PlazaJen: The Blog

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      Month: March 2008 (Page 1 of 2)

      Pimp My ‘Maters

      March 31, 2008 /

      So, if you’re in the KC area & you’re thinking about growing tomatoes this year? Have I got a deal for you. Someone (JAMES) went a little – um – crazy this year, with the seeds and the greenhouse and the excitement and the tomato varieties. He put an ad on CraigsList, but I’m also pimping his ‘mater seedlings here. Why? Because “we” have over a thousand tomato plants started. (Yes. One Thousand.) And the pepper onslaught has just begun. The small seedlings are in plastic cups, the bigger ones are in pots. You can put them outside during the day – but bring them in at night so they are protected. Here is his sales pitch, and if you want to buy any plants, just let me know! plazajen AT gmail (which is, of course, a DOT COM). If there’s something coming up in the “lineup” that you want, shoot me an email or leave a comment & I can make sure you get what you want. As you can see, we’re taking on the big-box stores already, first year out of the gate. :)

      (The following is all JWo:)

      I’ve got two hybrid varieties, Roma VF (great for sauces, salsa, and pico!) and Better Boy Hybrid VFN: Guinness record holder–342 pounds of fruit from one plant! Better Boy Hybrid (VFN) Tomato is deep red and meaty, up to a pound each. Dense foliage cover, too. Indeterminate. The Roma VF’s were transplanted into 1 oz containers this week and I’ll sell them for $1 each or 6 for $5. They are small, but are in Miracle Grow potting soil and with some TLC over the next month from you they will be big and healthy and ready to plant in late April or May. The Better Boys have been transplanted to 4 inch pots for about 3 weeks now and are 8-10 inches tall with thick stems and lots of leaves. They could go right in the garden now if you use wall-o-waters or make a cold frame for them. I’d like $2 each for these amazing little guys or 6 for $10.

      Now for the heirlooms…I don’t know where to start! All seeds came from TomatoFest and are certified organic. There are detailed descriptions there as well as pics of the fruits.

      I have a gazillion Brandywine and Brandywine Red seedlings in the 16 oz containers….$1 each or 6 for $5. I also have some Jumbo Roma and Russian Big Roma plants.

      I also have some various seedlings that are still in the seed cells that I planted them in…they haven’t been transplanted yet. I’ll sell these for 50 cents a piece or 12 for $5

      If you’re not ready to buy plants yet, hang on before you buy them from Lowe’s or Wal-Mart! Later on in April, I’ll have Julia Child, Bream’s Yellow Pear, Amana Orange, Super Snow White, Ace-55’s, Martino’s Roma, Florida Pink, Striped Cavern, Hawaiian Currant, and Chadwick Cherry as well as some great bell peppers, banana peppers, jalapenos, and habanero plants. Keep watching CL for when I’ve got those ready for sale.

      (Now, back to me – isn’t it always “Back to Me”?! All this tomato talk has my mouth a-watering for real, fresh, heirloom tomatoes. And at least half the reason he picks such a variety and grows them is because he knows how much I love love love them, and that? Is just one of many reasons why I love him!)

      Cellular Re-Education

      March 28, 2008 /

      I’ve had dreams about my father, probably once a week, for the past month or so. He’s always alive, and it’s as though nothing ever happened. Last night was another one, and it was a bizarre scenario – he was loading up an old station wagon to leave. The thing was packed full. He was also absconding with the neighbor’s cat, because he felt it was our cat, since we cared for it, fed it, and it lived in our house. (This has no rooting in reality, but it made for some anxious moments in the dream, as the neighbor got really, really pissed.) I remember that he was planning to leave for ten years, and I went over to him, and leaned my head on his, and felt “our” connection, and I asked him if he’d consider coming back in a year, instead of ten.

      I didn’t get my answer, just the memory and sensation and feeling of the love and bond we always had together. Those moments in my dreams are so pure and true, that in the waking hours, their memory becomes another part of the melancholy, the bittersweet, the dichotomy between reality and desire. It’s as if I still have cells within me that haven’t been educated or informed that he’s dead. They gather and weave a story so simple and touching and emotionally connected and it gives me such an enormous sense of peace in my dreams. The next day, that peace slowly becomes stained with the knowledge that it was, in fact, only a dream, and those cells must go through the education and acceptance process.

      As hard as it is the next day, I love those fleeting moments of connection….

      Random Orts!

      March 26, 2008 /

      1. There are some strange wires sticking out of the wall next to the entry door at work. Every time I walk by them, I wonder what would happen if one were to put them on one’s tongue. What can I say. It’s always interesting in here.

