Ripening

(Still need to strip that door, and that frame...)

Wednesday morning, for no apparent reason, dealing with waves of anxiety. So, I did the best I could, which is to say I stripped paint, very soothing. And productive. Not done by any means, but a crapton of black paint gone forever.

We attended the Neighborhood Council meeting, where the candidates for the City Council speechified. None were unpalatable, but both of the shining hopes are involved in the recent Equal Marriage battle. One in particular, who owns the real estate shop that provided us with the wonderful and amazing realtor who took such great care of us, and is a lifelong activist for various volunteer organizations, took my expressed thanks for her wonderful and amazing realtor (I told her "Leslie is a peach," which she is) with grace and amusement. She picked a long grey hair from my shirt, and told me she knows me from somewhere. We couldn't remember actually meeting, but we've both been around a while. And I realized I was being utterly charmed, and it was rather nice.

The other one is one of the plaintiffs in the Utah equal marriage suit. Not a confident public speaker, but a kind and engaging soul, and evidently a courageous fighter.

As long as one of them gets in, I'm satisfied. Took us both a while to settle down after, though. The trio of insane/locked-minded attendees (re:homeless issues) didn't help. D wanted to shout out a Dickens quote*, or punch a guy, but managed to restrain himself.

Today was short, as we seem to be having a surgical lull. This is so typical of this area, I just can't get too worked up about it. Soon enough, I'll be whining for some slack.

The garden is suffering, and I've just not been able to tend to it. Sunflowers don't really care, which is fine.

The whole fam damnily. Kid needs braces for that underbite. Stretch is hitting 10'.



Lots of multiheaded flowers this year, which is different.



Gathered seeds from the lovely purple alium, hoping for more next year. Plans to get more of the black/deep indigo irises next year. And bee balm PLANTS, since the seeds never appeared at all. Scarlet flax continues to bloom, if a bit dustily.




Buckwheat a bit sad, but still going. Ca. Poppies look fine, if not blooming. Maybe next year as well?

A few tomatoes are beginning to ripen, give it a week. The lettuce is all bolted, I wasn't paying enough attention. Great timing. I'm at that stage of gardening when I know I'm doing something wrong, and what, but not how to correct it in time. It's a process.



Bitter, bitter, bitter.



Cats are still good. Moby has reclaimed his rights to the bed. Eleanor enjoying going out every evening.


*

"Are there no prisons?"
"Plenty of prisons..."
"And the Union workhouses." demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"
"Both very busy, sir..."
"Those who are badly off must go there."
"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."
"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Wonder

Bree Newsome.

Heroes and tipping points.


And an article about slavery and tours of southern historic houses, well worth the read. I want to ask the ignorant how they would feel if their boss owned them, and all that implies, including owning their spouse and children.


My lettuce is all bottom eaten and top bolted. Will pull it out tomorrow and clean out the bed, add topsoil later, plant more in the late summer. Romaine and possibly strawberries. It's been a hard year on gardens.

Infestation

Solicitors not a problem we've had much of, the odd missionary, one homeless guy who wanted "a sip of water" (which is to say some cash, I directed him to the big grocery store and the artesian well) and occasionally neighborhood kids selling candy for some vague "school charity." But RR has had a recent infestation. Don't know if signs will stop 'em, but I found a good selection.




Went out with Eleanor in one hand and a lawn chair in the other, wearing crocs, and my foot hit the edge and bobbled. I came down hard, but managed not to fall, nor drop the cat. Sat there as she rolled on the sidewalk and industriously sniffed (as she does), and tried to catch my breath. I think I sprained my big toe. D eventually came out and helped me get cat and chair, and myself, in.

Soaked and iced and capsaisin'd, nsaid'ed and elevated. It's certainly sore, but hopefully I can tend it thoroughly enough to keep it getting worse. Bugger. Not much swolled up, the new shoes protected it, and today was silly short at work.

Well, fine then.


Damnit.


Oh, and it's fucking 104fucking˚F, 39C, and this sucks. No climate change my ass.

Threadbare

A few more stray threads from the weekend's Big Issue.

