So! What happened in the last month? Well, I Nano'ed for a good week and change and then I went to Texas and... well, yeah. The novel sort of stalled out.

However I did rediscover playing the piano. Started every day in Texas with some music. It was nice to realize that something positive came out of all of those horrible lessons (my piano teacher was very competitive and most of my ABC peers were prodigies.)

It was fantastic to see the family. DarkityBro has really grown into quite a decent fellow, even if he will always be my little brother. My parents seem to get even more adorable and eccentric every year. It's heartening and also harrowing... I'm looking at my future when I look at them. Right now they are on a cruise ship traveling from Rome to Madrid. That's the way to spend the holidays! (Well, maybe not necessarily with all the cruising, but more with the Not Being Here bit.)

Then I came back and it just felt like I couldn't get meshed back in to the world again. Suddenly it was Thanksgiving and suddenly there are all these things I need to do/make/start/finish/etc. Argh.

Anyways... much like the 'f' key on this here wireless keyboard, I am trying to do the unstuck and get back into the rhythm of things.

Tomorrow is the last of my regularly scheduled chiro sessions. Dr. B's treatments have really made a difference. Hopefully I'll finally be able to start lifting weights again. I'm got this in my library queue (recommended by that Stumptuous chick) to get me motivated. Rawr.

OK... sorry for the spotty update. It's getting late, and I've been drawing all night. Probably re-jacked-up some hunchy bit of my back in the process.

I hope y'all had a good Thanksgiving. I'll have to update about the eight sticks of butter I used for my contribution to the holiday.

Things are still generally good, though I often wonder if my baseline has been sagging lately. Will write more soon!

Had my first session with a chiropractor yesterday. One of The Mister's perks at his work is that he and his family get free treatments, so I finally went in to have my ongoing chest issue (which started back in February) addressed.

Turns out I managed to pop one of my ribs out of place... then the extra pushups I did for about a month after that incident moved it totally out of whack. Thus the sharp, stabbing pain whenever I made a distinct move or sneeze. Since February.

Dr. B used something called an activator to press my rib back in to place, and then me gave my neck and my lower back a good crackin' (not the technical term). I received a treatment of ten minutes of relatively strong electrical current applied to my upper back (felt like a thousand-fingered ghoul was pressing down on me, kind of relaxing, actually), and was instructed to sleep on my side and ice my sternum.

Today I feel pretty good. No sharp pains when I sneeze. But I think my chest will be deeply bruised from all the pushing around that happened.

I have three more appointments to round out the month, then perhaps I'll finally be able to lift weights/do pushups/yoga again!

I've also officially started my NaNoWriMo participation this month. I've been wanting to do this for years and finally just figured, what the heck, and started writing on Sunday. I'm already behind, but hope to get caught up tonight while The Mister does some more massages at home.

I'm trying to write a horror story in the first person. Unfortunately, that kind of "you are THERE" writing tends to get squirrely with the tenses for me, so I'm doing my best not to edit too much as I truck along, but sometimes I just have to so that I can reread with some clarity.

Alright... back to the grindstone. These reports aren't going to crunch themselves...

Another reason why I'm not posting so much, besides the cutting back on surfing whilst at work, is that I feel like I'm getting a little repetitive with my whinging about money money money. We're closing out Year Three of our Second Salad Days, and while The Mister and I continue to tread water well enough, there have been many things we've just had to give up in order to meet those subsistence expenditures (and yes, "taco truck dining" does factor in to the budget... we have our priorities!).

I just got another not-so-veiled allusion to how we are letting our nieces down by not going Back East again for Christmas this year. I am thisclose to telling all those emotional blackmailers that if they want our magical, child-distracting presence during specific high-traffic times of the year, that they should organize a pool to get our broke asses out there.

Ugh. That's a little too harsh, I suppose. I think I'll use all this (negative) energy to put together a nice care package of homemade goodness for them instead.

'Cause that's how this PAAW* rolls, y'all. Killin' 'em with kindness.

*Passive-Aggressive Asian Woman

Minor internets crackdown at work. I’m on a bit of a browsing fast. Much like the comestible fasts of yore, this will in the end probably be good for me. Right now I’m just aware of how much browsing goes on around me (we like to Google random facts in this office), and am feeling some withdrawal pains. After this period, though, I think I’ll come out of it appreciating my fartin’ around time more… and hopefully I will treat it more as the privilege that it is rather than taking work-based bandwidth for granted.

