oh shoot. what a week/weekend/past few buncha days.
i forgot to go pick vegetables for a little while, and the cucumbers got out of control.
they got a little large

but dont be upset, they are still very delicious.
in fact, the squash was so good n perfect, that it seemed as if JESUS hisself had left some sort of miracle mark or sign...

akin to the jesus on grilled cheese
so aquabattle was sunday, and i wanted to go see. it was hot. very very hot, but the water where the aquabattle was held was fresh with sewage, so i opted OUT of swimming.
it was also polluted by this thing

but he didn't stop anyone from swimming

in fact he just cheered everyone on with his horrible bizarre penis parts. wheeeeee! yaaaaaay!

this puppy was bloated, but not like the beaver. he was bloated with puppy things, snips and snails and puppy dog tails? well maybe not the dog tails, but he sure was eating lots of gross river items, like dead fish and rotten things. yum.

though he was cute, i'm sure he had terribly rank farts later.

puppies. whatcha gonna do? you just can't hate something that cute even if they're very very stinky.
speaking of smelly cute things...

this thing has been out of control lately. she gets her ladyparts out soon, and maybe then she will stop humping the boys. shes been fired up lately, on the rampage.
on the final day of my leisurely weekend days off, i got busy sewing.

i made some hats!

its the first time i've ever tried, and i think i like them.

there are some things to tweak, but overall they're pretty rad.
i feel a collab with messengerstu coming on. homemade richmond "fuck all yall" hats in the future i hope....

jesus shit!
the garden is going so crazy.

look at that tomato patch! theres about a hundred thousand or so huge unripe tomatos hanging there...i am so tired of waiting for them to be ripe!

they're way way bigger than the palm of my hand...i'm gonna make fried green tomatos soon again. i am so impatient. i have bacon in the fridge, JUST WAITING, for blt time.

the watermelons are watermeloning, a lot actually. if all goes well, i'll have at least three.

and this thing...this hideous thing, i have two of them, they're at least ten pounds. like huge ugly pumpkins or stupid sombreros, sort of.

ive been eating lots from the garden, greens, beans, squash, cucumbers...dottie ate ALL the strawberries. basil has been nice to have fresh, and if these damn carrots and tomatos would HURRY up i'd be very happy.

i went to wendy's the other night for dinner, shameful, but i was too tired to cook dinner and that was the only easy option. gross. at least i had good company!

man what a horrible accident. i knocked this cat off a table i have, not that i collect ceramic cats or anything, but this one was really awesome. i've had it since i was 13, it was in my grandparents attic. it was thin and tall, and somehow it survived a hundred tumultous moves, party apartments, and all kinds of other bullshit. i scanned ebay and etsy looking for another one, but no dice. ah. one day i'll get another one, but its a total bummer.

i reorganized the downstairs a little this weekend, trying to make it chiller. i was moving around a stretched piece of fabric i have and this fucking horrible thing was on the back of it...i didn't realize it was there until i'd already been too close, it makes me grit my teeth and squint an eye when i think about it. not a fan of these dudes.
FINALLY got the chance to really tend garden.
andrew cut back the massive marina di chiogga squash, and i realized that my summer squash had powdery mildew.

gross. whipped up a couple nalgenes of "fancy organic garden cure-all", aka water, a drop or two of dish soap, and some garlic.

gave the plants a good spray down, twice. need to treat again today, shoulda done it this am. oops.
in the middle of annhiliating that stuff, and hacking away at the diseased leaves, and getting completely scratchy and itchy, i found this dude.

he was a lot smaller last time i saw him, probably a month or two ago in a different part of the garden. i love garden spiders, they're super cool. the last of the big orb weavers.....
when i was 19 and lived with derek and alex, i had a massive (8" leg span) imported orb weaver that i kept in the window of the pantry. the cool thing about those guys is that they don't leave their webs unless they're dying. they just build and build and stay put, so i wasnt worried about him leaving the pantry. til one day a shrill dude scream let me know he'd moved on from his window space, sure enough dude was pretty much barely alive, but was in the bathroom. most tolerant roomates, EVER.

