Facebook

Wow. I had over 60 birthday messages on Facebook. I feel like a star. I did end up getting a massage, which was great other than the freezing room. People are awesome. My mom called from the caribbean, my sister called, my nephew called....

I've had a great day. Thanks everyone.

What you missed.

Happy New Year!

The Wusses were way better than I could even have hoped. I'll never miss them again, I think.


The setlist:

• Lady (The Little River Band)
• Things We Do For Love (10cc)
• Jackie Blue (Ozark Mountain Daredevils)
• I'd Really Love to See You Tonight (England Dan and John Ford Coley)
• You Are The Woman (Firefall)
• Sister Golden Hair (America)
• Lonesome Loser (TLRB)
• Brandy (Looking Glass)
• Love Will Find A Way (Pablo Cruise)
• Reminiscing (TLRB)
• Auld Lang Syne (Robbie Burns)
• Baby Come Back (Player)
• Ride Like the Wind (Christopher Cross)
• Ride Captain Ride (Blues Image)

Do yourself a favor and make a mix tape of this. And then make me one!

Recession Christmas

I wish all Christmases were recession Christmases. Virtually all of the gifts here at my sweet second home have been hand made. The presents end up being so much more personal this way. They're an artsy bunch, this family, and it shows.

My gifts to them were either homemade or scavenged from around the house. Hats, scarves, too-small cashmere sweaters, a winter coat that didn't fit and that I've been too lazy to return (mail order! Annoying!), and the like. Since I hadn't prepared for gift-giving, I had a blast running around and seeing how creative I could be.

May your celebrations be simple. Happy Holidays.


(my new, original) artwork, pictured above:
Perfect from now on 7
2007
acrylic on paper
9" x 12"
by Wendy Heldmann
(Note the birds)

Dashing through the SNOW!!!!!

OK, so there might not be snow, but I'll be home for Christmas! At my second home, that is. My NC family home base is in Charlotte, at my sweet love JJ's parents' home. Skip, Jane, and the rest of the clan welcome me with open arms whenever I need it, and I am just full of gratitude for them.

Also, for my mumma, who read that last pitiful entry and offered to buy me a last-minute trip home.

Love Love LOVE!

Sunscreen off season is pricy.

Who in their right mind gets an international flight that *leaves* at 6 a.m.?

Oh, me. Right.

SO! Saturday at 3:45 (yes, in the morning OMG), I'll be driving out to the airport, hopefully having a seat assigned, and jetting off to Sint Maarten, and well, Saint Martin also, via Miami.

Hm. Last time I went it must have been on my old blog, which has since vanished into the ether. Argh. Ah well, the first sinnoticiasdetstew lives on through the wayback machine. Or at least I hope it does. I've somehow lost the URL for that old blog. Anyone else have it? Wow. Argh. I just found the old link and the blog is GONE GONE GONE, do you hear me? ARGH!!!

It's OK though. Sad, but I'll get over it.

Cause I get to BIRD again. Yay Antillean Crested Hummingbird!



Male Antillean Crested Hummingbird
Originally uploaded by Alexander Yates

From excellent to yicky in less than a week!

I haven't talked about the election returns yet, have I? Suffice to say that overall I'm extremely pleased.

Some specifics:
1) No more Liddy Dole. My mom and my friend Michele both called me* when that race was called. Not only did I (figuratively) wish to spit on the woman who took over the seat of another loathesome guy, but I was also very proud to vote for Kay Hagan. She has some sound ideas about sustainable ag and local foods, and I'll always love her for her support of raw milk. Have you tasted that goodness yet? It's a gorgeous sensation.
2) Obama. I doubt I have to say much about this to any of you, but I'm even more impressed that he's planning to recind many of the immoral policies Bush implemented. I volunteered on election day in a county that eventually went for McCain. I didn't do very much at all, but I was glad I took the day off.
3) Anti-choice initiatives failed. Thank goodness.
4) Can you say NC is blue? Yes! Me too!
5) Bad news: Proposition 8 in California passed, as did a number of other anti-gay initiatives. Gotta love people taking away civil rights, ya know?

