L’esprit d’escalier

Just a bit of housekeeping today. Updated a few links over there on the side that I kept reminding myself to put up, and promptly kept forgetting to do.

I haven’t been up to anything terribly interesting. Garden’s still alive (but not doing science). There are more tomatoes, since my mother grew some from seeds and more of them sprouted than she’d expected. The great part of having your mom live ten minutes away? “Here, I don’t have room for these in my garden. Also, I’m pulling up my broccoli tomorrow because the deer and rabbits are eating it. Can I put it in here?”

A couple of the tomato plants have these tiny little tomatoes-to-be growing. They’re round and green and will hopefully someday taste awesome. A few summers ago, I happened to stop by my parents’ house when my mother was trying her hand at fried green tomatoes, fresh from the garden. (On occasion, I have awesome timing.) They came out really good. So, hopefully in a couple of weeks, I’ll be trying my hand at my own.

I submitted “Kate” to Strange Horizons on July 1st. Probably won’t hear anything until September. Cross your fingers for me.

I opened up “Running” and stared at Lil for a while last weekend, and she stared back at me. I have some better ideas of where the story is going for her, but I’m not quite ready to go back to it yet.

Also, I snagged tickets for Great Big Sea in October! /squeeeeee

I have a garden. On occasion, stuff grows in it. If you’d like to see what it looks like so far (or, as of a few days ago, anyway), the photostream is here.

I’m hoping one of you green-thumbed people out there might be able to help me out with identifying our mystery flower. It grows on the fence beside the pool, and despite spending its first couple of years choked by some fuzzy red vine thing (which we finally yanked out so the mystery flower could grow), it comes back every summer. It’s awfully pretty. My mother thinks it’s some kind of grapevine, but damned if I ever see any grapes. My mother-in-law wondered if it might be some kind of morning glory. I forget why she ended up dismissing that theory.

Take a gander, tell me what you think:

I’d just like to know what to call them. If I ever change the theme for this blog, I’m considering turning one of these flowers into the banner. Too bad they don’t fit with the old-fashioned theme all that well right now.

Any guesses?

I have some. No, really, it was over there just a second ago…

There is a garden in my backyard. The onions and green beans seem to be casualties, and I have a feeling that once upon a time, there might have been some corn, too, only if it ever existed, all evidence of it has been wiped off the face of the planet.

There are, however, the beginnings of peppers (red, green, and jalapeno), and some promising looking tomato plants. And basil. My basil will take over the world. These things are thriving. I am envisioning tomato, basil and mozzarella salad, fresh from the garden later this summer. I’m not quite brave enough to try making my own mozzarella, but there is at least one really good Italian deli between my office and the train station where I can get some.

The pool is also open. The water is at, oh, 72 degrees. Which you’d think would be plenty warm enough. That’s room temperature, right? I stood there on Saturday, up to my waist, my legs going numb, and had to berate myself before I could dive in all the way (“You fucking wimp. Move.“) Rinse and repeat for Sunday. Once you’re in, though, it’s pretty nice. Now if only we can have some nice weekends this summer – my parents and extended family got more good swimming-time out of it last summer than we did. I’d like to not spend so many Saturdays staring forlornly out the window while it pours and thunders this year, thanks.

Writing: rrrgh. Some. Lori has linked to a shiny new tool on her blog, and I’m mulling over the idea of playing with it, too. Problem is, I’m working on three stories at once (“Four!” insists poor Lil, as the demon that’s been chasing her for several months cackles). All told, the three amount to about 11,000 words and none of them are finished. Threnn’s has maybe one more scene until she’s (mostly) caught up to the present. Anna has two stories going at once – from a year of near-silence to suddenly-won’t-shut-up – and they’re kind of coming out in alternating sections.

Lil’s only about 2,000 words into her run, out of… I’m aiming for 6,000 or less. So, if I do stick a counter up here, I suppose it makes more sense to wait until I go back to Lil.

It doesn’t help that one of my ficlets would like to possibly be something longer, either.

Here we are, in the middle of a heat wave, and my teeth are chattering. I can’t feel my fingers, and the tip of my nose went numb hours ago. As soon as May 1st rolls around, our office building turns on the air conditioning. It’s not a system based on the outside temperature, but on the day of the year.

They say they’re keeping it at 70 degrees. Which, I’m sure it is in the Offices of Important People.

But for lowbies like me, I need to bring sweaters and gloves into work in August. As much as I love my little spot in the corner by the supply closet (that isn’t sarcasm; I like it here. No one ever visits), I am also right beneath one of the air conditioning vents. So it’s not just cold air skirling about insidiously. It’s not a cold that creeps, and makes me shiver by increments. Oh, no, it’s a full-on icy gale blowing down on the top of my head, and there’s nowhere I can move to get away from it. I can’t even wait until everyone’s gone home for the day and climb up, ninja-like, atop my overhead bins to close the vent on my side. It’s one of those permanently-open ones.

Tonight, I’m going to find my fuzzy sweater and bring it with me to bundle up for the rest of the summer.

Other stuff I’ve been doing instead of blogging:

I planted a garden. Yes, me, the Bane of Things That Grow. It’s not a very big garden, just yet, and I’m not even sure everything will survive. See, initially, I figured I’d grow some herbs in window boxes, so I could have them well into the fall. When I was out buying the flats of herbs, I saw some tomatoes.

I can grow tomatoes. I’ve done really well with them in the past. Since flats were something like 8 for $12, I went a little overboard – peppers (red, green, jalapeno), onions, butternut squash and green beans. I figured they could all go into big ol’ pots and do just fine.

Well. Somehow I forgot that when you buy a flat, you’re not just buying one pepper plant. You’re buying anywhere from 4-6. Big ol’ pots just won’t cut it.

My father, who owns just about every tool known to man (or if he doesn’t, knows someone within three houses to either side of him who will let him borrow theirs), has a roto-tiller. Down he came, last Saturday when it was super wicked hot, and tilled the little garden my mother and I had sectioned off with leftover paving bricks during the Home Improvement Hell a couple of summers ago.

I couldn’t just go ahead and plant when he was done, though. We have some pretty stubborn grass that had grown in that spot, so I had to go through on my hands and knees and get rid of the stuff the roto-tiller couldn’t. By the end of the day, I was pretty disgusting. No planting got done.

Sunday, Red Sox game in the afternoon (Poppacow, this is for you: WOOOO-HOOOOO GO SAWX!), and then it was nearly dark when we got home. I was too gorram hot and tired to go out and plant.

Which leads us to last night. Got home, changed out of the work clothes, found my trowel and lugged my sad potted vegetables-to-be out to the back. Stuck ‘em in the ground. I think the squash and the green beans are pretty dead. The window boxes that were their temporary homes didn’t have holes for water to leak out, and they were in there while it rained for three days straight.

Funny thing is, I usually kill plants by not watering them enough, and here I’ve gone and drowned the squash and beans.

Go on, laugh.

Tonight, I’m going to give the herbs a little more room. Now that I have a couple of window boxes freed up, let’s see if I can separate out the basil without destroying it.

Aside from that, I’ve been plinking away at three stories at once, with a third waiting patiently in the back of my head. I think it knows better than to try competing for attention against the al’Cair women, but every once in a while it passes me a note that says, “Ahem, you think that when I’m done, I might be worth submitting to Escape Pod. Let’s not forget that, yeah?”

So, productivity in a couple of forms. Maybe I’ll break out the camera and put some pictures of the fledgling garden up here. You guys can have virtual conversations with my tomatoes, and maybe they’ll hear you and grow into tasty edible things.