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One Good Turn Deserves Tequila (apparently)

At my previous job I worked with a woman from Mexico who was up here working as an Oracle business analyst. Since she was scheduled to be here through May and didn’t have much in the way of creature comforts in her studio apartment I lent her a small TV and a mini-microwave since I had no plans to use them and she needed them for a short while.
Happily for her, her work visa has been extended for 3 more years and she’s here for the duration. Today she stopped by with the TV and microwave (anyone need to borrow small appliances?) and a bottle of Don Julio white agave tequila as a thank you for being kind enough to lend her stuff that would have otherwise been taking up space in my basement.

Nifty. I can’t wait to try it out, but first I think we need a baby sitter.

Early Morning Gardening and Stoned Cats

In a fit of uncharacteristic ambition I got up at 7am, got dressed and headed out to the garden. I hoped I could dig up some of the soil, mix in a couple bags of top soil and get my peppers into the garden before the wasps woke up.

I managed to get in the hot green “garden salsa” peppers and some red and green bell peppers before Mike spotted a wasp a few feet from my position.

Winged Backyard Creatures

Last night I got home and went to inspect the progress of my recently fertilized, watered, and slightly more buried in topsoil plants.
Thats when I noticed it.
Long, black, skinny, winged creatures with orange legs hovering over the dirt.
Normally I don’t have that P-A-N-I-C feeling when I see flying bugs. These, however, made me nervous. After extensive googling I determined them to be wasps. eeeuuuuurrrrgggghhhhhhh
I showed them to Mike when he got home. “Yep, those are wasps.” he pronounced.

Help Me, I'm an Addict

Yesterday I went to Farmer’s Market. Just the little one, mind you. It spans a whole city block and has, at most, 30 vendors. They sell flowers, plants, cheese, baked goods, produce, and some meat and eggs.

Last week I bought herbs and spent my Saturday morning planting those in both pots and the garden.
Apparently that wasn’t enough for me. Noooooo.
I realized at the end of Saturday that I still had 2 large faux-terra cotta pots I bought this spring. They are currently living a purposeless existence in my tool shed and it’s a sad, sad situation that needs to be rectified.

I also didn’t feel I had enough herbs and other vegetables for my herb garden and had to buy more.

I bought:
9 flowering plants for my gigantic planter

Furry Backyard Creatures

Last weekend I was loading A in the car and felt something squishy under my foot. I initially assumed I was stepping on a pile of semi-rotted helicopters. When I looked down it was a little gray rodent. Dead. Mostly intact. No obvious signs of what might have killed it except for the part about me stepping on it for a good 2 minutes.

We speculated briefly as to which of our kitties had been the mighty hunter and delivered us this grand prize. I assumed Clio because she is always trying to catch squirrels. Spike just wants to chase the neighborhood cats off his territory and shows no interest in other critters, rodentia or otherwise.

Amateur Gardening with Kirstin

Last week at the Wednesday Farmers’ Market I bought some plants:
2 different parsley, 1 cilantro, 3 basil, rosemary, mini-gourds, jalapenos, catnip and peppermint. On Thursday a co-worker gave me 3 heirloom tomato plants, 1 cherry tomato and and eggplant. On Thursday I also picked up a free bag of coffee grounds compost from the Starbucks on the Square.

Saturday morning rolled around and I cooked a hearty breakfast before I started gardening. By 11am I was outside starting to plot how I’d plant everything.
Three and a half hours later EVERYTHING had been either planted and (re-planted) in the ground, or planted in pots.

I HATE the Millenial Generation

This morning and last week Morning Edition on NPR ran employment segments about the “Millenials” who are entering the work place. The segment last week was infuriating and this one just reminded me of how pissed off I was last Wednesday morning.
Apparently these people need lots of rewards, encouragement, and general hand-holding by their supervisors. If they don’t feel their contributions are recognized and values, then they’ll leave in search of a more rewarding position.

From the NPR website:

Caught Blue-Handed

Around 3:30am Adam decided to come upstairs and join us. When he decides in the middle of the night he always brings something along with him — his “squishy pillow”, a blanket, a stuffed animal or two are his usual choices. Last night he brought up a book and crawled into bed between us laying on his book. I pried the books from his fingers, set it on my nightstand, and tried to go back to sleep with his face smooshed into mine on my pillow.