Filing
See that box on the right? That's filled with filing for one client.

That stack to the left is a mere sampling of the filing I'm doing on another project. I'm not even including that to illustrate my current woe. I just couldn't crop it out properly.

I've been meaning to tackle that box, to at least go through it and make sure nothing has fallen between the cracks, but I haven't had three seconds to pour the contents onto the floor since, uh ... December 07.

Garden Bounty

For the purpose of this post "squash" refers to crookneck, patty pan, zucchini, yellow summer squash or any other type of squash that you get 10 tons of at the end of the summer.

I didn't have much of a garden this year since I was gone for half the summer. But I normally don't plant any squash type vegetables because their prolificacy frightens me. And I figure why plant something that other people will be dying to get rid of?

We haven't had any squash this season until Bob got some from a colleague and I got some from a colleague and then Mom and Dad brought some from their garden. Zero to sixty just like that.

So last night I made the casserole. I'm sure everyone who's ever had a load of squash on the kitchen counter has seen some version of this recipe but I'm posting it anyway. I don't know the origins of this version. My Mom makes it. My Grandma made it. The measurements are guestimates. When in doubt, grate more cheese. My version uses way more than a handful. It would be tough to really screw up this recipe.


Slice a bunch of squash.

Saute in butter (or your favorite fat of choice) and garlic. Add salt and pepper.

When they get soft and seem about done:

Toss in a handful of grated cheese (1/2 cup)
Toss in a handful of bread crumbs (1/2 cup)
Dab of milk (1/3 cup)

When it's all stirred and cooked, take off the burner and break an egg into it. Stir the egg around.

Scrape the whole thing into a casserole dish. Add grated cheese to the top.

Bake 15-20 minutes. Last night I put it at 300.

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Also as an update to my last post, my sweetheart has written a wonderful review of Burn After Reading.

Tuesday's Notes

I finally caved and bought some bulbs. They kept extending my coupon. It expired on Friday. Then it was good through the weekend. Then it was good until Monday at midnight. Rather than buy several $25 bags of 50 bulbs, I bought fewer fancier ones. I want it to be worth the tulip bandit's while. Altogether I think I got about 50 which I will no doubt be bitching and moaning about in a month when I have to plant them.
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I might have already written about this. For almost my whole checking-account possessing life, which started when I was 16, I balanced my checkbook to the penny every month. I can't remember when but in the last year or two, I balanced and if it was within $5 I wouldn't worry about it. Now I've started to round up and round down to the nearest .50¢ for all the entries in my checkbook. I don't think I'm properly conveying how major this is for me to be so lax about my checkbook. And I think this is personal growth. Is it really worth it to spend an hour trying to find .17¢?
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I bought new yoga clothes and I wore them for the first time last night. The top is awesome but the pants felt like they were falling down the whole time. By falling down I mean my buttcrack was getting some air. Jeez, when I was a girl pants came up and covered your entire bottom.
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If you're a Coen Brothers fan, I highly recommend Burn After Reading. I saw it with my Mom and Dad over the weekend and we all enjoyed it. Really great performances from everyone.
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I'm not watching Heroes this season. Nothing you say will make me change my mind.
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One of my notes looks like it says "order owre." I have no idea what that means and it's annoying me more than it should.

Baby Elephant
I have been so busy the past week I've barely had time to pull up my pants.

I've lived in this area for closing in on 20 years and I've never had any interest in going to the zoo. However, today my mother-in-law (epic zoo volunteer) took us to see the baby elephant and he was so freaking cute it hurt. Sorry I didn't get a cuter photo but he didn't do something really cute until I put the camera down. Also, it was a wait in line and shuffle through type of thing so not like I could gaze all day at his ever-loving cuteness and wait for the perfect shot.

We need a word for the gap between what the salesman tells you his company can do and for how much and what the service entity can do in reality.

P.S. Happy Birthday Erin



(she's the one on the right)(also that outfit I'm wearing is an awesome red jumpsuit that I wish I had a photo of me standing so you could really enjoy it)

More photos of Erin.

My Desk
Today's featured topic is a tour of my home desk area.

Against the back wall there's a giant Attack of the Clones DVD promotional banner. You can see half of Yoda's head at the top. Standing in front, a full size C3PO cut-out and C3PO wears my Star Wars purse from Bolsa Bonita (she has some similar purses in stock right now, if you're envious.)

My computer lives on an anthro cart. They aren't cheap but they look nice and when the world turns into The Road the good guys will be pushing these along instead of grocery carts. This thing is sturdy. Someday the top shelf will need to be cleared off for a printer but meanwhile, on the left is a giant box filled with Karuk related research. The box on the right is filled with craft-stuff from the fifteen minutes I thought I was going to get into crafting. Now it's stuff I'm never going to use, but can't bear to get rid of, taking up space. On top are my two boxes of critted manuscripts from Clarion West.

I can never remember exactly what computer I have but it's a Mac and it's big and shiny and I love it. It is surrounded by tons of crap including zillions of notes scribbled on scrap paper, stickie-notes and index cards, my iPod, a spindle of CDs and a spindle of DVDs and craft gloves that I wear to support my mouse-hand wrist when typing and highly recommend.

The music stand thing on the left has a paper with a bunch of Mac short cuts on it because I can never remember them. It also has a couple things on it that I want to learn on the computer but never get around to, like things with sound files. When I returned from Clarion West, Bob had left me a picture of William Gibson to watch over me and he does.

My chair is a $50 craigslist special. Over-crowded bookshelves are self explanatory. On the end of the tall bookshelf I have tons of hooks that I use to organize camera cords, charging cords, earbuds and a spare pair of glasses. Hanging from the ceiling is one of those cool paper shades hanging on a light-bulb. I use that in the winter so I can see what I'm doing during yoga practice without having to use the overhead light.

Before and After

Hey, guess what I did today?

This has been on my list for several weekends. It's been that thing that I was determined to do next and never got around to.

We have every-other-week yard debris pick-up and tomorrow is the pick up day so I made sure our tub was full.



Yes, it is crooked. My arms got tired and I sloped unexpectedly.

There's another hedge in back I want to turn into an alien head. I have no experience at sculpting hedges. But I guess worse-case-scenario I have a hideous shaped hedge in my backyard. Maybe next weekend.

During the gardening today I managed to smash my right pointer finger between something and now it's bruised and hurts. But I can still type.

The weather report tells me we're in for several days of hot followed by a day with some rain and then back to medium. I'm watering like crazy in what's left of the backyard because I have a busy week and it's going to have to fend for itself until rain day.