new bed. Wait. I have talked about it, but not in a long while. It's been a work in progress since last February, when I began to rip out sod. On about half of the plot, I planted zinnias there this summer, a few sunflowers (that didn't do so well), and a raspberry bush that a neighbor gave me. The other half spent the summer covered with a big blue tarp, to kill off the grass.

A while ago I laid (lay?) cardboard boxes over the whole area, and dumped some sawdust that I'd been using as mulch on my veggie garden. Then it just stayed like that. For weeks. And weeks.

Today I finally lasagna'd it. Spread out the sawdust. Then a layer of dried grass clippings. Then a layer of non-decomposed leaves. Then a layer of partially decomposed leaves that had somehow retained moisture in them from god knows then. To top it off, I shoveled the entire pile of well-cooked, well-cured compost over the whole thing. The I took about 7 buckets full of water from my shower, the roomie's and our kitchen sink and got the whole thing wet.

I can't wait to plant it all up this spring!

I fed the worms, too. The roommate worked alongside me while I did all this, cutting the front lawn. I had to show him how, because somehow he'd gotten to this age without every having used a lawnmower. So cute.

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Yesterday I took my passing angst to AskMetafilter, so that I could see if anyone over there had any ideas what I could do about my boy situation (lack thereof). Interesting responses. If y'all have any commentary on it, feel free to drop it off here.

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Somehow I've lost 10 lbs or so. I thought my jeans were a little saggy in the ass last night. Sure enough!

Green

Thursday I'll be heading over to the NC State Fair to staff the Sustainable Agriculture booth for Slow Food Triangle. I'm not really that much of a fan of tabling (as we call it in the non-profit world), but hey, it's something I know how to do. I allowed myself to get roped into a 10-hour shift. Ouch.

But I'll get into and park for free at the fair.

I'm a little conflicted (ok, VERY little) about the fact that one of the reasons I go to the fair is for fair food. How much of it will be local? I'm guessing not all that much.

A couple of years (and 40 lbs) ago, when I was being super-conscious of my figure I ate roast corn, an apple and some grilled shrimp. Those shrimp were local. Maybe I can find that seafood booth again. I don't NEED funnel cakes, but I do need to eat.

(Not-so secretly I'm hoping that many cute men will come by and ogle my green Sustainable Agriculture shirt. That I get to give back and have someone else wear. (Eeesh)


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Changing subjects a bit...

At some point you have to wonder what the point of insurance is if they won't pay for normal services, like the root canal I'll be getting on Wednesday.

Apparently as a new hire I'm not eligible for a long list of "major" dental work for a year. So, too bad if your tooth goes more than wonky, right?

Speaking of drought...

I just found this video timeline graphic. (What would you call it? A snapshot active time-lapsed map??)

Meanwhile, according to neighborhood listserv reports, the city is wasting tons of water.

For at least 2 days, the water department has been flushing water out
of the hydrant at Carolina and Pershing onto the street.

As I schlep big buckets of water out of my shower into the garden,
and our family refrains from flushing our toilets when appropriate to
conserve this precious resource, is it appropriate for the city to
dump water by the thousands of gallons at this time?

Another neighbor responded:

One other year when we were low on water, they were flushing the hydrant on
my block. I called the water department thinking that surely this was a
mistake. I was told that they are required by the State to flush the pipes at a
certain time each year.
I asked if they could do it at another time since we were low on water. I
was told that it had to be now since that is when the State told them to do it.

That really chaps my ass.

UPDATE: Another neighbor who's in the know checked out what was going on:

In this case, the hydrant was running due to sewer from the creek
getting into a broken sewer main. The maintenance crew has made the
repairs. As soon as the Stormwater team makes a check, they will give
the OK to stop the flushing. This was scheduled to happen around noon
Friday.

Whee!

I've got some renewed excitement going on here at the ranch. I've got the a.m. off today to make up for the crazy ride I've been on, and I'm taking good advantage of it. Ran some errands this a.m. and then went to my favorite place for breakfast around. Picked up some goodies there, too, and then on my way home stopped at Barnes Supply for some brown crowder peas (At less than 1/2 the price than that website, by the by).

This fucking drought has left me avoiding the garden as much as I can. Yesterday I noticed my swiss chard, prized specimen it was, is now flattened to the soil, wilted.

New Roommate and I continue to conserve water, and I toss whatever graywater we collect on various parts of the garden. But DAMN. I have so many things I want to do now that water would really help with. It's a pain in the ass to lug water from my bathroom out to the yard. (My veggies are ZESTFULLY clean!)

For instance, I'm revamping the zinnia/raspberry bed from last year. I've got a layer of cardboard down, and I would LOVE to start layering it up. I suppose I could do that without water, but those crowder peas would really be cute there.

And I need to get the garlic in. I'm not to sure where to put it.

Hm. Garden planning must happen.

On Beer

I believe I did say that I'm doing my best to conserve water, n'est-ce pas?

Tonight that means drinking beer. And washing my FULL SINK of dishes using less than 2 gallons of water. Which then went on my mesclun.

So. Beer. It's so good. It's so good that I had just two of them and it makes me just sing with a slight buzz after two of them. I didn't know I got high-test beer until I realized that, um, I'm slightly more than buzzed after just two. Oh yeah. No dinner. Oops.

I'm partial to the IPA. Wait. Not that kind. The beer kind. I didn't used to like beer, but once I did, WATCH OUT! LIGER!

Oh dear. Blogging under the influence again! Wait. I don't know if I've ever done this before, actually.



Where did LIGER come from just now?

WAIT, FUCK THE LIGER!

I WANT AN IPA-IPA!

Only drops to drink

Last week my city went to mandatory water restrictions, Level III, and I don't think they're strict enough. We still have people able to water grass twice a week. And any conservation measure that are inside the house are likely ignored in most cases. I'm cringing at the thought of dripping faucets and not-full loads of laundry going on.

In theory, we only have about 2-months worth of water supply left. Why are we not at LEAST on Level IV water conservation measures (Scroll down)? The only major difference, it seems to me, is the lawn watering. God that burns me up. It's GRASS.

I'm going to try to do a lot better than I have been. I mean, I've got some fantastic habits already, but I can certainly improve.

This morning I put a big ole Rubbermaid tub in the shower and stood in it. Got quite a bit of gray water that I'll use for flushing and watering the veggie garden. I stepped out of it when I soaped up, so the water kept going into the tub when it wasn't on my body. I suppose I could also begin taking those really minimalist showers turning off the tap except to rinse. Hm.

Here's what else I'm doing or at least trying to do:
--limit toilet flushing
--minimize water used for dishwashing by keeping a rinsing tub in the sink. Re-using that gray water for other stuff.
--no watering of the compost pile (which I haven't done for ages, anyway, but it's useful for getting the decomposition moving along)
--drinking beer (heh)

I don't really ever wash my car, so that's not an issue. Also I never water the grass (if you hadn't noticed me mentioning that previously), and I NEVER, EVER have "washed" the concrete. I don't have a pool.

I plan to check out that gray water site a little bit better to see what else I can do without retrofitting a whole new system. Meanwhile do y'all have any other suggestions?