Here's another great family shot from the 80's.

I have a super busy week and a half coming up so I'm guessing I won't be here much. Who knows? It seems like whenever I say that the opposite happens.

Tired of pictures of the yard yet?

This is the rhubarb patch. It always makes a lot of leaves but the stalks remain puny.

Today I put the peas in the dirt and planted another row of greens, turnips and beets.

My rosemary randomly died. There are a few green sprigs but otherwise it's a giant brown bristly mess. Even though I never remembered that I had fresh rosemary or if I did, rarely wanted to run across the yard to get some when my recipe called for it, I still liked that plant.

I know the posts have been weak lately.

The last two nights I woke up at 4am and thought of really great stuff to write about. Then I never got back to sleep and now I'm tired and I can barely remember why I sat down here in the first place.

I'll skip the rant about the stupidity of the credit scoring system and my review of Knocked Up based on the first ten minutes when I turned it off in a huff (only a man would think this is the setup for a comedy.)

Here's my daily tidbit: I opened a new bank account and instead of sending me a box of checks (yeah, olde timey, I know) they sent me these flimsy cardboard sheets and I had to fold my own box. The box says "Keep your checks safe & warm." I added a wizard sticker that looks like Gandalf so now my checks can be safe, warm & magic.

Title-Less in Vancouver

Photo courtesy of peppergrass. Thank you for CC photos.

Dear Amanda: Lemon Cucumber are one of the special delights of summer. They are delicious little cucumbers shaped like lemons. One of my favorite memories is of eating lemon cucumbers with my Grandpa. Look for them in your farmer's market this summer. Or better, grow some.

Sometimes I wake myself up early on my days off. This morning I set the alarm more for Bob than me.

It went off and I clicked it off and Bob got up. I kinda drifted in and out until about 6am there was this strange sound that rattled the walls. Normally I would assume it was something Bob was doing. But I heard him say, "Huh?" So then I very carefully peeked out the window in case some sort of stealth vehicle was cruising out front. Nothing.

I love all the theories. The railroad. Police testing bombs. Sonic boom. Earthquake boom. I'm going with alien invasion or National Guard sonic boom.



This is from the bag of assorted tulips. I like them.

Today was a pretty decent day. I did my errands. Paid my property taxes. Made progress on a writing project. Baked cream cheese brownies for a dinner date tomorrow. I would have done some yardwork but it was one of those days where it's sunny for 5 minutes and then monsooning for 5 minutes. All day.



Look how sweet the pink ones look today. I never should have doubted them.

Every time I look in my backyard there are giant crows sitting around staring at the house. I finally put my camera on the kitchen counter so I could send a picture to Kira. But the minute I got it out, they disappeared.



The pretty red ones out front. Last year there were cream-colored ones mixed in. Do white tulips transform to red? That sounds like a fairy tale.

The moment I went outside to take this photo, an osprey flew exactly overhead with a fish in its claws. It was so low I could hear its wings beat the air. And it moved so quickly out of sight, I couldn't take a photo.

Chukchuk what am I to do for you?

After how many years I've been planting a garden I finally had the brilliant idea of starting my peas in the house first. Every year I put a zillion peas out there and the slugs eat then as soon as they sprout and I get the world's saddest pea plants. I'm going to put these out over the weekend.

Then I'm going to start my lemon cucumbers inside. I haven't had good lemon cucumbers in a couple of years.

I got out my garden book. Maybe if I spend some time actually reading it I can learn something.

Grump-in-ator

I am too grumpy to live. Not even related to taxes. I'm going to try to post with minimal whining.



This is Stumpy. I noticed him last year because he has such a freakishly short tail next to the other squirrels. Poor guy. I've tried to take pictures of him before but got nothing but a gray blur. I better send Carol a note and make sure she sees this.

Current trend: stores are having a tough time convincing us to buy stuff we don't need so they're focusing on things we need. In the last two days I've gotten two $25 coupons enticing me to change my prescriptions to a different pharmacy.

It's one of my missions in life to avoid prescriptions and at least for now, I'm doing okay.



