The song I was looking for is called "The Magician (Camilo)" and it's by Vancouver band Said The Whale, and you can't get it anywhere except a CBC Radio 3 podcast at the moment. They have released it as a very limited edition vinyl EP, but that's no use to me as I have no way of playing records. Ca-ca-ca-camilo, I need to see where you made that car go... I downloaded the podcast and the song is at 4:08 minutes into it, so I can listen to it for now (not the best quality, though). Their album doesn't come out until October!

It's such an indie-kid hipster song, but it's the first new song I've heard on the radio recently that I've thought to myself, "What's that? I like it!" AND I LISTEN TO A LOT OF RADIO AT WORK, LET ME TELL YOU. A lot. Although mostly it's The Ocean 98.5, which generally sucks. I heard this song on The Zone 91.3, which seems to play a lot of 90s grunge, Smashing Pumpkins and Greenday and such. Interesting.

It's all very well to be in possession of a double sea kayak and a canoe, but if you have no way of transporting them to the water, you aren't going to get much use out of them. I need some kind of wheels that I can put a canoe or kayak onto and pull to the beach - it isn't very far, but it's far enough that carrying said watercraft without such an aid would really, really suck. I know, because at one point I carried two heavy buckets of rotten seaweed home from that beach, and it was much more of a workout than I had intended it to be. About halfway home I cursed myself for not driving Jason's truck. The truck, you would think, would be a good way to carry a kayak or canoe. It's not. The pick-up (box? Is that the right word?) is too short to just throw the boats into, and the roof is a bit too high up for lifting them onto. The whole thing would be rather sketchy. When we brought the boats here we used Jason's dad's truck, which is a bit lower to the ground, but it was still extremely sketchy. I'm not going to explain all the mechanics of the situation right now, but a small trailer that could be walked with would be ideal. A cart. A kayak cart! That's what I need. Then I can call myself a kayak-carter.

I have garlic hanging to dry on the deck. Anyone who wants to help me clean it once it's dry will get some for free. Just so's you know. I also have a lot of broad beans and potatoes to eat. THAT I GREW. OH YEAH! Oh yeah, and carrots, and chard, and too much dill and bergamot. Other things are starting to take off now: beets, more carrots, squash and pumpkins (flowering now), cilantro, lavender, rutabaga, red poppies, marigolds, nasturtiums... I think I'll grow more carrots and less flowers next time, though. I'll have some fall/winter carrots this year, too. The chickpea plants are flowering, but they aren't very big, so I am not expecting huge amounts of chickpeas from them. But hey! I grew some chickpeas, guys! I think that's pretty awesome. Plants like to grow!

I ordered some more seeds from Saltspring Seeds, and I'm so impressed by how fast they got here! I placed the order online exactly two days ago. The seeds arrived by mail today. I'm going to play around with buckwheat, rye and hull-less barleys as cover crops. In the spring I want to grow quinoa, and lots of it. I have discovered that if I eat quinoa for breakfast before work, I have way more energy and don't feel too hungry again for a good long time. It's definitely the breakfast of champions. I like it warm, mixed with some honey, almonds and blueberries... mmmm....

Now, what I want is to get that kayak-cart and a crab trap and a fishing license. I love fresh crab more than I can explain with words. Maybe even more than I love deep-fried squid... and Jason doesn't like it at all! All the more for me!

I was just linked to the Farmhouse Farm's blog by my mother. Farmer Rin says:

"I started this farm as an experiment, an answer to a problem. I want to live in Vancouver because this is where my friends, my community are. I also want to live autonomously; by this I mean that I don’t want to work my ass off to make somebody else rich, I don’t want to work some job that I need to keep in order to pay for the car I need to get to the job. I want to do work that is meaningful and real, work that needs to be done because it has inherent value, not work that needs to be done only to make more work in order to continue existing. The problem is that living in the city means interfacing with a system that doesn’t value my kind of work, doesn’t speak any language except money, property, scarcity, acquisition. The problem for me was how to reconcile these two realities, make space for my kind of values in a place where they are foreign and in some cases even antithetical."

