Where did that tomato come from? I stick my nose on those plants every day, sometimes more than once a day, and I would swear there was no tomato on that plant yesterday. What a pleasant surprise to start my dreary and potentially rainy day!

I think this is the Super 100 Cherry Tomato. I say I think that’s what it is, because I don’t know which is which anymore. When I re-potted them, I put the little plastic tabs back into the pots, and sometime between Sunday and yesterday, every last one of them has gone missing. I doubt it can be blamed on critters, because they might knock them out of the pots, but they don’t usually run off with them. I suspect a two-legged critter by the name of Annoying Boy. I’ll have to compare the unlabeled pots with the labeled ones and try to figure out which is which, I guess.

I guess adding the composted manure on Sunday, and the last few days of coffee grounds and leftover coffee have done that plant some good. I have been particularly focusing on that one, because it looked really bad on Sunday with yellow leaves that were starting to curl up and fall off, and generally just bad color to the whole plant. I thought it was on the way to an early death. This morning, it’s green and perky … and it has a tomato on it!

The photo makes it look huge. I assure you, it isn’t. Right now my precious first tomato is about the size of a dime. It better not fall off or get eaten. I would be so heartbroken. I can’t wait to eat my own tomatoes.

There are also three peppers that have set on the Banana Pepper plant. Woo hoo! I am so excited!

Also, I am somewhat pleased with the above photo, so I uploaded a larger version so you can see the detail. Considering how dark and windy it is outside, and the fact I can’t use a flash when using the macro settings, I was surprised by how well it turned out … and how you can see the dew on the little hairs. I love my camera.

I have to take my tomato happy self to Walgreens, and then I have to attempt to restore the kitchen to some kind of order. I have totally ignored the dishes for far too long, as I almost always do.

But I have a tomato and some peppers! On top of the ice dispenser on the fridge being repaired yesterday, this week is going pretty damn well so far. Just wish I felt better, but I guess I can’t have everything my way.

I’m having continuing stress-like feelings about one of my friends. It’s that feeling which informs me I am having inner conversations about whether or not I want this person in my life. That’s a harsh thing to be considering, but there you have it. I’m not angry. I’m not even upset. I guess I’m just disappointed. That happens in interpersonal relationships.

While I believe that even the best among us are capable of doing and saying and thinking stupid, evil things, I believe in forgiveness. I have forgiven people for things that … well … many other people wouldn’t, and I meant it. That doesn’t mean I don’t reserve the right to be angry or upset. I do. I am fully capable of knowing why someone did what they did and understanding their rationale for it. I can forgive them for doing it. They did the best they could in the situation, for their own reasons, and they failed to live up to my (or society’s) standards and expectations. We all fail at things … do the wrong thing … at least a few times in life.

Now for the parable:

When I drove a ratty old car, banged up and barely chugging along, large trucks that took up two parking spaces used to make the blood vessels in my temples pop. Selfish bastards! Assholes! Even though it made me angry, because I needed a parking space too, I was capable of understanding a few important points from their view: parking spaces are made way the hell too small in order to cram more cars in, large trucks are not easy to maneuver in a cramped parking lot, and many people in ratty old cars don’t take care not to leave dings and scratches on other people’s car doors (which they can’t really help too much, owing to the smallness of the parking lots). It still made me angry, and I still thought it was an asshole-like thing to do, but I forgave them. After all, I was generally driving rather large ratty old cars, and they are no joy in the parking lot department either.

Then I started driving a new and large truck, and I personally got to see the other side of the story. My hypothesis about the reasons that so many large trucks take up two parking spaces was correct. Not all people who take up two parking spaces are selfish assholes. I feel fairly certain I am not a selfish asshole, and yet, even I occasionally park the truck like crap, and I leave it like that. I did it today. I am certain it pissed someone off. I’m sorry. My reasons for leaving my truck parked like crap? The only parking spot available where there where two together, which is almost required in some parts of the lot in order to even get the truck into a spot (due to those tight parking spaces), is located in such a way that it requires me to turn sharper than my vehicle is able and no amount of point turning is going to make a difference. The truck just can’t get fully into either open space.

