Image: purple garden phlox and orange day lilies.

My Asiatic lilies have all faded and are making way for the purple garden phlox and the orange day lilies.  

Today, everything started out stormy, but then the heat mostly broke (though the humidity lingered a bit) and it has been moderately decent. It is currently 83 F / 28 C. My house spy seems to think the temperatures might actually drop into the upper sixties tonight. That's good sleeping weather, so fingers crossed.

Since the temperatures weren't insanely hot (and I was up early,) I decided to try to make the lettuce soup recommended by dragonlady7 and pameladean ... folks, I think I maybe did something wrong or, it might just be that I don't like the taste of lettuce as much as I thought I did. Here's how it ended up looking:


Image: lettuce soup with flecks of... lettuce? (Although the flecks might be chives, honestly.)

Is this how it's supposed to look? I used my immersion blender and followed the recipe as closely as possible. However, I am the sort who will read and read and read a recipe and then discover I missed something critical like baking soda (obviously not in THIS recipe, just as an example.) So, who knows? My family and I all tried it at lunch, and it certainly used up a lot of lettuce. I'm down to a very reasonable amount to last until Thursday when the next CSA is scheduled.

It smelled AMAZING when I was making it. I'm not sure why did didn't live up to the smell.

The thing that did live up to its reputation?

BASIL ICE CREAM.


Image: home made basil ice cream in a sake bowl (on a red counter.)

Thank you sabotabby for convincing me that this was not as weird as it sounded!  My rather picky wife even ate a whole bowl. Mason agreed "not bad." So, we now have Thai basil ice cream in the freezer.

Which is good, because I may need some comfort food tomorrow. I got pressured by my boss to come in to work at White Bear Lake library tomorrow from one to five. I am... full of trepidation.  I mean, it's not open to the public (although apparently some branches are to some extent;people are being allowed to use the computers) but there is still a lot of handling of things that were in the extended possession of hundreds of patrons. The air will all be recycled, as "hermetically sealed" is actually the preferred mode when dealing with books. But, I kind of need to put in some hours, some time? Or they will drop me off the roster.

So that sucks.

We also failed to purchase Mason's computer twice again today, even with a banker sitting on the phone with us. We must have gotten tagged as fraudulent by the company we are trying to buy from because we tried unsuccessfully too many times. Damn you, American Independence Day! (*waves fist*)

However, we found the same laptop available at a local Best Buy, so we're just going to try walking in. We are still pre-approved for the spending, so... hopefully, it will work. Even if they don't have it, they can probably order it for us with better luck.

I can't believe it's been this hard to buy a damn computer.

Anyway, hope you all are doing good. How's things?

 We asked Alexia, the house spy, to remind us once a week to pick up our CSA. Despite spelling out: Cee Ess Aye as one normally says it, she took it upon herself to inform us that we should go get our "Cah-Sah" today at one. Being who we are, we immediately adopted CahSah as the appropriate pronunciation of CSA.


Image: all the vegetable matter which shall be enumerated below.

Alas, our newsletter promised a box of strawberries, but we did not get any, it seems. (Honestly, when I saw that on the list, I thought, "Huh, isn't it kind of late in the season," but then thought, well, maybe???) However, I am excited by what we did get:

Asparagus
Rhubarb
Purple onions/scallions
radishes
and a giant pile of lettuce

We also got cilantro, which I immediately composed. I had also thought that we were supposed to get boxes packed to our preferences, but I'm getting the sense that maybe the way the Hmong Farmer's Association works is that different farms do different weeks. I suspect this because even how the boxes were distributed was slightly different this week. Last week, each box was clearly labelled with our names, as were the bouquets of the flower share.  This week, the full shares were against a different wall (and now I'm worried I picked up a half share, since I think the big difference was that full shares WERE getting strawberries and half-shares weren't. Damn it!) The confusion would be because the sign said "full share" by the set of boxes I pulled from and none of them were labelled. Instead, we had to sign out on a sheet. So... Mmmmm. I wonder if some lucky fellow who is the last to pick up will actually get *my* strawberries.

Alas!

The other reason I suspect a different farm was at play this week is because the level of prep was different. Last time I didn't feel the need to wash anything more than I would stuff I get at the grocery store, but this week there was a lot more trimming and washing to do.  Last week, too, things had been organized into their own separate baggies, but this time, no.