I spent the night at my friend Ian's place, after going to the NC Dems victory celebration downtown. The energy there (as well as some champagne) gave me a fantastic buzz, and there were celebrations in the streets. So wonderful. Walking downtown the next morning I was so grateful to see people still beaming and making small talk in the street with strangers about how happy they were.

The next day I met with the group of teens I work with, and they were excited as well. They did share some unfortunate experiences documenting the racial tension that still exists even now. I'd expected as much, sadly, so I had prepared a "teachable moment" plan and showed them The Children's March. I was so proud to hear them talk about ways they have already and could continue to stand up to bigotry as it happens today.

So yeah, election week rocked.

But.

There always has to be a but, doesn't there?

Yesterday started out well. I was super productive and did dishes, cooked, and gardened. I'm landscaping most of the front yard, and I realized at Maria's birthday party the night before that I really had to get the irises in that Jamie and the s.o. gave me back over labor day weekend.

While I was doing this, though, I noticed an oddity on the street. Someone had pulled up in front of the house next door for a bit, and then turned around and parked again, this time directly across the street from me. I was a bit oblivious at first, though I did wonder briefly what this person was doing. Were they lost?

Nah. It was a young guy who decided to jerk off to my yardwork. Once I figured that out, I walked out in the street towards him a bit, but really more towards the back of the car. To get the plate number, see? And I did. I got the entire plate number, even before he peeled out. The police were very nice, and I felt strong, proud, and confident. I was happily surprised that my reaction was so matter-of-fact and oriented towards justice. I didn't show him any response beyond first being puzzled and then calmly (not even forced calm...I was zenned out) observing and memorizing as much info about the situation as I could. I emailed two neighborhood listservs with the details as well, and many residents cheered me.

Unfortunately, that pride and calm dissipated as the night wore on, taking me to a place of fear and worry. What if he retaliated? What if he broke in or vandalized my car? My god, he knows where I live, after all. What if Bubba's barking (Loud! Mean-sounding!) compelled this asswipe (and the friends I imagined would accompany him) to shoot Bubba?

I read By the Shores of Silver Lake last night, and didn't contain my tears when Jack died in his sleep.

I'm going to the police department in the morning to check on their progress. I've contacted local sexual violence crisis centers for advice and support. I can't imagine the horror that a more serious act of sexual violence would be like. I'm glad I haven't had to. This was gross enough.

Lotta tags for this post, hm?

*Michele actually texted me, and I then called her.

Seriously

Today I voted. I was voter number 1291, and my site had been open for about 8 hours. I took my time, double and triple checking to make sure I got everything right. I didn't expect to be nervous.

I pride myself on being a pretty informed voter. The judges always confound me, of course, but I have trustworthy advisers for that sort of thing. I was caught a bit off guard by a food tax initiative. Do I want a 1% prepared food tax, or do I not? I hadn't even heard of the issue. It was pretty clear to me even without knowing what it was about that no, I didn't want an additional tax on food. Food tax just seems wrong. I did check, though, with some of my neighbors, who were outside the polls with sample ballots. God, I love this town. My intuition was right--no food tax.

Normally when I vote, there aren't that many other people there. Today, maybe because it's the first day of early voting, I could barely fit into the polling place. There wasn't a long line, but voters were crammed into every little space. It was a bit chaotic, actually.

After the machine sucked in my completed ballot and the counter changed from 1290 to 1291, I took my sticker and walked back outside. I was surprised to notice the lump in my throat. I looked around at my neighbors. Not just the ones who live in the square mile or so that marks my immediate neighborhood, but at all the others who live in the city proper.

My eyes welled up. My city has mobilized, and it makes me proud to live here.

I'll wear my sticker tomorrow to the conference where I'm presenting. Every little bit helps, you know?



(Oh, and this:)




(And this)

Jodines!

OMG.

Y'all, I got a comment a couple of days ago from one of my most favoritest people in the universe, and definitely my favorite Catalana, Marta.