YES. Yes yes yes. This is me, this is how I feel about things.

In other news, my dad harvested some of my garlic today. The problem with planting garlic out in Sooke is that I have to go to Sooke to do anything to it or for it... and since I have to work in Victoria most days, working "my ass off to make somebody else rich" at Cobs, it's hard to get to Sooke until my weekends, and lots of those are booked up by weddings this summer. So I guess this weekend I have to go to Sooke and clean garlic!

My coworker made me a special picante pizza twist at work today. I have to go attend to that now. Nom nom nom...

I got all excited about applying to Camosun because I was looking for a way out, a reason to say "Look, I can't work here very much anymore." I don't feel like I have an awful lot of options right now, and I also think I need more connections, because it seems that (especially in Victoria) it really matters who you know. There have been opportunities for me to get involved with groups or communities where I probably could have made the kinds of connections I want to make, and I haven't bothered, either because I was afraid or because I was too busy working or having fun elsewhere.

Now I'm thinking I'll register for the Organic Master Gardener course with Gaia College (through Royal Roads), for the fall. That would be a good way to not work more than a couple of days a week at Cobs, and it might force me to get to know more people who do the kind of work I'm interested in. Right? I feel so unsure about everything. I think I want someone to tell me, "Yes, that's a good idea! Do it!" Plus it's only $695 instead of $3800... and it's just from the end of September till the end of November.

Gah, I just feel dumb, like everything I've done up until now has been a waste of time. I know that's not true and I know I'm actually smart and if only employers knew what they were missing out on... etc.... but I get so insecure as soon as I start looking for jobs/other "next steps."

Is there any one course or certificate or specific work experience that you would recommend to me? Or that you wish you had done? Tell me stuff!

( This is what I call a good photograph. You have to see it large, so you have to click this right here. )

I'm proud of that one.

Last night I jumped in the ocean for the first time this year. I had been at the beach, reading some Alice Munro stories, for about 2 hours, and I was heading home when I got the urge to jump in the water. Unfortunately it is a very public beach and I didn't have my bathing suit, so I hurried home, got changed and dashed back as fast as I could (which wasn't all that fast, seeing as I talked to my mom on the phone for twenty minutes in the interim). I got in and out twice and got that lovely tingling feeling you get from dunking yourself in very cold water. Then I walked home to in my towel, smiling, to water the garden and have a hot bath. It all felt so good.

I'm cleaning the house today. I hadn't really cleaned anything in at least a month, and I was starting to feel ashamed when anyone came over. When I mentioned this, Anna said, "Took you long enough!" I replied, "Well, it has to be really damn dirty..." I've actually cleaned the bathroom, swept, vacuumed AND mopped the floor already. Now I'm ready for a nap. Phew.

Here's a picture from Morgan & Rob's wedding, June 20th, 2009.



It's better viewed large, which you can do if you go to the Flickr site. I've made a set there and will add a few more to it later.

As far as I'm concerned, Michael Jackson died years ago, when he decided to undergo ridiculous amounts of plastic surgery and change himself from a cute young black dude into a freaky space alien from hell. But that's not what I want to talk about right now.

What I want to talk about is far more mundane. You won't be interested, I'm telling you right now. I'm going to write about it, because I'm full of delicious lasagna and beer and I feel like sometimes, the mundane and everyday is way more interesting. AND EASIER TO DEAL WITH.

First of all, shower curtains. Did you know that if you have a free-standing claw-foot tub (like we do) for your bath/shower combination, you will require not one, but two regular shower curtains? Yes, that means that if you go out shopping for shower curtains, you have to spend twice as much money as anyone else, because you can't really buy a claw-foot sized shower curtain anywhere (and even if you could, it would probably be twice as expensive). At fancy places like Muffet & Louisa, one single shower curtain can set you back up to $60 or more! Luckily at Capital Iron you can get one for around $11 if you don't care how fancy it is. At Zydeco you can have amusing shower curtains with monkeys, sushi, skulls and cross bones, or even flames all over them... but these are also at least $27 each, and if you live with people who appreciate simplicity in design, they will not be happy about a sushi shower curtain (I think it'd be hilarious, though).