That equal marriage is "not Constitutional." Well, any freedom not specifically limited there is allowed. Nowhere does it restrict the colors, sexes or religions of the two people involved. There is included a freedom of assembly, that could be construed to cover any kind of marriage.

One comment was the usual slippery slope, "now they'll allow plural marriage." Ironic since this is where the government restricted the Mormons religious expression to have multiple wives. Which is the other point of contention, that allowing same sex couples rights will lead to churches having to marry them. That pressure is not going to come down from the government, that pressure is going to come up through the church membership, as they watch their own friends and families being snubbed. When your federal government treats your queer kids better than your "christian" church, it might be good to wonder what you are supporting.

As for those afraid they won't be able to refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple? No, if you take on a public service job you can't be a bigot openly. Cry me a river. Same template as lunch counters in the deep south, if you don't want to serve black folks, don't run a business serving the public. No one is making anyone go into the wedding flower business, if their business decisions are based on niche religious beliefs, they ain't making it anyhow. Go into the LDS temple garment business.* Produce hateful bumper stickers.

Much of this is fighting the inevitable legislation to protect gays from work and housing discrimination, to hopefully be closely followed by protections for all the variations on the transgendered. Where do we draw the line? Um, let people be who they are and only restrict behavior that directly damages others, that is illegal for anyone.

D notes that same sex marriage simplifies a lot of things. People living honestly are less likely to remain closeted through early adulthood, marrying and having children, then finding themselves unable to live their whole lives on the wrong side of the road. It means families form naturally, with legal support, and life just moves along. Wills, adoptions, children, divorces, all well covered in law and culture and society. This is just adding a layer onto the same template.

Plural marriage is complicated. And even then, so what? It could certainly be allowed under a stringent set of rules. Everyone over 21, children to be educated, how child support would work, health care, inheritance, divorce, all would need to be clearly spelled out. And it would affect a tiny, tiny, tiny minority. So, no, it's not logical to think that's the next step. Different dance entirely.

Our heritage has too often been about oppression and privilege, it's not a heritage to be proud of. Rebellion to protect slavery is nothing to cherish. Standing tall against humane treatment of everyone is not christian. Open the doors, let the fears stand naked and shameful, face the ugly truth of our own failures and evils, and change.







*Actually, that's run by the church. Well, and then there is the other kind.

Sour

"Too much lemon."



Three sisters.



Less eaten roses. Still some spots, but much improved.



Poppy, CA type.



Started out with turned-in feet, wore special shoes all my life. Always took my time and paid attention when I bought shoes. The last pair, merrells, which usually make my feet happy, gave me nothing but trouble. I tried them on, with orthotic, in the store, they seemed wonderful. By the time I got them home, the top of my foot was sore, and the orthotics weren't helping. I got softer arch supports, which helped a bit, but over time the shoes were keeping my feet in pain. I'm still not sure exactly what was wrong, only that my big toe at the ball of the foot, was always sore, and the top of my foot was constantly tender. I have a separate pair at work, which helped a bit (I wear shoes in the OR that have only ever seen the inside of an OR since they came out of their box.)

I know how to pick good shoes, no idea how these got past me. Not cheap, carefully chosen, but somehow, completely wrong. Reluctantly, I forked over a similar amount of cash to replace them today. Couldn't do one more day of my feet hurting up to my knees all the time. Couldn't bear the idea of walking anywhere.

Oh, my, so much better. Old arch supports in, my big toe is happy, the rest of my foot is happy. Wore these for several hours, and my feet are a bit hot, but the pain is eased already. D was already very happy with the vasques, and now I know what he means. The right size, the right shape, they feel solid without being heavy.




Rou pointed me toward mosses. I've been researching, and I think it's going to work in back. Where the sun is weak and the weeds are strong. The kind of moss that dries out as part of it's normal cycle, Acrocarpous. With bottle edges and features. Takes a couple of years to establish, which is fine by me. Time I got.

Not the whole back, just the part that can't grow anything else much. Leave a section that is happy with tomatoes, and pease. Woman on the tour told me to plant the pease, then in May, put the tomatoes between. They grow together happily, crop rotation achieved, so she told me. Makes good sense.