I met Marta when I was living in Barcelona, over 10 years ago now. (Vaya, como pasa volando el tiempo*...) We didn't hang out in Barcelona. Not much, anyway. We met towards the end of my year living there, when she found out that she'd be coming to my university on an exchange. I didn't have anyone to live with, and she had no idea about getting an apartment in a foreign country. A match made in heaven.

Seriously, Marta and I had exactly zero conflict when we were sharing a townhouse. Things just fell into place. I was messy; she straightened up after me. I liked to cook, so Marta ate what I made. Marta and I drove up to Michigan and stayed with my family, who loved her.

Loved.

Somewhere there are some photos from that time. My twin nephews, now 10, were infants, and we spent a gorgeous afternoon on a blanket in the front yard of my mom and Pete's house. The cherry tree was in bloom, and we were blanketed in pink petals. Truly a perfect moment.

I'm glad she found me here.


Marta, espero que sepas lo importante que me has sido y que sigues siendo. Aunque estamos en paises distintos, y a pesar de que solo hablamos cada dos años, yo sé que puedo contar contigo para cualquier cosa que necesite. Y también, que tú puedes contar conmigo. Es una amistad que tiene raices fuertes, y te lo agradezco. Mil besos, cariño.


*My how time flies.

For Cristin with looooove

My girl Cristin rocks. She just came by with tortilla soup from a local restaurant, Dunkin' Donuts and DVDs.

Hell yes.

Accomplishments

The small project yesterday ended up being my bedroom. I didn't finish it entirely, but I did make the bed, put away the laundry and pick things up off the floor. That was nice.

You know how sometimes certain problems seem like such a pain in the ass that they're not really worth dealing with? Until the annoyance/inconvenience overtakes the difficulty of the problem, well, I often put things off that are hard. Many times the hard thing *is* really hard. Other times, though, it's less difficult than it may have appeared at first.

Since I got back from MI, I've been without audio for my commute. Somewhere along the line of charging me $1200 for various maintenance work, the mechanics must have pulled the battery, which made my stereo decide it had been stolen. I made a couple of half-hearted inquiries about how to fix it. The manual said you need a code. I looked for the code. I didn't find the code. I must not have inherited it from the former owners. I called the shop, and they said you could get the code by calling the company's customer service line if you had the serial number of the stereo. I had no idea where that might be. I figured I'd have to take the stereo out. I didn't relish being on hold, either. No NPR during the hour a day (at minimum) that I'm in the car has been Ugh, but not Ugh enough, apparently. I needed more motivation.

I'd been tossing around the idea of running down to GA for the long weekend, and my recent thoughts have been very UGH at the idea of a 12 hour trip with no distractions. I was leaning towards just not going. But then Jamie emailed, and bingo I had the motivation. I've missed her! I've missed Nemoid! I've missed Bhanu! All those GA folks would be SO FUN to hang out with.

I turned to the internets for help, and for once it was easy. The code was on a sticker inside my glove compartment. Nice.

Friday morning it's off to GA I go!

Art (Not that kind)

As long as I've been alive enough to remember, my dad has been enormously overweight. Back at the end of January, as I believe I mentioned, Dad had some kind of gastric bypass type surgery. There was quite a long time where he felt like extreme crap, but it looks like that part is over with for the most part.

One hundred and fifteen pounds later, he looks like this:

I can put both arms all the way around him when we hug, and he's a handsome devil, but by far the best part is that he's been able to go off of almost all the medicine he took as a result of being so overweight. We went to lunch, and he ate 1/4 of a sandwich and two spoonfuls of a divine strawberry soup. Cheap date.

A day at the farm in Ionia. More of my favorite things.

Welcome to my aunt and uncle's 250 acre farm in beautiful Ionia, Michigan, home of the Ionia Free Fair.


The farmhouse is real old. It's kind of not my style on the inside, and I wonder if there are hardwood floors under the carpet. The well water is very very full of iron, which is difficult to get used to drinking.