I gave it a try, and there was nowhere else to park where the truck would fit. I didn’t really want to waste a bunch of gas driving in circles or going home and coming back, and I didn’t want to walk a block with all my groceries. So … I got out and went and did my shopping. I felt bad about the fact that second space was going to be unusable by any type of automobile, but what to do? I have a life I am trying to get through too.

When I came out, the store had emptied dramatically. I must have arrived right at the end of the morning rush. The parking lot was growing bare, and there, all by itself, sat my truck … obviously parked like crap. It looked stupid sitting there badly parked, without all the other cars that had been around earlier making the proper parking impossible. I feel certain someone driving through that parking lot at that time called me an ass, or made a comment about people who drive large trucks. I might have.

I forgive them for hating me, as they haven’t had to park the thing in a cramped and crowded parking lot that barely accommodates large vehicles. After they walk a mile in my shoes, we can talk about it again. Though I do believe I have to amend my original theories as to why people who drive large trucks sometimes park like crap. It had absolutely nothing at all to do with keeping people from dinging my truck, and I suspect that might be the case for a lot of the others as well. This does not, of course, apply to people who consciously and willfully take up two entire parking spaces, as though they didn’t even TRY to park correctly, repeatedly and all the time. Those people are assholes.

Which brings me to my next point:

My forgiveness is not endless and bottomless. I am not perfect. If I were capable of forgiving everyone for everything, I’d be walking on water right about now … just for the fun of it. When a behavior that I feel is “bad” is repeated over, and over, and over with no growth, change or improvement, my patience and forgiveness runs out. I’ll still eventually forgive the person, but I won’t necessarily have that person in my life anymore. No animosity or anger are involved in that decision. That’s just the way it is. That person is doing/saying/thinking something that doesn’t sit well with me, and I may understand why, but I don’t have to keep being exposed to it and being made upset by it.

Go forth and be happy, but please be happy somewhere else. Or be unhappy. Your choice.

I have so much going on in my head these days. There’s more I’d like to say about this, but it’s getting so late. The situation is on-going, so it is bound to come up again soon. Eventually, I will have to decide whether or not I am seeing a pattern of behavior I can’t move past. Have my friend and I really grown so far apart? I hate that feeling. It always brings up additional questions, like … were they always like that and I never noticed before? I hate that feeling too.

This is probably a strange and rambling post, but I’m too tired to be bothered to proofread it. Forgive me?

Lin and I have been amusing ourselves by watching the fuss on CNN over the late arriving Lake County, Indiana primary results. We are amused because those are the stomping grounds of our northern family members. Lin was born in Hammond and grew up all over that area. I got my tattoo in Gary. We have friends and family members sprinkled there like salt and pepper on a steak. It doesn’t make the national news often, if ever, so that’s been interesting.

I’ve had a rotten headache all evening, and I just ache all over. I think I’ll go take a nice hot shower and get ready for bed. Maybe by the time I am done, the primaries for today will be over. If not, at least I can pass out while waiting with nice clean hair.

Even though nothing much got done around here today, it’s been a long day. I am so, so tired.

I love my man.

My man looked at the plans for the fridge today, and then with only a plastic fork, a mirror, and his finger, he has restored the in-from-the-door functionality to my freezer door. Tonight, I shall have crushed ice in my Dr Pepper once again!

I do love my man.

The cats aren’t too sure they like this new whirring and grinding noise in the kitchen. Every time I use it, they fly around the house … tails looking like bottle brushes and ears laid back … as though they were being chased by a large and angry dog. It’s very hilarious.

