All Things to All People

I have a weakness.

My weakness is there’s some small part of me that is convinced that I am a Super Shero, that I can be All Things to All People, and that if I just organize my day properly I can Do! All! the Things! Spoiler alert: this is often not the case. Still, my belief in myself remains unflagging.

Take a random Tuesday in August; I have promised my neighbor to go exercise with her first thing in the a.m.. I have also made tentative plans to go see my cousin Jill and her daughter Gracie when they arrive from out of state to settle Gracie in for her final semester at Lewis and Clark College. Maybe we’ll have lunch, maybe dinner, who knows, but it’s a plan.

 Planish. 

Plan adjacent. We’ll figure it out.

Gracie, Jill and I--we figured it out. 

On my way to Portland, I might as well swing north to Napavine—I mean, it’s RIGHT THERE—kiss my grandkids, and deliver fair tickets to my kiddos—why do I have fair tickets, you might ask? It’s a long story, no need to digress. Let’s just keep focused on how many birds I am menacing with this single stone.

The other bird is that Mark is suddenly dispatched to California—sudden as in Sunday he got the call—to help oversee the safety and quality assurance of a railroad bridge that was destroyed in the Dixie fire in what once was Greenville, California. Since I’m going to be in Portland anyway, I might as well swing by, drop him off at the airport, kiss-kiss, be careful, and be on my way. Then a quick stop at Costco for—well, for whatever random goodness appeals, to be honest.

Did I mention that lunch is on the I-5 side, and the airport is on the 205 side, and traffic at anytime of day is the stuff of nightmares? Also, I might have been up since 4:30 a.m. working out the logistics?

All of the aforementioned explains why—at 5 p.m. on a random Tuesday-- I am climbing into the trunk of my car in the Vancouver parking lot of Costco. 

I lay down. 

I really, really need caffeine. 

Scare Spider

How does my garden grow? I can’t really tell because my garden is being guarded by a Scare Spider and I can’t/won’t get close enough to see.

This is the scary fellow:

Object in photo is MUCH LARGER
than he appears here.

He set up housekeeping next to my one and only basil plant a couple of weeks ago. Since he was bigger than me, I conceded the basil and went on about my gardening, always keeping a watchful eye out. Day after day he stayed in the same spot, on the same web and I thought we had reached an understanding. Or what I hoped was an understanding—he wouldn’t jump on me and I wouldn’t bother him. Or harvest any basil. Or at least not the basil that was closest to his web—but if I juuuust reached my hand up and under and gently, oh-so-gently picked only the leaves farthest from the monster arachnid...slowly, slowly...all would be well. And we could both have some basil. Win/win. Or so I thought.

Then one day I went into the garden and he was gone. The only thing scarier than being confronted by a giant spider is being confronted by a giant spider’s EMPTY SPIDER WEB.

Immediately everything felt creepy-crawly, my skin got all twitchy, and itchy, and I was sure I felt something in my hair. How on earth could I ever summon the courage to reach my hand into the hidden depths of a zucchini plant WHEN I DIDN’T KNOW WHERE THE SCARY GIANT SPIDER WAS????

Several days went by, and I gave the garden a wide berth. Zucchini went unharvested. Peas hung neglected on the vine. I don’t know how the carrots were doing because the zucchini had covered them. Good luck carrots, you’re on your own.

Finally, Mark agreed to come help harvest the veggies. He promised to keep an eye peeled for the slightest signs of a sneak attack, and to keep watch for any movement near my hair. I piled his arms full of veggies—all the while making jokes about needing a flame thrower, just in case. 

I don’t know enough about spider predators to know if I can relax-- because the empty web signifies that something ate him—or if the empty web means he’s a predator spider and he’s somewhere, spinning a giant web and planning on dining all winter on an unwary gardener...

Mark's Veggie Self Portrait

Circle of Life: It’s a GIRL! Linden Edition

 

On the seventh day of August, in the year of our Lord 2021, the Sume Family welcome a GIRL into the mix. Linden Adele Sume--eight pounds, two ounces and 20.5 inches “tall”-- Linden arrived at one minute before midnight and immediately laid claim to the title of Baby Girl and Biggest Sume Baby to date.

Her arrival makes Aiden a Big Brother, and even little Lane is now no longer the Littlest Sume Cousin, but  Linden’s Big Cousin.  I am now Nana Sugar to FOUR SUMES—one of which is a GIRL!! My cup surely runneth over.

A GIRL!!!

We are all smitten.

"Baby out!" says big brother Aiden

Garden? Growing

My straw bale garden is coming along quite well. My peas survived the convection oven blast we had in June—I covered them with shade cloth and managed to keep most of them. 

I also planted tomatoes, peppers, carrots, beans, fingerling potato, and eight zucchini plants—I know! I can explain... The first zucchini I planted rotted. So, I started a second planting in little pots, and only half germinated. But those that grew were doing quite well—until they weren’t. Slugs found them and decimated my entire crop of starts in a single night. By this time, it’s mid-June and I have only nine seeds left. I’m afraid I’ll be the only person in North America that can’t grow zucchini—how embarrassing! 

Desperate people do desperate things; I planted all nine seeds in three “hills” on the side of my straw bales, forgetting two important things. One: what happens if all nine survive? And Two: zucchini don’t trail the way pumpkins and cukes do. Zucchinis tend to grow in a big old clump—and I had planted NINE OF THEM. 

Slugs chopped off one early one, literally “nipping it in the bud,” but the other eight keep on growing. And growing. And—well if you’ve ever planted zucchini you can imagine what my garden looks like. Between the pumpkins that are once again bent on neighborhood domination, and the zucchini –well, it’s pretty difficult to see the forest for all the squash trees. You’ll just have to take my word for it that there are carrots and peppers, et al, in the midst of squash-a-ganza. 

 

My flowers are still losing the battle with slugs, but if you didn’t know what it was INTENDED to look like, some of my pots are quite pretty. 

                                                                And I have blueberries!

Tah-Dah!