over

overwhelmed
                                                                     over tired...or is that overt ired?
overcrowded
                                                                     overambitious
overarranged
                                                                     overcome                                                                

overexerted
                                                                     overdemanding
overworked                                                 
                                                                                                             
                                                                     worked over
overdone
                                                                     Done. Over!
_____________________
oh, life.

Would you rather be overambitious or have your ambitions be over? 

Garden

On Saturday I went to an amazing garden store. They give you a map—it’s that awesome. There are water features and an entire section dedicated to Japanese maples. I think they sell upwards of 50 varieties. I was there for two hours and didn’t even see all of it. It’s all the best things about a garden but you can look for free and buy what you want to take home with you—that exact plant, in its current condition.

We bought some raspberries (several varieties) and some grapes, and some starts, because we have not been able to start our garden properly due to the move, which is still ongoing and is beginning to feel draggy and pesky and somewhat awful. It’s my least favorite part: 90% completion. Just enough to tempt you that it’s over, but the dirty work of cleaning and patching are still not done.

Maybe next year we will get some kiwi. We have four blueberry bushes, three strawberry pots, and we even have some wild huckleberries in the yard. I now am the proud owner of a cold hardy pomegranate tree, a dwarf Meyer lemon tree, an avocado tree, and a banana palm. (Dwarf cavendish.) If I could, I would have a grapefruit tree and an orange tree. Last priority is a lime tree. I do not know if we will get pears, but we got two apples and a nectarine. We want a good variety. We want all sorts of tasty foods. We want the kids to know what it is like to plant, watch, harvest, process and eat their own food.

We put up a little fence to keep the bunnies out of the garden, which has rich dark brown soil that has been fortified over years and was not bad to start with. This year we will have broccoli, beets, onions,  red and green cabbage, several types of lettuce, and some kale. We will also have acorn squash, Hubbard squash, zucchini and a couple kinds of cucumbers.

I love gardening. I love how the plants respond to care. They grow up and curlicue here and there and produce the yummiest of things for you if you just show them a little love.

I think people are a lot like plants. They will do wonderful things—not just for you—if you show them love.

So let’s love the plants and the people—and maybe show people we love them by feeding them the plants we tended.

Nits

At work, when there are just a few grammatical or formatting errors in a document someone else has circulated for comment and review, it is common in my industry to say, “I have just a few nits for you.” What the person speaking usually means is, “I don’t want to embarrass you or take up meeting time with everyone here to point out small errors (some of which may be points of preference), but I will send them to you so you can look at the changes I suggested and incorporate them into the document.”

They do NOT mean that they have a few lice eggs to pass you.

Since I was recently the victim of a lice outbreak (yes, I felt victimized), I can promise you, I will never use the phrase, “I have just a few bits for you,” at work, and I will have to work hard to suppress a shudder anytime I am in an in-person meeting (I’ll feel free to shiver if I’m on a conference call) and someone utters those words.

I will also never think of the phrase “nit-pick” the same anymore, either.

As I was spending two hours (yes, that’s right) being professionally de-loused,, I learned a few things about lice. For those of you uninterested, skip this paragraph. But I think you will find it enlightening.  They have six legs. Their eggs are called nits. They do not burrow, unlike bedbugs. They do not jump, unlike fleas. They are the second-most contagious thing in the US after the common cold. They can hold their breath for up to 8 hours, so merely washing everything will not be sufficient. Or you can freeze things like your hairbrush in a bag overnight...that will kill them. They WILL die if you get them hot enough, so scorching everything in the dryer will work. They reproduce in less than a week. Their bites only itch if you are allergic to them, so you might not know if you have them if you’re not allergic. They live mostly by the ears and at the crown of a person’s head. They are mostly transferred by people between 9-12 yrs of age, judging by the demographics the de-louser mentioned. They can travel eight inches per minute. They change from grey to rust colored when they’re full. It does not matter if your personal hygiene is perfect or you are a complete hygienic slob—lice are equal opportunists. They like O+ and A+ best; they will probably try to move to another person if you don’t have one of those two blood types. Lice cannot survive away from a head for more than 2-3 days. Nits can be confused with dandruff. And the grossest part is that if you have enough of them (yay for this not happening to me!) your hair can literally move with them as they crawl, so it looks like there is a fan on your head or special effects in your hair.

There’s something to be said for social grooming. Checking for lice is never a bad idea. I had never had them before and it was awful. I was emotionally traumatized. Thinking you have lice and knowing you have them are totally different things. I threw a fit and became an emotional crazy person when I found out. I was horrified. I felt unclean. There was nothing I could do. Why me? I didn’t deserve lice! That only happens to dirty people! Incidentally, N brought them to us and eventually HH got them, too. L was spared the indignity. He would have had to have been shaved bald—there’s no way he would have tolerated the treatment.

I hope none of you ever has occasion to be nit-picked. Every time my head itches, I’m still worried that she missed some and I will have to go through the trauma again. (No, I did not scorch my head with chemicals—I had the lice suffocated with silicon oil. I hear mayo and peanut butter work, too, but my hair has fully recovered and I am so happy about it.)

Bears

Last night I went to spend some time at the new house. We took the kids and a friend and stayed over. It was super rainy. Sheets of rain fell across the surface of the pond. 

I saw a heron, some other birds, and some squirrels.

I also saw something I did not expect to see: four small black bears. Tyler saw two and then called me over “to look at something.” I thought, “Deer?! Please no!” and came to look and stuck my head right by the window just as a motion sensor light came on. The bear’s head was less than a foot away from mine, separated by a pane of glass. It is hard to say which of us was more surprised. I kind of felt like Sal’s mother must have felt when she came upon the bear in the book. We stared at each other for a moment, too startled to move, and then he/she beat a hasty retreat. 

It was smaller than I expected it to be—that is, shorter. I had forgotten how much mass bears have. Its front legs were so thick—as big as my thighs, at least. (Since I have Danish heritage, the circumference is not small.) The bear’s muzzle was longer than I thought it would be. I wondered if bears’ noses are like those of humans—always growing. 

I have never seen a bear in its natural habitat before. 

Marching on

time goes by so quickly. The kids are literally growing up so fast:

This March, I marched myself to the huge book sale in downtown Seattle. I spent five hours going through literally thousands of books. I loved being in a place where so many book lovers were congregated. And it was nice to have some time to myself, as I don’t get a lot of that lately, and life has been feeling more like I am being mown over by a Sherman tank rather that like I am in the pilot seat enjoying any sort of scenery at all. I’d rather be crushed by a tank than dragged behind a horse. It’s over much more quickly.

I have been marching my way through the Great British Bake-Off and quite enjoying it. I like the ideas and it is the only reality tv show I have heard of or seen where the people are genuinely helpful and the producers don’t drum up the drama level to ridiculous proportions. These are mostly nice, regular people who just happen to have an enormous passion. It is inspiring! It makes me think of all the ways I would like to make things to show my family how much I love them. It also makes me wonder about cardamom. I’m not sure I would know it If I tasted it.

I also think kneading bread would be a good workout and help me get some frustration out, as well.

The days go marching by
Mostly in straggly, scraggly regiments.
Every once in awhile a brightly-colored dance troupe comes through
As a reminder that I can plan future chances
For big brass marching bands to come into my life:
But if I don’t plan them, they’ll march somewhere else.
I want a life with some eye-popping palette days
Some big brass band days
Some snuggle on the couch days
Some calm and rainy days
And lots of days of love.