Ronin will eventually mourn the fixing of the ice crusher. Why? One of his favorite things in the world is to stand at my feet as soon as I open the freezer door, waiting patiently for me to drop the one or two ice cubes I always drop when getting ice out of the inner bin. Yes, to Ronin, few things are more exciting and fun that batting an ice cube across the room into some unseen corner to melt, thereby leaving a small, cold puddle for some bare human foot to step in later when it’s dark. Yes, indeed, that is very, very fun (for Ronin).

I can’t believe I finally have crushed ice again. I feel so civilized!

I made it to the grocery store this morning. Nothing eventful happened, other than I noticed the prices have gone up again.

While nothing exciting or particularly interesting happened while I was shopping, I did have a fun little experience at the checkout. I was standing in one of the many long, long lines looking forward to being there for at least 20 or 30 minutes, considering how slowly the cashiers were moving. I don’t really mind. Standing by my basket is easy compared to pushing the thing around.

So I was just standing there watching people, taking sneaky phone photos, and reading the headlines on magazines, when a very sweet looking young, male employee walks up and suggests I use the self-check, which I was standing right beside and which wasn’t being used by anyone. I don’t do self-check. My reason being that with food prices the way they are, the store can pay someone to check my goods through, put them in bags for me, and offer to help me out with them. I didn’t feel like trying to explain to the nice young man why I refuse to use the self-check and didn’t mind standing in a long line, so I just told him that I had never used it.

He offered to help me. I was bored, and I saw an opportunity to play my dumb blond role, so I took it. Without any promoting for me, he checked all my goods through the self-check for me while explaining how it worked, and he put them in bags, and he put them back in my basket for me … and offered to get someone to help me out with them. Yes, playing my Dumb Blond role got me out of the store at least 20 minutes faster, and I still got full service!

In exchange, I taught him the meaning of the word Luddite, which I claimed to be. He was actually bright enough and inquisitive enough to have a conversation with, and so I asked him if he wasn’t concerned that the jobs of unskilled workers are being replaced by machines and electronics more and more often. He replied that he had thought about it, but that there would be other jobs that would be created, and after all, even though he wasn’t standing at a register, he still had a job. I then asked him what would happen to that job when self-check is everywhere and everyone knows how to use them and aren’t afraid of them? Did he think they would still pay him to stand there doing nothing? “I hadn’t thought about that.”

He thanked me for teaching him a new word and for the chat, and my hope for the future of American youth has been restored. He was a bright kid, and I don’t expect he will be standing around teaching people how to use the self-check for long, if he plays his cards right. I think I’ll make sure to chat with him whenever I see him there. Maybe I can teach him some more new words and keep him thinking about things. If he seems interested enough, I might even give him some books to read.

I sure hope that one gets to college. Young people who think and want to learn seem so rare these days.

In a recent interview on Trinity Broadcasting Network, Ben Stein had this to say:

Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.

Crouch: That’s right.

Stein: …Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.

Crouch: Good word, good word.

Really, Ben?? Really?! Science may make it more efficient or easier to kill people, thanks to newer technologies than rocks and tree branches, but I’ve read a good bit of history. Seems to me that people had no problems killing other people long before science was anything more than alchemists trying to turn lead into gold, and sometimes they even did it all in the name of God and religion.

Ben Stein is a disgusting piece of work. I’ve never thought much of him, but lately my apathy has been turning to loathing.

I need to ask Lin if he listens to his songs on the Shuffle in order or on the shuffle setting. That’s not what I sat down here to gripe about. It’s just a personal reminder.

I have a set of battery operated Christmas lights sitting on the desk beside me, and I have no size C batteries. How am I supposed to rate their level of coolness and appropriateness for further ownership, if I can’t tell how they look turned on? They give me ideas, but I need to see them on! Dammit!

I was going to get rid of my vast collection of Christmas lights. I swear I own more Christmas lights than people who actually bother to decorate (and celebrate) Christmas. I suspect I will lose the battle and keep them all. I also suspect that at least one wall of the New Room, as I am now calling it, will be covered with Christmas lights and sheer white cotton sheeting.