      2. I found out a someone who used to be exceptionally mean to me is sick. One word flashed in front of my eyes, several other thoughts bubbled up behind my lips, and then I just went with, “That sucks.” After all, what goes around comes around. Interestingly, the same word flashed in my husband’s head, and he chose not to say it (until I told him it had happened to me.) I love how we’re alike sometimes.

      3. Speaking of reasons I love him, JWo sent me a link to a Craigslist ad, hawking “Antique crochet set – $20”. His email subject said, “Maybe It’s Not Just For Pussies Anymore”, referencing a time when I’d been a bit belligerent about the hooking craft, as it compared to knitting. Despite my previous entry, I don’t always know when to zip my lip, and if I think it could be funny, I usually err on the side of sharing. Oh, and the items for sale? CROQUET mallets and balls.

      4. I’ve learned a bit of tolerance these past years. And quite a few other things, too. But I was really delighted most to get an email yesterday telling me I’d shown up in a reader’s dream, interrupting a sexual encounter by my presence. With my enormous spoonbill around my neck. Dancing. And laughing! Hey, it could happen.

      5. Tripper does not like cowboys. We watched No Country For Old Men the other night – and he was watching it, too, which totally cracks me up. Like he’s going to whip out a little notebook and start critiquing the film or something. Anyway, when Josh Brolin appeared on-screen, he lost his shit. Deep rumbling growling, a modicum of barking, he was PISSED. Maybe it wasn’t the cowboy role; it could be that he just isn’t a fan of bad mustaches. Anyway, one helluva movie. High anxiety. Excellent. Made more remarkable by the absence of music – you don’t realize how much music leads or gives away in a film, until it’s not there.

      6. I need to get a proper battery for my itty-bitty booklight, as I am tired of being Harriet the Spy each night, clutching a small flashlight under my chin to read.

      7. I got the perfect yarn for my ISE6 pal, and then after I heard from my spoilee, I decided I needed to exchange it for even BETTER yarn. So now I just need to wind it and get knitting!

      8. I do not understand “Milky Way Caramels” – there is no Milky Way inside, just caramel. Now, I’m not complaining? I love caramels? But talk about a brand association and not having it anywhere inside the actual product! (In my two days off last week, the candy supplies plummeted, so I picked a large quantity of post-Easter chocolate to keep the visitors happy.)

      That’s it for today! Hump-de-Hump and all, and spring fever, and crazy fun connections being made all over the place. But none involving random wiring and my tongue. For now.

      So, I’ve Been Thinking.

      March 25, 2008 /

      I’ve been thinking about those 100-things-memememememe thingies, and how I’ve never done one but what I might say if I did, and that led to me thinking about the Ways In Which I Am Different From Most, and while I know we all have a shared existence and our humanity knits us together, the fact that as a child, I picked out a retro toilet seat for our outhouse still pops up as one of those “Hey-O” yodeling-old-lady-waving-at-the-waitstaff sorta facts that makes me feel a little bit different, a little over on the fringe of the universe. Not that it’s bad or wrong, of course. You, readers, you get “it”. “It” being “me”. You know things around here aren’t always uniform, or even partially dressed. And yet, you still return. That’s nice! I do try to be a good hostess, and one of the things I was instructed upon, early-on in life, was to never run out of food at a party. To me, it is the Cardinal Sin of Entertaining.

      The other thing I was taught, at some point in my teens, was How To Avoid A Masher. That was exactly how my mom put it. And that I needed to learn it. NOW. We were visiting family friends, and I stood there with an utterly confused look on my face. I said, “What’s a ‘Masher’?” and our friend’s husband said, “THIS!” and he grabbed me in a bear hug, bent me over backwards, and pretended to kiss me.

      I almost peed my pants in terror. Mashers! Who knew! Where did they lurk? How surprised would they be if they dropped me? (How surprised would I be?) By the time I was back on my feet, blinking at everyone laughing, I realized that most Mashers would ultimately fall into the category of “People You Know.” So it was in that small kitchen, I learned how to deftly and swiftly turn my cheek as pursed lips approached me, to kiss the air by the Masher’s ear, and pull back, exclaiming in delight while fiercely creating distance between my face and the Masher’s. Funny, the life lessons that stick with you. Admonishments to save money? Nah! But how to avoid sneak kissing attacks? Check! And, oddly enough, I recall that on that trip, I purchased an army green overall outfit, and a tan mesh cloth belt thingamajig, plus numerous pairs of delicious plastic earrings. It was, indeed, the 80’s. Mashers and Madonna and Michael Jackson.

