I married BigD

Friday, June 27th, was our wedding anniversary. A few years ago we went to the church, amidst a lot of hoopla, and had a wedding. We were like the main event. It was a lovely affair, you can ask my mother, plus we have a book of pictures to prove it. Every time I stand at the front of the church, I think about that day. I also think about the days we baptized all our babies in the same spot. Also the day that our eldest son, who was in the Cherub Choir (age 4) leaned into the strategically placed microphone and sang an unplanned solo that began "Maaaaa- eh-reee had a bay-bay-bay-bee." during the precious little Cherub Choir's Christmas program during 'big church.' Those are all fleeting thoughts.

On June 27, in whatever year that was (BigD keeps up with those details), we had no idea at all what we were doing. None, or nil (international soccer talk). We said things like "I will love, honor, comfort and keep you." Keep... where? Keep what? BigD thought we would get married and then he, as KEN, would keep me, as Barbie, in a dream house. On the other hand, I was overwhelmed with the thank you notes and consumed with the desire to make better lasagna than his mother made. I won.

I now realize that the 'keep' means 'keep on' - much of being married is centered on 'keeping on.' AND. . . sitting in a lot of fields, gyms, and auditoriums, for years. That's not in the vows. Of all the things that BigD is, he's the DAD of this brood, and it's good to have him walking this children - laden road alongside.

He's a strong guy - most likely, BigD is physically holding them in place to get that picture made. Not only did we get married on that single day, we have decided to be married every single day since then. As a wedding planning woman, I have stood at the back of many churches for hundreds of weddings. Every single time, I think..."Whoa, you have no idea what you're saying right now."

Take these two - Chili and his Lovely Bride - I'm feeling OK about them, since they seem to know how to listen to each other. But still, they have no idea what's ahead. That's a very, very good thing, the not knowing what's ahead...because seriously, how would we have prepared for what it was like when my frail and increasingly confused in-laws were living in this house with us and our many small children, all of whom resumed thumb-sucking in that time period. Or how easily and willingly he slid into the role of 'dad' for our bonus child. Or what it might be like to huddle in the dark in the bathroom during a wicked storm that sent a tree midline through the house.Yeah, you're laughing now, buddy, now that nobody is in diapers, and you get to sleep all night, and the rain is no longer pouring through the 5 holes in the roof and you're all dressed up in your new Easter tie.

Should we have said things like...I'll cut up the meat, in sickness and in health?How about... I'll set out the luminaria, the most miserable job in my universe, for better .... ....or for worse, we'll both get up at 5 a.m. to take the young ones to the buses leaving the church for the beach trip, because at 5:30 a.m. anything's better together.For richer (garden soil) I'll move the compost to the flower bed.

...for poorer....I'm at "the store" - Saks on Fifth in NYC at Christmas - on BUSINESS, so it doesn't count - but here's a picture. This is an aside, but when BigB, our eldest, was in about 4th grade, he had miser as a vocabulary word. You'll never guess who he gave as an example of miser. It was NOT his mother.To love and to cherish ...and we've already talked about the sunglasses...but OK, whatever, it's our anniversary. Buckshot likes to have serious conversations with him. BigD actually knows what Buckshot is saying.

My favorite line of the wedding service is probably "With all that I am and all that I have, I honor you." That's easy to say when you're all dressed up, and there are flowers and music and candles.... but, the real honoring comes every single day.

And TODAY, BigD, I am going to honor you by NOT putting in the picture of you snoring on the couch.But, from this day forward, I'll bet PPP is more careful about making faces at the camera.

The Sophisticate

Our eldest daughter, The Sophisticate, is a woman of many talents. As we face the last semester at the University, she is honing the skills she learned at my knee...or on my hip...or in my car....or being dragged along on my wild, over-extended commitments. So,let's see how she's doing on some critical life skills.

