Ready For Winter

This week we finally put the garden to bed. We pulled up all the pathetic excuses for tomato plants. We had about 7 or 8 tomato plants and they just didn't do crap. They did a lot better than my potato plants did. I got nothing. One potato that was fairly decent and a couple of acorn sized babies. Of course, I started out with sprouts from the kitchen that were on their way to the trash.

The one thing that took off was the strawberries The Girl planted all along the sides of the garden. She planted 10, and got a good amount of actual berries. I heard you're supposed to pinch off the flowers to encourage root growth, or maybe to make the plant send off more babies, I'm not sure which. Anyway, we ignored that advice and still ended up with a ton of little strawberry babies. We had to do something with them because we need to till up the garden. Our soil is really crappy. Lots of clay. Doesn't even make nice mud pies. Anyway, The Girl and I dug up around the ash tree in the back yard and planted them all around it. We took bricks from the big front bed and circled it up so it matches the tree in front, except that one surrounded by irises, not berries.

I also dug up my rosemary plant. It grew pretty well considering it was overgrown by the tomatoes and strangled by the cantaloupes. I also have a baby grapefruit tree that I brought inside. I ate a grapefruit one night that was full of big fat seeds that had already sprouted. I decided to plant them in the big flowerpot by the driveway and see if they grew. They did. One got taken over by weeds, but one is a nice little plant now, about a foot tall. I'm as proud as I can be.

NaNoWriMo, Part 2

I don't know why I quit posting pieces of Sassafras, but since nobody ever complained I guess nobody misses it. Just so you know, it ends happily ever after. Maybe I'll finish posting it, maybe I'll just say fuck it. Right now I have something more important to think about. It's almost November. That means it's almost time to write another novel. I took last year off since I'd been puttering around on Sassafras all year, but lately I've been really slacking. I started writing the sequel, and still have a little tweaking to do on Sassafras, but I've been spending more time reading books than writing them.

I should have gone crazy writing while I was on sick leave, but I just didn't feel like writing. I sure attacked the library though. I wonder if there's any way they could look on their computer and see how many books I read. It feels like hundreds. I already started the sequel to Sassafras, so I have to come up with another story to write for NaNo. I've been thinking and thinking, and finally decided what I'm going to work on this time. At least I think so. I have a tendency to change my mind.

Anyway, this time I think I'm going to write a young adult novel about a girl who gets dumped by her best friend when a new girl moves to town. At first all three of them are friends, but eventually the other two decide they would be better off without her tagging along. Part of it is because her mom has a baby and makes her watch the little angel while she works, and part of it is just because her best friend really has more in common with the new girl than with her. If that wasn't bad enough, the man her mom had been seeing, the father of her baby, turns out to be married, and his daughter takes her anger over her parents breaking up on this poor girl. To top it all off, her older brother is upset because his best friend left for college. But they were more than just best friends, they were boyfriend and boyfriend, if you know what I mean. So not only does this girl have to deal with her mom's little soap opera, losing her best friend and avoiding this horrible bully girl, everybody's picking on her because of her gay brother.

I can't decide what's going to happen with her mom and the lying, cheating dog she was dating. I think when she finds out he's married it's going to piss her off so much she dumps him, but she's pregnant so like it or not she can't completely kick him to the curb. I also don't know what's going to happen with her brother coming out of the closet. They live in a really small town, so him being gay is a big deal, especially since he's a star athlete.

I do know what's going to happen with her best friend. She's going to spend all her time with the new girl. And the new girl's older brother. Who impregnates her. In your face, you little ho-bag. But just so her life doesn't completely suck, I'm going to have her end up being friends with the girl who had been picking on her all year. I just can't decide how to work that. I don't think she's going to be really mean, just very angry at her dad and taking it out on the main character.

Sleepy Time

Well, I really did end up getting a C-PAP machine. I've been using it the last few days. Can't say I really like it. It's uncomfortable and has that new hose smell. I don't think I'm nearly as bad as The Man was when he got his machine. He was seriously dragging his ass. I didn't feel like I was all that sleepy to start with. I mean, I didn't have much get up and go, but I think it's safe to blame that on just being lazy. My only problem sleeping was waking up with pain in my ribdal area, and I hadn't had that happen in a couple of weeks, since before I even went to the sleep study. Go figure. I'm going to soldier on and use the damn thing. I keep telling myself I should get my money's worth out of it, but then I remember it didn't cost anything so I already did.

Oops

The Girl finally got her driving permit. Not that she tried before and failed, she just never tried. She passed her first time. The Man has taken her driving several times, but Sunday was the first time I did. We had a lot of running around to do. Picking up medicine, buying more dye to tie-dye sheets for the basement, hitting junk stores for more sheets, then my favorite: the library. I did all the running around in the city and let The Girl drive home. One of us got pulled over by the police before we even left town.

It wasn't The Girl.

It was me.

Shocking, I know. I was speeding. 70 in a 60. I couldn't believe when I looked in the rear view mirror and saw flashing lights. Then when I pulled over onto the shoulder the police car pulled over right in back of me instead of racing past like it was supposed to. I told The Girl her driving lesson for the day was what to do when you get pulled over by the police. A friend of hers got pulled over a year or so ago and said she got out of a ticket by flashing the cop, so we joked about lifting our shirts and showing our boobies, but I just handed him my license and insurance card.

Luckily, the cop just gave me a warning and let us go. I wasn't sure if I was going to tell The Man at all. If I'd gotten a ticket I would have to tell him, but I could just 'forget' to tell him about a warning. I considered just posting about it and seeing how long until he read about it, but I thought that would probably piss him pretty completely off, so I ended up telling him that night. He was disappointed, but not surprised. For some reason I have a reputation as a lead foot.

Totally unfounded.

Really.

Quit laughing, I'm serious.