found some little eggs on the summer squash, the garlic death water probably will kill them, but they were gleaming and iridiscent in the bright sunlight. didn't really translate to cameraphone photo, oh well.

in clipping things back, i found a lot of produce that i didn't know was ready. this weird ass squash is hard as a rock, and orange. def not gonna eat it, i'll just save it for a halloween decoration or something. bizarre evil scarecrow penis or something.
after the long weekend of cleaning, reorganizing, and whatever else (happy birthday chip, allez allez!!!) i was ready to chill out.

but instead i made a massive delicious dinner.

complete with bacon wrapped salmon filets. they were delicious, i was instantly launched into itis town, no regrets.
dottie had a pretty busy day, morning hangouts, then vet, followed by long ass hot as balls truck ride (no air conditioning in my 81 toyota.

she helped in the kitchen by sleeping on a chair.
the city is doing some mysterious construction on all the roads i take through the downtown area to get home, so combined with the ton of fools leaving their office jobs, it took me an hour to get home from the west end. INSANITY. then brett n sunday came over and dottie got all fired up, ran around the yard in circles til she was BEAT.
she was out cold in practically no time after i went upstairs to eat dinner.

ah so gardenlife is great.

walking into the backyard and picking all your sides for dinner is awesome. food tastes way better when you've made it all happen.

i've been really into roasting things, which is dumb cause its a million degrees hot and humid outside and i'm running the oven.
but shoot, roasted garlic makes EVERYTHING delicious.
our tomatos have been green and huge for, like, weeks. i got tired of waiting for them to ripen so just decided to make do.

and making do was delicious. so good. i'm gonna do it again for breakfast this weekend.

dinner has been pretty epic lately.
the truck is running great, i couldn't be more excited. it sounds like an angry snake as you accelerate, a deep hiss as the intake sucks in tons of air. so so so fancy and beastly and cool. i think i'm in love, i'll never have a stock carb again!!!!
in other news...

i always get some pretty interesting questions about taxidermy and bones and stuff, and lately they've been extra funny.
anyway. the squash plant has grown a bit big. its a little out of control, everything within the thin red line is only two plants, that i started from seeds that were given to me at a wedding. crazy!

so yeah. things are good, the squash might choke us in our sleep, but we're eating lots of fresh awesome things from the garden so eh. no complaints.

awwwwwwww snap!



lookit that! happy birthday to me and my toyota!

ah ha.
so i've been hawking the dogs and thier poops (yeah, great.) to see who ate the toy and if it would pass.
sure enough, Miss Dottie woke up this morning and threw it up. Thanks for saving me another $1000+ vet bill yay!

i genuinely think she's vyying for most expensive and troublesome puppy, cause she's winning.

this week has been insane.

