Niece-week lessons

1. If you can get the kid interested in the habit -- it'll happen. Turns out, my niece loves yoga. And waking her up isn't too much fun. The first few minutes in the morning, she is groggy, tired, whiny, etc. So, when I suggested we do yoga every morning, and she thought this was a great idea, I was thrilled. 10 minutes of physical activity does wonders towards killing the groggy, tired & whiny.

End result? I've done more Sun Salutations this week than I have since last winter holidays, when I was *on vacation* and headed to the yoga studio every day. No way would I have had the focus and dedication to do sun salutations every morning, especially the mornings after I'd already ran and we were pressed for time. But, if the kid wants to do up-dog, down-dog, plank, warrior 1, breathing, etc. before sugar cereals in milk (because, hello, I'm one of the cool aunts. I get to provide the sugar cereal treats!) -- then by all means, we're doing it.

2. I work more than I realize. This week, I finally realized that on an average week night, I send 5 emails between the hours of 7:00 and midnight when I think of myself as *not working.* It's too easy -- go to bathroom, check the email (both personal and work), write a quick response. Spend time surfing and if something comes in (either personal or work), write a quick response. Also, I've learned that regardless of what's going on, I explicitly check work email at least once before sleep and, usually, I end up scheduling at least one call to discuss the emergencies that have arisen and need to be dealt with the next day.

This week, with a child, I'm truly not working *for reals* for many of the hours between 7:00 and midnight. Not even the little bit that I didn't used to count. So those emails don't go out. And I'm less responsive. Clients are less happy. The next day is more stressful. In other words, if I were to have a child (which I'm not planning to do), areas where I don't even think of myself as productive would suffer. And I probably wouldn't be able to predict how it would affect me, because I wouldn't even notice I was productive in those areas until they were gone.

3. The entertainment value of a child changes the work-reward analysis. I found that it was much easier to get over my bad/boring/frustrating days at work this week because I came home to someone with an inquisitive mind with happy stories to tell full of wonder, questioning, and just general good will. She really caused me to think and question my viewpoint on a regular basis. It was so rewarding that, I understood, in a very clear way, how, if I had a (couple of) kid(s), I could choose a job or career options that are less fascinating, challenging or rewarding in exchange for more financial, temporal, or location stability because the kid(s) would be providing much of the emotional and mental stimulation that I needed.

I think that covers the big ones.

Bar Exam Takers: Now is the time to Breathe

Just breathe between now and the end of the exam.

I found it helpful to read everything I could about people's actual experience taking the exam to prepare myself for the experience, so if you're interested in doing the same, the link to all my posts is here.

Getting Out

I've got two close friends who are currently struggling through divorces, a friend who is in the middle of leaving his partner of 10 years, and my brother who has been dealing with the acceptance of his role as a father in the face of his daughter's mother's new love and their baby, his daughter's half-sister (and he's handling it beautifully--I'm so proud!).

When I talk to these folks, their experiences make it clear that it is always difficult to extricate yourself from close relationships, and that the difficulties are both public and private.

My mom walked away from a few relationships that were bad for her during my life. Watching it happen, I'm certain I learned some very important lessons about standing up for myself. And yet, when it comes up, I get the sense that she may be embarrassed that she didn't leave as early as she wishes she would have, or that she wishes she hadn't gotten involved at all. I can't help but wonder if we all don't feel this way about some of the relationships in our lives?

Also, I recently found myself at a party where I learned from the mother of a close family friend (but an acquaintance of mine) that he was getting divorced too. Weird, right? To learn intimate relationship details about someone you have spoken to on a monthly basis, when he hasn't mentioned anything? To realize your last, "say hi to the wife" adieu when you hung up the most recent call was probably horrific to him, since at the time she'd moved out, was living with her parents several states away, and he was dating again?

All of these people taking formal steps to exit and/or formally modify the public treatment of their relationships result in quite a bit of pain and awkwardness, not just for themselves, but for others who thought they understood the nature of their relationship too.

When I imagine if E was to take these types of actions towards me or vice versa, it is very painful. But, when I can back up from the empathetic pain, it's also been very inspiring. The courage to make those choices is not easy to come by and I'm proud of each of these people for finally making the difficult decisions (and dealing with the necessarily awkward explanations) so that they can redirect the course of their lives.