So, autumnal plans in place. Bracing for the heat, nearly 100˚F already, and the whole week hitting the mark. Trying to spend time outside to acclimatize, since I work in a cool room all day. We have the porch for it.


Update:
Fair
100°F
38°C
Humidity 17%
Wind Speed NNW 7 MPH
Barometer 30.08 in
Dewpoint 47°F (8°C)
Visibility 10.00 mi
Heat Index 96°F (36°C)
Last update 27 Jun 3:20 pm MDT

Mawwiage

Gods.

Reading over at Orange Crate Art,

[What most strikes me from quick browsing: Antonin Scalia’s conception of marriage as an institution that limits rather than expands human freedom, diminishing one’s possibilities for (ahem) intimacy and requiring constant vigilance about what one says. Sigh.]

So, I checked over at the wikipedia,

On September 10, 1960, Scalia married Maureen McCarthy, whom he met on a blind date while he was at Harvard Law School. Maureen Scalia had been an undergraduate at Radcliffe College when the two met, and subsequently obtained a degree in English from the school.[123] The couple raised nine children, five boys and four girls.

And I rest my case. I feel sorry for Maureen.

Arranged marriages, plural marriages (quite the history here in Utah) open marriages, temporary marriages, young children betrothed, royal marriages. So often it's a social construct for economic or political maneuvering, control of women and their sexuality, as well as a reward for obedient young men. Control of family wealth and consolidation of resources, punishment for the non-conforming.

Occasionally it has been about love and respect and mutual support, a lifelong commitment to intimacy. Rarely has it been the free choice of two adults to love each other.

Really rarely.

To cite history as proof of what marriage should be is to pretzel the story into Escheresque unrealities that only reflect one's own issues.



The Catholic Church didn't even consider it a sacrament until a milenia after it's own conception. Permanent and unbreakable, god says so, after a long silence. And when it came to the wealthy and titled, the church could be bought. Not that I can speak to them, as a remarried divorced person, I'm not in their world.

Divorce for ordinary folks, no-fault divorce, was heralded as the end of marriage as well. Well, certainly the end of some bad marriages. Several times this week, the issue has come up at work. One of my surgeons loves to say "Why is divorce so expensive? Because it's worth it."

Also, my parents met on a blind date. Which is why I never went on one, ever.

SO, here's to the rarest of arrangements, and Tru wuv.




Oh, and this to the poops.

Normality

Wow.

I remember when I first heard about homosexuality, a tv show, where that was the big, horrible, secret. Took me a while and some surreptitious library research, to figure out what that meant. I seem to remember not being all that impressed with the answer, but I was not clear what sex involved under "normal" conditions either. Mostly, I was simply curious.

A woman I knew from work, when I was in college, included me on outings, with the introduction of her "gay friend." He didn't seem any different to me, although the curiosity continued, and I kept watching him for any signs of peculiarity. He was a bit slim and fussy, but no more so than other men I knew.

Found out one of my dearest friends in high school was at least bisexual, from a girlfriend of his who happened to be in a class of mine. I'd completely fallen out of touch with anyone from that time, so I found this interesting, but academic. Turns out, years later we found each other and talked, he was gay, but had experimented a bit. Everything I'd seen about him as teens, seemed consistent with him being gay. Still, all interesting, but hardly shocking, and certainly not disturbing. I knew, but didn't know what it was that I knew. No words to describe it. More people I knew in college came out, or didn't but might as well have, and I still couldn't see why anyone would get their knickers in a twist over it all. Unless that was what they were into, of course. Twisted knickers. Sorry.

I wondered, in a vague way, what a sexual encounter with another woman would be like, but the idea, beyond a bit of mild necking, bored me to bits. Meh. So, I guess I'm not slanted that way, but not emphatically so. Never thought it was anything but hard wiring, as it were.

The whole issue seems such a huge nothing to me, I can't imagine why anyone is angry or upset about it. I know they are, but the whole why of it leaves me utterly baffled. Hell, we don't understand what normal sexuality is, how can we legislate or moralize on variations? Most of the scientific breakthroughs have to do with finding when the rules seem to be broken, not when everything is "normal." If indeed, anything really is normal. Perhaps we are all unique in our kinks, with only generalized consensus on the majority.