Ah, live and learn.

But, I'm still happy, even if I am strawberry-less.  We planned our dinner around the asparagus because last time we got it we didn't get a chance to eat it before it went bad. Ah sh*t, I just went to look at what I was supposed to get in my full share and I also missed out on kohlrabi (a favorite!) and curly kale!!  Dang it. I can't exactly shove it all back in a plastic container and take it back. Ahhhhhh!! Well, hell.  Luckily, this is only week two. Next time I'll know better than to believe the signs and actually check what is in the boxes before I walk off with one.


CSA DRAMA UPDATE:
So pick-up for my CSA ends at 4 pm and it occurred to me when relaying what I thought had happened to Shawn that I *could* go back, pull out my strawberries, kohlrabi, and chard from the box intended for me, stick what was remaining into the half box I collapsed and left behind and that would make everything square (and avoid confusion for whoever came at the end). And when I got there at a quarter to four, everything looked like I would hope. Only ONE box of full shares remained.... but wait, it was in the place and of the type of box that I'd picked up.... okay, well, I looked one of in the other boxes in the other spot, yeah, those were definitely half shares. When I pulled out the plastic bag containing the full share it had strawberries, kale, and kohlrabi...???

So then I went and looked at the initialed list to see if I could figure out if that WAS my box somehow or not. Going over the list and the initials, it seemed that more than one more person should still be picking up full shares. Oh boy. There was only that one box. AND, that threw a monkey wrench into my plans.

I couldn't steal someone else's box!  So, I carefully repacked everything and kind of hung around while the last stragglers came in, thinking, well, maybe one of these guys, like Nathaniel (a name I remembered for whatever reason) just forgot to initial and if they didn't show by 4, well, I'd help myself to the missing bits. Maybe. I was really feeling uneasy about that idea, however.

And, I'm glad I didn't. 

While I was waiting around a bunch of people came for half-shares and then a woman came and notice the last box had been opened a little (apparently, I wasn't quite as careful as I thought).  I explained (we were both masked, of course and at a distance) that that was my fault. I told her my problem and promised to all that was sacred that I did not touch or lick her produce. I said (because it was true) that I just lifted the interior plastic bag so that I could understand if I'd been shorted or if all the boxes were missing these three things. She said, "Oh, no problem. I'll just take this then.  Well, well, this is all very different for me  because I've never been here before. I missed picking my box up yesterday and they told me I could come here." Mmmm, I thought, but said out loud, "And you're expecting a full share?" She nodded and said yes and then took the box... which I honestly suspect was Nathaniel's. 

What I figured happened to my box is that since I took it from the top of the pile, it was probably last in the truck and it might have been at the point where they ran out of certain things. So I was just unlucky. I feel a lot less stupid? But, I think this is going to be something to be wary of because I'm SURE some of this trauma was borne out of the fact that we are getting different farmers different weeks. Some weeks we get the well-organized labelled boxes, some weeks we don't. 

Meanwhile, I think someone took Nathaniel's box, you know?

I'm just glad it wasn't me.


C'est la vie.

 I still wish it would rain, partly because my hose broke. 

We have a decent-sized yard and so if I want to water all the gardens I really need at least two 'regular-sized' hoses put together. So, of course, the connector bit to my longest hose decided that yesterday was the day to RUST CLEAN THROUGH. When I noticed it leaking precipitously, I went to tighten it and BAM! Off it came in my hands, water everywhere (except where I'd been aiming it.)

With everything happening, we can't exactly rush out and replace it. 

I mean, I am hopeful (knocking on ALL the wood)  that we WILL be able to do a Menard's run sooner rather than later, so, in the meantime, I am filling up my watering can and walking around to all of the thirsty plants. Luckily, my hose reaches to where the clover and self-heal seedlings are, so I can give them their daily soak while they are smol. The nice thing about this rather tedious method is that I am carefully observing the continued growth of all the things. I noticed a few late starting hosta poking up, for instance, and my sulking peonies continue to sulk very dramatically but have conceded to lifting their stems skyward.  I am starting to think that my back shade garden is as full as it can be and it's probably going to be time in the fall (or late summer) to start splitting some of those hosta and moving them into the side garden, which had initially been an inspiration to the back garden but I accidentally let it go to seed/weed one year when I wasn't feeling very 'garden' and it never fully recovered.