CAJOLE: The hand on the hip says, "Get back over here and smile." She uses this hand on the hip and teasing smile when she is teaching second grade, and trying to round up everyone for a picture. Apparently her man, Cubbie is no stranger to cajoling. Future life skill - cajole children and their parents at school, church, home, vacation, clubs, outings, reunions - useful for teachers, room mothers, sunday school teachers, scout leaders, sorority presidents, any kind of semi-pro mother. This PARTICULAR day, the brothers didn't want any part of the picture, so cajoling was in order. But awesome tie on Cubbie. (THAT particular talent, Ruthless Shopping is not on the table today.)MAXIMIZE and HURRY "I'm just trying to get this done as quick as possible. It's bright and freezing." FALSE. She wanted to make sure we all saw her manicure, and it's hard to get that in the picture. Future life skill - maximize the manicure - useful for professional anybodies - especially useful for carpool lines, women's clubs, and avoiding cleaing up the kitchen...maximize the manicure. Always.
BE IN THE PICTURE: And here they are at last - LINED UP and SMILING - thanks in large part to her persuasive effort. And, she's making sure that she doesn't get left out of the shot. Future life skill - make sure you DOCUMENT everything. Don't do all the work and then not even BE THERE. Document, document, document. So it's documented - The Sophisticate was on the deck.SHOW UP and TIE BOWS: The Sophisticate can tie a bow like no one else in these parts, nay in the whole world. If there were a Bravo reality show on bow-tying, The Sophisticate would be the HOSTESS - the PADMA of TOP BOW. This particular day, 64 perfect bows on chairs in under 90 minutes. Future life skill - bow tying. No shortage of applications: gift wrap of all kinds and types, bows on wreaths, hair bows, tying string around a bunch of papers to recycle, tying bows on wedding programs, tying sashes on the backs of dresses. Second life skill - showing up to help her mother get the bows on the chairs. Excellent life skill - showing up to help. OK, so those are all related to mother skills. Good plan. DON'T GET TO A SIZE 60:That is a single pair of seersucker pants, waist size 60. Pretty Pretty Princess and The Sophisticate took one leg each. Two girls, one pair of pants. Striped pants, no less. And they are both smiling. Future life skill - make sure you are smaller than HALF the size of pants that big. Also, pick up stuff on the spur of the moment at the Thrift Store, because nothing beats a good costume box, which is where these pants are.WORK the PARTY: At a party, listen carefully, even if it means getting a kind of fixed yet distant stare that simulates your fascination with the other person.... and hold your wine glass gracefully. The Sophisticate can hold her own at a party. Behind her are all the bows she had tied 4 hours earlier. Future life skill - work the cocktail party. Laugh a lot. Things get tough; life can be dark and twisty sometimes. Everybody gets tired, and everyone doesn't always want to do it your way. The world is inherently unfair. Laughing works on most all of that. The Sophisticate uses her prodigious laughing skill to the fullest. I'm really, really grateful for that. It changes her world and it changes ours too.FIND THE SHADE. In these hot and muggy parts, the shade is your friend. And somehow, she has all those men looking right at her. PPP is NOT looking at her. The Sophisticate has these gentlemen right where she wants them, in the shade. Hug a lot. And hang on tight. Just saying.

Still Sudsy at the LAUN-DRO-MAT

Well, here we are 30 days later and we are still at the laundromat. It's not necessary to belabor the whole issue with my 4 year old MAYTAG top of the line, thousand dollar, Neptune washing machine, which is terminally broken. There's already been a class action lawsuit about this washer, but it's over now. No more claims. But let's not talk about that, it's so very, very sad. And I am so very, very, very mad.

I love the laundromat - I love the smells, and I love the people, and I love the speed. We are completely done, washed, dried and folded in less than an hour and a half. And there are so many fun things to see and do at the laundromat. We know this, because we are spending about 2 afternoons a week there.

It's a warm and bright and happy place. The west facing windows let the brutal summer sun to bear down on the already blazing hot laundromat - no, let's see - the beautiful rays of the sun gloriously shining from the west make the top of the washers an ideal place to grow houseplants. And so let's see how they grow in that warm, bright, moist environment.

This plant is big ....and lush...and has hairy things all over the leaves. Wait, it's lint. The leaves and stems and even the dirt are covered with lint.And this plant, in its natural state is purple. This version is not only covered with lint, but that new growth, back near the pot, it's just made some sort of mutation to accommodate the laundry...no longer purple, rather a pink spotted version of this purple plant. Trust me, it doesn't look right. It looks very, very ...not right.

We have our laundromat routine down to a science. No matter how many loads we have, no matter how many sheets and towels, comforters, dirty socks...not matter how much, it will take us 1 hour and 20 - 30 minutes.

Because we use as many washers and dryers as it takes to finish in that time - about 8 or 9 of those mega size things. Which MAY mean that other people in the laundromat are waiting. . . but they won't wait long, because it's all about speed for us. I have raced a woman to a dryer before. The first time, I felt guilty and let her have it. No more. No pity in the laundromat.

BigB, our elder son, doesn't like for his shirts to go into the dryer, since they heat up to about 493 degrees. thus shrinking the shirts to a size that might fit a stuffed animal. Since BigB is way more than 6 feet tall, and the short, bare mid-riff look doesn't do much for him, we stretch the shirts, then hang them to dry. It doesn't take very long, so it works for me.

