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.

This spring I got a letter from our local arts council asking us for a donation for Cabaret, a performance which skewers the political figures here in our little Steamboat town. Within the text was hidden the line, “…we expect this year to be a complete sellout.”

Yeah, I know.

After laughing out loud and repeating the phrase all over town, I quieted down and wrote the check.

Now, it’s my turn. Our lovely little ISP is now about to go to someone else and I’m going to be free! The change will be good for our current and new clients as this new company will be able to grow SpringSips. My sweet little honey bunny and I know how to start a business, but after a few years boredom sets in and we’re ready to move on. So, good for starting, not so good at maintaining.

My parents sent us a bouquet of flowers which brighten up our office just in time for the clouds to move back in.

They are the best!!!!!

Tomorrow we are off to Fort Collins, Colorado to sign the papers.

I really feel like everything is working out well, and I’m glad to be finishing this project after eleven years.

Woo-hoo!

Just so you know what I was craving last week:

Baby!

The sun finally came out on Saturday and has not fled again. The trade-off here is that we have big flood warnings going on as the sun melts the 500″ of snow that we got during the winter and spring. I don’t even care. My sun is back and I am doing the dance of joy which, I can only assume from the past weekend’s behavior, means dog walks.

The dog is happy.

I am happy.

The sun is shining.

So yesterday, I tried this new wine: Mas de la Dame Rose. Oh. My. God. I cannot do it justice. Layers of flavor with a dry finish, but fruity enough that your friends who only like sweet wine will still like it. Yeah. And so reasonably priced, French and organic (or biologique as they say in France). Plus, it’s pink.

I have this thing for pink drinks. There’s nothing like a pink drink to make you feel decadent and special and girly. I love Kir Royales especially. Sparkling wine does the same thing for me as pink drinks except I also feel sophisticated, so you can imagine my affinity for the Kir Royale. I make mine with Chambord sometimes too, which is actually a Kir Imperial. Yummy either way.

Anyway, pink drink season starts again soon. I’ve been fighting off the snow golems with generous amounts of the Shingleback Grenache Rose that I took home earlier this week. I also found a new absolutely yummy and easy cocktail called a Paloma which really does only take about a moment to make and makes me feel like summer is just around the corner. I use Izze grapefruit soda, because that is what is in the liquor store downstairs, but I stuck with the Reposado Tequila (I used Milagro) and substitutes are now not welcome.

Actually, I think that I’ve started the pink drink season early. Woo-hoo!

Me consternation?

Can you see it? The snow? I just took this picture, and the snow has only gotten harder since that time.

I love the snow, don’t get me wrong. I moved here knowing that we’d measure our snow in feet instead of inches and that entire days might be devoted to shovelling the stuff.

Our first year in Steamboat (and my last year gardening in an actual plot), I lost my green beans to snow on the Fourth of July. July! When I checked the frost dates for fall, I found that the first frost date was listed as August 16th. The last frost date of the previous season? August 17th.

Well. What can you do about that? No more fresh tomatoes for me without tons of fancy footwork. Dang.

And here’s my However. I want my sun back! Good ol’ Mother Nature has been teasing me with a beautiful day here and there interspersed with days of this crapatoopie weather! Rain, sleet, grapple, snow. Snow, grapple, sleet, rain.

I know that tornadoes, volcanoes, earthquakes and cyclones are destroying the world. I think I might be able to take that knowledge if I could just feel like I was going to have more sun than clouds.

Arrgh.

PS. The baby shower I was dreading? Totally rocked. We walked in to meet one of the liquor reps who immediately hooked us up with a kick-ass sangria which knocked me on my patootie after only half a glass. No games, no cheesy decorations, and no children! An entire room of fabulous conversation with adult women who wanted to talk about things other than their children as well. You just can’t beat that!

Okay. Despite the fact that I love knitting and crocheting and cross-stitching my way through the baby stuff, I dislike the baby shower process. (Also the baby-having and the baby-holding process, but that’s another story for another day.)

Inevitably someone thinks that “fun” will be had if we are all forced to race-diaper baby dolls or guess how much baby products cost. Luckily, my sweet honey-bunny and I can attend together (because that’s yet another perk of the lesbian lifestyle! No boys allowed? No problem here!) so we can share those “ohmygodtheyjustcomparedbreastpumps” moments.

Don’t get me wrong. I smile and race-diaper the baby while making fun of the whole thing out loud so that my head doesn’t explode. I try to enjoy the moment with a post-feminist irony. However, I challenge you to fully revel in any sort of irony when surrounded by pastels. Irony just works better in grey and black.

Anyway, while I am unsuccessfully avoiding saying the word “baby” so that my bead necklace doesn’t get stolen, my sweet honey-bunny stealthily plans our escape. Our countdown begins when the presents start to open. As soon as everyone has ooohed and aaaahed over my hours and hours of hard work and fiber choice, we are out of there. Suddenly, it’s “Hey, we’re going to be late for the other, you know.” And “I’m so sorry, but we got double-booked.”

Double-booked with the shower and watching tv at home.

We slip out as quietly as possible and take off for the house.

I love baby knitting, but save me from the showers!

I have another stop on the Baby Express! Right now, I’m working on the Sunny-Side-Up Hoodie in a cute little lavendar color and it’s just making me so happy. I always resist using the same yarn as called for in the pattern (I think I’m just twisted that way) but I am using the Cupcake because I wanted to see how it works up. While not that pleasant to work with, I do think that it’s going to make up into a really cute little sweater. Plus, since the fiber is acrylic, the sweater will be bullet-proof for mama. The pattern is really simple, which works both ways for me. I’m trying to finish for a baby shower on Friday which means a bit of a slog through several inches of garter stitch. On the other hand, the stitching will go quickly, and that means I’ll have the full trousseau finished in time for the shower.

The full trousseau?

LA’s famous Baby Afghan

Bunny Ear Baby Hat

Yet Another Pair of Better-Than-Booties Baby Socks

And the not finished Sunny-Side-Up Baby Hoodie.

All cute. All the time.