Lin is going to have a cow. He may even have twins. We haven’t exactly discussed what is going to happen when that room is actually a usable room. Perhaps he hasn’t even considered what I might start doing in there once there aren’t any more boxes. My thinking is this: Much like conquering and exploring nations crossed treacherous and long miles to go to new lands, where they promptly claimed it, planted a flag, and began development, I too am making a dangerous and lengthy quest. And when I get there … I am damn well planting my flag, claiming it, and beginning development. Mine. My room. My Precious.

I have never had a room that was really, in any way, private and totally 100% mine to do with as I wished. Never. My childhood bedroom was the room off the kitchen and dining room … and it was the path to the bathroom for everyone. There wasn’t even a door between the kitchen and my bedroom, and the back door was right there at the join of the two rooms, so everyone could always see, and often walked through, my bedroom all the damn time. The first thing this meant is I had little to no privacy in my room. The second thing this meant was my room always had to look at least moderately tidy and clean. It also meant I was stuck with a room with bright yellow and white striped wallpaper — with a tiny pattern in the stripes — and a bright yellow ceiling, with white wood trim everywhere. I was stuck with it because the lady who owned the house previously, from whom my parents had bought it, and who lived right next door and shared a driveway with us, had done the wallpapering herself. Any changes to the decor were forbidden, and even posters were frowned upon. Even as a kid, I was not allowed to do anything to my room.

And did I mention little or no privacy in my room?

Then there were dormitories, more dormitories, small apartments with roommates, boyfriends, boyfriends, and then husbands. All the time presided over by landlords (or parents) telling me what I could or could not do to my living area, and in most situations, still no room of my own and no actual private space. Not that this ever especially bothered me. I was used to it.

The older I got, the more it started bothering me. It really, really started bothering me at the apartment. Twelve years with two adults, a cat, and a ton of unneeded stuff crammed into one small apartment for about twelve years and not being able to walk up to a wall and just splash paint on it … and nowhere, really nowhere, to get away from each other or everything? When we moved into the house, our level of heavy arguing fell right off. When you put animals in a cage that is too small for them all to have their appropriate amount of space, they do tend to try to kill each other. But even hear at the house, we are still somewhat on top of each other. Sharing the den with Lin has been nice, but it would be nice to see what it was like to not have to share space … and I need to take the New Room, because it has a door that closes and I need the cats to not get into my art supplies and projects.

But … I am going to have to set up a wireless network so I can remove myself from the Den. I’m not sure I want to move it to the New Room, but it has to go somewhere. It wouldn’t be fair to keep it in the Den and claim the New Room as well. I’ve been thinking of putting it in the living room, eventually.

Anyway…

I want my own room. I want to be able to go into my room and paint rainbows and flowers on the walls, if I feel like it. I want to string Christmas lights wherever I like. I want a door that closes. I want an Orb Cave. Maybe not forever, but for right now. I require control of some personal space!!! Just once!!!

Lin is sure to have a cow or two, and I don’t think it can be avoided, but the deal was we would each get our own room, and we haven’t kept that promise to ourselves. He’s been getting robbed of his room as much as I have. I’m going to fix that problem, and then I am going to land on the gleaming hardwood floor, plant the Just Orb flag, and claim the new country as my own!

Mine. My own. My Precious.

I better feel better tomorrow. I want to get back to work on it!

This was a useless sort of day. On top of not having gotten much in the way of sleep last night, it was grey and gloomy all day, and I have had a headache from hell too. Therefore, my only major accomplishment has been putting flea goo on the cats and coffee grounds on the tomatoes.

I’m cutting myself some slack though. I did get some stuff done this weekend I hadn’t planned to work on, I am completely and totally hormonal, and this dreary weather has sucked the life right out of me as it always does. If I need to move a little more slowly, or not at all, for a few days, that’s OK. I’ve been working like a champ for days on end now, and I have gotten a lot done around here.

