Flood

C gave a dramatic retelling of the story of Noah's ark today, complete with sound effects and props. In his version Noah instructs all the animals to go down below and watch out the windows for pirates.

album: Flood • artist: They Might Be Giants

Love Letters

Whenever you find this note know at this very instant I am thinking of you, at this moment our minds have united even if our bodies are distant. I am always there right outside, knocking, waiting to be thought of, and then rushing to your side and sojourning with you. I love you.
It was signed "Marshall." I was not his designated recipient. I found the above note in the middle of a book of essays by E.B.White that I bought at a used book sale earlier this month. I doubt she ever found Marshall's note, surely she would have taken it out of the book and saved it. Not only did she not find it, she dismissed the book entirely, donating it to the library book sale. Marshall probably bought the book for her. Perhaps he should have put the note further toward the front of the book, instead of half way through. Poor bookish Marshall, professing his love in this handwritten note and then assuming the object of his affection would make it to the middle of this 364-page volume. Could she not even read a page a day for him? Then she would have found the note in six months.
On the other hand maybe they're together still; the romantic and the non-reader.

song: Love Letters • artist: Nat King Cole

Beach Baby

It's evident that Grew's Pond in Goodwill Park is a kid's beach. There are slightly more band aids in the sand than cigarette butts.

song: Beach Baby • artist: First Class

Don't Leave Me This Way

H got stung by a bee yesterday - three times. As if it weren't enough that C's afraid of coyotes in the back yard, now he's got bees to worry about as well.
The worst part was when I brought H inside and the bee was still in his clothes, so I inadvertently released it in the house.
Just about this time my mother showed up.
"H was stung by a bee which is now loose in the house," I told her. "I'm going to work. Have a good afternoon."
And then I fled.

song: Don't Leave Me This Way • artist: Thelma Houston

Rocket Man

Are there no decent role models left for children? Now I hear that our astronauts are all drunk in space. What's next? Will they also admit to doping?

song: Rocket Man • artist: Elton John

The Children's Hour

Hi Kelly,
I'd be happy to expound on the books we've read to C. There's nothing I like better than weighing in with my opinion. A lot of these we read simply because we had them in the house - they were mine when I was a kid.
The first chapter book I read to C was Winnie-the-Pooh, followed by House at Pooh Corner. I had not read either of these before and we borrowed them from the library but then ended up buying our own copies. Books for children fall into two categories in much the same way as movies for children do. Movie reviews always note whether or not the child's respected adult will find something to like in the show; because even though it's not geared towards us they know that we'll be there. The same goes for read-aloud children's books. They are written for kids, but it's a bonus if the adult involved enjoys reading them as well. If we enjoy the books we might even ham it up the dialogue a bit instead of rushing through, skipping descriptive paragraphs. The Pooh books, and I was surprised by this, were quite fun to read. We even read a bit of A.A. Milne's Now We Are Six which is a book of poetry.
Then we read Stuart Little, E.B. White's precursor to Charlotte's Web. I was thinking our next read would be The Trumpet of the Swan his last book for children and one I didn't read a child.
We've read Uncle Wiggily's Story Book, which C enjoyed thoroughly but both Ken and I found annoying. Uncle Wiggily, though his name implies that he could be a porn star, is actually a do-gooder rabbit who lives in a hollow stump bungalow with his muskrat nurse, Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, and thrills to go on adventures which usually involve helping some child in distress. Howard Garis, who wrote Uncle Wiggily and lived in Amherst, MA, interestingly enough, also wrote some of the Bobbsey Twins books under a pseudonym. Uncle Wiggily was not just my book as a child, it was my mothers, and in Ungle Wiggily's defense I loved the books as a kid.
Along the same lines as Uncle Wiggily (those lines being more animal stories), Ken is now reading Mother West Wind's Children by Thornton Burgess. I don't think Ken would recommend it, his initial reaction was more like "how the heck did I get stuck reading this?" but it's got an interesting local connection in that Thornton Burgess was from Sandwich.
Books that Ken enjoyed reading C include Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Pinocchio, and James and the Giant Peach. There's a sequel to Charlie, it's called Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, but it's not as enjoyable as the original and seemed to be over C's head.
I read C The Wind in the Willows, yet another animal adventure book. It's considered a classic so I'm glad we read it, but there were some parts that dragged, all the parts that weren't Mr. Toad, as far as I was concerned. And talk about a book with a tough vocabulary - make sure you have a dictionary handy if you decide to tackle it.
We've read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland which I wouldn't recommend unless you enjoy explaining inexplainable things such as why Alice keeps getting bigger and smaller, why the Duchess's baby turns out to be a pig, and why the Queen of Hearts keeps yelling "off with his head."
We tried The Story of Dr. Dolittle but C lost interest and we had to return it to the library. Later we listened to it as a book on tape.
Up next, in addition to Trumpet of the Swan, I'm thinking of getting him Beverly Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle, which I had to read for a Children's Literature class. I was also thinking of reading him some of the Pippi Longstocking books, which I loved as a kid. I'm also looking forward to adventure books like Swiss Family Robinson, and Treasure Island. I haven't read either but I suspect I might have to wait until C's a bit older though I'm always amazed at what he understands: more than I give him credit, that's for sure.
Jim Trelease has a book called The Read Aloud Handbook, that has lots of book suggestions, more current stuff than what we're mostly been reading. Sorry to go on and on about this, I guess to sum it up, C has liked stuff that I would have thought was too old for him so if there's something you were thinking of trying on your son, I'd say go ahead and give it a try. Sorry to have ruined the end of Old Yeller for you, I remember my mother reading that as a short story in a book of American Short Stories. The other books I mentioned were all ones I read myself when I was older. Turns out, I was a real geek as a kid.

