Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe

This year, my sweet honey-bunny and I signed up for one of those Community Supported Agriculture programs. This fire-breathing fellow here in town decided to get a bunch of people together and I fell into it backwards. Woo-hoo! So, he drives down to Palisade, Colorado once a week and picks up everyone’s food, and then we go to a central location and pick it up.

I missed the first two pickups since I visited my mother, but this past Tuesday, I finally got to go. I got lettuce and cabbage and squash and turnip greens and chard and herbs. I think tonight I’m going to make my squash fritters for dinner. My goal is to create at least one meal a week from only these ingredients.

Last night, my meal plan included chicken breasts and a chinese cabbage salad. I was all ready to go, and went to the crisper.

Now, last week my sweet honey-bunny went to pick up the veggies as she had done the week before. When I got home, she told me everything that was in the crisper, and I didn’t do too much digging to confirm any identities. The radishes were round and oblong and lovely. The lettuce made several beautiful salads. I’d never worked with kohlrabi or chinese cabbage before, so my sweet honey-bunny pulled a couple of recipes. I made a Kohlrabi and Green Apple Salad with Creamy Mustard Dressing over the weekend and that worked out very well. I need to make some adjustments the next time I get kohlrabi - just felt like there was something missing - but that’s pretty usual for the first time I make a recipe.

Last night, I thought I’d finish up last week’s crop with a Thai Chinese Cabbage Salad. I felt it would work fine with my plain old chicken breasts and complete my process. Imagine my surprise when I pulled bok choy out of the crisper.

Me: This is bok choy.

Sweet Honey-Bunny: Bok choy is chinese cabbage.

Me: Bok choy is one type of chinese cabbage. Not the type you were thinking of though.

SHB: (tired) Oh. Can you do something else?

In my mind, I screamed, “Do something else? I have approximately half a bushel of lemongrass, jalapeno peppers and limes in the crisper especially for this salad! How am I ever going to use it up? How could you make this mistake? Can’t you see the difference between bok choy and chinese cabbage?”

Out loud, I said, “Of course. I’ll just make the usual.” Which is fine and was fine and tasted great and went perfectly with my usual preparation of my boring chicken breasts.

And this week, I’m turning the plain old regular cabbage that we got into a chinese cabbage. It’s going to be great!

Now all I have to do is figure out what to do with the bok choy.

Just reading around and found this quiz on this gal’s website.

you are lightcyan #E0FFFF

Your dominant hues are green and blue. You’re smart and you know it, and want to use your power to help people and relate to others. Even though you tend to battle with yourself, you solve other people’s conflicts well.Your saturation level is very low - you have better things to do than jump headfirst into every little project. You make sure your actions are going to really accomplish something before you start because you hate wasting energy making everyone else think you’re working.Your outlook on life is very bright. You are sunny and optimistic about life and others find it very encouraging, but remember to tone it down if you sense irritation.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

She’s much more interesting than me though. She’s aqua. Ooooooo. She also created the pattern for these absolutely darling “Spring Forward” socks.These are my next socks, for sure.

I love thinking about stuff like this instead of my regular business stuff.  Nice break while I can get it.

A week ago, I returned from visiting my mother for her last Sunday. Mom is/was a minister, and her church pulled out all the stops to celebrate her retirement and last Sunday. Tears flowed, laughter jingled and songs flew through the air. At one point, my brother and the worship band performed a song that none of us recognized in the bulletin, but when they started playing:

“And a friend’s a friend forever

If the Lord is the Lord of them.

And a friend will not say never

‘Cause the welcome will not end.”

Friends.  A Michael W. Smith classic guaranteed to wring tears from a stone. Mom leaned over to me as the music started and said, “It’s that song, isn’t it.” Tears immediately began to stream down my face as I replied, “Yeah.” Oh no. I didn’t even know any of these people. Why was I crying?

Answer: Anchored on a song.

I sang this song over and over during my senior year until the tears didn’t rise anymore. The last time I sang it was my high school graduation where I sang loud and proud because I was so glad to get the hell out of Arkansas. I thought I’d permanently wrung all the tears out of that song, but it was just there. Waiting for me. Waiting to pounce when it didn’t think I’d notice.

And I didn’t. I didn’t even recognize the title of the song. My brother, who played and practiced and arranged the song with three other people didn’t recognize it. When I mentioned that the last time I’d heard that song was my high school graduation, he replied, “Really? I didn’t think I knew this song.”

Yep. Apparently I was correct when I assumed that we didn’t interact much during my school years. Nice to know he’s repressed all of those memories. Even the sloppy melodramatic ones.

Anyway, now the song is running through my head again (because it’s an ear worm! A giant one!) and I found myself out in the garden weeding this morning.

“Though it’s hard to let you go

In the Father’s hands we know

That a lifetime’s not too long

To live as friends.”

Goodbye old weeds.

The sale went fine, and now I’m just pulling the spiderwebs of my old business off of my arms and legs and brain. I keep finding new ones - but isn’t that just how it is with spiderwebs? You walk through the bush and suddenly, you’re covered.

I need a shower.

Next week, I’m off to visit my mother for her retirement party and then, when I return, I’ll have some time to do some showering. I desperately need to pull records and files with old information and archive them somewhere safe. Then I can reorganize my space and, by the end of June, I look forward to having my space organized and ready for the coming storm of tourist season.

Another thing that we just heard about is that the chamber of commerce and the main street program here have been badmouthing our old business. What the fuck! Basically, they are pissed because they want to use a company to spam their clients and our little ISP used several spam blocking lists which listed that company. Of course, all of this would be resolved if they used an “opt-in” method with instructions on white-listing themselves like every other company in the entire world does.

So, because they want to be the exception to the rule, and they want to use a company which is listed on several known spammer lists, they are now recommending people to use any ISP except our old business.

So our old business is being penalized for doing its job, and doing it well.

Another little tidbit? Our old business is a dues-paying member of both of these organizations. During the entire duration of our ownership of the business, we supported the community by sinking tens of thousands of dollars into sponsoring events from the county fair to neighborhood parties; giving away hosting services to non-profits; and giving our time to assist the chamber of commerce and the economic development council set up the Main Street program. We even gave the Main Street program an entire year of free DSL access. And, when the Chamber of Commerce lost its internet connection? We saved their ass.

And the spamming (oops! I mean mass-emailing!) company? No way! That company takes the checks from our local Chamber of Commerce and the Main Street program and just puts them in their bank in Waltham, Massachusetts.

In case you’re not keeping track? That location is 2093 miles from Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

This just burns my butt. Talk about a lack of loyalty! Publicly burning a loyal client AND helpful vendor AND community supporter in order to accommodate a VENDOR who can’t be bothered to fix the problem.

And that mass-emailing company *can* fix it. All they have to do is put a little time into removing themselves from these lists and practicing best policies in order to avoid being put on the lists again.

What about honor? What about integrity? What about being loyal to those who have been loyal to you? What about supporting the local business community?

Direct quote from the Chamber Website:

“The Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association’s mission is:

• To support, encourage and sustain a vibrant, healthy economy in Steamboat Springs and surrounding areas,
• To act as a spokesperson for the business and professional community,
• To support all existing industries and welcome and nurture new industries,
• To preserve our environment and workforce as integral components of our economic well-being. “

What a great job they are doing.

I can’t wait to get out of this cotton-picking town for a while. I don’t even want to breath the same air as these people.