Late Summer To-Do List
1. Keep my garden alive. 90 degrees, for 90 days straight, or it feels like it anyway. If you need me, I'll be out back watering.
2. Skate backyard mini ramps. This is always on my to-do list. My priorities are forever straight in this department.
3. Tiptoe my way back to reading. My dog ate my book. True story. He ate page 301-333—the last 30 pages. Time for a new story and a fresh start.
4. Avocados and watermelon. The foods of summer. More of them, please.
5. Eat dinner outside every night until rains. Have dinner conversations with the bees and hummingbirds.
6. Ride my bike to the bar. A luxury of the dry, not-totally-fucking-freezing months.
7. Procure a T shirt dress. A lazy lady's must-have staple of the Indian Summer.
8. Get a little sunburnt—one last time. Just a little, for old times sake!
Homesteading By The Numbers
.5 acres of forest.
2 trips to home depot.
2 95-degree days.
21 fence posts.
18 bags of Quikrete.
4 5-gallon buckets of river water.
1 BLT and a beer with Annie.
4 mosquito bites.
1 full moon.
2 daybreak slumbers destroyed by the neighbor's defiant rooster.
3 dunks in the Deschutes River.
1 chocolate coconut-icecream milkshake at a wooden table in the shade.
Homesteading, Part 1
I purchased a little land in Central Oregon, just a twirl down the road from the Deschutes River. As mentioned elsewhere, my plan was to build a cabin of dreams there. No undertaking works the way you think it ought to, though. It happens that the groundwater in this area is too close to the surface to build a regular old septic system—no, to install a tank for my cabin, I'd need to drop many Gs on a fancy sand filtration system.
The short of it: I'm priced out of building anything for now.
Who cares? Less work for me! I'll be happy with a tidy fence and a modest camper trailer. We could put solar panels on the trailer. We could set up a wood burning stove. We could build a shed for a couple bikes. We could, we could, we could ...
I spent this weekend backfilling the septic test pits. In other words, shoveling dirt into big holes. When was the last time you shoveled for a couple hours straight? Crikey! It nearly killed me. In life, I feel strong. But in shoveling, it's clear that I'm a pathetic weakling. I've got the arms of a typist, a tinkerer, a delicate herb gardener.
No matter, though, because I also happen to love hard work. Mark and I shoveled and shoveled, while the sun warmed the earth and the Ponderosas kicked out that sweet perfume of the Northwest. We heard the rhythms of the neighborhood, we saw where the shadows fall. What can I say? We bonded with the place.
South Century Drive, we'll be seeing you!
Favorites 4.4.17
20th Century Women: Maybe my favorite Mike Mills movie. A perfect depiction of a slice of history, of a "family" in 1979 San Diego and all the complex, strange, wonderful stuff of being alive (including, but not limited to, punk and skateboarding). Being uniquely in my late 30s (you might call it the "middle" of life), I feel like I can empathize with a lot of different ages right now. I can, for example, vividly recall what it was like to enter the impossible landscape that one must traverse from being a teenager into adult hood. And yet, at the same time, I can absolutely imagine what it will be like in the not-so-distant-future to turn, say, 55. This movie does the exact same thing, artfully.
Lucinda Williams, "Passionate Kisses": "Is it too much to ask I want a comfortable bed that won't hurt my back?" A perfect opening line. I love Lucinda and this, the sweetest theme song for crazy liberated women everywhere (i.e. me!).
The Puppy Growing Up: The puppy (did I ever tell you about my new puppy?) is getting bigger, yes, but thank the heavens, his brain is also growing. There's the young lad below, at left, all of 5 months old, next to Chelsea's adult-sized Igby. I can't say we've shared any moments of spiritual communion yet, Piney and me. I'm still teaching him to not step in his own pee. But I can't wait for a time, very soon, when he's all grown up and can be my emotional support animal—instead of me being his ...
3 Things
I Am Not Your Negro. Watch this movie. Show it to your kids. Heck, show it to your pets. Yes, it's that important. I am in awe of James Baldwin as a thinker. What an amazing mind. And when you get to realizing, as he suggests, that the whole of Western Civilization was built (thru colonization/slavery/warfare) on a model of white power that we're still living in, it's like, what the F do we do now?!
Artichoke heart wings. Procured a plate of these from Century Bar the other night. Of all the things that you could deep fry and dip in a sauce instead of chicken wings, I'm gonna argue here that artichoke hearts are among the best. Full of tang/flavor, and yet light and easy on the stomach in their way. A triumph for vegetable-arians everywhere!
Recovery. After our life-giving "winter ordeal," we spent all of last week recovering. Their were sneezing fits and other symptoms of the common cold. And there was absolutely no energy to be had anywhere until Friday or so. Earlier in the week, from the moment I got up, it was a stone-cold countdown until I could come home and sit on the couch. Also, Piney got fixed and snoozed off his surgery meds with the rest of the laid-out household.
