dangerous compassions

I call you / from the comet's cradle

Saturday, June 30, 2012

burger, echinacea, sad zombie garden gnome


Here's another burger. This one's in the alley and unnumbered.


Here's our garden with echinacea in the foreground.  Behind it?  Onions, chive flowers, basil, yerba buena, and yarrow can be seen.


Sad zombie garden gnome,
why do you cry?
The tobacco for your pipe
has all run dry?
Wish you were in our garden
rather than the neighboring plot?
Wish to eat the brains of other
garden gnomes or not?

toastmaster


It works and it's shiny.  --M

you are not alone


Today I affixed an Icarus Project sticker to my truck.  Scatter sent it to me in the mail after I sent the latest functionally ill and a note and a dollar.  I had one on the car that's now Erik's.  I'm happy to have one on my truck as of today. 

I'm also happy about toast.  Today we got our 1950s thrift store toaster--with a fabric-covered cord--up and running.  We had avocado and tomato toast for lunch, on sourdough walnut bread, and I was very pleased.

craft night


Our friend HW has a knitting night sometimes, and last night we went to one, our first time.  Here's M casting on.


Here's his first row.  Sorry about the flash. Oh, and you can also see his beautiful awl.


And here's M poking holes in a buffalo leather strap he's going to put on a bag he felted.

new bed


Hello!  Yesterday our neighbors made a new garden bed.  Here's a picture for you.  They made just the frames, frames for two.  I helped dig the area, just for 20 minutes, but I like that I had a hand in it.

Friday, June 29, 2012

bees flowers god


This morning we went to the garden.  We wanted to water the walking stick kale that we tried propagating.  I took some pictures of sage flowers and cilantro flowers that didn't turn out.  But here's an echinacea for you.

Calafia

Yesterday M and I went to...some other part of Sacramento to the MLK Jr library to pick up a movie I wanted to see with him, Exit Through the Gift Shop, which we watched last night.  I really enjoyed it for a second time, and M enjoyed it for the first.

But while we were near the library, I wanted to go to this mural museum.  So we went.  My favorite mural was about Calafia.  Here's a detail I liked.


Then we went to this Mexican grocery store where I got some drinkable prune flavored yogurt.  I drank it last night.  My verdict?  It was very sweet but good.

this morning's menu

Do you care about my morning menu?  If not, please skip this post!

corn flakes mixed with some delicious granola
orange slices
strawberry yogurt mixed with fruit
water

Some people at my table had toast too, and I saw butter out, and some strange cinnamon sugar butter.

Oh, and they gave me a pin with the name of the women's center on it.  "Did you already get one?" the nice security guard asked, handing them out.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

change of plans

Not going to New York on Monday after all.  Sadface!

goodbye, typewriter


This was my typewriter for a long time.  My best friend E and I and her brother painted it, one day.  I loved this typewriter, but it was time to let it go.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

food stamps fail

This morning we went on a long walk.  We walked past the co-op, past K's house, all the way to Sutter's Fort.  Then we got smoothies.  It was fun.  But I forgot my camera--sorry.

Then we went to M's old place.  We washed two water bottles in the dishwasher and packed up the truck.  I was standing beside the truck, guarding M's stuff, when a Chinese guy walked up to me.  I can safely assume he's Chinese, I think, because M's old place is in a Chinese neighborhood.  Also, he started speaking Chinese to me.  He used plenty of hand gestures, but I still had no idea what he was saying.  He held certain fingers up--you know the "hang loose" hand gesture?  He did that, and I have no idea why.  Then he held up seven fingers, and I don't know what he was doing that for either.  He pointed to Ming's old place and then held up seven fingers.  I'm still trying to figure out what that means.  The Chinese guy and I laughed at our inability to communicate, and he walked away.  I was in front of his house.

Then M and I went to M's garden and watered.  M harvested a ripe cherry tomato and ripe strawberry.  I refused both.  I was still full from my strawberry-banana-apple smoothie.

Then we came home and I had my phone appointment for food stamps.  We make too much money to qualify.

So I was hungry and ate a nectarine and plum (thanks, E) and some of the vegan sweet potato chocolate chip cookies that I baked two nights ago.  Now I can relax for a while.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

and we have a winner

Thanks to R for identifying the yellow flower below as protea!

thanks

Last night I baked sweet potato chocolate chip cookies.  They're vegan.  I didn't have any vanilla, or it's nowhere to be found, at least.  So I asked a neighbor, which led to a whole saga.  Finally I had vanilla.  And I shared cookies with neighbors.  They said they were good.

Today I went to my old place to do some packing.  I'm going through the "big closet" which is so big it's like a little room.  I'm making progress, but the work is very emotional.  Mostly it's the paper stuff that's emotional--old poems, old letters, teaching stuff.  I hold onto some of the teaching stuff though if I ever did teach again, I would start over. 

