Categotry Archives: General

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Farmer Gibney Strikes Again

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So last year I started gardening for the first time and planted a lot of things, 2 of which were in the Bible (this is a random side point). You can read all about it here

In addition to the stuff I still have from last year–a raspberry, a blackberry, sage….hm, that might be it. Well and the things I got after I wrote that blog–a dwarf peach tree, a Japanese lantern/Tiger’s eye thing, another raspberry, a trumpet flower thing, a different basil, and lavender, jasmine, honeysuckle…mmm, ground cover flowering succulent thing. It’s hard to remember everything. Where was I? Right so in addition to all that this year I built a raised bed (shoddily out of old and semi-rotting wood that used to be a retaining wall and some old fence posts) and planted more things. These include:

5 kinds of tomatoes, 6 eggplants (2 kinds), 3 kind of chile peppers (I blame my brother) and some chives

containter pots

30 some snap peas, 14 beans, 2 corn, 3 sunflowers

raised bed

a kalamata olive tree that I forgot to take a picture of but it’s totally growing olives right now. As is last summer’s peach tree–growing peaches though, not olives. Obviously.

peaches

One of the old dwarf oranges is covered in incredible smelling flowers (and bees)

orange flower and bee

and I bought some pretty colorful cacti because I couldn’t resist the flamboyance.

cacti

I need to go get that Bible plant book from the library again so I can check on all my new things. I also need to stop planting things. I find it very difficult to stop. Kris and Christine went to an edible perennials class this weekend and told me about tree collards and now I want some. I also want a neem tree, (Don’t ask. Though I bet it’s in the Bible plants book), and a bunch of other fruit trees. And more roses. I’m getting some estimates for how much it’ll cost to remove the three offensive pine trees in the backyard (I find them quite offensive) so maybe someday I could have a neem tree.

Anyway, if you want to see more photos of my plants, they’re here.

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Jenny Lawson and Me.

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A couple Fridays ago Jenny Lawson, author of The Bloggess, was in my town rather than hers. I was pro this occurrence since my desire to avoid Texas is greater than my desire to see the Bloggess in person. Lucky for me than that she was on a book tour promoting her sort-of-true memoir, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened.

I made Kris go with me because I like having friends along to things. And it was good that I did because without her, an awesome thing never would have happened.

Jenny read a chapter from her book, admitted to having thrown up backstage, elicited much laughter and cooing, said “y’all” in her adorable accent several times, and looked overly warm. The bookstore’s reading space was small and we fans crammed in like just so many more human shaped books in rows exuding our accompanying odors and heats.

At the end there was a signing portion and it went by row. Kris and I were seated in the last row so we had some time to kill. In discussing what would happen when it was our turn, we completely foreshadowed the future.

Jenny: Hi?
Me: Mmph.
Jenny: Is that my calendar?!
Me: My book hasn’t come in the mail yet.
Jenny: That’s too bad.
Me: Yeah, so I thought maybe you could sign this instead?
Jenny: I’d love to! What name?
Me: …
Jenny: ?
Me: Garreth?
Jenny: …
Me: (?!?!)
Jenny: Okaaay.
Me: Thank you. Mpmh.
Jenny: Bye.

signed bloggess calendar

This story is only mostly true. I forgot the calendar at home and didn’t have anything for her to sign. I forged all that at home after Kris and I ran away from the sweltering bookstore. But it is true that I am terrified enough of talking to strangers that I probably would actually think my name is Garreth when questioned. It’s silly though considering how much social anxiety Jenny Lawson has that I would still be terrified. It’s also weird, I think, to meet a (in)famous blogger in person. You already kind of feel like you know her. You sort of think you’re best friends even though you don’t actually really know her at all. That’s one of the things I love most about her writing (blog and book), how warm and inclusive it feels. You really can think it’s a friend telling you a story. Even if that story is about hobos eating her pet duck (one of my favorite bits from the book. Typically I would be so horrified by animal cruelty but she made it funny. Terrible genius.)

On the drive home, Kris decided some guy in another car hated her driving as she kept getting confused by lanes. “Arch-nemesis!” she exclaimed. I was still stuck in lovely musings about how Jenny met her husband in a bookstore and he gave a corny pick-up line.

Me: This would be a funny story if I started dating him. How we met, speeding cars, arch-nemesy!
Kris: You’re going to date my ARCH-NEMESIS? Do you understand the concept of best friendship?
Me: No. And then we’d get married and you could give a toast and it would be so romantic.
Kris: I would not attend the wedding of my arch-nemesis, you fool.
Me: OMG! He’s already married! There’s a whore in the front seat.
Kris: I told you so. (nods knowingly)
Me: ARCH-NEMESIS.