The barn is really old, too. I love it. Blue silos rock.

Flower mix of goodness.

Oh, my, how cute?!

Uncle Evan. Over the course of my life they've had normal farm crops (wheat, soybeans, corn, etc.) and always animals. The best ones in my opinion were the angora goats. I mean, look at how cute the kids are! Evan and Linda used to have huge numbers of cattle for beef, but now they just have about 14 head that they breed for stud. One roan got out of the barn while I was there, which was very exciting. Aunt Linda and I had to chase the poor cow back before it decided to cross the street onto someone else's farm. Evan's not in the best of health, but he still spent the day spreading manure. Like I said, the farm is 250 acres, but Evan rents about 175 of them out to other farmers. The rest is for pasture, hay, and maybe grain.


Steer. Soon to be MEAT. Less than a month, dearheart. Enjoy it.



I wish I had gone up in the hayloft yesterday, but here's a shot of where the cattle go to feed once they've had their fill of pasture.



Grandma and Aunt Linda pick some strawberries. I came home with more vegetables than I know what to do with. And a pressure canner! And a ton of rhubarb seeds! And onion sets! Lots to do today. I might take the beans home in my suitcase and process them at home with my new pressure canner.




Isn't she lovely? Born 1919. Grandma kept telling me that if I was tired I should take a rest. There's another photo on flickr of her that I couldn't get to rotate correctly on my computer. It shows Gram's beauty even better. An added bonus is that you get to see a monster beet.


What a fantastic day.

Providential Oddities

This afternoon I had a meeting at my local senior center, to get trained on how to ask companies to donate to one of the organizations that funds my workplace.

As I was leaving, I saw a table of women crocheting. Something overcame me, and I sat down with them and just started chatting. I hauled my hook out of my purse* and asked if they had any extra yarn to play with. For about 20 minutes I learned about these ladies and their various crochet meet ups. Monday and Wednesday 1-3 p.m. at the senior center and fourth Thursdays at 6 p.m. at the IHop. They showed me how to properly (EW THERE'S A CICADA!) start your first row and assured me that my meathook-like grasp was a perfectly fine way to hold a hook. They called my technique dainty, in fact. I lamented my problems with following patterns, and they were excited at my freeform approach. It has a name! It's called modular crochet**. I told them about my bag making and my felting, and they absolutely lit up with joy.

I put in a volunteer application, and I hope to stop back by if I'm ever in Durham on a Monday or Wednesday from 1-3. Thanks Lorlene, Hazel and Miss Mary Rita.

I miss my grandma.

* I know. They laughed at me, too.
**Hilarious URL!

So remiss!

Ugh. I guess for now the epoch of daily posting is in remission. Part of that is because I have new tales to tell and want to give them justice.

I took photos of my garden to post, but it looks like they're not wanting to upload, dammit. Oh, wait, at least one of them did. Rock on. Patience, Stew, patience. (Blogger is apparently playing hard to get.)

Shortly I'll be leaving for the Queen City for the weekend, where I'm going for an almost-family reunion. My friend-since-10th-grade jj, her parents, her sister(s?), aunts, uncles, cousins, and me. Oh, and NOT least, jj's two children (of which I've only met one), her husband, her sister's new babe, and her sister's husband (neither of whom I've met either).

I'll be taking them some gardenous bounty in the form of a couple of tomatoes, cukes, plums (from the community garden), plum jam (same, but I processed it last week), and peppers. As you can see below, the eggplant is not yet ready, but isn't it looking nice? The beans are behind, because I planted them way late. That's fine, though, because there's still plenty of time for them.

Now for the pix, which did eventually upload. As you can see, however, some of my edits didn't take for some reason. Bizarre that they didn't save as rotated.

Anyhoo:

One of my eggplant plants.

Corn! And maybe zucchini. Something in that family, anyway.

Tomatoes. One of many varieties. The first to ripen were the sungolds, as I mentioned before. The second is the Cherokee Purple. This is either Better Boy or perhaps Pink Beefsteak.