One of the things that is healthy about *not* being in a committed monogamous sexual relationship is that life is fluid. When you are trying on potential life-partners for size, you are constantly re-evaluating the healthiness of your most committed physical/emotional relationship(s), and thus, at least for me, I think it was easier to evaluate every other relationship as well. But, once a person commits to the largest emotional relationship in their life and, potentially, children that are supported by that relationship, most people probably let up on the constant relationship re-evaluation (which is a good thing).

The tricky thing is -- if you are in this situation, many of the other relationships in your life are not committed at the same level and probably should continually be reevaluated. Some will naturally evolve and dissolve. But some may actually need you to take some sort of action to force the evolution or dissolution.

So, for me, Penelope's most recent post was perfectly timed.

Before taking multiple gasps of Holy Shit! while reading it, I'd been having floating thoughts about getting out of or putting space into relationships and how it seems to be something that is happening to many people in my life (myself included), but I had no cohesive idea of my current belief system.

I knew it was important to know when to get out of unhealthy relationships. I knew it was important to be able to draw your own lines to try to heal an unhealthy relationship. I knew that you were never really in a relationship unless you were actually in it, and thus, you couldn't really ever say, fully, whether someone else needed out of theirs.

But, I also knew that after a while, if its been unhealthy for some time, outsiders see enough that they can often make observations and judgment calls about the relationship that turn out to be right more often than not.

For me, today's lesson, is that sometimes people (like me) are so tied up in the image of who they want to convey themselves as, or how they don't want to inconvenience, embarrass, confuse, or make others feel awkward, that they perpetuate relationships, or the facade of relationships, long after the relationships are probably best abandoned. And, further, that when people are in the "perpetuate for the sake of perpetuation mode", it can be very clear to outsiders that the relationship is most likely very unhealthy.

So, in my ever-changing quest to become a more present person, I'm going to try to pay more attention to the day-to-day *reality* of my relationships as opposed to my ideal of what they have been, or, could, should, or would be.

A lesson in communication

Why didn't you tell me I was signed up for Day Care?

Uhhh... (Oh, shit. I didn't tell her that, explicitly. I told her she was going to day camp. I told her I'd pick her up at 5 PM. But camp ends at 3:30 PM, and there was extended care for which I'd signed her up. And I hadn't told her.)

I'm sorry. I should have told you that. You were probably very confused.

Yes. I waited a long time for you to come pick me up. Even though they told me I was on the list. I thought they must be wrong because you didn't tell me I had day care.

Man. If she were an adult, I'd probably be thinking about the many things I did that *hinted* that she had day care. The reasons she should have figured it out because, you know, I have a job during work hours, and she was on the list, and I said I'd pick her up at 5 PM, and, I'm sure I'd come up with more.

But she's a child. And my first response was to accept my errors, apologize for anything and everything I could explain, and to empathize.

I would like to have this response to adults as well. I think it would greatly increase my quality of life.

Interestingly enough, this response is exactly what I should be trying to do in all areas of my life according to the content of the cheesiest book title ever (Nonviolent Communication? Yeah, there's cheesy poetry in it, too. I read it in Alaska, and at times, I couldn't help but think the author was deliberately trying to incite a force-yourself-to-learn-from-your-ridiculousness response from the types of people who need this book (like me)).

Anyways. Today was instructive. I'd like to be able to listen through people's questioning of my performance and be able to hear the confusion, hurt, and sadness that was so obvious in my niece's voice today. Hearing it made me respond in such a positive manner. Clearly, I need to *listen*.

Psuedo-Parent Week

We've got my niece all of this week. She is a bouncing 7 1/2 year-old ball of energy.

Quick.

Opinionated.

Exhausting.

But so adorable.

Today's Lessons:

1. 30 minutes in the grocery store with a 7 1/2 year-old is about 3-times as expensive and 5-times more tiring than the same 30 minutes on my own.

2. It takes about 2 hours to finish all of the tasks related to "going to bed."

It's Dark Here!

I got up this morning when my alarm went off at 6:30 anticipating a lovely morning run.