poem: The Children's Hour • poet: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Any Day Now

Some say the past and the future are always with us. On the way to evening church last week at Grace Memorial Chapel, I was walking across the manicured lawn, leading H by the hand, and I saw clearly the not too distant future when he, a head taller than myself, would take the lead and escort his old mother into the church sanctuary.

song: Any Day Now • artist: Ronnie Milsap

Flight of the Bumblebee

Here's what's causing the nation-wide disappearance of all those bees. The poor devils are getting tipsy on blazing star in my back yard, stumbling into our plastic wading pool, and drowning themselves. We pulled out four of them this morning.

song: Flight of the Bumblebee • artist: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Cry, Cry, Cry

All over the country articles are appearing in newspapers and parenting magazines giving adults advice on how to help kids cope if Harry Potter is killed off in this, the last book in the series. Some of the experts see this potentially fictional death as a good thing. It affords parents a "teachable moment," a way of talking about death in abstract terms and not in the wake of the actual death of a loved one.
C and I were face to face with such a moment last night when I read the end of Charlotte's Web.
Spoiler warning: If you happened to spend your childhood under a rock, as my husband did, and consequently don't know how Charlotte's Web ends, you might want to stop reading here. For the rest of you, I can tell you know the story because you're getting choked up already. Things might have gone better if I'd been able to get through the last two chapters without crying myself but I couldn't. It's one thing to read a sad story, it's something else entirely to read it out loud.
So I cried, and then he cried, and then he said he didn't want Charlotte to die and I said I didn't want her to die either. Then he said it was sad, and I agreed. Then he said we should throw the book away and I figured we'd better turn this into some kind of "teachable moment" lest he develop a childhood aversion to good literature. First I started with, "it's not a true story," which didn't help. Then I countered with, "Charlotte was old," which lead to a discussion about how a great many insects only live for short amounts of time. He seemed to be feeling a little better or at least somewhat distracted at this point. Then I said that sometimes books end sadly and he wanted me to name some other books that end sad. Not wanting to spoil Bridge to Terribithia or The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, I didn't name any. Upon reconsideration however, I don't think those books are anywhere near as sad as Charlotte's Web. I think Charlotte's Web is perhaps the saddest children's book of all. In Bridge to Terabithia, the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Hobbit, even The Yearling and Old Yeller, it's possible to explain and thus understand why a character dies - Old Yeller had rabies (opps, sorry, don't tell me you haven't read Old Yeller either), the yearling was eating the crops. To say that Charlotte was old - despite being a valid reason for her demise, is not a particularly satisfying one. If Harry Potter gets killed off you can bet it's going to be in a blaze of glory, saving the world from evil, and not all alone at the county fair.
Perhaps E.B. White was just being true to the nature of spiders, but I believe the real reason Charlotte dies is that in her death, E.B. White has created an unforgettable character. Charlotette's Web was chosen for this year's Three Apples Book Award, a children's choice award. Not bad for a book that's over 50 years old. If Charlotte crawled back into Wilbur's crate and returned to the barn to live happily ever after, sure it would be nice, but it wouldn't be memorable.
Maybe Mr. White wrote it that way to torment future generations of parents who would find themselves tearing up over a gray spider. As I recall, Mr. White had no children of his own so having to read the story aloud to a young audience, for him, wasn't an issue.