Hydrangea. I got this plant about 6 years ago, and it was a baby in a 6 inch pot. (Note the fig tree behind it.)

One of the zinnias. Gorgeous color, isn't it? Cosmos and swiss chard beside it.

Misleading photo of a summer squash. It's only about 6 inches long. Perspective. I'm guessing it will be good to eat in a few days when I return.

My tomato/pepper/cuke/eggplant/marigold bed.

I wish my camera took better close-ups. It's from about 2000, though, so whatevs.

Yes, I know.

This has to be tedious for anyone other than me. You know, the daily garden update? Well, not quite daily, I suppose, but still.

Here's the thing. I find myself newly in awe of the garden every time I look at it recently. Something has always changed. A new sucker to rip off, the first zinnia bud, a radish seed pod.

A ripe fig.

I considered waiting to get a picture of it before I shoved it into my mouth, but well, impulse control issues and all that.

This is my first real year with the fig tree, and I was sad that only one fig developed when the tree first leafed out this spring. I thought that was going to be all I got. Then slowly but surely itty figgies began developing at the base of most of the leaves. I don't know why, but I thought all of the figs would ripen at the same time, more or less, even that first one. I noticed that it was looking kind of peaked today. It wasn't shiny anymore, and though big, it just looked like something was wrong with it. Then I touched it. And it was soft. I picked it off, and split the skin with my thumbs. Inside was a rosy purple. So sweet.

Also, I discovered a peach tree across the street from my office's parking lot. It looks like it's nobody's tree, and I will eat from it.

YAY!!!!!!!!

In my zeal, I didn't actually let them get ripe enough, but DAMN it's nice to have tomatoes again.

I just got back from about 2 hours of preparing my new bed at the community garden. Two more wheelbarrow loads of compost filled it in. I amended the soil with some blood meal and bone meal. Then I made two walkways, dividing the bed into three main rows. I lay down some garden fabric, weighed it down with a few bricks, and put some scrap wood in the trough to use as stepping stones.

In the northernmost row I put two watermelon mounds. In the middle, one cantaloupe mound, several cuke plants, and a ton of beans. The southernmost row is all cantaloupes. I need me some fruit.

I met both of the coordinators for the teen program and some of the youth themselves, and it looks like I'll be volunteering regularly on Friday afternoon/evenings. One of the teens suggested I bring the teens from my program over to visit. I think it's a wonderful idea! I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing with them, but lifeskills workshops were mentioned.

Another major bonus of this community garden is its numerous and varied fruit trees. According to the garden outreach coordinator, they don't get sold at the market, but rather are for "casual consumption." Hell yeah. Plums, peaches, figs, apples, mulberries, and probably more.

Waiting to leave

Isn't he a handsome guy? A good friend, too. I've had a fantastic almost-week here in DC, mostly due to the company. Yes, Toby Toberson was a highlight, as he let me snuggle him half to death and loved it. But Marc, well, Marc was the best part. He's a fantastic host, and really easy to share living space with.

Other features: good eats, good drinks, afternoon naps, crosswords, and of course walks both with and without the Tobinator.

I was originally only going to stay until Sunday, but then we learned that our sweet Nem was coming into town yesterday for a conference this week. So with very little arm-twisting, I stayed until this morning. We all had dinner last night at a rooftop restaurant in Marc's neighborhood, and for the first time in ages I felt at home. Emily and Marc and I all met at around the same time at the same workplace almost 10 years ago. Others from that time are no longer much in my life, but those two have staying power. We haven't all lived in the same place for years now, and life gets complicated as we get older--jobs, families, moves. So it was a really, really nice reunion.

I never much remember the sightseeing I do on trips like this. I did go to the National Portrait Gallery, as well as the aforementioned trip to the zoo and Natural History Museum. I suppose if I lived here, I'd ignore all of that--it tends to be my M.O.

Yesterday afternoon I had a small attack of the blues. I tried to stay mindful, but I knew I was going home today, to a job that doesn't pay as well as I deserve, a messy house, a lack of companionship, and not much motivation.