. ..o0O0o.. .

My possible NaNoWriMo project keeps shifting around in my head like a slithery, thrashing thing. Which reminds me (and gives me a tangent upon which to escape this particular stalling topic) – I think I’ve figured out my Halloween costume. It’s an oldie-but-goodie: Medusa.


Man, I miss 5th Circle!

This time I have much more hair to work with, and I’ll have to knit more snakes since I gave away the last set. I’m thinking of doing a “modern Medusa”… sort of what I think she would look like today. Maybe “Business Suit Medusa”. Hm. Definitely “sassy pencil skirt Medusa” anyways.

I used my hair as a windbreak on my walk to the cafeteria today yesterday. That’s what happens when somebody (a/k/a “I”) bike to work without packing a non-bike-dork jacket to wear to coverup on little across-the-street jaunts… and all I have on is a short sleeved shirt and armwarmers (a/k/a “icy elbows chic”).

Still planning on the Great Chop soon – I’ve got the stylist picked out, though I don’t think I’ll have a handle on the actual cut until I’m in the chair (or possibly a little after that point… maybe even a week or so later). In the meantime, I’m back to really enjoying having all this hair. There’s just so darn much of it.

. ..o0O0o.. .

The Mister and I are celebrating our ninth anniversary (of making each other honest) this week. The festivities started with a mostly relaxation massage for me Tuesday night. This is pretty Big Deal because I am Deeply Jacked Up and it takes all The Mister has to avoid going in to full on therapeutic massage mode.

Wednesday, he picked me up from work for a long lunch at Bunk Sandwiches. We split a pork belly cubano and a pulled pork sandwich. Both were excellent, but the cubano was picture worthy.


Didn’t say it would be an in focus, good picture, though.

For dinner, The Mister made a hamburger stroganoff and we ladled that over fresh pasta from Pastaworks. For dessert we roasted some of the acorn squash from our garden and dumped a mess of butter, sugar, crumbled vanilla wafers, almond extract, and bourbon on them. Fantastic!

It’s been a year of ups and downs. We both went in to therapy to deal with our individual issues, we’re still struggling to make ends meet, and the dishwasher is still broken. But on the balance, I think we’re still coming out ahead. We still support each other in our separate and joint endeavors, we do our best to go to bed without anger, and we still seek the other out when breaking bread (and if you know us at all, you know that this is The Most Important Thing of All).


Relaxing at the top of Rocky Butte

. ..o0O0o.. .

Huh. This is my third list-based post in a row. Must not be big on the complete sentences. Or the essay format in general. Yup.

• 
  This shirt needs to be a part of my wardrobe. So apropos!
  
  
  And this chair-covering-chair needs to be in our house somehow.... perhaps without the willowy hipster boy, though.
  
  
  Another fantastic tee-shirt design I love. Melancholy Cthulhu headed-fella.
  
  
• Had a bunch of other fests planned for last week - Lovecraft Film Fest, Cheese Fest, Bacon Fest, and Greek Fest. Didn't make it to any one of them. The Mister and I have been fighting off the cold-snap-cold that we both always get with the first few really cold nights, and it was pretty bad over last weekend (mostly for The Mister, I'm convinced all this biking has made me Strong Like Ox). So no fest feasting, which is fine. We just cooked a mess of stuff at home instead.
  
• One of the things I did instead of stuffing my face with cheesy, bacony, spanikopita-y goodness was work on finishing that sweater I mentioned a while ago. I'm wearing it to work right now!
  
  Proof. Blurry, weirdly cropped proof.
  
• I'm seriously considering giving NaNoWriMo a try this year. But I want to write a horror novel, which is pretty difficult for me as I primarily deal in schlocky haikus. Something I read on hauntedbohemia's blog really has my imagination fired up though: (and I'm paraphrasing this super short horror story here) "He awakened, terrified, and reached for a match. Someone put it in his hand". I mean, whoa, that kind of stuff will freak me the frak out every single time. The dark unknown doing seemingly innocuous things that become fraught with terror because they were not expected by the reasoning mind at all. Yikes. Right now I've got a whole hysterical pregnancy idea floating around, but it keeps trying to turn into a heavy-handed feminist metaphor for... something. Ugh. I just want it to be scary, not meaningful!
  
