Summer Spaetzle

For some reason I felt nostalgic for Austria this morning, so after Ules and I went shoe shopping and had lunch at Sophie's Cosmic Café we went to Xoxolat and bought three Zotter chocolate bars. I had the Honig Trio, Ules chose Mango In and Out and then he we should buy an Apricot In and Out for Peter. The apricot won the day, with its thick fruity layer of condensed fruit paste.

Tonight I made spaetzle for dinner and sliced up Anakana's zucchini which I sautéd in butter and olive oil along with a few amaranth leaves from our garden. I ate my noodles with the greens on top covered with pepper and a bit of cheddar. (Gouda would have been better.) We also had some raw peas from the garden. They are finished now, so I've pulled them up.

J and I did a hive check on Thursday and things are looking a lot better. There is capped brood and larvae and we saw the queen. The bees were making lots of comb as well, which means her majesty will have a place to lay her eggs and there will be room to store honey and pollen for the fall. Let's just cross our fingers for continued good weather.

The marigolds and mallow are starting to go to seed, so we are just passing the peak of summer into seed-saving time. The forecast is for a 40% chance of rain on Sunday, so we'll see what happens. We could really use some rain.

The Ultimate Bee Garden

If you knew you were going to die and you had time to prepare for it, what would you do? I would plant a bee garden. I would use the time to raise the money, find the space and design and create a fantastic garden. I love VanDusen Gardens, the Yorkshire Sculpture Gardens, and artist gardens I have visited and seen in photographs. I would create a garden inspired by these sources.

There would be historical physic gardens, a moon garden, a sunflower forest, and Victory gardens with heritage vegetables with examples of biodiversity in food crops. There would be the flowers I love in my mother's garden: the gladiolas and sweet peas. There would be the smelliest roses you can imagine--heritage rugosas that both my grandmas used to grow, the yellow bush roses in Luseland, Saskatchewan, and the fuschia roses in Bounty.

There would be apiaries showing the different kinds of bee hives as well as an indoor visible hive. There would be a stage for outdoor shows. A maze, a labrynth, and an orchard. There would be tree houses and whimsical topiary.

There would be a café serving fresh, local organic food. There would be water features, sound features, and places where people could explore their senses and refresh their souls.

It's fun to fantasize about the ultimate bee garden. How does your virtual garden grow?

Family Birthday

BBQ rib roast dinner with shiraz, followed by a choice of raspberry or strawberry pie with vanilla ice cream.



A hummingbird doing its rounds at dusk sips nectar from pale pink fuschia blossoms.

Another birthday, another board game.

Birthdays are ephemeral, there is no way around it. In spite of all the documentation and attempts at shifting images into the drawers of long term memory they come and go with the ebb and flow of wishes, expectations, and a bittersweet sense of loss. Every birthday is an essential part of the the transformation of parent, child, friend, and family.

10 Years Old

The evening scented stock are blooming in the back garden and the scent mixes with the heavy scent of warm honey and wax emanating from the beehive. My sweet peas suddenly decide to bloom and I am surprised and delighted to see a pale mauve blossom that has emerged from a stalk that climbed up the lavender plant. Seems like it's always hot on Ules' birthday. Thank goodness he asks for an ice cream cake.

The asteroid has crash landed and it sizzles with the magical pop rocks that I've poured over top the cake. The boy chose frozen soya milk so that his aunt could have a piece too.

I can't believe he's into the double digits. Sigh.

We all giggle as the pop rocks explode in our mouths and tickle our tongues.

After dinner we play a (Neopets) board game that we bought at a thrift shop several years ago for a couple of bucks. Then we played three rounds of Mad Libs.

Here's a close up of the cake so you can see how I used measuring spoons to dig some craters out of the surface of the cake. The top layer is a kind of cookies n' cream flavor and the bottom was chocolate decadence as requested by the birthday boy. He loved his ice cream maker ball and the fancy popsicle molds I bought him and he was very grateful for all his gifts.