song: Cry, Cry, Cry • artist: Johnny Cash

Stuck On You

My fellow belly dancer, Laura, commented not unkindly on the stickiness of the conservatory's floor the other night. Dance floors are sometimes made sticky deliberately so that ballet dancers do not slip and fall while performing plies. But while ballerinas wear ballet shoes, belly dancers perform in their bare feet. This is a good thing in many respects, tacky floors aside, it means one less thing I need to remember to bring to class.
Anyway, I told Laura the sticky floor was nothing. I'd walked about my own house bare foot that day and compared to my kitchen and dining room, the conservatory floor was clean enough to eat off.
Mid summer is the worst for floor cleaning. Everything is too moist to sweep up which means lugging out the vacuum cleaning in the searing heat. You can't wash the floor because it never dries, and if the bite-sized crumbs under H's chair are left unattended overnight, by morning they've grown mold.

song: Stuck On You • artist: Lionel Richie

Whistle While You Work

I was thumbing through books on the fifth shelf in the computer room the other day and found this journal from the summer I worked at Peach Tree Farm. If the blogosphere had existed back then, here's a sample of what you'd have been hearing about instead of the antics of my cute children:

Monday, July 19, 1993
Today we ate very possibly the last sugar snap peas of the season. Brenda told me to mark it in my journal. I think she was only kidding though, I don't think she knows I really do have a journal.
I learned the name of the most tenacious weed in the garden today. It's purslane. I also learned and witnessed, in case I didn't believe it was true, that purslane is edible.
After asking Joe what kind of weed it was, he answered, said it was edible, and promptly popped some in his mouth. It was all very impressive but I didn't try any. Joe says it tastes like okra. Who needs another plant that tastes like okra? Maybe all battered up, fried, and served with ketchup; I can eat just about anything that way.
Later in the day, Brenda's friend Margo, who worked at Bourne Farm last season, came to visit. She also remarked that I was weeding purslane and did I know it's edible? I course I acted like I'd known it for years.
It's interesting how many things are edible in the garden besides the vegetables. This weed, the tiger lily buds - did I mention Beth ate one of those for us during lunch the first week I worked in the garden? And lots of other things I imagine. I was reading tonight in Organic Gardener that you can eat tomato flowers. I bet Joe knows a lot about other edible weeds, he knew about some weed that the Indians used in their pipes as a hallucinogen. I like Joe much more than Jamie. He seems to know everything about everything and doesn't make you feel stupid even though you know nothing about everything, and to my knowledge he hasn't drown any raccoons. He also sings while he works which makes me feel like I'm working down south on the plantation.

song: Whistle While You Work • soundtrack: Cinderella

Fast Car

Again a reminder to the landscape trucks and to the vacationers zipping down Quaker Road to get to the beach - please reduce your speed; this road is heavily traversed by walkers, bikers, joggers, and even people crazy enough to walk their children on it. I would especially like to direct this appeal to the man in the silver sports car with the vanity plate that reads QUICKIE. And to remind him that one needs to slow down, even for a quickie.

song: Fast Car • artist: Tracy Chapman

My Favorite Things

This morning at swimming lessons the instructors sat the kids in a big circle for roll call and told them to "tell us your name and what your favorite television show is." The other day it was their names and favorite color but today they must have been collecting data for the Nielsen ratings.
As choruses of SpongeBob and Scooby Doo rang out, I panicked. What would my son say? That his favorite show was A Charlie Brown Christmas - a video we own only because I bought for Ken ten years ago? That it was the Big Space Shuttle, a library rental? Perhaps he'd say it was watching the baseball game with daddy.
I need not have worried. Without batting an eye he answered, "Clifford." I don't know if I should be annoyed with my parents for letting him watch PBS or happy that at least he wasn't the loser kid at swim class who doesn't watch television.