• Every once in a while the cafeteria across the street sells giant blocks of rice krispy treats and I just happen to be over there and cannot help myself from bringing one back to peck at even though I am not at all hungry anymore, and I just can't stop nibbling on crispy sweet morsels of concentrated nostalgia until it is surprisingly and rapidly gone and yes, this is one of those times.
  
• Gonna layer some of Arcana's Frilly Underpinnings over the La Befana scrub with which I started the day. I was a self-proclaimed non-foodie scent person for all of two seconds apparently. It's probably more accurate to say I'm into the gourmand scents. Those of you who have been reading about all my fest feasting can remain completely unshocked by this revelation.
  
• A lot of y'all have been reading maniacs this summer/early fall! I, on the other hand, have only just recently finally finished AS Byatt's "Angels and Insects". The first novella "Morpho Eugenia" flew by very quickly, but the second one, "Conjugal Angel" c-r-a-w-l-e-d for me. I ended up knitting a couple projects, reading other things, catching up on entire television series, etc. etc. before finally putting the nail in that overwrought coffin. Right now I'm trying to get in to Stanislaw Lem's Solaris. The paperback I'm borrowing uses a strangely giant-yet-squished typeface that is making it hard to read (it looks like the novel was adjusted to a large print edition, only to be given regular spacing) and I keep distracting myself with art projects (like the Arcana Straitjacket label, which ended up looking a bit like a self portrait).
  
  Links to Buy Olympia's site.
  Maybe as it gets darker and I wuss out and start commuting by bus, I'll finally settle back in to a regular reading routine. I miss it.
  

• Ya Hala Lebanese food last night for dinner.
  
• El Nutri taco truck tacos for lunch.
  
• Kenny & Zuke's three course dinner (Hungarian mushroom soup, half a tongue sandwich, and an egg creme) plus Cool Moon ice cream (three way split of cardamom, candied ginger, and maple syrup ice cream scoops).
  
• Podnah's Pit BBQ tomorrow for lunch.
  
• A gathering of foodie ladies for a slumber party tomorrow night.
  
• The Polish Festival on Sunday. (Sauerkraut pierogies until I explode.)
  

Hm. Maybe I should start swimming/lifting again. :-\

Whew! Had a busy weekend and now I'm sore all over.

• Got up early (for us for a Saturday) and took part in the beach cleanup. Managed to pick the cleanest beach ever (Nehalem Bay in Manzanita), so we ended up bushwacking to the other side of the spit to find bay-side litter. Then we got lost and followed various horse trails to get back to the car.
  
• Visited the Scappoose Sauerkraut Festival (no link because it was rather lame). Even though it was lame, I still managed to consume half a sauerkraut (and sausage) sandwich, a helping of sauerkraut ice cream, and part of a sauerkraut chocolate cupcake.
  
• Watched the Vaux Swifts coming in to nest.
  
• Met a bunch of displaced Texans and had a great time!
  
• Got up and did yoga at the co-op. The last time I did this on a Sunday morning, I had a challenging - but not too challenging - two hour session of Shadow Yoga. This time I got Todd (who I've since nicknamed "The Taskmaster"). He was more of the old skool, Power Yoga, Let's-do-a-thousand-sun-salutations vein of yoga instruction. At one point he casually had us do handstands. HANDSTANDS. I almost fell down the stairs.
  
• The Mister and I, feeling we got the short shrift at the Sauerkraut Festival, made our way (s-l-o-w-l-y) to the local Oktoberfest of note. It was pretty much insane. I have fulfilled my quota of foods on a stick for the year.
  
• Saw Mark Eitzel at Mississippi Studios. Very intimate venue, and again, Mr. Eitzel must be taking the good drugs. The last time we saw him he was also relaxed and comfortable on the stage - he never seemed this at ease on the East Coast. He bantered, joked, and was really rather sassy. The opening band - Timber Timbre - were a bunch of creepy candlelit Canadians that I'd call retro-hillbilly-gothic or somesuch. Very atmospheric stuff, but it all sort of sounded the same after a while.

Hm. Doesn't look like all that much once it gets listed out. Trust me, though, my sore shoulders/neck/upper back/abs/hamstrings/quads say otherwise. The Mister just did an impromptu deep tissue session on me.. so I'm going to go pass out for the night and let the recuperation begin.

