All I'm Saying there's a joke in here somewhere

I don't follow sports at all, so I was quite surprised when Matt told me about the University of Hawaii's football coach using a term I consider to be hate speech in regard to the Notre Dame football team.

McMackin used the term “faggot” three times while explaining why Notre Dame was so fired up to play Hawaii in the game, which the Fighting Irish won 49-21.

“And they get up and they do this little cheer, like this,” McMackin said Thursday, doing a rhythmic clap. “You know, this little faggot dance.”

I absolutely abhor that word. I can handle that most notorious of swear words (c*nt) a lot more easily than I can the term this guy used. Personally, I think the university should fire him. Right now. It's just unacceptable, and he clearly knew it. I think if you can cavalierly use a term like this in a gathering of people, it isn't an isolated incident. He likely uses it frequently, and that means he's not fit to be in a position of leadership anywhere.

My many long hours of searching Craigslist and making phone calls finally paid off yesterday: we scored a gently-used swingset for Freya and only paid $40. We surprised her with it when she came home from school yesterday and when she saw it she got big stars in her eyes and exclaimed, "It's PERFECT."

Today we helped her figure out how to make it approximately 10 times more dangerous. Observe:

She's in hog heaven. It's going to be the best $40 I've spent in a long while, I think.

I took Freya down to a local festival this weekend. One of the local businesses was offering mehndi tattoos, so I decided Freya and I could get some fun temporary ink.

The artist had some photos of mehndi designs at her booth to choose from, and Freya selected a cupcake. She now has a very cute little cupcake on her calf with the word "Mom" underneath it.

I selected what looked to me like a thistle design, and had it put on the palm of my hand and heading up the inside of my wrist. The word "Freya" is at the top. Aww! It wasn't until yesterday that I really stopped and thought about the design.

What do you see?

Do you see it? Do ya?

IT'S A VAGINA! I'm the only person I know who could go so wrong on something like this. I got a coochie tattooed on my hand and it's going to be there for the next 3 weeks.

Way to go, Case.

I took the family out to the Idaho Botanical Garden today. I'm on a committee at work to start xeriscaping our grounds, and we're working closely with the botanists at the IBG to plan and execute the project. We've got 9.5 acres to work with, and my goal is to get our water use reduced by 90% over the next 10 years. Pretty drastic, eh? (For anyone in the area who'd like to do a small or large-scale xeriscaping project, I really recommend you start with the folks at the garden--they're incredibly helpful.)

The IBG has several points of particular interest to me: the native plant and the Firewise gardens. But since it was a family outing, we toured through most of the gardens. It's a great place to go and relax. As Matt said, "It'd be nice to just come here with a book and sit here reading." One of the best spots is in a lovely shaded meditation garden. Fountains provide a pleasant background noise.

There's a big wooden swing that looks right at the fountain--defnitely the best spot to sit with your book. Or your three year-old.

The whole place is definitely popular for photographers, and little nooks abound where wedding pictures and senior portraits can be taken. Also, three year olds who cannot pass a gazebo without doing a ballet demonstration have a few opportunities.

They have a plot where you can check out various types of low-water, low-mowing grasses. This is going to be a huge part of our overall project, in that we want to keep some green lawn areas, but I also envision them looking more like meadows with wildflowers sprinkled in and around them. These two kinds of grass are buffalo and grama grass, and they take very little water and rarely need mowing. As you can see toward the back of the plot, they look nice long as well. The only down-side is that they turn brownish toward August and September, but the flip side of that is that they return to green when the weather cools off and you actually have a green lawn through the winter. I would really like to tear out our existing rhizominous sod at home and put this stuff in. Spendy, though.

This little waterfall is a feature of the Waterwise garden, which shows you a lot of (usually non-native) plantings you can use at home that are both gorgeous and use very little water.

And for whatever reason, my file uploader just quit working. I was going to show you agastache, which is a low-water flowering plant that hummingbirds and bees LOVE. We've got a couple of plants in our backyard and they are long-flowering, grow pretty big (about 2' high by 3' wide), and are extremely low maintenance. I really recommend them for sunny spots in your landscaping.

Ah well. If you're in the Boise area, you really should check out the gardens. It's well worth it. And if you come visit, I'll take you there. Deal?

I'm pretty sure Lady Gaga has lost her frickin' marbles:

Realistically, I guess I don't know enough about her to say she ever even HAD marbles in the first place. But seriously, there's a line between fashion-edgy and fashion-stupid. And it's really not that thin a line.

On the bright side, I'll bet Bjork is feeling pretty good about no longer being in the place of Stupidest Celebrity Outfit of All Time.

Game, set, and match to Gaga.

(Who sang that song? I'll bet Nemesis gets it in the first go.)