Instead, I looked outside and it appeared to be more of dusk than morning.

Grumpy, I woke E, pointed to the window and said, "It's dark here." He grunted and rolled over.

I stumbled into the kitchen and stood there contemplating making coffee, which I don't ordinarily need to do before my short runs.

But, this was my first AM run since the AM runs in Alaska. So, I guess it would make sense that I'd recognize the decrease in light.

And then I looked at the clock on the oven.

5:30 AM.

My foggy morning brain slowly processed the implications, ahhh... that's why it's so dark. Looks like I managed to set my clock ahead by one hour while setting my alarm last night.

So, I went back to sleep and enjoyed another 3 hours before waking up to the bright blue sky.

No AM run today. But at least I know it'll be less dark when I do find the motivation to head out in the morning next time.

(Travel) Lessons from Alaska

For the Alaska trip, I did all of my usual maneuvering to whittle the final price-tag down. I watched flight fares and waited 'til I saw what I thought was a good deal, confirmed with Arvay and we jumped. Also, I learned long ago that the true value in travel miles comes via the combination of AAA + hotel reward programs (in the form of infinitely cancelable room bookings and reward stays). On this trip, Hilton Honors treated us exceptionally well, as I initially booked in April but completely re-booked all Hilton-affiliated hotel reservations (they control about 5 brands) when prices went down and bonus miles went up in June.

At more remote locations, we booked the cheapest rooms we could find at independent hotels (Pike's Waterfront Lodge and economy cabins at the Salmon Bake -- both highly recommended). I assumed we'd wait 'til arrival to see if we could (or wanted to) do any better. This is a great travel trick -- the gamble is that you may end up with the cheapest parking-lot-view room and a shared bathroom or something else along those lines. But hey, if you are willing to take the cheapest offering and pocket the savings if the upgrades aren't at a price you like, then it works just fine. In this case, we hit the jackpot at our first hotel -- the only upgrade available was the nicest cabin suite on the property. It was ours for less than half of the rack rate and we spent many hours enjoying the views of the Chena from our rocking chairs on the porch.

Although my usual approaches worked well in some cases, Alaska, like any foreign place, had a few surprises in store for me, including some on the travel front.

For one, Internet booking is not always the best way to go in Alaska. The Alaska Railroad site claimed they only had first class seats available for the dates we wanted. I called to confirm and was shocked to find that Alaska is still a location where a human on the phone can do much better (at least with securing coach rates -- the tickets were in the wrong names, but we figured it out at the terminal).

The one organized tour we did (Glaciers are cool, hee hee!), we booked on-line. I never received a confirmation so I called the night prior. Turns out, they had us down for September, a different tour, a different price, without the meal, and with no train transport included. The reservation could not have been more incorrect, but the pleasant surprise was that at 7 PM the night before, I got a human on the phone who happily fixed it for us (and didn't seem shocked that the Internet booking engine had failed in such a spectacular manner).

The last morning, I thought Alaska might be the most civilized place in the world when I called to ask for a late check-out from our final hotel room and got 3 PM. Ordinarily, I'm thankful to get a minute beyond 1 PM.

Basically, for the majority of my Alaskan travel experiences, I found folks to be extremely capable, flexible, and unflappable. After seeing how things work, I have to attribute some portion of this to the do-it-yourself mentality and unpredictability of power, water, wildlife and just life in general on the frontier.

Execute at the highest possible level when things are working, and when they aren't... do your best to find a way to fix it (ideally in a way that doesn't inconvenience others), and if you can't do that, apologize, explain, and then wait it out 'til it is fixed with a good attitude (if all else fails tell frontier stories about how difficult life can be and how this particular failure isn't actually so bad).

Even our Alaska Airlines pilot seemed to embrace this philosophy--on our flight up it was a gorgeous clear day -- so he slowed the plane, angled to allow us to view the glaciers and Denali park and narrated a historical tour of Mt. Foraker and Mt. McKinley for us as we flew by before speeding back up to get us to our destination on time.

The only exception to this general theme occurred on our last day. We planned to enjoy a leisurely morning before the 3 PM checkout, then early luggage check, subsequent viewing of some Anchorage sights and a long evening at the airport before our 1:45 AM flight.