Hm...


Poof!


Neck bling optional.


I like the shape of this one, but am not thinking about color. (Want to be able to donate my hair again in a few years.)


Maybe too helmet-y.

Eh. Still thinking...

Apparently, anyways. Yet another belated happy birthday to my dear friend on-and-off the internets, hushdawg. Someday we will see eachother again, and I'll finally be able to meet your lovely bride! Miss you, and hope that all is well...


Oh no I di-in't!

... aw heck. Let's just say it's so late, it's early.

Happy Birth Month blossom_culp!! May the next year bring more delightful journeys into Americana and kitsch-o-rama, and may every meal be blessed with with Surprise Jell-o.

... for audreymcqueen. Hope you had a fantastic, and fantastically long birthday weekend!

Have some Bowie, by way of a couple crazy Kiwis:

I’ve tested out as a Myers-Briggs ENFP, and The Mister is a complementary INFP. Together, we make for a generally optimistic, somewhat nosy (for your own good!), well-meaning tag-team in generic public situations. We chat up complete strangers, make friendly banter in lines, the whole shebang. I like to think the best of everyone, despite all my cozy layers of sarcasm and cuddly irony (this cute girlie t-shirt says the exact opposite of what I intend! Hee!).

This past Saturday, I was abruptly reminded that not all fall sway to my charm, possibly in part because I was dressed like this:
( Haunting image and anecdote/diatribe under the cut, to save everyone’s eyes/sanity. )

In the whole scope of human existence and conflict, this is the tiniest non-blip ever, and yet it really got under my skin at the time, and since then. I am mostly over it now (what with the telling and the retelling and the re-retelling of it) but I still have to wonder at how easy it is for some people to default into a really dark place from which nothing, not even an obnoxiously dressed goof-ball, can inject just a little bit of humor or at least surreality.

So for them I wish more compassion and humor. And for myself, sangfroid…. or at least a much quicker wit.

Long weekend bullet points:

• Went to a birthday party (theme: dress in pink) where for most of the night I only knew one person there previous to the party. Really let my extrovert flag fly. I should really post pictures of the CRAZY ASSED PANTS I purchased for the event... but I already am sporting an impressive DrunkFace (even though the picture was snapped prior to imbibing). Eh, I'll probably post it anyway.
  
  I picked this one instead, because The Mister hardly ever looks more insane than I in pictures.
  
  
• Before the party, I had a rather intense confrontation with a very bitter, angry couple in the grocery checkout line (in infamous express lane 13). I don't think I realized how generally amiable we all are with each other until suddenly confronted with abject douchebaggery. I hate that the incident still gets under my skin a bit even now. It does make for a great anecdote, though. Keep in mind, this incident occurred while I was wearing Those Pants.
  
• There were several opportunities for pancakes during my stint as a Hood to Coast van driver (37 hours driving the van/cheering on the team, 2 hours sleeping) but we passed all of them up. I know! So I made pancakes this weekend. How many, you ask? All of them, I say. The Mister thought that lots of bacon and sausage should accompany such an explosion of carby goodness. I haven't been hungry since Sunday.
  
  Piles and piles of pancakes staying warm in the oven.
  
  
  Plates of pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs, tomatoes, and figs.
  
  
• Insomnia is still sort of a problem off and on. Lately it's l'esprit de escalier that's been keeping me up. I'll have to tell y'all my two best zingers once I type up a complete play-by-play of The Confrontation in Lane 13.
  

But for now, please to enjoy:

Happy belated birthday to the one and only kittyflop. I hope your birthday weekend is filled with sun and light and love. And of course good ice cream.


... and also well mannered, Lovecraft-tolerant pups.

A friend of mine celebrated her birthday yesterday by hosting High Tea at her house.

I drank oh so much tea yesterday (genmacha, Earl Grey, Moroccan mint, lapsang souchong) and consumed oh so, so many treats (chocolate caramel raspberry cake, bacon quiche, blueberry scone, donut muffin (you heard me right: a muffin that tasted like a donut), banana coconut muffin, cucumber sandwiches, little... molten chocolate cake... thingies... and.. um... huh. Lost some steam there. Oh! Lemon basil sorbet, and... yeah.) There was a lot of tea and food is what I'm saying.