And that’s how Kris and I made married arch-nemeses. The End.

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Ten years, baby

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Categories: General

Today is Nyotaimori’s 10th anniversary. TEN YEARS! We’ve come a long way together, blog. In honor of the awesomeness which is March 8th, I’m re-posting my very first blog.

soooo irreverent questions aside, today i heard on the radio that this hair product called krpytonite (bright green gel) is being sued by the owners of the Superman comic. and my question here is this–is kryptonite the hair gel an attack on the american people’s patriotism? let me explain. so i read this article in some magazine about how superman was born in order to give the american people a feeling of power in a downtrodden world, what with the war and hitler and some such. (think chabon’s kavalier and clay those of you who have read it). and then the people as a whole no longer needed superman because we found our own power/subjugated other countries to our world domination tricks. and now (so the magazine said) because of september 11, the people have rediscovered a deep-seated fear of powerlessness and are looking again to mythic heroes and legendary feats of prowess. and they have taken superman as an emblem of the firefighters in new york and as the soldiers in afghanistan. and in that vein, superman t-shirts are cropping up more around town, and the comic is selling better, and people have superman bumper stickers. blah blah blah. (i myself have not noticed this, so we are basically going on the theory that this magazine article was correct). so back to the question, is this kryptonite gel a further reinforcement just of superman’s presence among us, or is it a subtle mockery of america’s fight against terrorism? in fact, is the kryptonite so insidiously buried throughout the country’s psyche that the outward show of bright, green, spiky hair is merely a projection of the will to NOT succeed? of the uncaring apathy that has become our lives? of the crippling effect that our own country-fellows’ minds are having, at this very moment, on the war itself?

assuming i am correct and that the kryptonite sporting freaks are terrorists in our own back yard, what should we do about them? throw stones? smash their car windows? water down their gel with atomic waste and laugh as their hair falls out? food fight?

whatever i say. and again with the whatevs yo. power to the people and free speech/hair products for all. amen.

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My Pig Race Victory

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This morning I was having a dream so ridiculous that I actually woke myself up from giggling. I realize that reading about someone’s dream is most often annoying and boring and probably you won’t find this as funny as I did but….I woke myself up giggling. I have to share that.

I was at a pig fair and had my two pigs on leashes.

pigs.jpg

These are not my pigs.

One was brown and bigger and one was white and smaller. So I’m letting my pigs pull me along and heading them towards a building with a huge arching doorway in front of me on the right. There’s a lot of people walking around, but I spot Christopher Judge (an actor from Stargate SG-1) coming towards me, scowling.

christopher_judge_99.jpg

It’s hard to find a picture of him scowling.

Judge: Damn fair’s taking over my town.

He spots me–or, more accurately, my pigs.

Judge: Pigs?!?

This alone was almost enough to wake me up giggling, but no, it got better.

In the big building I enter there is a race track and a bunch of people with pigs queuing at the starting line. I join them. My pigs are super anxious to run and the white one keeps going over the line and I have to pull her back into place a couple times. The brown one sits, quivering, at my feet. He’s better behaved.

The starting gun shoots and we’re off!

Shot of me and pigs walking briskly.

Voice-over of announcers: And the contestants are on the move! These pigs are forces to be reckoned with. Just look at that pot bellied black one move! Michele and her two porkers are coming up into the lead now.

Shot of me and pigs running along with Michael Shanks (another actor from SG-1) and some other pig-racers.

MS2.jpg

Why am I dreaming of SG-1 people? I don’t know. I haven’t watched it recently. “Recently” being relative. I did watch all 10 seasons and 2 movies a couple months ago.

Voice-over of announcers: And they’re running now! The heat is on! Pigs get your starting engines and engage! Wait, what’s happening now? How are they moving so fast?!

Shot of me and Michael Shanks moving inhumanly fast.

Announcers: And where did the pigs go?!?!

We’re still moving so fast that everything around us is blurs to indicate speed and the pigs are missing from the image.

Announcers: Michele is carrying her pigs!

My pigs poof into place, one under each arm and I am still hoofing it to the finish line. Michael Shanks’ pig can’t be seen yet.

We are glaring at one another and one will get in front and then the other and it’s a fucking race, y’all. But I cross the finish line first, arms raised for victory so the pigs plop back on the ground. They land on their feet, don’t worry. They look both thrilled and also irritated that they didn’t win while on the ground running their short little legs themselves.