M has to be completely out of his old place by the 30th.  We make runs almost every day.  The livingroom is filled with boxes.  I'm really grateful for my truck.  Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Monday, June 25, 2012

morning's menu

Good morning.  I went to free breakfast again. 

shredded wheat with milk
plums
strawberry yogurt
two mini doughnuts
water

I happen to know that shredded wheat isn't vegetarian, but I ate it anyway.  As for the plums, they were small, and they tasted okay.  They're so small that at first I thought they were cherries.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

burger time


This is on T St.  There's a number in the lower left hand corner.  It's 165.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

the Bread Store


Today we went to the Bread Store.  I like the mural on the side of the building.  But I was puzzled by the sign, by "in places."  Seems like a bad translation.


I like the sunglasses person's hairstyle.


This is my favorite scene from the mural.  Bread floats out of the window.


This is funny, but not as funny as the sign on the comics store a couple doors down, which says HUMANS ONLY and gives a number to call to report non-humans.  That one made me giggle a lot.


I love street art.

Friday, June 22, 2012

today's plant walk


Plums on someone's steps.


Unusual yellow-middled oleander--is my heart softening to this hated plant?


Name this flower! 

echinacea, potato flowers, poppy pods, asparagus balls, and green cherry tomatoes


Here's an echinacea flower--so pretty.


Here are potato flowers.  


And the deliriously gorgeous poppy pods.


Our asparagus grew these balls--what are they?


And here are some of our green cherry tomatoes.  Today I ate the first red one.

today's breakfast

This morning I told M I was "going to breakfast" which means going to breakfast at the womens center.  "I like being among the women," I said.  I don't really talk to anyone.  But I like the atmosphere. 

Today at the coffee station there was a volunteer who was a very professional-seeming man.  He was very professional-seeming and talked to me almost as if we were at an office.

My favorite security guard was not there.

Here's what I had today.

cheerios and milk
orange slices
strawberry yogurt
apple turnover portion
decaf tea
water

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

lotuses


Today we stopped by church to drop off books for Swami.  He said there were 20 lotuses in bloom.  Then my camera's battery died.  But here's one good picture.

free food

Monday morning I went to a nearby women's center for free breakfast.  But I never told you my menu.

cheerios and milk
strawberry yogurt
orange slices
small coffee cake slice
water
tea

This morning I went back. 

cheerios and milk
strawberry yogurt
orange slices
small doughnut? slice
instant oatmeal
water

So I was a lot fuller today because of the instant oatmeal, which was exquisitely sweet.  It's all pretty sweet!

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Vedanta Society of Sacramento


Sunday evening we went to vespers at my former church which, again, is my current church now.  Here's a picture of Shiva that I thought you might like.


And here's M with pink oleander, one of my most hated plants, but isn't it cheerful here?

promises, promises

Yesterday I went to this nearby women's center for free breakfast and to see about getting some free counseling.  I really liked it there.  I have a warm feeling when I think about it.  I want to go back tomorrow morning.

Today I applied for food stamps.  Wish me luck!  Or, actually, you can just wish me luck in your heart.  You don't have to comment.

The echinacea in M's garden is really blooming for reals now, but my camera ran out of batteries.  But I hope to rectify that and get you some pictures soon.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

fields


Messieurs Crump and Blackwell got some fields named after them--they were helpful to sports-playing children.  The messieurs and the fields.  But I like the sign.  It was beautiful in the late afternoon / early evening light where I stopped to take a picture.

solar


We cooked rice in the backyard in M's solar cooker.  It's short grain brown rice.  We were worried it wouldn't cook right because it wouldn't boil.  But it totally cooked.  But there was too much water, so it got a little gummy on the bottom.  But it's still very good.

We ate it with spaghetti sauce and meatless meatballs.

Tetragonia tetragonioides


M got some New Zealand spinach from a fellow gardener.  He planted it in this pot because it can get out of hand.  It's resistant to snails but tasty to me.

around the backyard garden


Kale flowers!


Loofah!  (Someone gave M a loofah plant and we put it in the ground when we first moved here two weeks ago.)


Eggplant flower!


And eggplants from a distance--they've gotten huge.

suntea


Our neighbors make a lot of suntea.

mezuzah

Good morning.  Did you know M is Jewish?  Yesterday we affixed a mezuzah that M made out of fimo years ago.  I liked hearing M say the special prayer.






Thursday, June 14, 2012

sushi time




Today we went to our friend's house to make vegan sushi.  It was so delicious!

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

baskets


I took this picture of our new hanging fruit baskets for my bestie A and thought I should blog it--why not?

garden today


I remember when this basil was just a baby.


The echinacea is blooming!


Here's the compost box with the potatoes growing out of it and some sage on top.

Monday, June 11, 2012

this morning's Oak Park walk


Here's the dragon stump.

post office


Love love love this sun pic of my new post office.

forever


favorite


This is my favorite from all today's pictures.  Figured out how to make my pictures blog bigger.

araƱa




This is at the bike park, which looks at first glance like a skate park.