      I also have thought about the Dichotomy of Me. For instance, I am unorganized, I have plenty of clutter, but god help everyone if one particular thing is “off”. We were sitting in James’ grandparents’ living room this past weekend, and they have furniture and items that span the decades. In particular, a very large lamp, with an equally enormous lampshade, sits by one of the couches. James was seated by it, and I picked the recliner on the other side of the lamp. I noticed the lampshade was all akimbo, the bottom of it at a wonky angle to the horizontal plane of the end table. Immediately, I adjusted it back to level. We continued to watch this really cool show comparing Man to Apes, and I turned to say something to James, and noticed the shade was, once again, at a completely strange angle. Almost unconsciously, yet compulsively, I readjusted it and kept talking to him. A small gnome (one assigned to the OCD Task Force) in the back of my brain scribbled on a post-it: “Something wrong with lamp. Shade keeps tilting. May need further investigation.”

      A few minutes later, I turn back to talk to him and – yep – the lampshade was once again jacked up. Now I’m a bit exasperated, and as I frown and return the shade to parallel the floor, I start to mutter and curse, something about what the fuck is wrong with this lamp, I keep moving the shade and yet it keeps going back and, and my husband is looking at me and then bursts into laughter. Because, yes, of course. HE is tilting the lampshade every time I turn around. Because he knows I am obsessed, and will not let it go. Had he kept a straight face, it may have taken one more adjustment before I clued in to the fact he was messing with me. I gave him that – it was damn funny. (But I still fixed the shade, and it got left alone after that. Phew!)

      So, even though I’m not ready for one of those big long lists of how we’re all alike and how I’m different, these are the ones floating at the top today….

      Uff-Dah!

      March 23, 2008 /

      So, the collective reaction to the giant fish can be summed up rather easily into “Holy shit” or a variation thereof. I got numerous emails and text messages & comments, and Spyder, your comment about using one of the dogs for bait garnered a huge guffaw from me! (I was quite pleased to be able to access email and the internet (marginally) via my phone while we were down there – just enough to keep in touch, but my inability to and dislike of texting kept me in check.)

      Yep, that’s the biggest fish I have ever caught! We went snagging on Friday, and were out in overcast, blustery cold weather that turned to sunshine, and we were on the water for about three hours. (I am sporting a fantastic, oddly-shaped sunburn on the lower half of my face, the part that wasn’t shaded by sunglasses or a hat. Sessy!) About two hours in, my hook grabbed that fish, and the reeling was on. Grampa pointed out I need to “PUMP AND REEL” or I was going to burn out the reel in no time. Yeah, yeah, right, I forgot in the excitement. It also makes it a LOT easier to wrangle a fish to the boat.

      I didn’t feel the need to do any more fishing (ala George Costanza – quit while you’re ahead!) and the rest of the weekend was spent snoozing, hanging out, knitting, chatting, playing cards & laughing. And eating delicious fish! Now we’re back home to reality, laundry, and responsibilities. The dogs had a grand time as well, and it was Tripper’s first lake trip and he has some learning to do….. doofus doesn’t keep his mouth shut enough while he’s swimming with a dummy, so we were treated to much ralfing of water when he’d get back to shore. Good lord! My favorite moment was when he brought James a dead fish instead of a dummy. (I believe I even have a picture, which I’ll offload at some point.) Guess he just was getting into the spirit of the weekend!

      Happy Easter…..yay for half-price chocolate tomorrow!

      Fishing Clarification

      March 19, 2008 /

      Yes, those fish are for eatin’. They are huge. They’re called spoonbill, or paddlefish, and they’re only in five major U.S. rivers, the biggest being Missouri & Mississippi (the others are tributaries to these two) – we fish the Mighty MO (which goes into/through the Lake of the Ozarks). The only other place in the world to catch them is the Yangtze river in China. They look prehistoric, and the only way you catch them is by snagging. It’s a fair amount of work, you have to find them, and basically catch one on a hook by running your line into it. And they fight. And they’re good eatin’. So good. OMG. I can’t WAIT to get down to the lake to have some!

      And if I do? I now have all sorts of bells & whistles on my phone, and you bet your ass I’ll be mobile blogging my moment!

      This Ain’t Fishin’ on the Wii…..

      March 18, 2008 /

      My phone chirped at me, and the message was a photo from James – showing a limit of crappie. For whatever reason, the photo is teeny tiny, but I still got the point:
      crappie

      Then, not much later? I get this picture.

      Big Spoonie

      OK, good lord. The fishing? It is good. Less than thirty minutes later, I get another jingle from my phone:

      Second Spoonbill

      Now I’m just worried they’re gonna catch them all before I get there this weekend! Sheesh!

      I Can’t Believe I Never Blogged This.

      March 16, 2008 /

      I swear, I blogged about this a while back. But I’ve searched my archives (even using an external search tool), and nothing shows up. (If you remember reading it, tell me! I’d hate to turn this into the Alzheimer Files.) So, here goes, another 8-Track Flashback!