One day I will get to paint a bathroom turquoise and get an amusing shower curtain to match. One day... it will be around about the same time that I get to be a homemaker and gardener all the time and do not require paid employment. Maybe when I win the lottery. I'd better start buying those tickets.

Right. Moving on. Do the people at Value Village realize, when they stick the price tag sticker right in the middle of the part of the bowl or mug that you eat or drink out of, how much soaking in very hot water it takes to get the stickiness off? Put the damn price tag on the bottom! At least then you can use the dish after a quick wash and dry, and you can let the sticker come off gradually every time you do the dishes. It's so much easier.

And speaking of Value Village, I was just walking through there (come on, it's right next to Capital Iron, how could I not go in?) and all of a sudden I saw this amazing gray jacket with white embroidery on the pockets and around the sleeves. Turns out it was part of a two-piece, very sexy, skirt-suit, and it just so happened to be my size. I was not planning to buy a suit today. Hell, I don't even have any reason to ever wear a suit. But it's Robert Rodriguez and it fits me and it was $29. Need I say more?

Philips' new Accusation Ale, ESB (Extra Special Bitter) tastes better and better the more you drink it. It also has a rather entertaining picture of a judge on the bottle, banging his gavel and looking fierce. I'm going to take the rest of the bottle and go and read some Alice Munro.

Email from the Admissions and Enrollment Facilitator at Camosun:

"Based on my lists and the fact that I did receive several deposits last night (from those invited previously who were going to be withdrawn but did pay) it looks like you are number 4 on the list.

I will keep you informed."

Gah! The suspense! Also, she said she hadn't received my transcript yet, but it may have arrived and just not have been brought to her yet, whatever that means. The woman I spoke to at St. Margaret's said she would fax it by the end of today. Oh man, I hope I get in...

This is pretty awesome. I have a lot of trouble with the fact that "the land of the free" wants to legislate anything at all about who can marry whom - it's ridiculous. I just had to Google same-sex marriage in Canada because I couldn't remember if we were just as bad... turns out we passed the Civil Marriage Act back in 2005, which seems like a while ago now but also shockingly recent. Apparently I was oblivious at the time. Probably stressing out about some biochemistry exam or other and completely disregarding politics. What I discovered about the Canadian Civil Marriage Act in my Wikipedia-ing:

"This enactment extends the legal capacity for marriage for civil purposes to same-sex couples in order to reflect values of tolerance, respect and equality, consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It also makes consequential amendments to other Acts to ensure equal access for same-sex couples to the civil effects of marriage and divorce."

All right, that's good. But damn, I just read up about the US "Defense of Marriage" Act and it made me mad. That shit is whack. The federal government of the United States of America does not recognize same-sex marriage, and is prohibited from doing so by the Defense of Marriage Act. I think I have to stop Wikipedia-ing stuff now, 'cause I'm just gonna get madder. Also, I'm glad that if I had to be born a white North American, at least I ended up a Canadian. We're not the most progressive nation in the world, but we're doing a little bit better than our neighbours to the South on some issues...

I think I need to thin my onions, and perhaps transplant the thinnings into another row. They just aren't getting bigger, despite my alfalfa-ing and watering and complete organic fertilizing. Actually, no, TWO of them have gotten bigger, but the rest are so wee. That is my plan for this afternoon, but first I think I'll have a siesta.

I've been shopping and fibre-festing it up this weekend, hanging out outdoors with knitters and spinners and getting a lot of sun and spending too much money. The first of the four weddings I have to attend this summer is next weekend (the 20th, but we'll be camping at French Beach the 19th-21st), so I got them a present today and bought myself a dress. At Mountain Equipment Co-op. Yes, I bought a dress at MEC. I'm the biggest MEC whore ever... it's Prana and dark brown and apparently made of recycled material. I'm such a hippie (and so in overdraft until Tuesday).