My reaction to being in a city was one of pure joy at first. Built-in exercise, interesting sights, seemingly HUGE numbers of hot, single men, and a whole world outside my door. But there's also a part of me that knows that even if I moved here for good I'd still be the same person. A person in a major rut.

I have to get out of it.

Frustration and annoyance

I'm in a kind of pissy mood today. I won't get into the minute details, but let's just say that I'm frustrated and annoyed with a friend you don't know (for real). The friend has problems but is unable/unwilling (a bit of both) to do things that I know will help.

Yes, it's about depression. I suppose because I've been through it (oh so often!) this friend comes to me to lend an ear. After a while it gets really annoying, and so I decide not to talk to the person about the problem until the person hit bottom enough to do something about it. Cause frankly, there wasn't anything else I could do, and the listening was having a negative effect on MY state of mind. Bubbye. I didn't cut off all relations with friend, but I did withdraw quite a bit, and it feels lovely. We don't have that much in common to begin with, really, and I don't enjoy myself often when we hang out. Very occasionally, yes.

Finally the friend started therapy recently and told me about it. I do want what's best for friend, so I encouraged the therapy. So great. Friend at least is in competent therapy hands. Here's hoping that works. Meanwhile, however, friend is trying to inch closer to me with IM during the day, (which is ignored even if I have the "busy" icon on), and Friend's reaction to the first therapy session is that friend is "fundamentally flawed and will never change." Not at all what the therapist said. Therapist said just that the outward issues are symptoms, and so you can't expect that by losing/gaining weight or getting a boy/girlfriend will solve your problems. Classic depression voice, ya know? Turning things around and making them catastrophic?

Boundaries. I need to (re)set them. I feel bad, but this is just so annoying and stressful to me. I especially feel bad because I know what it's like to be that damn DOWN. But I can't take it anymore. I am not Friend's therapist. Friend now has therapist.

God, I'm annoyed. I'm glad I'm not in Friend's place anymore and will never be again. I at least can ID the signs of depression and not buy into them anymore. It took years of therapy and learning and meds to get me here, but my GOD am I glad I made it.

Now I just need to let go of my guilt by realizing I'm just meeting my own needs.

(But how can I just LEAVE Friend? Friend is majorly suffering! But friend's suffering makes ME suffer! And friend is annoying b/c can't/won't do what needs to be done!)


ARRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

pant pant pant
sigh
(roll eyes at self)

Safe, legal and rare.

Just short of two years before after I was born*, the supreme court decision of Roe v. Wade made abortion legal throughout the US.

Let's mark the 35th anniversary of that by acknowledging the lives saved by that court, who determined that abortion is a fundamental right under the US constitution.

And please, do everything you can to protect that.

*Wishful thinking??

As per usual

My time at Jamie's is more than fantastic. It's such a warm, loving place, their farm, and I can't help but think I'd love to live here with her forever. I'm sure she'd get extremely sick of me after about two weeks. But still.

To show my appreciation (and as some kind of challenge to myself), I crocheted her a scarf in 1.5 hours. All at once. The time flew by. I decided it was an early, early birthday present. It actually turned out quite well. Maybe if I get into it some more I can learn how to read patterns and actually make projects other than scarves.

Actually, this scarf is patterned. It's very lace-esque, like a loose string market bag. Which I think will be my next project. Basically you start with a long chain stitch, as is typical. Then you anchor back a few stitches with a single crochet, chain a bunch more (4 in this case), anchor again, etc. Then for the next row you make a turn stitch, chain four and anchor through the whole loop you've made. Maybe I'll post a picture. Ok, I just did.

And dude. Dinner. Oh My God. Roast leg of lamb with pan-browned potatoes, homemade pita and tzatziki, a carrot/parsnip mash and then broccoli and cauliflower with cheese sauce. Veg provided by a guest named Holly Golightly. Crabapple pie for dessert. And breakfast.

I don't want to go hoooooooome.