But, when we tried to check in, we found there is a very strict window to check our bags, and anything before 4 hours prior to take-off does not cut it. This 3h20 minute window of availability is a strict absolute for Alaska Airlines. In fairness, this may have been a rule in the U.S. for quite some time now, and it may be a lesson I needed to learn. I'm not sure I've ever tried to check luggage at a U.S. airport for a domestic flight more than 3 hours prior to my flight.

But, in Alaska, the rules are often different. For example, there are no building codes in Fairbanks. People build and live in whatever they decide suits their needs. I used two outhouses and was fed a King Crab leg dinner from the kitchen of a log cabin built to resemble the inside of a ship (that had no running water).

We were in the state for less than 2 weeks and we were on one train that lost electricity, resulting in a trip that was 50% longer than it should have been due to running solely off the generator. At one point, we saw all traffic on Alaska highway 3 stop for a bear. And, of course there's the combined rail/auto one-lane tunnel in Whittier, where you have a 25% chance of hitting it when your traffic type and direction have the green. These experiences, combined with stories from locals, make me think you'd need to build a bigger cushion of time in Alaska than in other locations if you wanted to be sure you wouldn't miss your flight.

So, even if the 3h20 window makes sense in other regions, I think it probably doesn't make too much sense in Alaska. Especially in the Winter!

Of course, I should probably quit my whining -- it's Summer. And we didn't have any of the Alaskan excuses putting us at the airport before our flight. We were just ready to head home and we'd exhausted the sights we could see during the traditional work-day open-hours (the bush flight museum closed at 5 PM before we were able to visit...Drat!).

So, we found ourselves stuck at Ted Stevens International at 8:45 PM, outside the secure area with all of our bags, with the choice of spending $6/bag to check them with baggage hold for the privilege of going through security once to enjoy the *amenities* and then again after we checked them. Or we could just wait in the baggage check area. I don't care that they had a big stuffed bear in the glass case while we sat there. This strict rule, to me, just didn't seem very Alaskan.

But other than that, we loved almost every minute and we can't wait to go back. The nature is too big and beautiful to accurately capture in words. The people are fascinatingly diverse -- the majority have chosen to move from somewhere else in the world (we met people from 4 continents and countless U.S. states, all living away from the people and family they left behind). This ecclectic mix of folks blends with those who grew up there to form a group of very different people sharing one thing that is bigger than anything else in each of their everyday lives -- the natural forces of Alaska. Many of the people I met had previously lived impressive urban-based lives, and then each for their own reason, they'd chosen to move to Alaska for a life filled with beauty and adventure but devoid of most of the creature comforts that I (and most of my contemporaries) take for granted.

Alaska is truly Amazing.

A brush with fame

Through random life connections, I grew up sharing many of my childhood swim lessons, fishing trips, camping outings, and just general childhood shennanigans with Kate Levering.

She's ridiculously talented (how many people do you know who've been nominated for a Tony?) and back on the small screen again, this time in a lifetime series called Drop Dead Diva.

If you are looking for a new show to get hooked on, might I suggest that you give this one a try?

A Sample of the North to the Future

(Yes, "North to the Future" is the Alaska State Motto. Weird.)

It's 1:25 AM and it's slightly grey out here, in Anchorage, E just turned on the lights by the bed. We're getting ready to wrap up our wonderful trip (Yay free wireless at our final hotel!) and I'm certain pictures will speak much more efficiently than I ever could. So here you go:

Mt. McKinley (aka Denali) from our plane:



The municipal airport in Fairbanks:



The cars we road upon while guests of the ridiculously civilized Alaska railroad:



One of many views from the Alaska railroad:



One of many views from various trails within Denali National Park:



The truly mammoth tomato operation at Ann's greenhouses:



The Alaska Pipeline:

On Being You

For much of my life, I was weird. Really weird. Like, I didn't fit, and boy, did I know it.

People let me know it. And not just a little bit. Often, it was so clear to me that there was no point in trying to fit in. So I embraced who I was and defiantly approached the world with, "what the fuck?" Those times in my life were very liberating, and occasionally, I miss them.

Of course, for the most part, I went along to go along.