In short, I'm relieved in my deepest heart that our political system did not take a big step back, but chose to support human rights, liberty, and an open minded approach to humanity. Good. Finally.

Sheesh.

Candor

If you haven't found Candorville, you maybe should.

Nets

Netted area to keep D safe from biting bugges.




"Whooshie!"


A sort of twin?




"An onion's lot not an 'appy one."



"... 'Appy one."

Inspections

Got through the car inspection process properly this morning. Trustworthy Repair Place (TRP) took care of me, re-inspected after the required 14 day delay from the failed one. Let me rant a bit about the Jerkass Bully. They really could not figure out what his deal was, either. They gave me a discount on a set of wheel covers, since one of mine had been lost and the rest were scraped up, unasked for, unremarked, just gave me a smaller total.(Looking very stylish again.) One of the TRP managers urged me to contact the county and report Jerkass. I tried, but it all got a little too much, and I certainly did not want to have any further contact with the Bully. They would send a State Trooper to meet with me there, and re-inspect the brakes. (Um. no. I'd rather have a mouthful of root canals, and resurrect my dead father to let him scream at me.) I'm sure Jerkass Bully was gaming the system somehow. Manager of TRP says, "Well, not by keeping his customers, that's for sure." No shit.

Feeling a wave of Stress, letting it wash over and run out.

Anyway, car in good shape, and my temporary registration is printed up and in the back window, taxes paid and done for the year. Usually, this is finished weeks ago, of course. I'm all for getting paperwork and forms in ASAP, early, triple checked and stamped, filed and acknowledged. I do not delay on any hoop-jumping, for the sake of peace of mind. Learned those lessons early in life, and refuse to procrastinate there.

Having a difficult-to-spell original last name helped, unique and always presumed to be wrong, so I reflexively audit. (Two i's, two l's, two e's, one r, dunno why that gives any trouble.)

Could not make myself strip paint this morning after I got back. Too hot to work on the back porch, both cats curled on the bed, and me in no damn mood to take on a sweaty job, nor disturb felines. Maybe this weekend's mornings, finish up at least one door and frame. The other door, the one proving hard to strip, had never gotten a lacquer or oiled layer before the first painting. Gonna take more time and effort to restore. Which is fine, do what I gotta do.

And the cats continue to get along, colleagues. Well, we know it takes Moby about 2 years to really get used to anything, and that seems to include Eleanor. She is also more settled, I can sometimes pick her up, which I'd given up on, and she is much, much less food-motivated. Both very much enjoying going outside. Moby never minded the harness, Eleanor getting to grips with hers.

We have a mosquito netting on an umbrella on the porch, hopefully this will let D sit out there with me of an evening. Lots of wrangling and searching to find something inexpensive but functional, but we think we got it sorted. Bugs don't really bite me, but they adore him, with welts to follow.

Next week, Friday off for the holiday.

Prettiness

All young and pretty. They'll get more individual and interesting in time.



"There's a truck behind me."

Yup, one of several that came to restore power, out for nearly five hours this afternoon. Stayed fairly cool in here. I got home early, kinda wish I'd stayed in the cold OR. Happened on Sunday night, too. Loud BOOM! and then silence. Out for several hours then. Unusual for this area, I gotta wonder if the big new shiny apartment buildings are stressing the system, AC spike as the heat sets in.

Interesting item over on IO9 about the confederate flag. One of the few sites where I will read the exceptionally well moderated comment section. Fear and ignorance, as usual. The great enemies of humanity.

Tend

Flying cats.

President's podcast in a garage.

Why can they not see that confederacy=slavery? And that their "history" makes that flag akin to a swastika? Not to mention, they lost. Poor losers, still. More than the ugly symbol, why can't they ban the damn guns?

I want to go hug everyone with dark hair, or darker skin than mine. Not like that will be a first, really. Won't solve anything, just the urge behind the distress, to soothe and connect.