Oh, and I knit one row on the Victoria section of "the longest scarf in the world." Knit a row, donate a dollar to Heifer International's "Keep the Fleece" project - buying fibre-bearing animals for poor communities worldwide. Their main website is here if you want to know what they do, and info on the scarf project is here. I would have knit more than one row, but I only had one dollar handy at the time.

YEAH THREE-DAY WEEKEND! Threaten to quit and managers quickly change your schedule back to the way you like it, it seems :)

EDIT: I have convinced Jesse & Karolina to go to Atomic Vaudeville with me tonight. I am leaving momentarily so I can get cash and tickets and such. Y'all better not be sold out! Don't let me down!

...is that the raccoon who may or may not live directly beneath our front porch has gotten so bold that yesterday, IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, it came into the kitchen when I was washing dishes and started eating Charlie's cat food right behind me. I didn't notice at all. I had my back turned and suspected nothing, until I heard Jason yell "What the f***? There's a raccoon right there!"

"What?" I asked, completely oblivious. "What happened?" Jason was already halfway down the stairs at this point, chasing the raccoon out of the house. "Look out the window!" he shouted. Of course, I went to the wrong window and missed him chasing the raccoon across the yard. That would have been exciting to watch! The nerve of those raccoons. That very same day, when I was biking to work at the ungodly hour that I bike to work, I saw a huge fat raccoon right outside the London Drugs on Yates, strolling down the sidewalk like it owned the place. Of course, it was probably thinking to itself, "The nerve of these humans! Paving everything over and driving around like they own the place! Really!"

Good on ya, raccoons. You're smart and you've figured out how to live around us - I think you deserve some credit for that. Good survival skills. Someday the world will be entirely populated by rats, cockroaches and raccoons (in terms of macroscopic animals, anyhow).

I'm pretty sure that is actually what goes on. Yep.

About three years ago, knowing nothing except how to knit some garter stitch, I began making a sweater-coat. Recently I finished knitting it, having knitted a number of other things and gaining many skills in the interim, and realizing that you really should make gauge swatches for this sort of thing. It was enormous. Gigantic. Much larger than it was supposed to be, at least three times too big for me. I realized this about half-way through the actual knitting, but decided just to keep going because I thought, "Oh, what the heck, I can shrink it later." It became a good party joke recently - someone would ask what the huge lump of knitted stuff on the chair was, and I would hold up one enormous sleeve and then everyone would fall about laughing. Today I decided to try and felt the darn thing.

Easier said than done! Three hot wash cycles later it is considerably smaller, but slightly strangely shaped. For whatever reason one side decided to shrink faster than the other, which doesn't make any sense to me because both sides are identical. If the top had shrunk more than the bottom it would have been understandable (and that did happen to a certain extent), as they are differently knit, but from left side to right side it's exactly the same (bilaterally symmetrical, if you will). The mysteries of wool! In any case, now it's all laid out flat on the deck, with jars full of water as weights, and I am hopeful. I don't know if it will end up being the kind of thing I would wear out in public much, but it will certainly be warm. And as anyone who knows me can attest, what I need in the winter, even in mild BC, is damn warm sweaters...

I got some short shorts. They look like the kind of "running" shorts my mom and her friends wore to hike the West Coast Trail in 1981, only slightly more modern in design and colour. But basically the same shorts as she wore back then, hiking when she was pregnant with me. This makes me happy for some reason. When I tried them on in the store (Flavour, on Johnson St., if anyone wants to know) I was a bit horrified by the lighting and wasn't sure I could get away with such shorts if my legs were going to look like that. Anna says the lights in dressing rooms are meant to make you feel bad about yourself and the shorts are good, but if I still try to wear them when I'm 50 she'll take them away. Whatever, if I want to wear short shorts at 50 I'll damn well do it. And I think they look pretty good, now that I see them in natural light at home.

