Saturday, July 27, 2013

Stormy Weather


 A little jaunt to this year's Beer and Ribs Festival showed what damage can be done in just ten minutes of a bad storm. This is the storm. Pictures could never do it justice, but I was fearful for my life as I often am during storms in this area. They're not hurricanes, that's for sure, but they're sudden and they're brutal. Also tornados, sometimes (this time, but not here)



But that was last week. This weekend I'm in a weird philosophical funk, thanks to putting on "Brave Neuro World" TEDTalks as I was falling asleep. Not weird in bad way, but just weird enough to influence this stupid choice in footwear for my tour around the muddy garden. Stickin' it to society the best way I know how.


As an update, this it not the SAME cucumber that I showed before, but this is how they're generally doing. There was a bigger one that we have since cut off and lost track of. They kind of look like sea slugs which is awesome, but apparently they don't taste great.


On the other hand, zucchinis. Gon' make a zucchini cake, maybe.


And oh my goodness the both of them. are. huge. MomBlom and I have just agreed to grow another huge prize zucchini this year. There's no actual prize: it's just big.


Perfection, non?


The robins thought so. Unfortunately this nest is right under the floor of the deck, so I think they've since moved on. That's fine. Nothing ruins an al fresco meal quite like an anxious robin leering at you from various vantage points.


This is my latest knitting project. It's so complicated it needs a crochet hook. It doesn't look like much of anything yet. Granted, I did accidentally photograph the wrong side of it, but the fact that I couldn't tell probably just proves my point. ALSO ALSO That yarn is a beautiful silk/cashmere blend that MomBlom got me for my birthday. In my favourite colour (greener than it appears here)! She's awesome.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

The Best Bits of July


A busy week followed by a busy weekend, and I'm having as much of a meltdown as this ice cream. If only I was half as soaked in cognac. On the plus side, the martini was for me. Something else for me?


The last of the birthday presents! One day I'll stay up late enough to cheers Craig Ferguson with it, but probably not until the internship is over. That's in exactly a month. Then it's the rest of my life.

Monday, July 1, 2013

Storm's aBrewin'

I haven't been very forthright lately. I think this is mostly due to a sense that complaining about my current situation does nothing in aid of ameliorating it. Because don't get me wrong: complaining about my current career path, or at least this particular stretch of it, is in no way a bid to quit. The work itself is, well, intern work. This doesn't mean I hate it; on the contrary, I simply feel underused, and worry that I don't have the opportunity to exercise my other talents. No, the internship itself is not the problem. It's perhaps the definitive knowledge that this is a new stage. I have talents and value now that I didn't see or have before. Some things that seemed insurmountable are so easy. I can take things by storm if I want to, and I managed to get to this point in a field that I love. But the fact of the matter is, this is not an ideal situation. I've mentioned my daily schedule, and I'm doubly burdened by the fact that this was my choice. Every day I wake up and think that if I just lived in Toronto I could sleep in for another three hours, but. When I get there, my discomfort is overwhelming.  It's not Toronto's fault, guys. I know plenty of people love it. But just as in Vancouver, where when asked how I liked living there I invariably answered "well... it's... um... actually, I don't," I don't mean it personally, or that I actively hate anything about it. I'm just not a city girl.

But what's THAT in aid of? Well, nothing. I'll have to move there anyway. My only hope is that having a small box to call my own, in which to read and have quiet and be unseen for a little while each day will make Toronto bearable, and will fix the funk I've been in. It's not a depressive funk, not really. On weekends I experience a strange inability to speak, which may be an unwillingness to talk about work coupled with a lack of any other subject matter. This turns into indulgence, of course. Not of booze or anything else, but indulging in nothingness. In not having conversation trickling in to every moment of the day, no outside noise, no irritating need for decorum or professionalism. It is not sad, this funk. I love it. I love the quiet, and I love it in what feels like an almost ruthless and cruel way. I will fight for it. I will lie and cheat and steal to get my fix. I cannot go out, I might moan, for I am exhausted from the travel. To my delight, it works every time.

Well, it is true. It's exhausting. In any case, I'm finding it to be tremendous motivational. I don't have to lie or cheat or steal because all I really need to do is get a paying job. If I get a place to myself in Toronto then I'll have SO much time to myself and to feel like this that, yes, I'll likely get bored of it and stop being so antisocial and brooding. I'm not turning into a supervillain, although it sort of feels like it. So. The best way out of this is up.

In other news, MomBlom's garden is filling out nicely!


The clematis is going just INSANE for some reason, but we haven't been able to figure out why. I feel like his chair might have a bee problem because of it. Wouldn't know though: haven't sat in it.


This is what is officially the last peony of the year. Pure white and slow-growing, but perfect. Once it's gone, it might as well just be Christmas though, I mean what's the point.


Oh yeah. Now it's the time of year for the best gardening of all! Functional (i.e. delicious) plants!


Ever wondered what a baby cucumber looks like? This little guy is maybe an inch long:


Now you know.