The two person technique is most effective. PPP works really hard on this, since she doesn't much like for her midriff to be bare either. She can relate. Young Son, not so much. Whatever, work fast and get out. Even when we are on the clock, I remain mesmerized by the suds. The young ones are stretching shirts, and I am watching the suds. And possibly having a heat stroke. Or a hot flash. Or both. N.B.: this particular washer is labelled as if it were in a Harry Potter laundromat, what with the instructions about the 'programme.'I was SO mesmerized that I didn't notice that another of my 17 washers in use was dripping. The Laundry Lady noticed, and started piling up the towels under the drip. And panicking. This happens when a piece of laundry is stuck in the door and 'breaks the seal' so the water runs out. In this case, it was the string in a pair of pajama pants. The Laundry Lady gets pretty agitated and asks if we are going to be late for an appointment or a meeting. Do these people look like they are going to be late for a meeting? I didn't think so. Laundry Lady, bless her agitated heart, decided that the thing to do was to unplug the machine, open the door, get the string out, then start it up again, to avoid possibly....letting the water keep dripping out. I offered the services of Young Son, a strapping and agile young man who is also obedient. She declined, all the while, calling him 'sir.' "Sir, you'll have to step away. This is dangerous." Sir? Seriously? He's a 15 year old smart-ass. Obedient and strapping, but a smart ass nonetheless. He is not yet a 'sir'. I have seen him after lax summer league and when he has a headache. Not 'sir.' Not yet.So this was her solution. After re-arranging the mutant and fuzzy plants, she kicked off her keds and jumped up on those washers...and did this. Twice. Once to unplug it, once to plug it back in. There were sound effects. Not so many people are taking pictures in the laundromat, so I try to be discreet. Ok, I'm the only one taking pictures. I was mesmerized again, by the sight of the Laundry Lady with her head down behind the row of washers. ALL of which contained my clothes - and the ones on the other side too. Sorry, other patrons.
I was so engrossed in the whole head-behind-the-washer scenario that I let this happen. These are our wet clothes, and they are sitting in the washer. We don't let that happen. Part of our technique is speed. The instant the machine stops, we pull the clothes out and throw the wet clothes into about 4 dryers per washer. My attention was diverted and I let this happen. And then, to make matters worse, I made my minions wait while I took the picture.
So, we got the clothes in the dryer. But here's the question. Is there no justice? I am spending HOURS in the laundromat because my washer is broken, and so I go to the laundromat....and the washer breaks. It added at least 10 minutes to our time. Not fair. And she called my Young Son 'Sir'. Just saying.

Making Mud out of Garbage - or COMPOSTING

Well, that is the end of my compost from last year - actually since we got all the way down to the bottom for the first time in several years, it's probably the compost from 1997. That eggshell should not be there - it means I didn't crunch the shells up enough. Remember that for later. I started composting one year when I felt especially eco-noble. Then I stopped because nobody wanted to take the old tomato peels and coffee grounds out to the compost heap, so we had tiny bugs flying around under the sink. Then I started homeschooling, and made it into a homeschool project, and voila - compost again.

What does one DO with compost? Well, my friends, one enriches the garden with it.
Look at those petunias! Thriving in the compost enriched pot. They already need to be cut back. Also deadheading is in order - so yea!! more stuff for the new compost. The circle of plant life. But, I know you have more questions:
What if the garden is nothing more than a few pots on the patio? Well, one enriches the patio pots with it, and grows an awesome container garden.

What if there is no garden? Seriously? Don't compost.

Is it a nasty mess? Not for me, because I let my 'helpers' do the work. No, actually, it's not a mess, because it's contained in a ...thing for compost.
Does it smell? It smells like grass and stuff. Its not a yummy smell....I don't want it up on the deck. Mostly, it's hot. When the morning is cool, steam rises from the compost. Seriously.

In principle, you simply take organic matter, mostly plant, pile it up, add water and air, and let it degrade into a lucious, rich black dirt. It happens anyway, you are just going to get to be able to gather and use it, rather than let it decay inside a bag in a landfill. It takes a while. You aren't going to do this today, and wake up tomorrow to a whole pile of rich black dirt.

First, find a place to put it. It needs some sun, because it's going to cook. And we all know that cooking requires heat, and since we are being eco-friendly, we will use solar power to cook the compost.

You will need a few things, though not many. Only one tool is required: some kind of garden fork or pitchfork or something to mix the stuff up. Otherwise, it gets packed down, and nothing much happens. I like to use a container. We got our handy black plastic affair at Home Depot, I believe. Long ago. You can simply pile the stuff up in the yard, no box, no container, no nothing. I like the concept that it all stays together. But when I started, I just tossed the stuff, and sometimes covered it up with black plastic to keep the raccoons out and help it get heated up. I graduated from there to a chicken wire enclosure, which I think someone may have built as a homeschool project. Whatever, don't make the container a big deal. Just go for it.