Coming off the Meds

Happy days since I am gradually coming off the super-strength migraine meds. I have more energy and consequently feel more focused and more like the old me. I've been having some really good days.

Tomorrow is our boy's tenth birthday, so I will be making a space-themed ice cream cake. I thought I'd make it planet ice cream. I hope I can make it look like the picture in my imagination. The birthday itself will have a space/ice cream theme since the presents I bought center around the making of ice cream and popsicles. I searched for chocolate-covered sunflower seeds for decoration this morning and luckily there was one rogue box at Winners/Home Sense. It's amazing and weird what you can find at that place and today they played really good music, so I enjoyed my shopping as recreation experience. Sometimes I just really like to shop n' chill.

Today is the last day at camp. The boy stayed home yesterday because they were going swimming and he hates going swimming with a group. He is so different from me. I used to live in the pool in the summers. I can't wait for the new pool up the road to open. I will drag him there for sure.

I heart Trafalgars. They have a new crepe that comes with a fantastic salad that is my new fave and the waitstaff are so fab. I am in luv with them. It makes me so happy to go there it is worth its weight in antidepressants.

New Bra Day

Yes, I desperately needed an over the shoulder boulder holder, so headed to a proper store to have a proper fitting. A buxom Scottish lady wanted to see me in my current bra to see how it was fitting. Gosh, I was so embarrassed. It was all stretched and ripped and I was sweaty from gardening. She got into that room with me and didn't even have to measure me to find the right bras. She even told me how to scoop my hand inside the bra from the opposite side and lift up each breast to where it "should" be. Well, it does make me look better, but it's still not the most comfortable bra I've worn and it cost the earth. It was quite an intimate experience. I feel like it's my first bra as a mature woman. I feel sexy and dowdy at the same time.

This morning I pinched suckers off tomato plants in the school garden. My heart is bursting with happiness from that little plot. I love it so and I love seeing the two gardeners on the corner lovingly tending their plot together. The other day I was watering the plot and I felt this hot sensation on my foot. WTF! I got stung by a wasp on my foot. Apparently I was watering their little nest. Boy, that hurt. I picked peas today to give to the summer camp for their lunch.

I did a petite bit of shopping on South Granville. Williams Sonoma (could the salesperson have learned his style from PeeWee's Playhouse?) was empty, but Pottery Barn Kids was full and people were laying down the cash.

Ules had his first day of camp today and really enjoyed it. As I prayed he would.

Reading: The God of the Hive by Laurie R. King. She writes her version of Sherlock Holmes' later (married) years. I wish I'd read the one in the series that comes before this one, The Language of Bees, because the action seems to directly jump into The God of the Hive. This one is my favorite of her series so far, especially as it contains a character that is a very soulful and whimsical foil to Sherlock Holmes. I also read three Swedish mysteries and a Minette Walters' (The Devil's Feather) over the weekend. Good stuff.

Pizza Garden

What would you grow on a pizza garden? Well, according to a six year old boy attending a gardening workshop at World in a Garden, he'd plant anchovies. Cool. We had a fun time helping the kids paint garden signs, pick raspberries, pull garlic and plant just about everything but anchovies in the little round garden beds.

I spent the evening helping P cut the grass, which was no mean feat because it's only been cut once this year. And we have a push mower. I got down on my knees and used scissors for a part of this activity. I must admit the feng shui of the garden just feels better with the grass cut to a long, but reasonable length. I want to be able to set up a table and have dinner out there.

I watched a bee remove a pupae from the hive. Had she chewed its wings off? More ominous signs that our hive is not doing well. I'm very sad about this. The numbers are dangerously low. I think we need a nuc or a swarm ASAP.

Tomorrow I'm going to a forum on UBC Farm to try yet again to convince the university not to turn it into student housing. If you'd like to come you can find the info on the UBC Farm blog.

Rereading

Reread: Savage Altar, aka Sun Storm by Asa Larsson. I love how she evokes a sense of light, season, and place. She creates desperate characters that make you want to stage interventions in their lives.