These pink tulips are among my favorites. They've barely come out and they already look trashy and wind blown. What happened?

I don't understand why financial institutions (or any information collecting entity) insist on asking for every phone number known to man: day phone, home phone, cellphone. But then when they call you they leave a message only on your home phone. Where you aren't during the day because you are at your job. The job they asked about when they agreed to deal with your financial business.

I'm in the process of moving some retirement funds and I'm certain there will be a long ranty post about this in the future. I have nothing nice to say about WaMu investment services, if you're wondering.



Hannah gave me a waterproof tote bag a few years ago after reading this sad tale. It's been disintegrating for some time now and I've been searching for an appropriate replacement. I finally decided on this. It's not exactly what I had in mind but this thing is so durable, my heirs' heirs will be using it. And it was a good color for the acorn appliqué that Caren and Eden gave me.

On average, I'm in the office alone about one day a week. It never fails that on those days some random stranger wanders in. We're not a location where random people wander and it's not the kind of business that gets people off the street. I'm always a bit uncomfortable when it happens.

We've had several people looking for attorneys who were not us. The people would then ask me if we did the type of law they were looking for. Seriously? Hiring an attorney that you stumble upon doesn't seem like a good idea.

There was a guy who came in and started reading something that was on the table. "Can I help you?" I said. "I'm just delivering this phonebook," he said and he dropped the book with a thump and left.

Then there are the cold callers. I'm never going to do business with a cold caller of any kind, ever, except for small children who come to the front door of my home and want me to buy candy to support their ballet or trip to France with the Jr. Symphony. And that's not the same thing. It freaks me out when people come marching in the office and introduce themselves and shake my hand like we're old friends and then start asking me questions. Apparently the words "Indian Tribe" are magic because they went on their way without a fight.

I made the Black Magic Cake today for tonight's dessert.

Can you tell where the lid fell off of the shaker I was using to decoratively mist the cake with powdered sugar?

When I looked at the recipe this morning I realized I didn't buy chocolate syrup. It was cold and rainy and I wasn't about to put on clothes so I could go to the grocery store. I added some baking chocolate and a few extra ounces of buttermilk and hoped for the best. It came out great. Very dense, almost brownie-like.

This wasn't the best weekend of my life but I'm feeling okay about it now. I managed to clean another layer of stuff off my desk. The taxes are ready to go out the door. I was in a writing rut but Kira helped me break through this morning. The garden looks pretty. We had a fun Easter dinner at Priscilla's.

I'm ready for the work week.

First few few tulips are peeking out in the backyard.

I've had a wicked headache since I woke up this morning. I don't know what's going on. I did not drink adult beverages and I went to bed early last night.

I hope this isn't the prelude to some icky flu bug or my head being about to explode.



I like the daffodils with the little orange cups in the middle.

Does anyone else watch Bones and is it just me or is this season getting weirder and weirder? I can just picture a big pep talk for the writers, "We want bigger and better episodes. No character arc is too stupid. No idea is too crazy. No crime scene can be too disgusting." Then they dared each other to see who could come up with the most insane ideas.

"Bones and Angel will join the circus."

"We'll explore the art world with a body found in crushed car as a work of art."

"Something at Comic-con with people in costumes."

"Angela will become celibate and talk about it in every episode."

"Body will be all ground up and investigators will refer to it as chili con carne."

The above was the opener to this week's episode and I was eating my lunch. Gak. At least I wasn't eating chili.

Also this week there was this bizarre break in the middle where two of the actors explained what was going on during the episode.

I don't hate it I just think the renewed devotion to weirdness is worth noting.



The pink tree out front is finally blooming.

I used to use Tom's of Maine toothpaste that I bought at Trader Joes. Last time I bought toothpaste, Tom's was gone and there was a Trader's Joe's brand in its place.

I tried it and it tasted so awful it can only be part of dental conspiracy designed to make people avoid brushing their teeth. But I didn't throw it away because I hate wasting things. I finally used the last little bit. Yesterday I was at Freddie's and I found some Tom's and I've been brushing every half hour ever since.