Really need to get a handle on: health, finances, getting rid of stuff, and writing this thing (at least sending in a draft.) All of these are keeping me up at night. Also, I probably need to take a week off or so: I need a vacation, I'm not really functioning at this point.
Thursday. The drone of leaf blowers, street cleaners, and lawnmowers provide the morning soundtrack. At work it's been so quiet and at a constant temperature, that I'm always somewhat taken by surprise when I walk outside and it's hot and noisy. It's like coming out of a cocoon. Woke up late, after 7 am when I looked at the clock, jumped and stumbled, not quite fully awake. Another round of explosive fireworks last night, after 11 pm, not as many or as random as the previous night, but enough to make my heart jump as I was falling asleep. And a beetle had gotten in and was whizzing past my face, smacking into things, and then occasionally landing on me, causing me to yelp because I hadn't figured out what it was yet. The smells through the open window more of gasoline than grass, but the coolness is welcome as is the an unexpected mist, reminding me of the days before we had to go back to school when I was a kid: the heat of the summer, succumbing to drizzle and gray on the last days, until the sun returned when we had to be back in class. Cool mornings, hot, buzzy afternoons. Dread and excitement rolled into one, wondering what the year would bring, would you fit in anywhere? From all of this, and from not eating enough, I've been really tired.
Dreamt about a drone spraying pesticides everywhere. Dreamt about spiders and webs everywhere, and trying to get past them.
Other than that, been a week of random gifts. Last Saturday, while walking around the lake, I passed through some sorta' fair and got a free peach, threw my name in for a drawing, then went on my way and forgot about it. On Monday, I received notice that I had won a gift basket. Very random assortment of items: pound of Middle Fork Coffee, two Theo chocolate bars, a bottle of hot sauce, a bag of pumpkin seeds, two bags of snack mix, an energy bar, a jar of peanut butter, spice mix for vegetables, and a citronella candle. It came in something called a "blessing basket," probably my favorite part of it. Then on Wednesday, I went to this volunteer party for the Ballard Seafood Fest (which I served beer at) and the final invite said something about a "gift." I was going for the food, and figured the gift would be a t-shirt or something. Nope: gift was a full, smoked salmon. Remarkably generous. Need to figure out what to do with it, need to use it soon as it had thawed out by the time I got home. Bagged it up, and gave some to my roommate. (I would've anyway, but she gave me a washcloth because mine has disappeared. Not sure why.) Will make corn/salmon chowder from at least some, but there's plenty left after that.
Then today, I went to this free workshop on not wasting food (so preserving, but also how to use things you might have an abundance off, as well as things like carrot tops, radish tops, chard stems, etc.) The main presenter made a berry pie, and then we made "meat" balls out of greens (which were really good), pickled apples, pickled hot peppers, and talked about other preservation methods. When we filled out the evals at the end, we each also got the choice of a book (I took one on drying food, since that's what I'm most likely to do. Canning still makes me nervous, so I'd want to take a class, and the other book was recipes for freezing. I've only ever made refrigerator pickles before, they were good. I'm a fairly adventurous eater, and cooker, but preserving makes me nervous because if you do it wrong, you can get really sick.) We also got a food-related item: canning jars, canning tools, a mandoline, or molds for freezing things. I took the jars, I've been needing some. Had earlier been given a mandoline as a door prize, I've been wanting one for some reason, though I can't remember why at the moment.
All of my tomatoes seem to have ripened at once; someone recommended roasting them in the oven until slightly charred, then cooling, and freezing them. Good idea. Someone else said that she roasted them in the oven for 6 hours with a sweet onion and hot peppers (at 200 F), then blended it into a sauce. Might try that as well.
And then a sweet moment of my week was yesterday, I was going out back to put something in the compost, and I must have made a yelping sound when I encountered a spiderweb/spider across the walkway. A different housemate was out smoking and asked why. I told him it was a spider, and went to find a stick or something to move the web out of the way. He walked over and moved it for me. I didn't need him to do it, but it was a really nice gesture.
Oh, and an even kinder offering was my friend that took the time to shoot head shots for me last Saturday because I had an audition I wanted to do. I liked the way a lot of them turned out.
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