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Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
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cortland apples - $2.50
half gallon cider - $3
dozen large eggs - $3
onions - $1.50
potatoes - $1.50
it's still lovely here. fall just keeps on going somehow, i'm not sure how it's almost thanksgiving and still this nice.
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Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
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half gallon cider - $3
winesap apples - $2.50
green peppers - $2
tomatoes - $3
then i went to the coop and got sugar and cheese. why is food so great?
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Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
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dozen large eggs: $3
half gallon cider: $3
golden russet apples: $3
loaf of multigrain bread: $5
potatoes: $3
golden russet: new york, before 1845. very sweet russet. believed to be a close relative of british varieties grown in mid-nineteenth century.
i'm excited to try this apple, since last week's northern spy apples were not overwhelming - slightly mealy and not tasty enough to make up for the texture. these are interesting looking apples, in colour and texture they look more like a pear than a typical apple. they are also super firm.
very early tuesday morning joey, after at least a few days of not urinating, started crying incessantly, refusing to move, and responded badly to being touched. we took a 5am trip to the 24 hour animal hospital (which is located near to our house, luckily.) turns out that he didn't have a fully obstructed urethra or kidney problems, but has struvite crystals in his urine - thus he could not/would not urinate. he spent the night there, sedated and on a kitty iv. i got to visit him for a bit in the evening, a cat on an iv is super cute in a sad way. he started peeing on his own, and ate some food last night, so he's good to come home today. katie's going to go with me to pick him up in between my afternoon classes. i'm just so glad he's okay - in six years of moving all the time, both residences and states, he has been my one constant for the last three years. plus, i totally couldn't get another cat who likes me this much.
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Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
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half gallon cider - $3
dozen eggs - $3
northern spy apples - $2
potatoes - $3
carrots - $3
green peppers - $1
sweet peppers - $1
spaghetti squash - $1
split onions with megan - $0.75
making a grand total of $17.75! it was super fun to go to the market with a friend, not that it's ever a chore but it's defiitely nice to have company.
northern spy: new york, 1800. tart, firm, stores very well. noted for being an excellent choice for making american style apple pie. sometimes used a rootstock.
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Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
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half gallon cider - $3
winesap apples - $2
large eggplant - $1
potatoes - $2
winesap apples, via wikipedia: united states, 1817. sweet with tangy finish. reddish blush flecked with some green. i might see how many different cultivars of apples i can eat in a fall. so far, it's been cortland, idared, macintosh, and arkansas black.
i have leeks from last week, and tomatoes that i cooked into the sauce part of eggplant parmesan because they were starting to look a little sad. and a butternut squash from last week.
i have my new bike here, and just want to ride everywhere i can. i just biked to the market and home to store the produce, and will be going back to school after i get something to eat. yesterday i just cycled in circles around the neighbourhood and loved it. there's an alleycat race next friday, free entry with a costume. i might do it!
it's damp fall weather, the sun's coming out, the first trees are turning red. seasons like this i love the midwest.
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Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
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peck macintosh seconds: $6
gallon cider: $5
crabapples: $3
organic leeks: $2
crabapple jelly and potato leek soup! yesterday was a glorious fall day, and the last outside lab of biology of fishes. we went to a small lake surrounded by trees turning red and orange. we jetted around boom shocking (a small motor boat with attached electric units - they run a weak current through the water, shocked fishes are easily caught safely), waded through muck in our waders and almost got stuck. i'm sad to have outside labs over, but this year i'm determined to ride my bike (as much as possible) through winter, to actually get inside and enjoy it instead of dreading it.
also, i bought a new bike last night! surly crosscheck (converted into a fixie) off of ebay for $450+shipping. it's so rare to see ones in my size around, so i snatched it up asap. it's also a beautiful green, which is way more fun that the black and brown frames they did this year.
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Saturday, October 10th, 2009
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1 dozen eggs - $2.50
2 eggplants - $2
tomatoes - $5
garlic - $1
2 butternut squash - $1.50
onions - $3
arkansas black apples - $2
mm tasty.
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Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
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1 peck ida red seconds: $6
1 gallon cider: $5
1/2 dozen pumpkin donuts: $3.50
it's a grey chilly day. the market was a ghost town compared to last week. this week is the rare week i'm not working a weekend (my first minus vacations, and my free week before classes started, since moving here), so i'll get to go to saturday market this week!
