Black as your soul

Early May peas coming up, originally uploaded by your neighborhood librarian.

I am often loath to share pictures of my garden, especially the early spring garden, even though at that point I am absurdly excited about the little plants coming up and I want to tell total strangers on the street, "The peas germinated!"

See, it's my soil. It's my compost, to be specific. Our compost looks like a front yard in the Ozarks. Look at all that crap in there! Even before we realized that we could empty the vacuum cleaner canister into the composter, and hence began introducing rubber bands, Lego, Barbie shoes, and milk carton rings into our garden soil, we were kind of lazy about chopping up the big stuff that went into it, so we have big pieces of corncobs, the occasional half onion, and watermelon rinds in our "finished" compost. Not to mention pistachio shells and olive pits, which, you know, ARE biodegradable, but not, one might say, anytime soon.

So it's always a minor relief when things start filling in a little.

Early July pea bed being taken over by zinnias and pumpkins, originally uploaded by your neighborhood librarian.

... and by "filling in a little" I mean that not only did I not plant some of these things, I don't even know what some of them are.

It's the compost to blame again. I'm guessing the remains of the Jack O'Lantern went into the composter, and also some deadheaded zinnia blossoms, and who knows what else. At least it isn't gourds this year. The gourd year was a nightmare. I didn't pull them right off the bat because I thought they might be squash, and before I knew it they'd taken over the entire yard.

A little more orderly is the bed up near where the chickens used to be, that I loaded up with wee tomato plants in early May.

Early May tomato plants, originally uploaded by your neighborhood librarian.

Early July tomato plants, originally uploaded by your neighborhood librarian.

It has also filled in well, mostly with things I expected. I'm finally going to get some tomatos this summer looks like, but maybe I should have given all this stuff a little more room.

Stimulating the mesolimbic reward pathway since 1988

I am very inventive. Someday I'll be known as Frozen Chicken Marinade Girl, and people will be all like, "You read her blog before she got famous? Wow!"

Here are some of my inventions: I invented the best breakfast of all time (leftover rice, whole milk plain yogurt, and Bedekar's mixed Indian pickle). I invented the best way to put children to sleep (sing as many verses of "I Will" as you can remember over and over again until they pass out in pure bliss). I invented the autobiographical book review. I invented orange and hot pink together, but that kind of got ruined by Isaac Mizrahi.

So - are you ready for my new invention? Oh, it's mine, I checked. Nobody invented it before I did. It's a new phrase: "do-meth-tic disturbance". Yeah? Huh? Like it? You like it. You will totally be using it the next time you have to call the cops because you're pretty sure the skinny, scabby, limp-haired girl across the street is about to get killed by her skinny, foul-mouthed, scary hyper boyfriend.

And I'm sharing it with you because I live in a nice neighborhood now, and I hardly ever have to do that anymore.

Have a cursed, wretched, blaspheming, pustulent day

You know, it has somehow got to be a violation of my civil rights for you to wish me a blessed day.

Good morning America how are you?

You know what? Açai juice? Vile.

Plus? I drank the disgusting stuff thinking all that antioxidant power would flood the cells of my body with amino acid goodness, leaving no room for the badness of too much Yuengling's lager yesterday. And? Yeah no.

Maybe it was the steady beer drinking, but it seems to me that the 4th of July was pretty darn ok this year. I have a complicated relationship with my country, and sometimes Independence Day makes me feel kind of itchy, but this year... you know? It was ok.

We always go to my parents' house. Their town, the town I grew up in, celebrates July 4th big, with a good-sized small-town parade (the Governor shows up) and a world-class fireworks display. My folks live within easy walking distance of both of these events, so the whole family comes for a picnic, and they walk up to the parade even though it's usually hot and boring and nobody stays for the whole thing, and in the evening we walk down to the fireworks at the high school.

So, this year it was not disgustingly hot, and the parade moved along at a good pace, and Big Man and Mr Four had curbside seats, and we stayed for the whole thing. The crowd, I would say, was not as blindingly patriotic as it often gets. In past years I've had complete strangers ask "Where's your red white and blue?" at that parade. I really hate that. What are you going to say? "As a liberal I feel uncomfortable demonstrating patriotism"? "I'm not a joiner"? "Makes me look like a chump"? This year I wore my anti-Patriot Act T-shirt (blue, at least), and got a receptive response when I explained what it meant.