Anyway, it was 105 F today in Boise. I'm not sure if that's a record or not, but I understand yesterday's 106 was, indeed. The weather forecast calls for temps between 105 and 95 over the next 4 days. That's about enough to make me puke.

I don't know how people in places like Texas handle it. I understand they get temperatures in the 100s for like...75 days in a row or something. When I was there last month for training, a guy told me that he once bought 200 lbs. of block ice and threw it in his swimming pool to try and cool it down, but it didn't even get it to a comfortable temperature. That's pretty scary.

I hate it when it's like this. I sure do wish we could somehow store this extra heat against the winter time and use it to heat our house...

We went over to Lowe's tonight because I was hoping to scavenge some sawdust for my composter. Sawdust makes a great "brown" layer, and since I don't have any leaves available, I figured I'd get the next best thing. It turned out that they didn't have any sawdust; no explanation why. But then we wandered over into the lawn and garden section. I'm not sure if that was an excellent idea or a big mistake.

I believe I've mentioned before that I am a sucker for clearance merchandise. It's probably becoming apparant as well that I really like to make new garden beds and plant stuff in the backyard. So those two aspects of my self collided tonight, and we came home with two aspen trees, a lilac bush, three peony plants and some kind of flowering perennial off the clearance area. With three bags of mulch added in, I paid $46 for what was probably $80 worth of plants back when they were healthy and perfect.

Yeah, that was why they were on clearance: they've seen better days. The two trees are iffy, but for $5 each we might as well try. The peonies and the lilac are in really good shape and should be great next spring and summer, and the perennial is just a crap shoot.

Possibly the best part of the whole experience was the looks we got on the way home. You see, we'd driven my little Toyota station wagon, and good luck getting two trees in that. Unless, of course, you get creative with your sunroof. So it was delightful to see the "What the hell?!" expressions on the faces of other drivers as they saw us heading home with foliage bristling from the roof, looking like a Chia car.

Have I mentioned it's supposed to be around 100 degrees for the next five days? It'll be a miracle if this stuff makes it...

Urban Dictonary defines "food baby" as:

When a person, typically a thin one, indulges in a large amount of food which makes their stomach stick out from the fullness as if they're pregnant.
In the movie Juno:

Juno: I'm pregnant.
Leah: What? Honest to blog?
Juno: Yeah. Yeah, it's Bleekers.
Leah: It's probably just a food baby. Did you have a big lunch?
Juno: No, this is not a food baby all right?

Why is this important? Because if you know this information and you're one of my Facebook friends and I say, "I have a second trimester food baby," you won't immediately freak out and possibly start telling people that I am like, WAY pregnant.

I'd appreciate it.

Before you get all excited to see pictures, don't. Mommy forgot the camera.

We took Freya on her first tent camping trip on Thursday and Friday. We headed up to Burgdorf Hot Springs, north of McCall. I figured it'd be good to get out of the Boise heat and enjoy the mountains and the woods for a while, and it was easy to talk Matt and Freya into it.

I hardly ever get out of Boise, it seems like, so it's been about 2 years since the last time I went to my old stomping grounds around Cascade. I was astonished at how much has changed. New houses and businesses are everywhere, but many of them look defunct already since the big ski resort up there fizzled.

Anyway, we found a good camp site at Jeanette Creek, a Forest Service campground right next door to Burgdorf. We immediately applied bug spray because the mosquitos were voracious, then set up camp and helped Freya throw rocks in the creek. Then we went over to the hot springs to enjoy the pool. Unfortunately, the pool was something like 104 degrees, so the most cooling aspect of it was when we'd get out and let the breeze dry us off. We didn't end up staying too long. I think it'd be more enjoyable in the fall. The other downer is that there really isn't a shallow end of the pool, so Freya couldn't really play in it too much, other than paddling around in a floatie for a while.

We got back in the car and drove to the tiny communities of Secesh and Warren, both of which are less than specks on a map. Secesh is evidently full of government-haters, particularly after a big wildfire burned up much of the forest in the area a few years ago. I can't really remember all the details, but I believe the Forest Service tried the tactic of, "The fire is coming too fast and we can't save the town, so you'd better run." Then the folks stayed there and fought the fire, and just barely escaped with the town and their lives. So it's all the Forest Service's fault. Or something. Anyway, Warren is an old mining town full of old-timey buildings and such, as well as abandoned mining equipment and dredge piles. Now I can say I've been there.

We grilled steak and then roasted marshmallows for S'mores that night, then got Freya settled in the tent. She didn't fall asleep quickly, so I let her come back out and we sat in front of the campfire for a while. I told her that was what people used to do for entertainment before Spongebob was invented. She insisted we tell scary stories around the fire, and then we sang some songs. She finally pooped out, and we all rested very well.

The next morning we were up and about, and as the campfire got going again, we played a little Frisbee, but Freya called the game "playing disco" instead. She's a genius, I tell you. It's a disk, therefore playing with it is disco. So intuitive, she is.