The thing is, recently, I've been spending quite a bit of time thinking about who I really want to be, and how to be that person.

Turns out, the person I truly want to be doesn't look that weird on any scale. She's not exceptional. But she also doesn't want to try to be normal, and she doesn't care if you think she's different. The person I want to be doesn't need to prove anything by trying to look smart, athletic, etc., and so she doesn't try to avoid looking normal, dumb, or uninteresting (this, in particular, if I am honest with myself is an area where I am too far from the person I want to be).

The person I want to be looks good to me. She is comfortable with the idea that she may be admirable or impressive to you ('cause she is to me) but she also realizes you may not value anything she values and you may find her completely and totally misguided, lost, or even unremarkably sub-par.

I've been spending quite a bit of time in the last year thinking about the person I want to be and how to get myself closer to being that person.

So I've been paying attention to the times when I find myself closest to the person I want to be and I've been taking notes. I'm shocked to find that for all of the careful thought I've put into this endeavor, the thing that's most important appears to be the element of chance.

If I am honest, sometimes, my flaws are my strengths and my strengths are my flaws -- and I need to learn the lessons these unexpected flip-flops teach me while still admitting that my strengths will probably always be my strengths.

Sometimes, my mistakes are the best things I do and the calculated well-thought-out actions are those I regret the most -- and I need to learn to let go where I hold tight and to hold a little tighter where I let go -- because that is how I bring more randomness into my life and if DNA can teach us anything it's that randomness breeds awesome.

Back in Lawyer Land

18.5 hour work-day.

Yeah, I vaguely remember this...

Good night.

For the Record

I had a very full weekend.

18.5 billable hours between Saturday AM and Sunday PM does not make for a very good hostess.

But, I managed to fit in some breaks for some nice meals with our guests, including one where we had to drive on the freeway.

Apparently, a PT Cruiser can flip through the air and roll for a total of 3 rotations or more, including one going over the front end, and another where the car appears to be suspended and spinning on its long axis, shedding glass from a fountain of sparkles that begins with a car suspended higher than the tops of the other cars on the freeway. I thought that type of crash only happened in the movies, but, it turns out, it can happen in real life.

More impressively, it is possible (if you have a good driver, thanks E!) to observe a PT Cruiser do this ridiculous performance while riding only 2 cars behind it and to watch it finally come to rest on broken rims, right side-up, 4 lanes away from where the flipping started without hitting a single car.

Most amazing, it is possible for the driver to find herself seat-belted in facing on-coming traffic at 30 degree angle, completely alert, only slightly bloody on her hands and knees, calmly (in shock, most likely) sitting behind the exploded airbag, staring at the sunken safety glass blanket, above the dropped engine, beside the crushed door, looking curiously across the broad expanse of freeway where all of her personal items have scattered (don't turn your head!) and able to answer your questions when you are the first person on the scene and call 911.

I'm still processing that one.

In less dramatic news, Garlic scapes are a wacky botanic miracle, taking the warm weather queue to spontaneously twist into a tangled mess of curly hair on the top of your hard-neck garlic crop.



When cooked, they have the consistency of green beans and taste slightly spicy and very earthy with only a warm hint of their garlic nature. They are definitely one of the reasons to consider growing garlic yourself.

B is an awesome out-of-state houseguest who worked with me to start a home-cooked dinner of garden and farmer's market leftovers in our fridge. I had hoped it would turn out well because the starting ingredients has so much California-produce potential. When I had to stop cooking to take my half-hour conference call (that ended up being an hour of course), she just kept on cooking and prepared the meal in my absence so that when I finally got a break, I could enjoy it with E and the guests. Bonus, it turned out delicious.

