The doorknob fell off.

I know that sounds like a metaphor, but it's not. The little tab thing you press down on to open my front door popped off--thankfully after the door was open. I guess you call a locksmith for this kind of thing...? We have a couple of other lock issues that need to be taken care of, so I guess it's time. In the meanwhile, I'll rest comfortably knowing that no one can possibly expect me to leave my house while there's no good way to get back inside.

In other news, the garden is coming along nicely! Although I don't think I heeded Mary Witzl's advice in time to keep from flooding my garlic. I do know that the Peruvian Daffodils are getting close to pushing up over the top of the soil--I saw a hint of green in both pots! It's funny to think that all my life I've walked by people's incredible gardens and not been impressed, but I manage to get two plants to grow and I feel like the queen of all I survey.

One of the most charming things I've seen lately is a smattering of baby praying mantises around the yard. A couple of weeks ago, I followed one as it made its way down the railing of the deck. Head to tail (or whatever), it couldn't have been more than 7 or 8 millimeters. At one point, it stopped walking and turned its tiny head to look at me. Then it set about doing a series of Tai-Chi moves, leaning slowly forward and then backward, all the while watching me. (Maybe it had a crush!)

Lately we've seen one on the dwarf orange tree, over the course of a few days. Slightly bigger. They're just so darn cute. And when they're older, they'll eat all sorts of pesky pests.

The peaches are getting nice and rosy, too ("peach", I believe, is the technical term).

Last weekend, we had our first backyard get-together. It was great fun, although I'm really neurotic about improper "flow" at parties. Clumps of people make me nervous. So I took a few mental notes about what can be placed where to keep people scattered and moving.

So spring has sprung! Although it's cold and damp here--has our misty June gloom come early?

More on book minimalism

Is it the onset of warm weather that makes me so desperate to clean my house? And not just tidy it, but rip through it and get rid of everything we don't need or use?

The problem is, we have so much little stuff that just hides away in closets, and then when you try to get something done, the little stuff all jumps out and says, "Ha ha ha, what about me?" and then you're left looking at picture hanging kits and canisters of 35-millimeter film and instruction manuals to stuff you know you have around here somewhere. And what can you do? You can't get RID of it, for heaven's sake! What a waste of good 35-millimeter film.

However, I'm making some progress.

("Why don't you tell us about it, Katie?")

Okay!

Online indie bookstore Powell's has a neato feature called Sell Us Your Books, wherein you can enter the ISBNs from any books you're looking to get rid of and they'll either bid or not accept it. This is a heady and addictive process, let me tell you. Before you know it, you'll be scouring your shelves just to find books that they'll take. "Accept me, Powell's!" you will say. "Let me and this copy of Angela's Ashes into your exclusive club!" (Spoiler: that's an ix-nay on Angela's Ashes.)

They're not offering hundreds of dollars. They offer a couple dollars for hardcovers and less than a dollar for most paperbacks. After a while, you start to get an idea of what they're into, and you start trying to guess whether something will be accepted.

Here's the exciting part, though: if Powell's doesn't take it, you can't put it back on the shelves. You have to put it in a stack of books that will go the the thrift store or to a library. Because if you were ready to let it go for 75 cents, you can let it go for free. Let's be real here, fellas.

Anyway, I have a box shipping out today (pre-paid), so that's exciting. I actually made almost enough room on my shelves for all the books that I used to keep in the sewing room, but had to move when my fabric stash overtook the space.

What's that, you say? When am I going to purge the fabric stash and sewing room?

I'm sorry, I don't have time to talk about that. I have to go shoot fifteen rolls of 35mm film.

*runs away*

Two words: supervolcano

Ha! I know that's just one word, but at work I'm dealing with questionnaires that say, "Describe this dog in one word," and the amount of people who don't know the definition of the number one is staggering.

"Always ready to show!"
"Fun/loving/energetic"
"He is amazing"

Next time, I'll say, "Describe this dog in one (1) word." Perhaps that'll clear things up.

Although the responses are all delightful to me. I like it when people at dog shows take the time to write down cute stuff about their dogs. It's all about the dogs, after all.

Oh, no, wait--today it's all about the supervolcano.

Evidence can be found here.

Please resume with your day, which you may feel is oddly invaded by my multiple blog entries. See, this is what happens when you take away my computer.

Officially annoyed.

Okay. There's quite a backlash about a major online book retailer (and the way they handle reviews) right now in some circles. The curious can check out a blog called Dear Author and get the details.

A co-worker and I have been discussing a certain New Agey book put out by a certain New Agey author and promoted by a certain talk show host. I tried to get through the book a month or two ago, and found that it struck me as impractical and basically nonsense.

I posted a one-star review at the major online retailer. I noticed as I did it how rabidly fans of this book would attack negative reviews, but I wanted to put an opinion out there that might keep someone like me from spending money on this book. I understand that there are differences of opinion. I understand that some people find it life-changing.

I didn't like it. It didn't change my life, except that I had used that month's Audible.com credit to buy it, and when I gave up on it, I was left without an audio book for my commute.

My one-star review is gone.

Major online retailer has a policy of removing abusive or irrelevant reviews. Mine, I can assure you, was neither.

I am so creeped out by the thought that people who read and love this book enough to consider themselves "enlightened" are already practicing angry-mob techniques like reporting reviews in order to censor criticism.

It's like trying to play tennis with someone who won't let go of the ball.

Grr!

PS - The book is Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth. The talk show host is Oprah.

My life as a pioneer woman.

Two days ago, the unthinkable happened:

I had finally managed to lure the husb down to the sewing room. I often try to get him to come hang out with me while I work, but he doesn't particularly like going downstairs. But on this day, the top story of the house was very warm, and the basement level was nice and cool.