On our way home we stopped in McCall and let Freya play in the water at Rotary Park, along Payette Lake. That was probably her favorite part of the whole trip, and we were thrilled to find she's getting to be pretty intrepid around water. It bodes well for our San Diego trip in August!

Anway, we're back home and sweltering in the Boise heat. It's mighty tempting to go back and do it all again next weekend.

Freya was bitten by a classmate today at Montessori. She's fine; I'm mad as hell.

Freya is very much an introvert, and this classmate of hers is not at all. And the little girl does not know how to react to Freya's reticence, and so I think she really goes all-out to get Freya to pay attention to her. When that doesn't work, she starts prodding Freya and things really go wrong. We've had some problems with pushing and hair pulling (according to the teachers, Freya has never started the physical stuff, nor has she pushed back or pulled hair herself), and we've been trying to brainstorm ideas on how to help the girls deal with it.

But today, Freya was on one of the swings and the other girl wanted it. She was grabbing the chains on the swing and Freya asked her to please stop. That's when the girl leaned in and bit Freya on the hand. It didn't break the skin, but it certainly caused a big meltdown.

The directress of the Montessori called me at work to let me know and we talked about it for quite a while. She says all we can really do is persist in talking the girls through this stage. And I want Freya to learn to deal with this kind of behavior while she's in a safe environment that really wants to nurture positive answers and actions.

But there's a little small part of me that keeps thinking, "If Freya turned around and socked her in the nose one day, that'd put an end to all of this." I know that's not the right solution. But it might make me feel a little better. And I guess that means I still act like a preschooler sometimes...

I made another micro-loan at Kiva today. I thought I'd introduce you all to the recipient. She's pretty representative of most of the entrepreneurs you'll find there: seeking a modest amount of money in order to expand her business, thereby supporting her family and bringing more money and opportunities to her community.

Shamama is an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) from the Armenian-occupied territory of Azerbaijan of the Fuzuli region, settled in the Kurdmahmudlu village. She is married and has three children.

Shamama was born in 1959. Ten years ago she started a sheep-breeding business. She has goats also. Now she needs a loan of 1,200 AZN to buy ten sheep and goats for improving her sheep-breeding business.

As of right now, Shamama needs $725.00 more to make up her total loan. Want to join me in loaning her $25 and give her a hand up? Or, you can check out other folks from all over the world who are seeking assistance in building their businesses. I'll tell you, it's the best $25 I'll have spent all week--so far, it's certainly the happiest.

I took my car in for an oil change today. That might have been a mistake.

I told Matt this morning, "I have a feeling I'm probably due for brakes." Yeah. I was due for brakes, both front and rear. Evidently, that funny squeaking noise wasn't dust in my brakes: it was my brakes rubbing on the rotor because the brake pads were worn through. Or something. I was also due for new spark plugs, a new universal belt and a tune-up. I sighed. I said to myself, "Well, at least I have the money in savings, and I'm so glad nothing bad happened while I was driving around with Freya in the car!"

And then I got the next phone call from the shop. Did you know that all cars after 2002 had some kind of redesign done on their starter system wherein the simple alternator, starter, wires to the spark plugs, etc. is no more? Instead, they have these doo-dads that evidently receive a message from the car's computer (a mystery of its own, I warrant--where do they put it?) and then tell the spark plugs to make the spark and then the car starts? Yeah, those are all shot because Toyota didn't put enough of some kind of goo around them, and they cost $700 to replace.

All told, my oil change is costing me slightly over $2000. So far. Had I known last week that my 6 year old car (paid off) was going to cost me 1/10 of its total purchase price in repairs this week, I might have traded it off in a big ol' hurry.

Sigh...

I came upstairs over a half-hour ago to blog something, but couldn't think of anything and headed off to Facebook. Half an hour later, I've got all my fields plowed and re-planted in FarmTown. I have been purely sucked in to another stupid Facebook game.

The closest I can come to an intelligent post is directing your attention to this story about two men who were in Temple Square in Salt Lake City (aka, Mormon Mecca), and one kissed the other on the cheek. They were detained by Temple guards and cited for tresspassing. To the good, a peaceful protest was staged this weekend and hopefully the LDS leadership will take this as a lesson to get their storm trooopers to back off a little bit.

Still, there's a part of my mind saying, "It would have just been a lot easier to link that onto my Facebook page..." I could take my blog to FB, but would my advertisers follow me?

I got a wild hair a couple of years ago to build a compost heap in a scarcely-visible corner of our backyard. I did it on the cheap by collecting four pallets, tying them together with twine and bungee cords, and then just throwing in yard waste and food scraps. I rarely turned it, rarely watered it, and then winter came along and my interest waned. I moved on to vermicomposting (where you feed worms your produce scraps), and it's working out okay but the quantities are pretty limited.

