Focus on what is important

Zooey is our calico.  Or, should I say, Laura's calico.  But I've kind of claimed her as mine, too, since we have become boon companions.  She tours the garden with me when I go outside, she sleeps on a cushion in my office when I work, and she grumbles and growls at me when I don't pay her enough attention.

Tonight, I just finished practicing some songs, and she came in the room to say this:

After she made herself known like this and was satisfied that she was the center of attention, she proceeded to deal with pressing cleanliness matters:

That being done, she wrote in that all was cool and I was free to do my thing, and that she would stretch herself out as a compliment to whatever the hell useless work it was that I was doing:

What really matters?

Snapoutofit

It has been something of a rough weekend and a rough start of a week for me. Some things that are pretty important to me and my own sense of self-worth kind of imploded, and I've been thoughtful ever since.

I'm reminded of a quote by Joseph Campbell:

Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.

That is, where we fail is where we have the chance to learn what our shortcomings are and eventually succeed in overcoming them. Without the knowledge of what we lack, we can't become better. I get that, and I'm trying to put it into action.

It's just that the colossal failure in the first place is a serious bummer.

And now a followup video that never fails to make me smile no matter how bummed out I get:

Screw Computers

So Laura is yacking on the phone with someone about her chemistry class and so I paused our episode of Friday Night Lights and am trying to add a link to Hark, A Vagrant! which is seriously one of the best webcomics ever made (and so clearly I need to marry Kate Beaton toot sweet), but apparently I just keep screwing it up.  I mean, seriously, why can't I just add this website?  It keeps getting translated to the site RSS feed.

Oooooh, I see.  Butsoactually, I'm not screwing up anything, it's just that blogger's bloglist interface sucks worse than Journey, or maybe worse than Poison.  OOH!  I got it: worse than Nickelback!

But no... no, that's just stupid.  Nickelback is really horrible, I grant you that, but they aren't the worst ever, it's got to be someone else.

*OH*.

Yes, yes.  Blogger's link system is worse than CREED.

Garden Porn

Things are hopping in the the garden! I've got one raised bed fully sprouting with radishes, spinach, lettuce, kale, endives, and more. I suppose that's basically the salad bed, eh? The second bed is planted with more radishes (what can I say, I love them), arugula (Laura calls it "Obama Spinach"), spinach, and onions. So... another salad bed. Geesh. Perhaps I need to plan this better for next year. Anyway, some pics so far:

Some of my radioactive-green chives

Raspberry floricanes starting to bud leaves next to my fence.

Wormwood seedlings

Leek starts hardening off next to the house

Finn trotting around the back yard. (He doesn't wear the leash anymore, since he's shown that he won't run out into the street and get killed.)

Also, my dill is sprouting heartily, the garlics are going crazy, and the peppermint is coming back from the abuse which I dealt it last winter.

I'm also going to plant a weed garden: things that are nutritious and delicious but denigrated as weeds. Dandelion, lambs quarter, sorrel, orach, burnet, purslane, and some calendula flowers thrown in for color!

As I write this, Finn is sitting my lap, purring, his chin on my right arm, little claws kneading my leg. Good Beethoven playing on the iTunes.

Apparently at this stage of my life, late night porn is good music, warm purring kittens, gardening, and a glass of wine. Did I mention the wine?