Part of my delay in getting to this blog today was the fact that I decided, Given The Current Situation (as A. A. Milne might write,) I should probably consider signing up for a CSA.  I had worried that they'd be all booked, but I was able to sign up for a Hmong Farmer's Association share and I'm ridiculously delighted with it so far. Obviously, I have not yet received a box; they start in early June.  BUT, one of the things I have hated about CSA in the past is the "Oh, I see. An ENTIRE BOX of tomatoes." Which, for most people, I suspect, would be an absolute joy, but for our family leaves us thinking... "so, do we compost the whole thing now or just stare at the tomatoes woefully until they actively rot?"  Look, I know you think I'm insane, but I don't like tomatoes. No, trying heirloom or homegrown or YOUR FAVORITE tomatoes isn't better.They taste MORE like the taste I hate!!

And, yes, this means I hate pizza.

The only way in which I tolerate tomato taste is in soup. I'm not sure why, but I can add tomato to a sauce or a soup and I won't actively hate it. Nine times out of ten, however, I WOULD STILL PREFER SOMETHING ELSE.

I know you're still in shock about the pizza. Listen, you heathens, I went to Rome. They don't put tomato sauce on their pizza, either. That's a Sicilian thing. FIGHT ME. I will happily eat all the pizza bianca in the world!  I would put an egg on my pizza, too, JUST LIKE THE ROMANS.

Sorry, I have had this fight on and off my whole life. I mostly just put up with pizza as a kid because I like most of it? I just don't like the sauce? And I honestly didn't know that you could eat pizza without the sauce, and, holy crap, that was a life changer. I was finally able to get excited when people ordered pizza. More and more pizza places offer "white" pizzas now-a-days, too.

The point is, the new CSA I signed up for let's you check your preferences, so I could put a giant YUCK, NO THANK YOU to all the tomatoes while putting a giant smiley on okra because I'm weird like this. 

Other things that have happened? I had a lovely chat yesterday with jiawen where we literally did that Minnesotan thing of not being able to say goodbye and so did so about seventeen times. The only reason I think I was able to actually do it is because I really, finally had to go to the bathroom.  To be fair, I could have talked all day with her because we had just gotten into a virtual tour of her neighborhood (via Google maps) and I love that kind of thing? If I were actually there in Taiwan with her I would probably spend seven weeks just enjoying every detail of every corner, ESPECIALLY the whole hidden shrine stuff! But, I'm like that. I'm literally entertaining myself during this pandemic by taking photographs of houses I find neat in my neighborhood(s) (I consider all of St. Paul my neighborhood.) I'm only sad that those are on hold until we hear back from the testing place. 

We are doing okay on supplies. The only thing I screwed up (and which naomikritzer has already remedied for me) is cat food and a cabbage. I really wanted to make pot stickers the other night and discovered we were out of cabbage. I  had daikon for crying out loud, but NO dang cabbage!! This could wait, except the pot sticker wrappers actually get kind of sticky and unusable after being defrosted if I let them sit too many days. I'd already had them moved to the fridge, so... and cat food was just an oversight. We'd put in an order with Chewy.com, but it's not coming for a couple of days yet. Our young cats could survive on dry food for a few days, but our elderly isn't having it. And she's already got skinny cat syndrome. She needs her wet food.

So, that's us. 

For those following the Covid toe drama: ( Nothing much of interest as we are all good, but some people also like the minutia? )

Mason and I went back to kuk sool after a couple week's absence.  We had a great time, but my calves, of all things, are sore this morning.  I suspect that it has to do with being out of practice of standing in a stance.  Also we did kicks... who knows.  All I know is that the more I go, the better I feel.  So it's good to be back at it again.

I'm tired today because I spent last night hanging out with a friend.  We met up at Izzy's icecream parlor last night after martial arts, and, by chance, we also ran into some friends from Crossroads and their kids, Ava and Gavin.  To people who say St. Paul is a dead town after 5:00 pm, I call bull.  That place was HOPPING, and there was a whole sidwalk culture happening up and down that entire block, thanks to everyone hanging around outside, eating icecream.  In fact, it was so noisy, my friend and I had to retire back home so we could hear each other talk. 