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Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
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eggs - $3
basil - $2
gallon cider - $5
1 peck macintosh seconds - $6
the basil was just fully uprooted - ben says it's supposed to frost tonight, so i guess it was today or not at all. big handfuls of it. that one i picked up for iona. cider and the apples are sort of communal. let's see if we can get through a peck of apples in a week. i sure hope so! the eggs were from a farmer who i think is old order mennonite - it's funny to think that we share very common faith traditions, yet end up looking and living so differently.
also, raw milk connection! on a tip from the gsi for one of my classes, i had the "do you do cow shares wink wink" talk with one of the farmers. and he does, and i have his email. ben said it looked like a drug deal. and i supposed yes, it's still a trade in illicit substances.
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Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
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from this morning's market trip:
1/2 peck cortland apples - $5
dozen large free range eggs - $3
crabapples - $2
a goal for myself is to see how much of my produce i can get from local sources (let's say market and from local vendors in the coop) - and to see how much more/less it costs than other sources. and go!
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Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
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things:
i am almost through week #2 of grad school and it is okay so far. i got in state tuition, which is awesome, and i am trying to figure out what to do with the leftover $1467.31 of loan money. current choices include a new bike and more tattoos, though i guess the "responsible" thing would be to use it to supplement my income so i can work fewer hours.
my housemates are really great, our house is really great, and i like coming home. this means a lot after what i've lived with and through this last year.
i'm dating someone?! it happened mostly by accident. he's someone i'd been casual friends with for a while, and it's just recently evolved into more. it's weird to again find myself involved with a (mostly) straight cisgendered man, but luckily he's an incredibly queer and gender concious one. the other day i had cramps from ovulating, and his response was menstrual massage (genius) which he learned from zines (ha!). also, he's a barista at a great coffee shop close to campus, which means i am drinking incredible coffee daily. he's about to go to japan for a month, which i think is good and bad both.
it's just nice to feel like i'm finally going somewhere, not just holding ground.
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today i got my new laptop for school. it's a 13 inch macbook pro. if it was human, i'd make out with it. hell, if it wasn't human but i wouldn't break it by making out with it, i probably would still.
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Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
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our new house, moving again, the classes i'm going to be taking come fall, am i crazy to think i can work and go to grad school at the same time, meeting my advisor.
working on my left lower half sleeve in a week and a half, being a young visibly modified person, &c.
normal mishmash of queer/femme identity politics, (in)visibility, queer privilege, this whole gay marrige shebang.
anyways. i am home in seattle for a little bit, and then down to santa cruz and east bay for a couple days each. this state remains as beautiful as ever. seattle is full of change. everytime i come back something old has been torn down and something new is being built. but nonetheless, i was walking home last night and realised that i will probably never know anywhere as well as i know this city. i miss it, but it's also clear that (right now) this is not where my life is or should be. out here i do miss the midwest. not michigan, strangely, but indiana. or specifically, the south/midwest junction that richmond sits in. does sweet tea not exist up here?
oh! addendum:
my parents remain pretty cool. so, my maternal grandfather is quite the craftsman. when my mother was younger he repaired old banjos for a bit. because of this, we have two of the beautiful old ones he had fixed sitting around our house. my mother was talking about how she only wanted to keep one, and was thinking of selling/somehow ridding herself of the second. i asked, and i get to take a banjo back to the midwest with me! sweet life.
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at eighteen i was so ready to move halfway across the country and get away from family, but now these sorts of holidays just make me more and more homesick.
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| Time: | 6:25 am. |
| Music: | circle game.. |
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i can't believe it's now five years since that night. i struggle to explain to people who weren't there what it felt like to watch a friend die. to see him alive one day, dying on a stretcher the next, and in a casket a few days after that. why it is different for me than the other friends and relatives who have died. this day for me will always be the day i grew old in the ugliest of ways.