-last thursday at 8am i dropped my truck off at a shop i'd never been to before, but had bad feelings about. they were supposed to bolt up and tune my new carbuerator.
-no call that truck was done thursday or friday.
-called the shop friday to see what was up, since the owner said it would be an hour or so job.
-excuses, excuses, they hadn't gotten to it yet and weren't gonna until tuesday. shop is in the ghetto, but they said they'd pull my truck inside the bays for the holiday weekend. word. it would be done tuesday, hands down.
-tuesday no call.
-wednesday no call. called shop at 4 to see whats up. owner says carb won't work. the carb manufacturer (webe) disagrees. owner offers to call weber, but doesn't have the number. bad sign #3, number is printed in huge font on yellow paper, first page of installation instructions. um, what?
-an hour later i called back and said i wanted to get my truck. would be down there first thing in the am thursday to get it. one week at shop, nothing done, and obvious lack of experience or interest in project. fuggit.
-commuting on moped is great, except when it rains. its rained more the last week than it has all summer. i'm shocked i haven't been fired yet, my bosses are so tolerant. my moped will not run in the rain.
-thursday i go to pick up my truck at 8am, expecting a battle. breeze in, pickup carb (which hasn't even been taken out of packaging) and look for truck. i am told its in a parking lot across the street. its not there.
-truck is up the street, unlocked, in a shitty neighborhood. front tire is flat. has no oil, has no gas. what the hell?
-truck starts, but will not run. cuts off as soon as your foot is off the gas pedal. then engine starts accellerating out of control. in rush hour traffic, in stalling truck, cutting it off to stop high revving. what the fuck.
-get to work. pop hood. various vacuum hoses are loose, off of carb. battery terminal half off. this is all new development since i dropped my truck off, running, fully functional. i add gas and air, tire is holding air but truck still wont run. set up an appointment to get it fixed, but can't be seen til tuesday.
-in additon to major truck drama, battling the rain on a non running moped is hilarious.
-have to bail on birthday dinner at an awesome resturant cause of new transportation drama.
-climb up into borrowed tall truck today after dropping andrew off at work, and skirt splits up the back at the seam. cause i stretched it too much, stepping up too tall. so my ass is out. awesome. get to work, slide out of the truck, twist skirt so split is on side, slink into work where i snag a stapler and staple it back closed. awesome.
-noticed that puppy has eaten a chunk of rubber toy, AGAIN. hopefully no emergency vet this time? toy was okay circa 12am this morning, but missing a chunk at 830am this morning. grrrreeeeat.


i'm so scrambled right now!

ah, america's independence day weekend.
things kicked off saturday afternoon after work at the local duckpin bowling lane.

we basically had the whole place to ourselves...there was another couple bowling who left pretty soon after we arrived.

a bit into our first game, a band arrived and began setting up. they had four light panels, all kinds of other party lights, and some ridiculous mixer and the hands down, fanciest, neatest merch setup i've ever seen
the owner asked if it was time for EXTREEEEEME bowling, and obviously, we said yes.

the blacklights came on and the overheads went off.

it threw everyone off their game, but i had the fanciest bowling shoes ever and i wasn't gonna let it get me down.

crystal and i were scoring differently, which made things kind of funny. oops.
after a long first game, Stu was delcared the official winner

now, we'd been there a couple hours, we needed snacks. fries are always delicious, and these were REALLY GOOD.

the bowling lane owner, who is super friendly and nice, would come over and chat from time to time. he was very worried for the band, because he realized noone was coming to see them.

he jokingly asked if we could just stay all night so that the band didn't feel bad.
ha ha oooops.

well, we did stay all night!
the second game was much more serious. you only had 4 1/2 minutes to take your turn, and if you were in the restroom or beer line, TOO BAD!

the introduction of a new, fancy, christmas colored ball made things a lil wild.

but overall, it was a delightful time.
so delightful, in fact, that the next day i was stricken with a horrible migrane that crippled me. i slept in, threw up, sweated, died, ate a little breakfast, snuggled with dogs, and in general laid around all day in the coldest, darkest parts of the house.
the sunday that never existed, thats what it felt like.
monday i woke up pretty refreshed and launched into full garden working fervor.

i weeded, transplanted corn and basil and canteloupe, picked a TON of cucumbers and some summer squash, built a new bean trellace (i need to redo it, it kind of sucks, but the wood i found was too dry) and then after working in stupid humid hot heat, i lost all motivation. i couldn't even walk around.
i played with beetles that i kept finding

and watched the tour de france and played with dogs.
then i made huge hamburgers and the plan was to cook them on the fire pit, but it started POURING and lightninging and thundering like crazy. the radar looked terrifying.

so we sat on the side porch and used a little disposable grill thing to cook em.

it was a little terrifying at first, but after the flames died down it was much chiller.

happy fourth of july!
we ate burgers that were too big for buns and then fell asleep. what a crazy party wild weekend! errr....