Mason got to stay up late, since Shawn is away on a business trip.  That meant I was in charge of bedtime, and, since I wanted to stay up and chat myself, Mason got to stay up too.  He built himself a fort on the front porch and read, while the grown-ups talked in the living room.

It was actually pretty awesome.

But I'm paying for it a little today.  I have things to do, but all I really want to do is nap and possibly do a bit of writing.  I do, at least, have a loaf of zucchini bread in the oven.  I was thinking, given how many zucchini I STILL have in the fridge, we may have to sign up for the kuk sool barbeque just so I can drop off several loaves and flee.  :-)

Otherwise, I'm going to turn into that weird neighbor who leaves zucchini at people's front doors.

I haven’t talked much this year about our CSA. Last year was the first time we tried Driftless Organics and I was an instant convert. In fact, I loved it so much that instead of the half share we bought last year, this year we went with full.

And then the rains came. According to the weekly newsletter, it’s been as wet in south central Wisconsin as it has been here.

Thus, we haven’t gotten a lot of produce to write home about, honestly. We’ve gotten some pretty good sweet corn, a few awe inspiring tomatoes (especially considering I never used to eat tomatoes at all, much less sliced raw), kale, collard greens, a sad little eggplant that I cherished as I ate, and a lot of the same: broccoli, carrots, zucchini and cucumbers. I’ve been finding new and unusual ways to use the stuff we see a ton of, but, well, by this time last year we’d tried a whole bunch of veggies I'd never even heard of and I was never bored by anything. Now I think I’ll puke if I see another cucumber (and I LOVE cucumbers.)

But the one thing that we’ve been really enjoying is that for some reason, our farmers are having a bumper crop of basil. Basil has showed up as a “bonus item” (washed, but unbagged and separate from the box but there for the taking at the pick-up point) at least three times so far. Shawn found a recipe for freezer pesto and has been making up batch after batch to store in the freezer. I teased her last night that if the apocalypse comes, we’re set on pesto. We may die from lack of clean water or proper sewage, but damn, we’ll have some fine pesto to eat!

If it stays cool, I’ll have to bake up some of my famous French bread. Some years ago (erm, maybe more like a decade or more,) I perfected a recipe I found in, of all places, the Taste section of the Star Tribune. I even bought the curved, elongated baking pans for the bread, so that it doesn’t flatten out. It’s become one of those things that I can mostly count on when planning a meal. (I say mostly because you know bread, sometimes cool/humid weather affects it differently.)

Anyway, our house STILL smells of fresh cut basil and garlic. It’s lovely.

The other thing we got this year that I took full advantage of was the tomatillos. I followed the directions sent along with the CSA newsletter and made a really lovely salsa verde. I roasted the tomatillos along with jalapenos and garlic and an onion in the oven at high temps. The result was a salsa with a lot of heat and the hint of a smoky-flavor. If I do say so myself, it’s really, really good.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with all the greens they keep sending!

Or, at least, Tate looks like an Idiot on Twitter. I swear, I figure out how to post and then I end up somehow sending things out in duplicate, all with misspelled words (yes, I know, I'm terrible here too, but I already say I'm an idiot in the title of this LJ.)

So, how are you?

We had a lovely weekend, partially due to our good friends the Murphys (seanmmurphy, who took Mason to the Minnesota State Fair yesterday so we didn't have to. Yes, I'm one of those crumugeons who hates the State Fair. Let me explain. I grew up on county fairs. You know, the kinds that roll into a large park and set up a midway on grass and briefly transform the ordinary into something magical. Yes, the south side of LaCrosse had permanent buildings and such for Oktoberfest, but I perferred the northside's Copeland Park. And I'm the same way with the State Fair. I like all the things about the State Fair: the bad food, the people watching, the weird seed art, 4-H buildings, and jam and pie contests, etc. But, I can't take the paved streets reflecting heat, the zillions (hardly an exaggeration) of bodies all crowded together, the noise, and the smells (and I don't mean of the weird food, but the humanity.) If I took Mason, all he'd hear is the complaining. Luckily, the solution was to let Sean and his wife, Katherine, take the little guy for the time of his life. And they did. He ate all sorts of things on a stick. He got to go on the "kidway" (the carnival rides for the smaller ones) and do and enjoy all the things with people who *love* the fair.