Summertime Pasta Bake

For the Vegetables:
-1 red onion chopped
-1 cup chopped garlic scapes (chop into 1-inch long pieces until you reach the portion of the scape stem once it gets slightly woody)
-1 Tbsp olive oil
-1 head cauliflower, washed and chopped
-2 lbs mixed summer squash, washed and chopped
-4 Heirloom tomatoes

For the Pesto:
-6 cloves garlic
-1/2 C pecans (all we had, turned out great)
-1 C mixed basil from the garden
-1/2 C olive oil
-1 T salt
-2 T red pepper flakes

For the bake:
-2 C fresh mozzarella pearls

For the pasta:
-1 box penne, water, salt

1. Sautée onions & garlic scapes in olive for 1-2 minutes & pre-heat oven to 450F.
2. Add Cauliflower & continue to cook for 5 minutes.
3. Add squash & cook for 3 minutes.
4. Add chopped tomatoes, bring to a simmer, pour off excess liquid (reserve) and stir for 2 minutes.
5. Remove from heat and cover.
6. Prepare pasta according to directions (this step may be done first, if you prefer) and strain, return to pasta pot.
7. While pasta is boiling make the pesto in cuisinart.
8. Toss the pesto, pasta, and vegetables in the pasta pot. Arrange in baking dishes.
9. Top baking dishes with mozzarella and pour reserved vegetable juice on top. Place in oven and bake until cheese is melted and slightly browned on top.

Enjoy!

Gearing Up

I've had a relatively mellow first half of 2009, as far as being a lawyer is concerned.

I've been averaging somewhere slightly below 150 billable hours per month and enjoying my nights and weekends for the most part, plus taking some vacations.

Last weekend, however, I had to work all day Sunday. This weekend, I'm working both Saturday and Sunday. One of the attorneys in my group just went out on maternity leave, and it looks like business is picking up. I was just staffed on two very large deals, at least one of which will require some cross-country travel for negotiations over the next few months in addition to my regular client-work.

I'm actually excited about the big deals. As I've said many times before, I love the law and I adore what I do. It's just the stuff that comes with it that is sometimes difficult to manage.

As the years have gone by, I've gotten better at dealing with the associated stresses and the last-minute cancellations (we have guests this weekend, so my need to work all weekend has not been ideal, but they've understood).

But I'm certain my feelings of being a well-balanced lawyer as of late have been partially attributed to the reasonable amount of work that has been coming my way: enough that I have felt fortunate not to fear for my job, but not so much as to overwhelm me very often.

However, given the trends I'm seeing and being down one attorney in my group, I suspect the mellow portion of 2009 may be waning and have warned E of as much.

I'll do my best to keep some of the balance I've been better at managing when the workload was lighter, but if my prediction is correct, I suspect my life for the next few months is going to be a little heavier on the lawyering and lighter on the social, family and food.

Wish me luck...

How Do It Know?

Remember the great garlic planting back in October?

After following the Gourmet Garlic Gardens instructions, every single clove sprouted in November (bonus -- check out the sprouts in the far part of the box -- those were the baby artichoke plants, back when we thought perhaps we could fit more than one in our raised bed):



From there, each sprout grew to be a stalk of grass-like leaves about 4-5 feet tall, eventually, some sent up scapes and finally, it was harvest time:



Towards the end of their growing season, I commented to E that garlic was somewhat anti-climactic and quite a bit of effort for a fairly easy to obtain return. Last weekend, at the Farmer's Market they had California Early Garlic Bulbs--one of the varieties we grew--for 50 cents each.

However, the satisfaction I got from pulling each large head out of the ground and the wonder at its reproduction changed my mind.

Just put a clove in the ground. With water, winter, spring, and summer, it'll clone itself into multiple cloves, each associated with a huge blade of energy producing monocot leaf.

DNA, and the miraculous replication of life is so amazing!

Corpse Flower

E and I had the luck of visiting the Huntington two weekends ago.

We were able to see the Amorphophallus titanum (aka, nondescriptly shaped huge phallus) prior to its bloom.

I just heard that the phallus (helpfully located along the path of signs with photos and the tagline, "something's getting bigger...") we were lucky enough to view finally bloomed (and stank like rotting meat... mmmm...) last Thursday.

We were able to see it in its huge (nondescriptly shaped) phallic glory pre-stink and pre-bloom, which, apparently is a once-in-a-decade-or-so-event.

How cool is that?

June Bloom

We've got fruits galore!

Tons of Tomatoes:





Baby Eggplants:



More Artichokes ('cause the plant is out of control! Look closely. How many can you find? It's like one of those hidden treasure pictures, I swear...):



Overall, in the last two weeks, we've gone to this:



From this:



Which means they look different *every* day. It's fun!