I should have gone to bed two hours ago. This week I've been doing more stuff and sleeping less than I should have. On Tuesday we got evacuated from work for an hour because of a gas leak across the street, and then we had to go back and finish baking, so that was a long day... Ah well. Just once more into the fray, and then it's the weekend.

I was totally distracted on my bike ride home today by a pair of knee-high, gold gladiator sandals. Of course, they were on a pair of long, lithe, tanned legs which made them look extra good. I'm pretty sure I couldn't pull off such footwear. Anyway, totally distracting.

I'm going downtown now to see if I can find some shorts. Maybe short shorts. I only have two pairs of shorts and both are knee-length and made of thick material... good for biking and hiking but not for lazing about in the heat in Oak Bay. It's like, 30, 31, maybe even 32 degrees C around here right now. It promises to cool off to maybe 23 over the weekend. The broad beans wilt with the heat stress in the middle of the day, but perk up again once the shade hits in the late afternoon. They have so many flowers! Go, broad beans, go!

Apparently my doctor just couldn't see my cervix properly, so she sent me to the colposcopy clinic so they could have a closer look. The neat part was that they have a computer monitor attached to a camera so I got to see it myself, and see exactly what the doctor was doing. At first this made me cringe a little, but then I was interested. It only took about five minutes, and the doctor said everything looked normal and fine. There were a couple of little benign cysts on one side, which was probably what my doctor saw (but couldn't see properly) when she did the PAP that gave her cause for concern, but apparently those are totally normal and fine too. The colposcopy clinic doctor told me that my second PAP smear was normal, but my doctor just wanted to make sure. Hmmm. My doctor is too busy, I think, because she didn't give me all the info and I was under the impression that I had had two mildly abnormal PAPs. No, just one? Okay. That's good.

The colposcopy doctor said something about the cervix opening (which looked pretty darn small, about the same size as the head of the Q-tip when said Q-tip was stretching it open) dilating to 10cm when you have a baby? Only 10cm? Aren't babies' heads bigger than 10cm, even when they're first born? I should've asked, but I was feeling nervous and I just wanted to get it over with. Of course I had to get a nice, young, fairly attractive man doing my colposcopy. Anyway, 10cm?! Holy crap. No wonder you need to forget the pain of childbirth, fast.

Afterwards I went to the Penny Farthing Pub on Oak Bay Avenue and had a piece of deep-fried Bailey's cheesecake. (Darn it, I was hoping it was actually Guinness cheesecake, but it was Bailey's!) It was pretty awesome. Now to tackle the tent caterpillars of doom, which are eating my poor apple trees.

The snail is dead :( Goodbye, Valentine's snail, we had a lot of fun watching you eat algae off the sides of the tank. I am sad about this, perhaps disproportionately so.

What I'm not so sad about, though, is my garden! My mom described it as a French "potager" style garden - an eating garden with herbs, flowers and vegetables all mixed together. I don't care what she wants to call it as long as I can eat out of it, really. I have just the right amount of spinach to harvest every couple of days - but soon it will be excessive and I will have to share. In about a month I'll have far too much yellow Swiss chard. Maybe I can sell it at a pocket market or something. We'll see. I've been thinning the Shanghai bok choy and Gai Lan and using the thinnings to make stir-fries. I dug up another bed and planted more carrots, beets, beans and Thai basil. I've also got pumpkins and butternut squash planted here, and some in Sooke next to the garlic and onions. And still I have more seeds for planting later...

Tomorrow I go to the colposcopy clinic. Wish me luck!

Here's a picture of the baby donkey. Only a few days old! Also, this is proof that Jason and I did actually make it to Beacon Hill Park on Sunday. We were just a bit late, and so didn't meet up with anyone. We did have hot dogs and laze about in the sun, though, and I got my second sunburn of the season. My left shoulder actually kind of hurts :(