In the meantime, my compost heap mainly languished, though I threw our Halloween jack-o-lantern and whatever stuff I trimmed off our shrubs on it. Then I read about Boise's Curb-It program which, among other things, provides for a reduced-cost composting bin. Since I don't live in the city limits, I talked a friend into ordering one for me and Matt set it up today.

I was pretty excited, so I got started right away. The directions tell you to start out with a lot of "brown material," which is essentially small twigs, leaves, etc. I didn't have a whole lot of that laying around, but there was a big layer of brown on top of the compost heap. I peeled it off and stuck it in the new bin, then turned around and looked at the heap.

There, before my eyes, was a 3' square pile of beautiful, dark, living compost.

I stuck a shovel in and turned it around. Aside from a few twigs and a half of a pumpkin shell, it was nothing but brand new dirt and worms and little ground-loving bugs. IT WAS AWESOME. All along, I'd had this treasure trove sitting back there and didn't know it.

I immediately got to work shoveling it over garden beds and around the base of our trees. I still have over half of it left, and that's going to hold us until I get the new bin up and running.

I'm telling you guys--composting is about as difficult as falling off a log. Read up on it a little, scavenge the materials you need (you can have my pallets!), and start putting your produce, egg shells, coffee grounds and filters, etc. into a Ziploc in your fridge. A couple of times a week, take them out there, dump them on the heap, toss a little sawdust on top of that, and walk away.

You're making your garden and lawn healthier, and reducing the amount of household trash going into the waste stream. Try it!

"This refrigerator smells like anal glands!"

"Yeah, but I'd be acting out under my burka."

"She was happier than a puppy with two peters."

"Would you like to rub my head?" (At Freya's Montessori, from a little boy who just got his first buzz cut.)

Did you hear anything interesting today?

I just want to take this opportunity to remark on how doggone cute I think my little girl is. I am awfully proud of her, I have to admit. She's frolicking around in her Little Mermaid swimsuit (we were poolside again this afternoon), and is wearing a plastic princess tiara around her waist. Don't ask me why. And she's coloring a picture next to me in the office and making cute little remarks to me and asking questions.

She and Matt came to my office to visit me today, and a warm hug from a three year old goes a long way to invigorating your day.

We had a very pleasant Fourth of July weekend. And by we, I mean the 2/3 of the household who didn't have to work. Matt spent most of his time chasing around the wily recreationists and making sure that people weren't killing themselves, animals, or each other out in the woods. It actually was a very low-key weekend in that regard.

In retrospect, it seems like every innocuous-seeming activity we did somehow involved strange risks. On Friday, Freya and I went and hung out at a friend's neighborhood pool, with the potential for damaging our skin with the sun's harmful rays. I prefer to think how much vitamin D my system stored against the long winter ahead, and how Freya's risk of rickets has been reduced.

On Saturday, we went down to the city farmer's market, which in and of itself wasn't innately dangerous, so just throw Saturday out of the mix as far as risky behavior goes. Although, we did again expose ourselves to toxic radiation from the sun. OH! But there was the neighborhood fireworks show, where we no doubt inhaled enough toxic gas to choke a goat. So check for the carcinogens there.

Tonight we went over to our neighbors' for a barbeque. We had BBQ'ed meat and veggies, and then we roasted s'mores in their fire pit. Hello, blackened food!

I just want to stress here that I'm not actually feeling guilty or that health conscious about any of this. I just all of a sudden tonight realized that it's sort of strange that many of the traditional things we do to commemorate our nation's independence are fairly self-destructive: blowing stuff up, getting drunk and operating motor vehicles, charring food and ingesting all the burned up bits, etc. Who'da thunk it?

Week 5 of our CSA is upon us, and I can tell the season has turned toward summer. (Forgive me, but we had about 3 solid weeks of rain in June, so I get to claim a very extended spring.) Observe...

What could be in it this week?

Lettuce, new red potatoes and the last of the local bing cherries.

A couple of different summer squashes (which I will likely slice and throw on the grill), and some baby cucumbers.

And two pints of GORGEOUS raspberries and a dozen eggs!

You should have seen the chickens tonight. They have a section of their outdoor run that is bisected by a trickle of the irrigation, and those crazy birds...you'd have thought they were ducks. They'd go over and pat their feet in it, then scratch around and flap their wings when they got wet. They were loving life. Some of their food offerings were nearby the run, and it looks like they're dining on clementine oranges and squash. Those are going to be some crazy-nutritious eggs!

For those in the area who aren't into a CSA or not ready to commit, you can find the Spyglass Gardens folks at the McFadden Farmers Market in Meridian on Tuesday nights, and the Meridian Farmers Market and the Eagle Farmers Market on Saturdays!