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i went down to earlham this weekend, a road trip with the ann arbor group to go see the mountain goats and john vanderslice. the show wasn't great, but the trip was more about everything else than the show, for me. this was the first time i've been back since i left in may 2007 after graduation.
so much has changed, and at the same time not has - being there, it was so easy to forget that the last two years of my life have happened. that i ever left. it would have been so easy just to slip back into the routine of life there. most of the people i had hoped to see there were out of town or off campus (professors, at that) but i saw and stayed with aidan, who's my only close friend left there. that part was nice.
april at earlham was never easy for me, not after billy died. i sat on the barrett back porch and looked at the parking lot. half there, half five years ago as i watched them take him away on a stretcher in the ambulance. the next time i saw him was a week later in a casket, his mother touching his hair. weird to be there with people who, though they knew what had happened because they came a year later, didn't experience it. and then surrounded by students who, even if they had heard of what happened, weren't affected by it. no good way to explain what that month felt like on campus. his birthday is coming up, and i'm trying to figure out how to celebrate it/him/his life/his influence.
on the way back, though i only found out yesterday morning, i spilled a bottle of vitamin e oil in my bag. everything is oily! not everything, the most important things were unscathed - my wallet, my ipod, my journal, a book from cole. the rest of the things i'm starting to replace - ordering a new dayplanner, picking up a new copy of bastard out of carolina, starting to look at new reload bags. still, i deal badly with the impermance of objects, so this is stressing me out more than i'd care to admit. on the money front, too, as i'm saving for my move this summer.
and i get stressed out by the fact that i don't know what my life will look like come this summer - these last years have been a very predictable routine. i'm bad at change.
it's snowing and i just want to ride my bike til i feel better about life, which is not a very practical option.
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this week i got accepted to grad school at university of michigan! it's a masters program in natural resources with a focus in aquatic science. i'm still waiting to hear back from the other schools, but this is probably where i'll end up because a) it is the best school/program and b) then i won't have to move/transfer/make giant life changes.
today is my day off. it's sunny. i am curled up in bed and the cat is napping in front of the heating grate, snoring. i am about to go make pancakes for breakfast. my plans for sunday include: walking the dog, doing laundry, painting my toenails, organising my bookshelf, writing my long-overdue christmas thank you cards, starting on my taxes, and going to the gym if i don't get too lazy.
i feel happy more often than not these days.
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Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008
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aiden and i broke up. he moved into the basement, i'm in the room.
i'm back on meds, this time from competent psychiatric care, which makes all the difference.
i'm slowly starting on that grad school process again.
both jobs are going okay.
it is crisp cold fall here, and beautiful.
my bike is fixed.
cole will be here in less than a week!
i am holding it together and feeling alright.
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Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
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| Time: | 12:19 am. |
| Music: | noah and the whale - 5 years time. |
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this is the last night (just barely) of a week in seattle. i have to wake up in four hours to leave for the airport, but i'm avoiding sleep so i can pretend i don't have to leave.
it's been a good week. not a very social week. mostly a hang out with my extended family week. but i've put in my share of good granddaughter time now, and it's been pretty sweet to get to sleep in! it's amazing how much better life is when you don't have to drag yourself awake at three thirty in the morning.
which, ps, i never have to do again because i am officially moved and not working any more four am shifts. period. that's it.
it is gorgeous here and i don't want to leave. i want to go back to ann arbor - to aiden, to friends, to my new home, to my joey. but if i could relocate that all here, i wouldn't hesitate. i'm just happier here.
so back to the midwest, to heat and humidity and fireflies. to my bike and my cat and my love. to my jobs. to learning how my life works now post-move. and to investigate a replacement for trader joe's. because however much decent pay and health insurance is worth, what if i could be happier somewhere else? so i have to look.
but now i have to sleep.
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Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
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packing up alone has got to be one of the loneliest things ever. i was lucky, to have family around and helping for both my move back to seattle and my move out here. now if only i could get them out here now too! everything is in the process of moving into boxes in the living room, which makes my bedroom pretty barren. nothing on the walls. bookshelf gones, books all stowed away. i'm in the process of stowing away the kitchen, too. some of it may well stay packed away until aiden and i move into our own place!
the loneliest thing (discount what i said above) is this empty apartment with no cat. i guess i hadn't realised what a cat lady i am. how i take for granted always having joey somewhere nearby, with the way he follows me around. aiden is being a good cat mom surrogate though. see this morning's text messages:
4:42am
Just pet your cat for five minutes cause he woke me up and misses you. (me too!) he was a purring fool. Have now sent him out of my room and i'm going back to sleep but i thought since i was up i'd tell you i love you.
4:49am
But so as you know that i was the nicest you'll never see me be for it being not even five in the morning waking up to a cat knocking shit over and batting at my face. Just so as you know. I cuddled before gently escorting him out. I even gave him a kiss
cute.
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