As the parade ended, a big exciting storm descended, which disrupted the day's program pretty nicely, with everyone crowding into the kitchen or playing croquet in the rain.

Because of the rain (which took out power to some of the neighborhood, which was also kind of interesting), the fireworks were postponed, so at dusk, we took a walk around the block with the kids. I've never seen more people setting off their own fireworks in my life. What with the mist from the storm's aftermath and all the smoke from the fireworks drifting around, it was a very surreal stroll through my childhood landscape.

Not bad.

Lost and gone forever

When I went looking for the cover to Clementine on This Old Internet, I found this:

On January 25, 1994, the Deep Space Program Science Experiment (DSPSE) (better known as Clementine) was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, on a mission designed to test lightweight miniature sensors and advanced spacecraft components by exposing them, over a long period of time, to the difficult environment of outer space. In addition to testing the various sensors, Clementine was given the complex task of mapping the moon. The mission results were spectacular.

Spectacular? I'll say. They've got the whole surface of the moon on the Internet for all to see. Have a look. You can browse it, zooming and panning, or you can get it to pinpoint lunar features for you. Kind of mind-blowing to see the lunar landing sites as cartoony red push-pins on a photo map of the moon.

Secrets of Dripping Fang by Dan Greenburg - review

Secrets of Dripping Fang by Dan Greenburg. Age 8-13. Oh there are totally kids for this series. You've got adventures and peril faced by a supportive family, each of whom has a defining characteristic... like, dad's a vampire, aunt is a giant spider, etc. There are some great funny moments, like when the sister appears to be dying of fever and dad wonders if it would be unethical to drink her blood, as doing so would clearly cause her no additional harm. No, seriously, in this goodhearted series, that's funny. Thumbs up.

Clementine by Sara Pennypacker - review

Clementine by Sara Pennypacker. Age 7-10. Loved this. Subtle and slapstick at the same time. I like the character: Clementine is the sideways-thinking sitting-still-challenged daughter of boho city dwellers - think Pippi's great-grandniece. I like the plot: she gets in trouble as a result of actions that seem perfectly logical from her point of view (which the reader shares). I even like the parents: they cherish her creativity and listen to her, but they react pretty convincingly when she cuts all her hair off and colors her head green with a Sharpie. Plus great illustrations. Happy it's a series. Thumbs up.

The Dream Stealer by Gregory Maguire - review

The Dream Stealer by Gregory Maguire. Ages 5-adult (really!). This is an older book, but I'd never read Gregory Maguire's kid books (he's the author of Wicked and Son of a Witch, both of which I found unexpectedly thoughtful - not your usual fractured fairy tales for adults, they incorporate a lot of political philosophy and behaviorist allegory, but don't manage to get boring) and I had heard that Dream Stealer was something special. Not disappointed. A simple but gripping fairy tale set in the Russian forest, this book is vivid, well-plotted, and suspenseful. I think it has just enough scare but not too much (but I should mention that I sometimes underestimate how scareable some kids are). Thumbs up.

Ivy and Bean by Annie Barrows and Sophie Blackall - review

Ivy and Bean by Annie Barrows and Sophie Blackall. Age 6-9. Another new series, this one about two girls who decide to be friends - kind of your standard mismatched buddy pairing. Like Lethal Weapon with worms instead of guns. There is teasing: there's an older sister that Ivy and Bean play tricks on, but I'm ok with that. Playing tricks up the power gradient is more fair than picking on a younger sibling (a la Star Jumper) in my opinion. Thumbs up.

Star Jumper by Frank Asch - review

With the kids in camp 3 days a week I've been doing some catching up on my reading. As a result, I got pretty far behind on my reviewing. So the other day, I wrote a bunch of little tiny reviews, and now I'm behind on posting! I swear, it's like housework - once you get the toilets cleaned you really should get going on the vacuuming.



Star Jumper: Journal of a Cardboard Genius by Frank Asch. Age 6-9. There's something to this new series - the reader can't tell whether young Alex's cardboard sci-fi inventions actually work or not, and that's pretty interesting - but Alex is such a little shit it would be hard for me to recommend this one. The whole reason the kid invents a spaceship is so that he can "put as many light-years between me and my little brother Jonathan as possible". Maybe as the series progresses Alex and Jonathan will join forces and the ugliness will dissipate, but for now: Thumbs down.