song: My Favorite Things • musical: The Sound of Music

It Ain't Over Yet

I've been playing checkers with a four-year old all afternoon, and have decided there's no way to actually win a game of checkers. You get down to one or two pieces each and then you can chase each other around the board indefinitely.
It's maddening really.
And then he wants me to concede when I'm the one with the two pieces left, since he's perfectly content to keep moving his one piece around the board for the next hour.

song: It Ain't Over Yet • song: The Allman Brothers

Do it Again

Today was my son's second day of swimming lessons. C couldn't comprehend why he had to lie on his stomach at the water's edge and practice kicking again, because they did that same move last week.
I don't understand it; repetition is a four-year-old's raison d'etre. He who asks me the same questions over and over, wants the same books read and reread, and can watch The Big Space Shuttle every day for two weeks straight can't abide having to furiously kick his feet twice in a seven-day period?

song: Do it Again • artist: Steely Dan

garden haiku

Garden in July
wild, unkempt, and overgrown
Rebellious children

Happy Days

So Chachi's still single? Big deal. Call in Joanie. I'm sure she's ready for a comeback.
What's next? Laverne & Shirley search for an assisted living facility in Milwaukee as affordable as their old basement apartment?

song: Happy Days • sitcom: Happy Days

Mad World

The desire to pick on someone or something weaker than oneself is practically inborn. It's why, during the dust bowl, grown men cornered rabbits and clubbed them to death. It's why bigger countries invade places we've never heard of; and it's why at Abu Ghraib military personnel let prisoners around in dog collars.
Here's how it starts. One evening an older brother, mad because his mother suggested he help clean up, hits his brother. The mother, horrified, later tries to explain to her son that it's unacceptable to hit his brother, "for no reason."
"It wasn't for no reason," he contends, "it was 'cause I was mad."
The next morning at breakfast the younger brother kicks the cat.

song: Mad World • artist: Tears for Fears

Both Sides Now

Children get you coming and going. Most jobs either wear you out physically, or they are difficult mentally. Two kids can cover both those bases. H is physically exhausting. He can get from the back yard to the front yard it mere seconds. In fact I think he teleports himself there since I never see him actually leaving the back yard, I just look up from weeding or watering and he's gone.
C wears me down with his constant questions that I either can't answer (why can't you see air?), or that I've answered a million times already (do bulls have udders?), or both (when will the sun die out?).

song: Both Sides Now • artist: Joni Mitchell

Walk a Mile in My Shoes

The shoes I mail ordered arrived last week. These were shoes I loved in the picture. I carried the catalogue around for months planning to order them; but when I opened the box I was immediately struck by how much they looked like bowling shoes. Black bowling shoes - but still - bowling shoes.
Then running guru Tommy Leonard enlightened me. "They look like biking shoes," he said.
Phew. I feel much better knowing that I'm impersonating a biker rather than trying to dress like a bowler. What a relief.

song: Walk a Mile in My Shoes • artist: Elvis Presley

Look Out Any Window

The Goodyear Blimp hovered over the house today, beckoning to me like something from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It was novel for a while but then it caused radio static and I couldn't hear the Car Talk guys.

song: Look Out Any Window • artist: Bruce Hornsby

Somewhere

My four-year old went to art camp this past week. Art camp, doesn't that sound so indulgent? It was two-and-a-half hours, five mornings a week, and led by one of his preschool teachers. Anyway, now that he's done I need an addition built onto the house to display all his creations. I can see why parents encourage music lessons over art classes - less clutter.

song: Somewhere • musical: West Side Story

It Ought To Be Easier

I had to buy a new toothbrush for C as well as a box of band aids for general household use since we finally used up all the Christmas-themed ones. For most people this would be an easy errand, a quick trip to the pharmacy, but for a let's-stay-away-from-all-character-endorsed-products mommy like myself, having to buy these items was a big problem. All the electric toothbrushes for kids have licensed characters on them - Spiderman, Disney Princesses, Shrek, Cars, etc. The band aids aren't much better, the selection includes: Dora the Explorer, Barbie, and Care Bears.
For the toothbrush I settled for one shaped like an ice cream cone: two scoops, one vanilla and one strawberry, with colored sprinkles. It's ironic, I thought, that the only alternative to a super hero toothbrush is a toothbrush shaped like a food item that's sure to cause cavities. But I went with it anyway.
For band aids, my only option besides beige was a box of neon colors which I had to pay an extra 20¢ for because they were treated with "plus Antibiotic," - which I didn't even want. It was like being penalized for not supporting Disney.
I couldn't even find a suitable birthday card for Ken.