Meanwhile, Shawn and I got to have a long, slow Sunday morning, the likes of which we haven't had since Mason was born. We read the newspaper, I drank coffee and we munched on Cinnamon rolls courtesy of Breadsmiths. Then we went to an estate sale and picked up a number of useless, cheap curios... because we could. We wandered, meandered, and generally lazed through the morning. It was quite lovely.

Mason was quite pooped after the fair and spent the afternoon reading (his version of a nap), while Shawn and I made fresh salsa from the tomatoes from our CSA share. Mom, if you're reading this: I ate tomatoes. Raw. And liked it. Try not to faint.

Our salsa is good, but not quite the recipie we were shooting for. We're going to have to keep experimenting until we get the amount of spices that make that "taste" we want. But it was fun to have tried it, and, as I said, it's certainly a good first attempt.

In the evening, we grilled out, despite the chilly weather. Can I confess something? For me, this has been one of the best summers on record temperature wise. I love the cooler weather. I'm sorry for YOUR tomatoes and basil and all the plants that love heat, but, man, it's been great sleeping weather.

Speaking of which, I had the strangest dream last night. And another one where I actually remember dreaming in color. Predomenant color? PINK. Anyway, the dream involved a house in... Africa? Asia? Where we had to close a lot of gates to keep all wild animals off the property (weird mix: coyotes, mountain lions, and...er, monkeys,) and then once inside the estate, I was showing off my collection of masks to my guests. I got the sense that I was a thief of some kind, perhaps this house didn't REALLY belong to me, but many of the masks I had stolen from museums. In particular, under the floorboards, I had two ancient Egyptian "death masks" like the famous one of King Tut, only these belonged to some queen and her consort. I kept telling everyone, "for godssake, don't put them ON!" And, of course, someone did... and the mummies came to life and then it devolved into your standard nightmare, although as I told Shawn this morning, what was weird about it was that even in the dream I got the sense that if I just got out of the way, the mummies wouldn't hurt me. They had their own agenda. But whenever the queen used her magic something pink would appear.

Strange. And left me with those random images floating through my head this morning. Do you have dreams that do that?

Anyway, Mason is ready to do something. I should go!

Mason and I will probably be hitting HalfPrice Books again today, since he's officially off from school now and I have in my possession three $3.00 off coupons. I'm going to be combing the bins for more JMS Spideys, believe you me!

But in other news, we picked up our CSA box yesterday evening, and I have to tell you it's like vegetible Christmas/Hannukha/Kwanzaa whenever we get one of those! This morning, even though it's not yet 10:00 am, my mind is already swimming with thoughts of lunch... should I try the roasted cauliflower recipie in the newsletter? The Ovens of Brittany cream of brocolli soup??? Find something involving Swiss chard?? The mind boggles.

I was smart last night, too. I knew that we'd be out kind of late picking up the box, so I planned ahead and whipped up some pizza dough to sit in the fridge so we wouldn't have to think about what's for dinner. By chance, the Driftless Organics newsletter suggested trying chopped up arugala as a pizza topper (post cooking). So I did! It was surprisingly awesome.

My copies of the German contract for Tate's novels arrived yesterday. I signed them this morning and FedEXed them off to Switzerland this morning (yeah, I know Switzerland isn't Germany, but apparently my agent's sub-agents for Germany are actually in Switzerland.) Now I just have to get to the post office at some point to send off other various bits that have collected over the week that need sending.

Mason and I were hoping to start our adventuring today. His big plan for summer vacation is to go on a series of adventure hikes around the Twin Cities. Unfortunately, he started getting some sniffles on Thursday, and has a full-blown cold today. I have done the bad parenting thing and given him a roll of toliet paper and plunked him down in front of the TV (at least he sits still there!) I'm sure I can coax him out to HPB to spend his coupons, but I'm not in a huge hurry. What are the chances someone's dumped more JMS so soon anyway?