Then afterward, I dropped by another friend's house for a "Ladies' Happy Hour" get together. Her idea of "just some snacks" turned out to be a three course Moroccan meal (of which I sadly could not take part in on account of being stuffed with tea and cake).

I had a really fantastic time and came to some rather obvious conclusions:
1) Eating good food with good people is good times.
2) I have a lot of really awesome friends who have really awesome friends.
3) I am still an extrovert at heart, even though much effort has been made to make myself an innie rather than an outie. Why am I doing this? All that poking is just annoying and kinda hurts.
4) I should never, ever, ever ever ever drink caffeinated beverages after 4:00 pm. Ever.

The upshot of yesterday's lovely excesses is that I am a tired, wired, mired little monkey today. I mainlined some of the (not really very good at all, but serviceable) coffee we have at work to ameliorate the hours of insomnia I've been accruing all week, so now I'm also jittery on top of being exhausted.

And somehow I managed to not realize that by being the driver of our Hood to Coast relay race van, I will be driving from about 9:00 pm to 1:00 am; sleeping in a field; driving from 7:00 am until 11:00 am, and then driving back from the coast on Saturday, only to try to join up with some other friends for a Bollywood themed birthday party two days from now.

And somewhere over the next six days or so I need to design and knit a muppet scarf (oh and a birthday present of undetermined scale/design/utility). Because... I... hate myself? I'm not sure what's going on . I think I visualized The Summer as this big empty plate, and I started to pile things on to that plate from the Smorgasbord of Things to Do, but I wasn't really all that hungry and kept pushing all the stuff around on my plate onto one side and now that my badly selected metaphor is running out I have all this mishmash of things to get through (on that, um, shrinking plate of, er... stinky lutefisk or... something.)

And maybe it's all the drugs talking (and by drugs I mean caffeine because I am a light weight, as y'all already know) but instead of panicking I just feel really ALIVE at the moment.

I'm sure that will change the minute I get home and actually stop to take a breath (right before I keel over into an aggressive nap).

Yeah, it will look something like this.

edited to add: but that spontaneous nappage won't happen until after I make a showing as bike team captain... at a bar, with beer... how does the saying go? "Coffee before beer, never fear; but if there is also lack of sleep, you'd better eat"?

Our insane summer mini-heatwaves have given way to a few damp and cool mornings (though I hear this evening is going to edge into humid/dank territory), so I think it's understandable that my lizard brain has been temporarily fooled into thinking that we are starting to slide into autumn - my most favorite time of the year. I feel like I am coming alive again after being in a sort of spiritual lock-down for the last few years.

The Mister is in the process of training for a CA (chiropractic assistant)/LMT job. !! I'm trying to not make a big deal about this, as things got off to a bit of a rocky start. But... it's a start! (And it is kind of a big deal!) We're both very excited (while also being cautious) about it.

I am taking on a few extra, potentially pretty awesome duties at work. One will remain unmentioned for now but one of the other ones is really sort of a throw away thing, except it totally isn't because y'all know how much of a nerd I am about this: I'm this year's Bike Team Captain! Backing up a bit, every September the local bike advocacy group hosts a friendly work-based bike commuting challenge. Businesses in the area sign up, register, and log their employees' bike commuting miles for the month. I was co-captain for the challenge last year... and this year (due to the rash of baby-having that seems to be going around BUT NOT HERE (knocking on wood)) I'm taking over as Captain. Yup. Rah rah, go team, etc. etc.

In an effort to make the sign up poster sexier, I found this image online that pretty much is how I look on a bike (only, this looks like a fixie, and I always wear a helmet):

Illustration by the talented Shawn Granton... local artist and bike enthusiast. (Kind of describes about 80% of the population out here.)

Even had on argyle socks yesterday!

Oh, and I have another expensive something-or-other to add to my "when we win the lottery" list: a bicycle. Made of bamboo. CALLED THE PANDA.

Behold the lovely Pandurban by Renovo. They just won some sort of fancy pants handbuilt bike award somewhere.

As much as I love biking? That pales in comparison to how much I loathe running. I often tell my (crazy, super fit) co-workers that I will only run 1) for the bus or 2) for my life. This is not a joke. It is fact.