song: It Ought To Be Easier • artist: Lyle Lovett

Light My Fire

I don't understand why we celebrate the fourth of July with fireworks. What does setting off Roman Candles in one's backyard have to do with independence? I swear someone was lighting a cannon over in Pine Bay last night. Good thing the British didn't have as much fire power as my neighbors, we would have never won the Revolution.

song: Light My Fire • artist: The Doors

Shipoopi

Ken and C are going to Highfield Theater tonight with my mother to see The Music Man. Since we have the soundtrack, I’ve been playing it for C before bed, in place of his usual bedtime CD: Guys and Dolls.
After listening all week, yesterday he asked me why the play had a song in it that used “bathroom talk.”
“What song has bathroom talk in it?” I asked.
“You know, they say ‘Sha Poopie’.”
“Oh no, they’re saying, ‘shaboopie,’ honey. She’s ‘the girl who’s hard to get’.”
At least he didn’t ask me what “hard to get,” meant.
This morning I brought the CD downstairs so we could listen in the living room and I looked at the song list and you know, it is bathroom talk! The song is Shipoopi, which is close enough to bathroom talk for any four-year old. And you thought The Music Man was good clean family entertainment. I’d have a little talk about it with Mr. Meredith Willson but unfortunately he died in 1984.

song: Shipoopi musical: The Music Man

Downtown

This spring C took both T-ball and tennis on Saturday mornings. With just over an hour between the end of T-ball and the beginning of tennis I didn't know what to do with the kids in the interim. The first few weeks I took them over to the coffee shop but that got messy and was costing me a lot of money. Finally I had the idea of crossing the street at Guv Fuller Field and walking them around Morse Pond.
I haven't been back there since I was a student at the school, and I didn't really remember anything about it except that there was a path from the school around the pond and we used to take it to get to Guv Fuller Field for field day festivities. Once our class was the country of Kenya.
The path is a wild, overgrown place in the middle of downtown Falmouth. I described it to Ken as the forest primeval and made him accompany us on one of our trips. When you look out over the water, the pond is all you see, no buildings are visible. Only the voices of parents encouraging their young T-ball players remind you that civilization is just through the trees.
There's a large field to the right of the path before you get to the school. Walking out into it the first week, I felt like I was discovering a secret place. It was even more of a surprise than the seclusion of the pond. The grass was a foot high and there was a horseshoe pit in one corner and some rusting sports equipment in the other. What a great field for butterflies, I thought. But the next time we came, someone had mowed.
Even the back of the school looks overgrown and abandoned. With the front of the school remodeled, I expected the back to look different as well, but it's just the same as it was in the late 70s when I was a student there. The exact backdrop of my 5th grade class picture was, from what I remember, unchanged. And coming upon the school from the leaves and hanging vines of the path reminded me of the scene in Logan's Run when the runners come above ground and see the Capitol, all overgrown with vines. Can you believe I'm referencing that movie again? My metaphors could surely use some work.

song: Downtown • artist: Petula Clark

Surrender

Check it out. I'm writing this post from the coffee shop. I feel like jumping up and shouting, "this is my first time going wireless!" It would sound something like the virgin scene in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. But I'll refrain because I think the guy sitting across from me is doing actual work.
Sometimes it's so cool to be the old dog learning a new trick.