Almost immediately, my sewing machine broke. Something happened where the needle thread gets caught under the little plate where all the secret, magic stuff goes on. I tried repeatedly, but couldn't fix it.

Then, the next morning, as I was sitting at the computer, the husb comes in and says, "I need the computer for a shoot we're doing over the next two days."

I beg your pardon?

But these mythical "shoots" are apparently more importantly than my voting on lolcats over at I Can Has Cheezburger, so I surrendered the machine (with great misgivings and lots of whining to show how serious I was, naturally).

That night, I got home from work to find that the shoot was still ongoing, thereby robbing me of the third of the four essential items in my home (my husband--the fourth is Winston, but he was grouchy). Add this to our chronic lack of groceries and the fact that our DVR is full of high-def episodes of CSI: Miami (don't ask me why, I gave up on David Caruso a loooong time ago), and I was marooned.

I wandered around the silent house, occasionally pausing to look at the empty desk where the computer belonged. Then, clearly driven to madness by the starkness of my situation--

I went downstairs and started... cleaning. On a weeknight.

The big room downstairs has become a bit of a catch-all, especially with the new outdoor-type supplies that have to live inside. I rotated the couch and started organizing and making various little piles and putting things away.

Eventually, I hit a wall and went back upstairs. I found something random to eat and sat down to watch The Stepford Wives, feeling strangely like a Stepford wife myself. That movie is so strange. Especially now that it's so ingrained in pop culture--every time they say, "There's something wrong in Stepford," you want to shout at the screen, "What do you expect? It's STEPFORD! The place with the wives!"

Last night, knowing there was neither sewing machine nor computer nor husb waiting for me at home, I stopped and meandered around the grocery store a little. Then I got home and found that the DVR had made room for America's Next Top Model (which I am starting to have a problem with, as none of the winners actually go on to become, you know, MODELS). I prepped a little food, sat down on the couch, and watched Tyra Banks ham it up.

This morning, like a dream, I woke to find the computer back in its spot. The husb is also in his spot, and Winston is more sleepy than grouchy. The sewing machine has not yet been repaired, but I have a loaner.

Close call with reality, eh?

PS - Bath math:

getting conditioner for hair + looking at face wash = conditioner all over face

PPS - Winston is three years old! His birthday was Tuesday.

New Winston video!

I must say, two of my videos have been flagged for copyrighted content by UMG (Universal Music Group, I assume), and they've been very cool about it both times. Which is so smart and realistic of them. Because if someone likes the song, they're going to go buy it, right?

Anyway, it's nice to see someone behaving like a human being in this day and age... even if it is a massive corporation!

And so it grows...

(or, "Wishful Thinking")

We recently had some landscaping done in our backyard. What was once just ivy is now a terraced little yard, and what was once a deck that belonged to a monstrous 1980s party hot tub is now refinished and furnished with barbecue supplies.

Because of this, and also because of books like Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and The Omnivore's Dilemma, I have taken a keen interest in trying to grow some plants. Some edible, some not.

I have a history of killing plants. Or, more euphemistically, not keeping them alive. So I decided that maybe growing things from scratch would give me more of a sense of involvement and responsibility. I bought some seeds and planted bell peppers and oregano in a couple of little pots. Two bell pepper seeds sprouted, but the oregon was silent. So one day, when I was bored, I took a few garlic cloves that had sprouted in the kitchen and stuck them in the oregano pot. Naturally, four days later, hundreds of little oreganos sprouted out of the soil.

Last weekend, I transplanted some things and planted some new things, and now we're playing the waiting game.

I was right about being more invested, too. I water those little buggers every day.

Here's a tour of how things look right now.



This is my shade garden, at the side of the house where the hammock (a $15 cloth number, criminally comfortable) is... mostly shady, especially later in summer as the sun goes off behind the trees. This is all new planting. The tall guy at the back will be a fern; so will the terra cotta round pot. The two in the foreground should be begonias. No, will be! Will be begonias. Positive thinking.



This is a place under the overhang of the downstairs balcony where I dropped some of the oregano sprouts. I can't believe that so many of those seeds sprouted at once. Talk about an embarrassment of riches, and poor planning. I stuck this ball of dirt here as an afterthought, hoping it might decide to fill in the awkward area between the ivy and the little curb. That big green thing is new; it's not oregano. I don't know what it is. I am also trying to grow a leather strap, apparently.



These are my sunny plants. In the back are Peruvian Daffodil and asparagus; then some garlic (thriving! go figure), mint, and oregano (assuming they pull through); the rectangle is my bell peppers, although I'm losing hope because they've been that size for weeks now; and in front is another Peruvian Daffodil.

The front daffodil pot is notable because something has dug through it, and I'm not even sure the bulb is still in there. Apparently skunks will root around in pots and eat bulbs. This makes me exceedingly sad, but I don't know how to check without potentially destroying it, so I'm just going to keep watering it and then maybe eventually plant some basil or something.

So that's the excitement in my life. It's amazing how much more fun this stuff is when you're a grown-up than when your parents force you to do it as a child.

I'll provide updates occasionally, and if anything exciting happens. Cross your fingers, and we may have a full-blown leather strap plant before long!

Oh, and the big news, thanks to this post by Jemima Bean is that we have a peach tree! I saw the photo of the flowers and asked her what they were, because we had some. She replied that they were peaches, and sure enough when we looked more closely at the tree, there were fuzzy baby peaches on it! Hundreds of them, actually.

The guy we bought the house from knew there was a peach tree but never remembered it bearing any fruit (probably because it used to be so shady in the yard). But now... peaches! Peaches! Peaches! We pruned the tree ruthlessly, as apparently is the way to maximize peaches, and now we are just waiting... waiting... waiting...