Watched: The first season of a British cop show called Murphy's Luck with the Irish dude from Cold Feet. He's good, but much better in a more comic role.

Picked: Raspberries, chard, peas and strawberries from the garden and made a summery stir fry.

I confess I've been sleeping a lot. Hopefully now that I'm coming off the medication I will have more of my energy back. I seem to get all fired up for two days and then on the third day... boof! She crashed.

Kinder is into back-to-back episodes of Jimmy Neutron. Tomorrow we go to the foot specialist.

Finally a Breakthrough

My son is finally interested in cooking. Yesterday we made chocolate pudding* from scratch after he found some recipes for pudding pops in Owl magazine. This is a good place to start. Today we made peach streusal muffins** inspired by some we had from Butter Bakery on the weekend. It's taken a long time, but I am so pleased he is showing some interest in culinary pursuits. Any kids out there interested in recipe exchanges, let me know.

BTW: Hey you people who moved to Ontario, you'd better send us your new e-mail adress! Inquiring minds want to know.

I am very homesick for prairie summer nights, but every time I think about the mosquitoes, the romance dies. Some unidentified insect bit me above my left ear two weeks ago and I still have a welt. Bugs love me.

Peace and luv.

*I felt the recipe didn't need the egg.
** One cup of peaches would suffice.

Econopocalypse or Marxism for Dummies like Me

I am totally fascinated by this illustrated lecture on the economic collapse and the reasons we should all be rampant anti-capitalists.

Summer Viewing

Watched: Torn Curtain, one of the Alfred Hitchcock masterpieces. Sort of TinTin mixed with Hitch. The director does have an inimitable way of making a movie that is better than its script. Julie Andrews does what you predict her to do. The camera loves Paul Newman, doesn't it? The colors in this movie are fabulous. I love the theatrical scene in the East Berlin Hotel Room. Cold war nostalgia.

Transition to Summer

Yes, well I still have my wool blanket on my bed, but we are joyful our queen bee is at least laying drones, so she may be a keeper and our hive might be saved.

Read: The latest Elizabeth George--This Body of Death. I felt that the new female lead character Isabelle Ardery was a fail. She is a composition of character components that have been thoroughly mined by other authors and she just didn't hold the novel together. In short, she was a bore. The novel picks up when Linley or Havers are the focus of the action. More of them please. I also felt this was the most Ruth Rendell influenced Elizabeth George I've read, with a heavy dose of Minette Walters in there. I think George is at her best when she adds liberal doses of Romance and Thriller to her work and there is the element of soap opera where we grow to really know and love her main characters, especially Havers and Linley.

Reading: Anthill by E.O. Wilson--especially heartbreaking that it was written before the Big Spill.

Tomorrow's fun summer activity is making chocolate pudding pops.

The Colonizer

Happy Colonizer day! I celebrated with a marathon gig at a community center, which was challenging, but well worth the effort. Thank the goddess for fantastic programming directors and energetic volunteers.

We went to The Main for supper, and I had 3 "Colonizer" cocktails with gin, Ginger of Indies and lime. Bloody Good. Sometimes you just gotta get plastered. I earned it! Long live the calamari dinner, Bob Dylan on the speakers, and memories of the University of Sask.

I have a few days off to do a good housecleaning and prepare for the gigs to come. I've been watching early episodes of M15. Funny to watch them in light of all this Russian spy business in the USA that's popped up of late. Cold war redux. Love it. The later seasons are so much more polished. Ridiculously so.

Been thinking lots about this community artist label and what it's all about. I have had some challenges on that front of late, and need to do some soul searching.

Very frustrated and angry about my son's report card. He can read at an adult level (and has for at least two years now) and somehow this was overlooked. Fucking lameass teachers. He uses words in his vocabulary that they didn't even understand. Same goes for visual literacy. He draws a technically perfect view of an object from a POV they don't see and so they dock marks. Ridiculous. Anyway, he is learning the vulnerability and shortfalls of the adult world. Bless him.