I had a good writing day yesterday. As you know, Bob, I've been struggling a bit with restarting Tate's young adult project because I was feeling, well, whiney. I'm over it. I got a strong 2,000 words in yesterday and was so excited by them that I did that annoying writerly thing wherein I called my partner up on the phone and read them to her! And then, still not statisfied, I ended up putting in a call to my editor and telling her she was right and I was wrong (something a writer should tell their editor every now and again, IMHO.) And that I was excited about the new start. I'd had to leave a message, and she called me back as I was picking Mason up from his last day. We chatted about a bunch of things, and I realized that I am very fortunate in that I actually really LIKE my editor as a person. That's kind of cool, honestly.

Our big plans for this weekend? Nothing! And you know what? I'm really, really looking forward to doing a whole lot of nothing for once.

Yes, this is a fish blog. Feel free to skip or squee as your preference.

First of all, everybody is fine. In fact, I've been having some fun with our CSA produce and the goldfish. I've always heard that goldfish like peas, but frozen peas are hard on their stomachs unless you defrost them (because why? Because goldfish will attempt to eat anything dropped into the tank IMMEDIATELY). So, usually it's too putzy for me to bother with. Ah, but I have fresh, organic peas from the CSA box. Now, I should say, mostly *I* have been gobbling them up, but I decided to see if Joe and Fergus liked the tiny, not-normally-worth-the-effort to shuck peas. Boy howdie, did they!

Now a few peas at lunch time has become our new game. Joe, in particular, loves them. I can feed him four or five under-sized ones, or one or two chopped up normal-size ones.

Also, thanks to a surprise royality check for Tall, Dark & Dead, I'm starting up the new upstairs tank. My plan is, for once, not to impulse buy everything. I did sort of impluse buy the tank already: it's hexagon shaped and five gallons. Less wide, but taller than the previous upstairs tank. But I'm going to try something I've always wanted to do... aquascape, which is to say a heavily planted tank. I've always admired, but never been able to pull off, those densely planted tanks you see at the good commerical shops. My dream is to have a kind of jungle of plants and then add a school of tiny little guys (more neon? Something similar like white mountain minnow?) who can dart about playfully among the folliage.

But I'm not going to even THINK too much about fish yet (except to when I start planting, so that I can have plants that might, say, like hard/soft water, whatever goes with the fish. Though I might actually try doing plants I like FIRST and finding fish that fit.)

I'm actually hoping to establish the tank for MONTHS before I add a single fish.

My first purchase after the tank is going to be "eco-complete" (name brand) substrate that's supposed to be ideal for heavily planted tanks.

I'm off to go research some aquatic plants now. Wheee!

Yesterday the mail carrier delivered Mason's Marvel Adventures All-Ages SPIDER-MAN #52, "No Substitutes" (Mark Sumerak).

As usual, I brought it to school and Mason devoured it in the back seat. The nice thing about this routine? On the days I bring comics, Shawn and I can have a mostly-interruption free conversation about her day. Mostly because Mason will still sometimes blurt out with, "Shhhh, I'm trying to read!"

I ended up reading the issue myself, and I want to make one comment about it. First of all, I love the all-ages titles, and I'm only bummed that they stopped producing Fantastic Four All-Ages, because those were Mason's favorites. My theory? FF is too science fiction, even for comic books. I mean, they go into space on a regular basis. I'm not sure a lot of kids these days find that plausible... I mean, unlike, say radioactive spiders giving you super powers.

Anyway, in Spider-Man all ages, Peter is still a high school teen at Mid-town High or wherever. In this issue, he's leaving the public library and, thanks to his Spidey-senses, stumbles across a secret cabal of villains (psuedo-"Hydra" types). Anyway, he accidentally leaves his biology report on at the scene of the crime after beating up the baddies, and picks up their top secret plans (conveniently in a similar manila file folder) instead. The next day, Peter is mortified to discover he doesn't have his homework. But thinks it's going to be okay when there's a substitute teacher, Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman to those in the know.) No, she comes down hard on him and puts him in detention, which Spidey is kind of grateful for because he's realized that maybe the bad guys might now know his secret identity thanks to his mix-up.

Little does he know that Spider-Woman has his biology report which she found at the scene, and she thinks he's an agent of not-Hydra. At any rate, adventures ensue and, of course, Spider-Man and Spider-Woman end up defeating the evil not-Hydra's plans to blow up Times Square.