I am in the minority at my work, though, as there seems to be a surfeit of gazelle like distance runners over here. We even have a team that regularly does the Hood to Coast relay. So, as I will never (ever ever EVER) be a recreational runner, let alone a competitive one, I have volunteered to be the driver for one of the vans. We get to sleep on tarps in the middle of a field out in the hinterlands of agrarian Oregon! Good times. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it.

So yeah, a little posty fakeout to go with the fall-like weather fakeout (though The Mister GETTING A JOB is totally not a fake out but we're trying not to play this up too much just yet...). Hopefully I'll have more good news soon.

There are things a-brewin' in Snarkland. But I don't want to say too much lest I jinx them right now. So instead you get a list of bikey things I've noticed lately and/or have been musing for a while. (And yes, I do have a little bit of a wet patch on my right shoulder where I just tossed a Kleen Kanteen of water onto myself in an attempt to hydrate.)

( I'm like the Andy Rooney of bikes... )

Hm. I thought I has more observations, but apparently I do not. We are in the middle of another mini-heat wave over here, though luckily temps aren't expected to top 100 this time. I'm heading out to an organic brewery after work to meet up with carwoman. Haven't seen her since this past spring... she is the most well-traveled person I know!

We did do things other than eat. But mostly we ate.


Late nite taco cart-ing!

There was a lot of talking and laughing and mahjong. A little So You Think You Can Dance (the only reality tee vee program upon which 3/4 of us can agree); a little shopping at the Asian grocery store and of course Costco (it's an Asian-American thing, apparently); surprisingly numerous trips to Big Lots and the Dollar Store; and a lovely heat-of-the-day viewing of Star Trek at the Brew 'n View (my father is who instilled my love of all things cinemagical).

After the dust had settled (back into it's usual place from which we had displaced it in anticipation of clean-freak guests) The Mister and I have been taking it e-a-s-y. We did attend the Portland Cello Project's Extreme Dance Party which was sold out and sweaty and incredibly fun. Somewhere out there, there is video of this event. And there just might be a little bit of me dancing to "Push It" like a sweaty little goth-bohemian maniac. Maybe.

I'm knitting a sweater. Just for me. It's red and microfiber and basically just something to do instead of all the other things I should be doing. I suspect it will also bunch weirdly at my waist when it is done. But maybe the drapiness of the fiber will just make it... droopy instead? It's been four years since I knit a fitted top for myself. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

The Mister is dealing with some Friend Issues. Having had my own Friend Issues in the past, I can sympathize. I can especially sympathize with how frustrated he must have felt as I kept processing and rehashing things ad nauseum with him as my main sounding board. Still, I remember what it felt like to have this ugly feeling in my stomach and just needing to (constantly) talk it out. Hopefully things will resolve sooner rather than later, and not just for my sake.

• Saturday Dinner: after failed attempts at both Lucky Strike and Yummy Yummy, we went to our old standby Ah Fong which we confirmed has a different menu for people who can read Chinese. D'oh!
  
  
• Sunday brunch: dim sum @ Jin Wah, which has become our new favorite place for dim sum. We'll still go to Legin since it's closer, but we have a new reason to schlep to Beaverton.
  
  
• Sunday dinner: another strike out at Lucky Strike (that's the third!), so we went ended up at Kenny's Noodle House, which turned into a fantastic trip down gastronomic memory lane for my parents.
  
  
• Monday lunch: finally made it to Yummy Yummy, which was, indeed, Yummy. But not worth two of them.
  
  
• Monday dinner: we convinced them to try out a taco cart, which while it isn't original to Portland, has become part of the quintessential Portland experience for us. They loved it!
  
  
• Tuesday lunch: another dining first! We made them try the best Philly cheese steak sandwiches in Portland. I did have to make it part of a Costco run, though.
  
  
• Tuesday dinner: Thien Hong, where The Mister and I usually always get exactly the same two dishes (salt & pepper squid and spring pea tips) but we branched out and tried a bunch of stuff on the 'rents recommendation. They deemed this one of the best meals of the trip.
  
  
• not listed, but still worth a mention: every breakfast was a combination of leftovers from the previous day, fresh fruit, Cellar Door coffee, and random pastries purchased from An Xuyen and King's. The Mister also made a large dish of watermelon granita to keep us cool (it was WEIRDLY hot last week) and our garden has gone BANANAS (I need to post pics or y'all will not believe the lushness of it)!
  

Oh man, I'm full just from writing all that.

I took pictures, but most of it is of food. Of course.