Hug the guy, hug the cats, tend what I can touch here and now.

Solstice

Jun 21 5:56 AM 9:02 PM 15:06:03 +0:01

Summer Solstice. Standing still in the heat. Tomatoes seem happy, though.


When we crawl in bed, about 9, (both of us being morning people these days) I turn out the light, and it's not really much darker. Harder to read, but colors still discernible. Which led to a sleepy discussion about the meaning of twilight, civil, nautical and astronomical. I'm still not entirely clear on what that means in a city with a lot of light pollution.


Found a folder with employment information and a hotel receipt, left - apparently dropped, on the grass. We walked it over to the address, needing to feel like we did something today, and wanting to add to the sense that the world is full of good folks. Especially after meeting so many good people yesterday.

Then I found an insurance card on the grass. Called the agent's number to let him know to send the guy another card. That one is now in the shredder. We will keep an eye out for more items with personal information out there, but hopefully that will be the last for today.

Nice wind this afternoon. Makes the heat less onerous.

Biome

The tomatoes are working on it. The part in the back some folks considered the only real part of a garden. I'm planning on getting clover to cover most of it, and some non-growing features. Turn it into a place to sit or play. Between the lack of light and the tree roots, most of it is not really much good for a garden. A few tomato plants, parsley and chives, and it's done. Pease in the spring, compost. No good forcing, I know a veto when given one.

Self appointed onion gatekeeper. "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!"


Screwing up one's courage.



"FIRST!" (And the only one blooming yesterday. C'mon guys. Lettin' me down.)



The scarlet flax was mostly between bloomings. It has a shabby sort of charm even then.



Turkish Veronica, growing glacially, but spreading.



Leek bloomed on Friday, shedding the towering cover. Happy bees.


Party's over. One of the organizers left a gift, smells amazing. Eleanor not impressed.





Dinner with PILs went well, Eleanor very friendly. They got the personal garden tour. FIL starting to develop an interest in gardening. Their back yard has builders-waste-terrible dirt. I gave him sunflowers saved from last year that I didn't bother to plant.

D and I are both pretty sun baked and tired. I'm also that particular kind of restless that comes with overtired. Bunching up my work week drained reserves. Today, we rest. If I can make myself stop picking at the neglected chores of such a busy week.

Tour

Oh, wow. Garden tour hosting done. That was a lot of fun, and a lot of energy. I'm not good at talking for four hours, nor am I used to being out in the sun that long. With only three lulls of a few minutes, we had people here from 10-1400 perhaps a dozen at a time at the most. D wound up taking anyone who wanted to see the back, with all due disclaimers: that was not the pretty bit.

I preached the good news of a largely watering-free garden. Mind, the lettuce and tomatoes get watered, seed and plants being established as well. Otherwise, I don't use sprinklers. I figure it's better to plant stuff that will be happy in a desert than to try and nurse something through that needs a different environment.

Posted Pre-photos, got ice for water* bottles the Community garden folks provided (I know, I know, not my choice) as well as plain soda in aluminum cans that WE provided. And a display of the archeology finds.

Most folks came by bicycle. Everyone very nice. At least 100 people, maybe up to the 200 we were told might stop by.

So tired. Pulled up the sign came in and took a cool shower. Still, really lovely to talk to so many people. About gardens. And snails, earwigs, pill bugs, sunflowers, scarlet flax, buckwheat, onions and lemon balm. Couldn't have done it without D, so grateful.

We also made it to the trivia event last night. A few people joined us, and we formed a team. Not very balanced, but we did alright. Came in 5th of about 20 teams, very cheering. D went to a library sponsored comics group last week. We attend the neighborhood council meetings. We are finding our way into sociability again.

This whole week has been a bit oversubscribed. We are also making dinner for D's folks this evening, an early Father's Day for his dad. A good trade off, we don't have to drive out to the west valley on a Sunday in 100˚F heat. Looking forward to doing a whole bunch of nothing tomorrow. Need to recharge, just the two of us. Four, but the cats never demand conversation anyway.

Still, lovely.



*We will store what's left as emergency water, in the basement.