The best part of this issue, however, is that the author, Sumerak, finally punches through one of those superhero tropes I hate. The trope (or maybe it's better defined as a crutch) is that people can spend all day with the alter ego of the superhero, talking to him/her, and somehow not recognize their mannerisms and/or voice behind the mask ten minutes later when the hero comes to their rescue. I roll with that because it's so common that I tell myself that the Marvel Universe is populated with people who either chose to ignore the obvious (in the case of Aunt May and MJ "denial isn't just a river in Egypt") or are merely, in the words of my favorite Lois & Clark episode, "galatically stupid."

In this issue, however, at the end when Spidey says he has to leave before the not-S.H.I.E.L.D agents arrive to debrief the heroes to protect his secret identity, Spider-Woman lets him ago with a "you've helped tremendously--" (then, after he's swung a good distance away she says in smaller letters, thus quieter,) "Mr. Parker."

And he never notices. I think it would have been even more awesome if she had just said "Thanks, Mr. Parker," and for him to go, "You're welcome" and zip away, and never notice that he'd answered to his real name, because don't you always figure that might happen some day? (And actually Bendis plays with that in the New Avengers when Daredevil accidentally calls Spider-Man "Peter" in front of Captain America and then stops and says, "Uh, you know Spider-Man is Peter Parker, right?")

I love stuff like that.

In other news, I made purple potato bread with the left-over purple mashed potatoes from Sunday's dinner. (We got blue/purple potatoes in the CSA box.) My biggest disappointment? The bread isn't pinker. It's very subtlety pinkish... at one point the dough was very lavender and I had high hopes that it would bake into a lovely, soft purple. Nah. I'm so bummed. You really can't tell I used purple potatoes at all.

We still have a lot left from the box. I have 3/4s of a zucchini, about the same amount of yellow squash, most of a bag of pea pods, a few more potatoes, a tiny shred of the romaine lettuce and the fennel. It will be gone in time for the next box, which isn't until NEXT Thursday anyway.

I've been neglectful about my BroadUniverse membership and just got kicked off the listserv (without the "e"!) I filled out a renewal form, but am waiting to send it in with the next batch of bills. As long as I'm back in business by Gaylaxicon, I should be okay since I'm hoping to take part in the BU rapid-fire reading there. Which I can't do, if I'm not a member.

Speaking of Gaylaxicon, as I mentioned I stopped by their booth at Pride and ran into Don Kaiser who told me that the Gaylaxian reading group was going to be reading and discussing MESSIAH NODE tonight at 7:00 pm at Turtle Bread (4762 Chicago Avenue, Minneapolis). I talked to Shawn, and I'm going to go. I'm not sure I remember MESSIAH NODE, but it might serve as inspiration for the prequel, as this is the most Mouse heavy book I wrote.

Anyway, somehow I ended up writing a small novel again. Wow, I must entertain myself.

...You were a good fish (although very beleaguered.)

It is my sad duty to inform you all that Typhoid Mary, our one remaining tetra in the five gallon tank who bravely survived (for several weeks) the attack of the moldy, zombie horde, died yesterday of an unknown cause. She will be missed by family and friends. She leaves behind no next of kin (see zombie horde of the molding eyeball fame....eeeewww). A "seaside" memorial service was held. Mason Rounds officiating.

Gucci, gucci, you were a good fish.

After a short period of mourning (seriously, I only just turned off the heater), I plan to break down the five gallon tank and throw it out. Given that it started life as a hospital tank, and then housed several very strange and tenacious illnesses, I think there is no amount of bleach in the world that can rescue this tank. On a more positive note, Shawn says that when more writing money arrives I can get a new tank... which does get me kind of excited. I've long wanted to try a biotrope (?) tank... you know, the kind that has an environment exactly like the Amazon river basin or some such. It's probably too complicated for me, but I have a book that tells me how to do it. Fear me! Fish nerd armed with book!

In other news, I broke down and bought a vegetable today. I know! Look, all that's left of the CSA box is some spinach, arugala and potatos. Whole Foods had corn on sale. Yes, it came from Georgia or some other far off place, but it looked so... yummy. I only bought two ears, though, since Shawn is off on her business trip to Washington, D.C.

Okay, I'm sweating now. Time to retreat into the air-conditioned bedroom.