      Back in the day – 1976 – when the family moved onto the farm, and we built our dome home, my dad was extremely eco-friendly. We were getting Back to Nature. We had running water, and electricity, and a two-party-line phone (of course I listened in, once, and got totally busted by my mother). That phone, as I recall, could kill a fellow. Back then, phones were made of lead, or something equally weighty, and our phone was mounted on the wall, complete with the 20-foot tangled cord and the finger-button dialers, that whirred and clicked as you rotated it over to the stopping mechanism and it returned to its original position. Anyway, where I was going with this is that we were pretty rustic. In that we had no indoor toilet. We had an outhouse. Allow me to educate you a bit in the construction of outhouses, as I assume most of you were raised with flushing toilets. Outhouses are best when they’re a bit of a distance from the house. Ours had a path that led to it, lined with wood (slippery as shit when wet), and no rail – so if you slipped to the right on your voyage out, you could ostensibly end up 30 feet down in a ravine. Things you consider in the dark of night, in the winter. You truly become skilled at determining how badly you actually have to go.

      Anyway, as a kid, I went everywhere with my dad. I remember long, boring trips to the hardware store, where I would gaze around and stare at all the uninteresting things, waiting, waiting, waiting. I was too young to be left to my own devices in the VW bus, or in the store, really, so I trailed along behind him, and I didn’t interrupt or ask many questions, because he was always really focused on the job at hand. So all of these trips are one giant blur of DULL in my memory, except for one.

      We turned down the aisle that held all of the bathroom accoutrements, stopping in front of an expansive display of toilet seats. My father looked down at me, and said, “You pick it out.” I was transfixed. And a little disbelieving. I looked up at him, my face clearly saying, “Really?” He nodded. “You pick out our toilet seat!” Finally, a decision, an option, a choice, and not just any choice, but one that we would live with for the foreseeable future. Keep in mind, I was 8? So my taste was not yet formed into the refined, persnickety influence that tries to govern me today.

      I gazed up at the three rows of seats. Mostly white, some wooden, nothing really stood out until my eyes landed upon It. I pointed at The One. It was fabulous. Absolutely tremendous. And exactly what you’d get if you asked an eight-year-old to design your outhouse. I remember he looked at me sideways, the way he did when he was still figuring out what to say, what to do. “Really?” he said. “Yes!” I exclaimed. Transfixed. Hypnotized. By what was the most fabulous toilet seat in the entire line-up.

      It was completely drenched in Cherry Red paint.

      On the lid, in black, there was a tree in the lower right. With a branch extending out, and a hole in the tree, with two yellow eyes looking out. Foreshadowing! Simply a portent of things to come. Because, then, you lifted the lid, and you were greeted by an enormous 1970’s owl, in thick black lines, covering the entire inside of the lid, WINKING AT YOU.

      He looked at me, and saw my excitement. My abject love of the bright red toilet seat with the communicative owl. “OK,” he said. We bought it and took it home.

      I think my mother was a little taken aback, and I remember overhearing something to the effect of “What? This? Really?” (Yes, I got a lot of my style tutelage at her hands, and for all her faults, I’ll give her that – she has got style, and she probably realized that day she needed to Start Earlier.) I puffed out a little when I heard my father say, “I told Jennifer she could pick it out.” Why yes he did. Jennifer did pick it. Picked out a WINNER. And out to the outhouse it went. Many a cold night, I visited my owl buddy. I remember when a grade-school boyfriend gave me a gold ring, with a tree on it, and then a few days later, asked for it back. I lied, and told him I’d lost it, angered that he no longer wanted to be my boyfriend. I looked at that owl as I tossed the ring through the hole that night. Winking, knowingly. Agreeing that he was a schmuck.

      We eventually tore down the dome home, and put in toilets and marble floors and vaulted ceilings and the house became something of a palace, a far cry from its dome home footings, poured over the original concrete. The outhouse, too, was torn down, the path fell away, and the people who bought the farm, who own this chunk of my past, have no idea of the comedy and drama, the style (and lack thereof) that was rooted and grown, interwoven and cemented, in my mind, in my life, in my memories. In addition to the toilet seat itself, my most cherished part of that memory is that my father told my mother we were keeping it. Because I had chosen it. It’s why I weep every time I watch Little Miss Sunshine. We all have a little Olive in us, and we all want to be loved for exactly who we are. Questionable taste and all.

      P.S. I’ve looked everywhere for a photo of this toilet seat. I saw one on eBay a while back (wrong color, but same visual), and had no luck today finding it. As they say, they just don’t make ’em like they used to….

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