song: Surrender • artist: Cheap Trick

Clerihew for the Lizard King

Jim Morrison
The only man to ever
look good in leather
passed away
on this day

Here and Now

Everybody's doing it. First it was Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon, then Michael Pollan, and now Barbara Kingsolver. Everybody's talking about their efforts to eat locally, or grow their own food. It all started with The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Eating Locally by two resourceful and thanks to the diet, much thinner, Canadians: Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon. Barbara Kingsolver's new book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life is on the best seller list. Michael Pollen's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma was mentioned in many 2006 year-end reviews. So heck, if everyone's so interested in what these folks have to say and to eat - why not me too? What's Barbara Kingsolver got that I haven't got? Better writing skills and a publisher? Who needs 'em. I can eat locally too.
All I needed was a gimmick, some rules to my self-imposed local eating campaign. I couldn't spend a year eating only food I'd grown or raised myself (that was Barbara's angle), so I decided to start as easily as possible, this summer I vowed to eat at least one locally-grown item per day. How hard can that be? Not very, provided one enjoys lettuce and lots of it. At my disposal is our backyard garden, currently a major source of lettuce, our plot at community gardens, a second source of lettuce and future source of carrots, sugar snap peas, tomatoes and zucchinis. Bay End Farm's CSA provides us with a biweekly source of whatever they decide to put in the bag. Coonanmessett Farm is my source for basil, among other things, and later in the season Tony Andrews provides us with corn.
So let's recap, that means one locally-grown component per day in any meal. Aren't you interested in how it's been going? Well, wonder no longer, I've been keeping a record and thought I would periodically provide you with some highlights.
The odyssey began on June 9 when Ken and C went shellfishing and brought home steamers which we had for dinner along with pesto made from Coonamessett Farm basil (an odd combination to be sure), the potato salad had chives from the backyard and the barley salad had backyard radishes. A pretty good effort.
June 11: Made quahog chowder from quahogs gathered by Ken and C.
June 12: Strawberry rhubarb crisp made from both local rhubarb and local strawberries. Despite having a friend who offered to counsel me in homemade pie crusts, I think I'll stick to my crisp.
June 15: Already there are problems. Do leftovers count? I had some of the spinach quiche and a handful of strawberries Tony Andrews Farm kindly dropped off at the front desk of the Enterprise this afternoon, but I didn't actually make anything. I guess leftovers count. Leftovers have to count.
June 19: Today was tough. I had leftover salad for lunch and I chopped up something green and leafy from last week's CSA bag and added it to the chicken lo mein we had for dinner.
June 17: Father's Day. Salad with CSA greens and pesto made from Coonamessett basil, topped with tomatoes, also from Coonamessett. Garlic bread was made with CSA garlic and I even threw in some chives for good measure. Everything's better with chives. It was all well and good but I've come to realize that which I already suspected - my cache of locally-grown meals is somewhat limited, salad and pesto being the top two meals.
June 20: The worst local food day yet. Leftover chicken lo mein with that nameless CSA green was all I could muster. Ken took the kids out for dinner and I ended up eating Steve's pizza leftovers when I got home.
Yesterday Glenway came by and I loaded him up with lettuce to bring to my sister. We also gave lettuce to Jim who vowed to give us some arugula. That would be good because I got some in the CSA bag but didn't used it and it wilted beyond repair. I was going to try an arugula pesto. I've heard you can do that but when I mentioned it to Alex he didn't think much of the idea.
June 23: Tonight we went to Conamessett Farm for Cajun night. I have to assume something I ate had locally grown ingredients in it. I should have had more from the salad bar as that would have cinched it. This morning and yesterday morning we put strawberries on breakfast; yesterday on cereal, today pancakes.
June 25: Here's a caveat, just because it's local doesn't mean it will taste good. I made the blandest spaghetti and clam sauce ever, using the clams I'd frozen after the shellfish outing. The sauce I normally make, which features canned clams, tastes much better.
June 26: Just lettuce.
June 27: Had to throw out pea tendrils, arugula, and the rest of the nameless Chinese green, which turned out to be joi choi, along with some store-bought cilantro in order to make room for this week's CSA pick up. It included more cilantro and more arugula. Guess there's still time to make that pesto. Kale in the bag will go towards kale soup and the very round zucchinis will batter and fry up nicely. It won't exactly be healthy, but it will taste great.
June 29: Total failure! At least I bought my lunch at a locally-owned shop on Main Street. Unfortunately it was the least satisfying chicken salad with walnuts and cranberries I've ever had. Usually it's delicious, to die for actually, but today it was unusually dry. Yesterday we brought salad to Alex and Laela's to accompany dinner which was met with high praise. We also added some peas from the backyard, peas that I'm now convinced are snow peas after originally thinking they were sugar snaps. I kept telling C not to pick them because they hadn't fattened up yet but they never fattened, they just kept getting bigger.
June 30: Today I fried up those zucchini rounds for dinner but nobody would eat them but Ken. For the most part H dined on spoonfuls of ketchup and C had six pieces of watermelon. How does that factor in to the equation? Does everyone have to like my locally-grown creation?

song: Here and Now • artist: Letters to Cleo