I should be writing my thesis, or pounding away these keys on any of the 70 pages of assignments that are still haunting me from Asia. But I am not.
No, I am instead cleaning my house (I can't have my family know what a bad housekeeper I really am) and ruminating over various things that are probably of little importance to anyone but myself.
Boycotting the Olympics...A long conversation about this last night got me to thinking about the ludicrousness of such a "boycott." Please, like any of us were really going to go all the way to Beijing for the Olympics this year. Now, the Paralympics, maybe, but not the big Olympics. I am all for raising awareness about Tibet, but listen up people: WE MISSED THE BOAT. You see, China now has America by the balls. Once upon a time, before they owned our debt, before we were dependent on their cheap exports to fill our longings for "nice shit" on the cheap, that was when we stood a chance of exerting our influence. Now, we can protest all we want, but no one is going to strong arm China into anything. You'd be better off boycotting McDonalds or Coca Cola. Good luck with that.
The "exploitation" of teenage pop stars...Really?! A teenage pop star posed for a provocative picture? NO, say it's not so! Oh, for crying out loud, people. Get over it. You are allowed to complain about the exploitation of teenage girls when they are posing in exchange for crack, okay? Or when they are being kept in a basement by some sex-crazed weirdo. NOT when they are multimillionaires before they are old enough to buy cigarettes. And certainly not when they are publishing memoirs at age 15. Seriously, what in the hell has happened in a 15 year lifetime that I give a damn about? Are you going to talk about the trauma of potty training or the difficulty of transitioning from elementary school to middle school? Yawn. Yeah, not interesting. If anyone is being exploited, it is the parents of all these little girl (and flamboyant little boys) who are shelling out for this crap.
Bird Feeders, and Seed Trays... I like birds. I also like to garden. A couple of weeks ago, Chip and I installed a new bird feeder outside our dining room winder that does not already have a bird feeder visible through it. It is a wonderful feeder, with...okay, nevermind, you don't really want to hear about the details of this feeder. The point is that, after 2 weeks, we finally had our first customer! ONE. One bird. Two weeks. Now, I sit by the window at all times, hoping to see this stupid little bird again so that I can look it up in my bird book and feel all warm and fuzzy. No dice.
As I mentioned above, I also like to garden. This will be my first summer of actually living in Muncie full time. I'm pretty thrilled. I also don't have a job. So I'm pretty broke. Which makes the whole vegetable garden thing that much more appealing. Here in the Midwest, it still freezes at night in May, and yes, sometimes that makes me murderously angry. So I planted seed trays so that I could get my plants all healthy, rocking and rolling before I put them in the ground. I think I planted them a week ago. It feels like a month ago. I have them in front of a window in the dining room. I check on them at least 30 times a day. They are not sprouting. Actually, to be precise, the compost mix I planted them in is sprouting, but just these itty, bitty sprouts that I know for a fact will never grow up to bear yellow crook neck squash or swiss chard. It is agonizing!
Now listen, I know that I am not the most patient person in the world, but this is ridiculous. I should probably start "working"(AKA staring at bird feeder balefully or checking on seed trays obsessively) upstairs, away from all these distractions.
Or get some discipline. Jeeze. I may never complete anything but this house cleaning ever again.
5 comments:
I just left this very elaborate post, and blogger decided I was not a real user and cleared my screen.... argghhh.
As I WAS saying - seed starting can be a bit tricky, but there are some things that help.
1) Start all your seeds with peat pots. They can be found almost any home/garden center pretty cheaply. The advantage? No weeds or stray disease to harm your seeds, and good drainage for optimum seed moisture requirements.
2) Use good seeds. Follow all the planting depth instructions. They will also tell you how long it takes the seeds to germinate. So if they say 14-21 days, pass on checking the seeds for a couple weeks :-)
3) Keep the seeds warm (seed warming matt is a wonder, but costs $25 or so), moist but not wet, and covered until they germinate and have 1 full set of leaves. Some seeds need light to germinate, others don't.
4) Give you sprouts lots of light. Too little light and they get all leggy trying to grow fast and "get" to the non-existent sunlight (unless they are by a window).
5) Harden off your seeds 1-2 weeks before they are to be put in the ground. They are less shocked by the wind/cold/real soil transition this way.
Last thing - most seeds can take 4-12 weeks to get started, you you are a "tad" late this year except for some of the quicker growers, or thise things you can seed right outside after all danger of frost.
Alternatively - and this works pretty good for late starts, just rely on your local garden shop and get the plants already set for planinng in the ground :-)
Good luck!!
I refer you back to my blog of ECONOMICS 101. It suggested exactly what you were writing about
sans ugly language.. We have created a very difficult situation
vis-a vis China/US.
About boycoting the OLympics,
I would be there in a flash if I were a rich person. Now that we are in the clutches of China, we better try to be friends with them.
It might be possible. I understand that lots of US companies have a pretty high profile there.
a bird built a nest in my mailbox. i hate birds (they are scary little dinosaurs). i'd send it to you, but, yeah, that would end up pretty gross.
We had a wren make her nest in our garage in our spreader. We watched her for over a week sit on those eggs and last Friday when Houston had a storm she flew into our house and our dog Meg (being a bird dog) caught her and dropped her proudly on Sonya's bare foot. Sonya called me frantically and after our brief conversation wrapped the poor dead bird in a towel and put her on top of the washing machine (I had told her to put in in a paper towel and in the garbage). The maid came that day and washed all the "dirty" towels - anyway, we had feathers everywhere but a very clean dead mama bird.
The birds take a while to come. But they will. When they figure it out, they'll tell their friends, and then you'll have all kinds of birds... more than you can shake a stick at! Not that you'd be shaking sticks, but you know what I mean.
I miss you madam. I was so bummed not to make it to your graduation. I'm no less proud, though. Nope. You done good, and it's been amazing to watch the whole process even from pretty darned far away.
Love love love you!!!!
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