Besides, there are other things I need to do, like go get groceries. I should have gone today, but we are going to make do with what we have in the house tonight. As soon as I realized it was Cinco de Mayo today, I knew there was no way in hell I wanted to be anywhere near a grocery store. Have you ever been in a grocery store on the Fourth of July? Pure insanity with everyone wanted sodas, beer, chips, BBQ stuff and whatnot. Well, Cinco de Mayo is just like that around here. It would have been suicide had I felt A-OK. Going on a day like today when I feel like crap? It’s not even possible for me to consider the ramifications. Just trying to find a parking space would likely have given me nightmares for a month or two!

Speaking of making do with what’s in the house, I suppose I should go get dinner started. We are having pork chops, boiled potatoes and salad. The pork chops are so large (bone-in style) I am going to have to fry them individually, as only one will fit in my large skillet at a time. Oh … the joy of an extended dinner-making process!

Orb: [standing outside closed bathroom door] Hey. You alive?

Lin: [brief silence] Um … yeah. Why?

Orb: [toddling down the hall] Just wondering.

It would take too long to explain. I have to walk Lin out to the truck and put today’s coffee grounds on one of my tomatoes.

Let’s just say I am probably an annoying person to live with and leave it at that, shall we?

I want a fully electric car that doesn’t look dorky. They all look so dorky to me!

Also, I could really use something to put the used coffee grounds in while they dry, like a can or cookie tin with a lid I could punch a bunch of holes in to let the air in but still allow me to give it a shake every once in a while to help the drying process. Why, I have something like that, don’t I? Oh … yeah. I threw all those kinds of things away last week. Oops.

It’s the little things that will always jump up and bite you in the ass.

The night is inching closer to the time my alarm is going to go off, and I am peeved with myself for having disposed of my vast collection of, well, refuse. No more sour cream containers, or cottage cheese containers, or cookies tins, or coffee cans, except for the ones currently being used to store things. I do use them for stuff. It’s an easy way to keep things out of the landfill to use all reusable containers. I just never used them as much as I saved them. They stack up quickly.

I haven’t gotten to the jars and bottles yet. It would seem I do indeed have hoarding tendencies, especially where bottles and jars are concerned. I do. It’s true. I never met a bottle or jar I didn’t want to keep for some reason or another. Never any sort of well defined reason beyond “looks cool and/or might be useful.” I guess I’ll have to find a wide-mouthed jar with a metal lid to put my coffee grounds into. I bet you I have one. I have one of just about every style of bottle and jar made. Wide-mouthed with a metal lid? What size and what color? I probably have you covered. I believe this hoarding of bottles and jars may be caused less by laziness in getting with the recycling program in an efficient way than it is by a “Mine! Mine! My Precious! I must have my Precious [bottles and jars]” sort of mental illness. I’ll know more about which cause is the actual one as this week commences, because the first load of those precious things taking up room everywhere are going to the curb in the big blue box on Thursday morning.

I feel somewhat certain I will be relieved to be relieved of the many and sundry glass objects stuffing the corners of my life on Thursday afternoon, but it is possible that on Saturday morning, I will find a sudden and urgent need for a bottle or jar … and I won’t have any. Depression may set in at that time.

Incidentally, do you know why it is that little things always jump up and bite you in the ass? Because that is as high as they can reach. Anything larger will just rip your head off.

[bah-dump-bump]

Please tip your waitresses, and thank you for coming. I’ll be here for at least a couple more years.

Since I have been sitting here babbling forever, I might as well go on about it some more, right? This reusable/recycled-from-the-groceries container shortage will be short-lived. It’s not like we won’t get more of them. What I need to do is come up with a sensible plan to make sure I have a few useful plastic, metal and glass containers laying around that I don’t mind messing up (unlike my Tupperware), but to not keep … them all. Not even most of them. I’m thinking maybe one or two of each kind on hand at any given time. They are useful for all sorts of things. They just aren’t so useful in mass quantities taking up valuable storage space in a small house entirely lacking in storage space.