Announcers: And Michele is the winner! The undefeated champion! She made Michael Shanks and his pig eat her dust. Speaking of, Shanks’ pig…does he even have one? What kind of man enters a pig race without a pig?

Me: Yeah, what’s that about, Michael Shanks?

Michael Shanks pulls a teacup pig out of his shirt pocket.

teacuppig.jpg

This could very well be Michael Shanks’ teacup pig. I’m not going to speculate.

Tinkling adorable music swells around us as I am drawn in to the teacup pig’s limpid round eyeballs of cuteness. It’s a hugely touching moment and the entire audience of pig race spectators has caught their breaths.

Me: Suck on defeat, teacup pig! I kicked your ASS!

And that’s where I woke up giggling. At the teacup pig’s look of despair and my gloating revelry over him.

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Clothing Swap

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As some of you (most of you?) know, I lost a lot of weight recently. Due to this exciting change, most of my clothing no longer fits. This is cool in the sense that losing weight is always exciting. This is less cool when you don’t have the funds to buy more clothes and are trying to hold your pants up at the grocery story while putting apples in a bag. Maybe it does make it slightly more legitimate that most of my time is spent sitting around in pajama pants though, because at least those have drawstring waists and I can make them fit. Boo-yah, PJs are my bitch.

I’m off topic. The point of my clothing being too big is that I’m holding a swap party tomorrow. A swap party is where you invite your friends to bring their crap and you put out your crap and then you have a crap lot of stuff. People go thru the crap and take some away! Then you have less crap. Unless you took in their orphaned items in which case there is no hope for you.

I’m very excited about this clothing swap. I also have a ton of stuff that Erin, my brother’s girlfriend, is getting rid of that she never wears. This means I have the entire gamut of clothing sizes–Small to XL–on offer. Everyone wins! AND there’s also a lot of kids stuff and some bathroom stuff and some shoes and some books and some jewelery. You know what, I have a lot of stuff, OK? It’s tempting to keep going around my house and finding more stuff to put in the living/dining rooms on my offering tables. Speaking of which…

I wonder if the shed is full of stuff I don’t actually want?

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Christmas Eve, Michele Style

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On Christmas Eve we played a little Apples to Apples. Cousin Kevin and I became embroiled in a competitive battle to amass all the green cards. Uncle Dick quietly and methodically just collected them off on the side so at the end the three of us were in a heated battle. No, wait. Two of us were in a heated battle and one of us was just moseying around, snagging the last green card. I don’t even remember what happened in the last round except that I lost but in the penultimate round….well, that was a good one.

The word? It doesn’t matter what it was because it was Vadin’s turn. We’ll call it “Contrary” because it’s the best word for Vadin. Vadin is 13 years old. Or maybe 12. Who knows. And he solely pick his favorite red card based on THINGS HE LIKES. He often doesn’t know the meaning of the green card OR the meaning of a red card. Picking one from your hand to give him is a crap shoot. You know he likes dogs so you’ll pick a dog but you’ll manage to pick a breed of dog he doesn’t like. I gave him the FBI once thinking maybe he would like them based on his taste in movies? I mean movies with FBI in them sometimes have car chases and explosions. But his exact words as he tossed it aside were, “I hate the po-po.”

“I HATE THE PO-PO.”

So, penultimate round and Kevin and I have recently discovered that I am winning with 7 green cards and he has 6. Also Uncle Jim has been by to mock me for my child-hood way of throwing a tantrum when playing cards until my brother let me win just to shut me up. He’s just jealous of all the cash money I won off him playing poker when he was drunk and I was EIGHT.

The word is not “contrary” but we’re saying it is. I give Vadin “Toys”. This is the best I can do. I mean, TOYS. He LOVES toys. Kevin gives him “Toasting Marshmallows”. It doesn’t matter what anyone else gave him.

Vadin: I like toys…

Me: That’s right you do. Toys are GREAT.

Kevin: You know what else is great? Toasting Marshmallows.

Me: What would you rather be doing–sitting in a cold dark forest on a damp log watching your marshmallow burn or being inside playing a video game?

Kevin (muttered): Dammit.

I know my youngest cousin. But I always underestimate the other one.

Vadin: So toys includes video games?

Me: Yes. It includes all the toys. All of them.

Kevin: Even BARBIES.

Me: NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Vadin: I don’t like [with proper tween boy disgust] Barbies.

So Kevin won that round. And Dick somehow snuck in and won the next and last one and the three of us each ended up with 7 green cards in a big old tie. Heh. I was SO CLOSE.

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