In other news, we're still waiting (not so patiently), on a few laggards.

Peppers (refer to the tomato plants on the left for scale):



Okra:



And Winter Squashes, a vining and non-vining cucumber, and onions:



And finally, remember our Very Californian Easter Sunday? Well, this is what San Gregorio looks like in late spring. Absolutely breath-taking:



Have a great week!

No Plans Tonight!

After 7 evenings straight of social commitments (sometimes multiple events in one night), I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am to stay at home and interact with no one except E tonight.

I have been getting more and more exhausted with each evening of social fun.

I would prefer to stay home and avoid the office today for many reasons, but the largest one is I'd rather avoid all smalltalk for at least 24 hours.

This weekend? After I recover? We've got 2 parties to attend. I am actually slightly relieved that I will be required to miss one due to work.

One of the greatest things about summer is that the warm weather makes people more likely to go out and interact with each other. Summer, for me, means barbeques and opportunities to see friends I haven't seen in at least a year.

And yet, the thing that's got me most excited about this weekend is the one-on-one runs with 2 good friends and the alone-time I've got scheduled for the garden.

It's times like these that I am convinced that I'm definitely an introvert.

Awesome Visitor

Brother came to stay for a short visit.

Yesterday, he did a roof inspection and gave us the awesome news that the drips we had been worried about could be easily fixed with a small bucket of tar in less than a day.

When we found out we had surprise dinner guests from out of town, he volunteered to be our chef, making barbeque tri-tip, barbeque artichokes (an awesome innovation), and barbequed potatoes & mushrooms. Yummm.

Last night, after the guests left, I lay on the couch with my belly full of food, with my head and shoulders cuddled up on E & Brother just below my feet. Content beyond belief, I fell asleep to one of my dad's favorite movies.

Today, Brother's going to patch the roof and then head home.

Am I a spoiled sister, or what?

Delicious Disaster

The dinner plans called for salad with artichokes from our plant on the side, with dippings pre-prepared.

What could possibly go wrong? OH, I have 2 ideas:

1. The Aphids love the artichokes. We have not beaten them back. The neem oil is insufficient. We may have to cut all fruit, aggressively wash the plant and treat with soapy water, or garlic water, or serious chemicals, depending on who we listen to. Regardless, despite our harvest, we did not have 2 healthy non-bugg-ified artichokes for dinner. We had one.

2. The gorgeous romaine lettuce I bought at Draegers when Arvay was here? Yeah, it molded. And not a little bit. Think, "wow, that looks like cotton candy on the side of that lettuce... that is so weird..."

So, instead, I boiled the one remaining artichoke in onion cuttings and a last minute addition of olive oil, salt and black pepper for 40 minutes, then added Quinoa (which E had never had, and proclaimed, "weird, but oddly good") and the remaining sauces we used for dipping the artichokes when Arvay was here (read: mainly mustards and butter).

At the end of the day, it was quite good. And it tasted healthy. So, if you get a chance, enjoy:


-1 cup red quinoa
-1 artichoke, top cut off, washed
-4 cups water (or more)
-2 T salt (or so)
-2 T black pepper (or so)
-4 T mixed butter, lemon juice, and mustards

1. Boil artichoke in water for 40 minutes. Add olive oil to artichoke at 20 minutes or so.
2. Add quinoa, salt, pepper to water and continue to cook for 10 minutes.
3. Add butter, lemon juice & mustard mix and boil remaining liquids from the quinoa
4. Serve 2 bowls of quinoa, each topped in 1/2 of the split, cooked artichoke (contrary to what many cookbooks will tell you -- artichokes from a plant often need to be boiled/steamed for 1 hour +).

The Painful Truth

Sometimes, you have to listen to people you care say things about you that hurt.

Your job is to listen to these things and to grow, and become a better person. Not to focus on how hurtful it is. Not to challenge them and ask why they felt the need to hurt you. Because, really, they are giving you an opportunity that others wouldn't give you. Others would take the easy way out and let you continue in your destructive patterns without challenging you. So, if you are honest with yourself, you have to be thankful.

But damn... wouldn't it be great if there was a way to have the growth without the painful reality?

Anyways...