And space in the back yard. The glass is all out in the yard. Well … most of it.

Will my stupid alarm go off already so I can start making coffee! Gah. Now time is moving so slowly. The whole night went by pretty fast while I was watching stupid movies, which is how I find myself sitting here at this outrageous hour pondering my plight of not having any sort of can anywhere in the house at all.

My gods, my life is exciting! I’m going to go drown my sorrow in a small glass of flat rootbeer.

It’s another Sunday night, and I am, as usual, doing what I am always doing at this hour on a Sunday night … finishing the laundry. I’ll never learn to start it earlier. I might as well just accept the inevitable and get on with my late-night laundry doing.

Since I have to stay awake a bit longer to wait for the last load in the dryer to finish up, I have been reading about natural fertilizers. I know the plants that aren’t doing well need more nutrients. I don’t want to spend a bunch of money on an organic solution to the problem, and I really don’t want to spend any money on a chemical and non-organic solution to the problem. I was just about ready to break down and buy Miracle Grow tomorrow, but then I decided there had to be some household thing we have plenty of that would be natural and organic and work just as well. And … of course … there is.

Coffee grounds. More here.

Coffee grounds are an excellent fertilizing mulch, and apparently also good at repelling snails and slugs (even, joy of joys, possibly killing them). Well, we have the coffee grounds. Some of them get tossed on the compost heap, but admittedly, most of them just get thrown away. Not any more! Tomorrow, all used coffee grounds go out to my plants. Any leftover brewed coffee can be too, though there usually isn’t much of that around.

Also, crushed egg shells mixed with the dirt, at planting or worked in later, add calcium. This reputedly helps protect against Blossom End Rot on tomatoes and gives them a growing boost. Sprinkling the eggs shells around plants can help deter slugs, snails, and cutworms, who don’t want to crawl over them, as well as deterring those pesky neighborhood cats who want to pee and dig in flowerbeds. They don’t like stepping on them either, or so the rumor goes. Eggshells have all sorts of uses. Just so happens, I have a whole bunch of clean, dry, and crushed up eggshells I was hoarding for that canvas and then decided not to use. How convenient for me!

Tomatoes also seem to love milk, and it may combat powdery mildew.

And finally, here are some ideas for natural pesticides, which I am sure to be needing eventually as well.

Laundry is done. Time for folding it up and then … bed.

Why the hell do we need to make modeling dough for children that smells like such things as fruit or baked goods? I was taught not to eat my play doughs, not because they would have killed me if eaten, but because it wasn’t what you did with them. Clay was not for eating. It was socially unacceptable to eat the dough. In what way does having said dough for children smell like raisin bread going to keep kids from wanting to eat clay? What … kids weren’t eating enough clay without the enticement of flavorful scents?!

Same goes for those scented markers too. Sniffing (most) markers isn’t going to hurt you, but that isn’t what markers are for. It is socially unacceptable to sniff markers. Yet, there are scented markers on the market just for kids. Of course they are going to sniff them, and since they aren’t harmful, the parents aren’t going to tell them not to sniff them. Then kids think it’s perfectly OK to sniff markers.

Well, it’s not OK to eat clays, and it’s not OK to sniff markers. Sure, those clays and those markers aren’t going to hurt them, but there are some that can. So why let them think it’s OK to sniff markers and eat clay? Children, even at a surprisingly high age, don’t tend to read the fine print or look for a non-toxic rating on things before sniffing them or putting them in their mouths. It’s just a marker or just some play dough until they get there hands on something that is toxic, poisonous, or causes respiratory or brain damage, and there are markers and clays out there that can do just that. I know, because I have worked with them. It would just be easier, I would think, to teach them early on, the way I and my peers were taught, simply not to eat clay or sniff markers. It’s really just a good rule of thumb, I would say.

So what are we teaching kids again?