Ours has lived in the same place for all these years, so it's going to stay there, even though it has gotten pretty shady back there. When Big D gets back from NYC, where he saw Alicia Keys in concert last night, on business, I might ask him to do some trimming to give us a little more sun. That's fair isn't it? See Alicia Keys in NYC and then trim some branches back to give the compost some sun. Yeah, that'll work.
This is my inside container. It usually lives under the sink, and gathers inside debris - like coffee grounds, and fresh fruit or vegetable peels, and any other things that are plant-like trash. It needs to go out daily to the compost, otherwise .....well, lots of things otherwise . . . bugs, smelly, dogs sniffing, you get the drift. Nobody promised this would be pretty.

Other things to put in: grass clippings, fallen leaves, (green things and brown things) vegetable and fruit peelings, coffee grounds, egg shells - crushed, vegetables and fruits that you forgot about in the refrigerator and accidentally got rotten, the sack of zucchini that sat in the car for 3 days after you went to the Farmers Market in which the zucchini got nasty rotten.
Here are some flowers that are looking limp and ready to go, so rather than throw them into the garbage, they are going to the compost. The little plant I will pinch back and try to save - but the dead parts are headed to the compost.

Things NOT to put in: greasy stuff, meat or meat products, dirty diapers, the small dead rodent that the cat delivered to the front door sometime in the night, big seeds like peach pits or avocado seeds.

We may as well address the issue of animal waste. I don't pick up that stuff up and put it in the compost. If you have a different take on that, go for it. I do sometimes buy a bag of sanitized garden manure to boost it, but I don't use the fresh stuff. Also, consider the whole salmonella and e-coli issues. Those organisms don't fall out of the sky. There is no such thing as salmonella rain. Just saying.

So, now that you have picked a spot and gotten your container in place, you are ready to begin. And you begin by throwing the stuff in there. We will start with some grass clippings.

I am picking a bag up off the street, since it does not appear that anyone has cut our grass lately. Also, these bags have been sitting in the sun, so they are going to be hot already. Hot grass is a good thing for compost.

We'll use this box of pea shells (no peas in there) which we got at the Farmers Market this morning. I asked, and they gave....their trash.

I have this container of what appears to be nastiness, but is actually coffee grounds and peach peels. PPP made Peach Crisp using Pioneer Woman's recipe for Father's Day. . . AND that is why she's called Pretty Pretty Princess.

This is an example of what is inside that jug of nastiness. Today I had some extra baked potatoes, (Young Son is gone, I'm not sure I realized how much he consumes at any one sitting). However, I do NOT scrape plates into the compost. Too many variables there, involving meat and fat. Notice that I cut the baked potato up, rather than toss it in whole. Things move faster when the stuff is in smaller pieces. I had the flowers past their prime, so I pulled the petals off and put all that stuff in there too. The green stuff is from the deadheading I did today. I used my compost about 6 weeks ago when I put these herbs in, and it is thriving. Thanks to the compost.

The mint and basil in this herb pot are a little out of hand for June (I wasn't aware that mint bloomed this early, or maybe I forgot). So, I pinched that stuff back pretty heavily. Even though I had a garbage can right there, I DID NOT throw the pinch backs away. I took them to the renewing of the compost event I am holding in my yard today

Today, I had a half a bag of this stuff, Plant-tone, which I love...it's organic, which makes me feel so noble about the whole affair. So I dumped it in for good measure. And to get it off the front porch, where it has been sitting since I put the bedding plants to bed, several weeks ago. In the fall, when I use blood meal with the pansies, I dump the rest of the blood meal into the compost; same with bone meal and cottonseed meal. Sometimes I even buy an extra bag, just for my composting pile of yard waste (my mother would say 'yahhhhd waste' - but I can't get away with that much accent.)

Now, take your fork and stir that stuff up, mix it up really good. Then water it thoroughly. Don't turn it into a soaking, sopping mess, but go ahead and get it wet. Things move faster that way. Otherwise, you can end up with a dry pile of grass. But you won't, and I won't either, because I have put all this other stuff in there.
Stir, stir, stir. Sometimes I call it 'turn the compost' which sounds even more noble. Somehow. Whatever, mix that stuff up.And there you have it. I leave the fork on the top, so my minions, I mean my dear children, will remember to TURN the compost when they happily go out with stuff to add. The top and sides have rain and air holes. They also help keep out the raccoons and dogs who roam around here at night looking for goodies. So, go forth and compost. It will be ready for your late summer/early fall garden.