Look, it's me!
Jun. 3rd, 2005 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormGreenie, how can your life be so interesting that you stay off the interet forever and ever and don't post on livejournal for a whole, like, 48 hours of somethin?
Well, it all started with my mom. Her boat's going to be hauled out this month (pull it out of the water, repaint, replace planks) and I just got my boat operator's certificate. So, we figured we'd take the boat out a bit, to make sure it's working. This is yesterday. So, I get through work really quickly in the morning, and head over to the boat. The boat, however, isn't working (port engine won't start). Mom is like, screw this, let's take the Zodiac out.
(The boat's always not working. Two diesel engines suspended like, a foot away from saltwater and started by batteries kept a foot away from saltwater by wiring kept maybe two feet away, plus the engine on the Zodiac, need to be working for us to go out. Hah!)
So, we take the Zodiac out. We zip up false creek to stanley park, where it gets pretty choppy. We drop my brother off by science world, since he has to be somewhere at four. Then... I take the rudder.
Now, I will pause here to note, for my entire life, all my locomotion has been under my direct physical control. I walk. I run. Sometimes I'm driven or I bus or I train, but I don't need to think about steering in those cases. I shun bumper cars, and on a bike you mostly steer with weight anyhow.
Things go pretty okay. We go by some army guys' cordon, which they're observing but not providing any input on (like, dude, can we go between the randomly-coloured buoys? Why are you sitting over there having coffee? Oh, now you're yelling at me? What, no, you're yelling at the big boat behind me... jeeze, good thing it has twin engines and can turn on a dime since you don't have anything, like, posted about this...) I turn the boat in a little circle to get a better look at a for-sale sign on another boat. Then, I try to take us into the marina, home.
*cough*
Somehow, I can find reverse, and I can find forward, but I can't find neutral. Note I could fine neutral fine earlier, when the army guys were yelling at us. However, we end up about five feet behind mom's boat, clear water between where I'm supposed to be and where I am... and a sailboat backing into us. It only takes a quarter-second to get there, because of course boats don't have breaks, the best you can do is slam into reverse and then neutral.. but there is no neutral. In the 2 seconds it takes me to notice the lack of neutral, hit the insta-kill on the engine, and look up, we're under this sailboat's nose. We managed to hand-over-hand the thing out of the way before we got popped between it and the dock, eventually I started to be able to breathe again, and mom and I hung out in the sauna for an hour while our clothes (got wet in the waves) were washed.
Whew.
So, date with Juggler (sometimes I get total skin cravings. I want want to breathe in skin. I wonder if that was an adrenaline aftereffect?) that just narrowly prevented me from walking over the Granville bridge by myself. I love walking over our bridges, they're so... nice. I did get some time on the swings at the marina (grown up swings) before I met up with him. He made rice pudding, which was yummy.
This morning, I snagged a couple of tomato plants (they're at his house, they now should be at mine. Mine! But it's three flats which is too much to carry on the bus) and headed to work. After work, which was short today, I went to my COMMUNITY GARDEN PLOT.
Excuse me, I'm going to be very silly for a moment.
COMMUNITY GARDENS ARE BETTER THAN SEX. You get there, and there are *all these gardeners* who talk to you about gardening. You get there, and your plot hasn't been touched since last year, when it was inensively gardened by someone. This means YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PICKAXE THE GARDEN OUT OF THE GROUND. In fact, it has VERY NICE SOIL already, and it's mostly planted. You can easily pull all the thistles out, because you have gloves. You take most of the forget-me-nots out, but not too many, because this garden ALREADY HAS A GOOD COLONY OF BENEFICIAL INSECTS LIVING IN IT. You leave their habitat, and you DO NOT HAVE TO SPEND A SEASON GETTING HABITAT THAT IS ACCEPTABLE TO BENEFICIALS. They're already there. Also, there are perennials that have been left there by last year's gardener. It is also full of big spiders that live in the soil and clutch eggsacs to their tummies.
There is ALREADY sage, thyme, jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes), BLOOMING HOLLYHOCKS, STRAWBERRIES WITH RIPE FRUIT, lemon balm, sage seedlings, pulmonaria, iris, I think crocosmia, a random unidentifiable non-weed plant, california poppies, violas, and hollyhocks for next year. Sage is my favourite herb, because it's the first thing I ever grew outside sucessully. Burying my nose in it (it was blooming like crazy) and finding seedlings, was heaven.
I add my tomatoes (one each of pink brandywine, black krim, peach, and cherokee chocolate) and some squash seeds and a pineapple sage. This is easy, because there is a shed there which I have the combination to, which has ALL TOOLS IMAGINABLE except the curved hand forks. It even has a wheelbarrow to haul my weeds over to the pile. After a good couple of hours, I put everything away, water my garden with the convenient hose, drink from the convenient hose, and come home.
I chat with my roommate a bit, and come up here, and write this.
I have an evening free now.
Tomorrow, I go to the farmer's market. I hang out with Tillie and babboo at Playland. Sometime this week, I go sari shopping.
Very good bunch of hours, altogether. Hope you guys are enjoying it as much. :)
Well, it all started with my mom. Her boat's going to be hauled out this month (pull it out of the water, repaint, replace planks) and I just got my boat operator's certificate. So, we figured we'd take the boat out a bit, to make sure it's working. This is yesterday. So, I get through work really quickly in the morning, and head over to the boat. The boat, however, isn't working (port engine won't start). Mom is like, screw this, let's take the Zodiac out.
(The boat's always not working. Two diesel engines suspended like, a foot away from saltwater and started by batteries kept a foot away from saltwater by wiring kept maybe two feet away, plus the engine on the Zodiac, need to be working for us to go out. Hah!)
So, we take the Zodiac out. We zip up false creek to stanley park, where it gets pretty choppy. We drop my brother off by science world, since he has to be somewhere at four. Then... I take the rudder.
Now, I will pause here to note, for my entire life, all my locomotion has been under my direct physical control. I walk. I run. Sometimes I'm driven or I bus or I train, but I don't need to think about steering in those cases. I shun bumper cars, and on a bike you mostly steer with weight anyhow.
Things go pretty okay. We go by some army guys' cordon, which they're observing but not providing any input on (like, dude, can we go between the randomly-coloured buoys? Why are you sitting over there having coffee? Oh, now you're yelling at me? What, no, you're yelling at the big boat behind me... jeeze, good thing it has twin engines and can turn on a dime since you don't have anything, like, posted about this...) I turn the boat in a little circle to get a better look at a for-sale sign on another boat. Then, I try to take us into the marina, home.
*cough*
Somehow, I can find reverse, and I can find forward, but I can't find neutral. Note I could fine neutral fine earlier, when the army guys were yelling at us. However, we end up about five feet behind mom's boat, clear water between where I'm supposed to be and where I am... and a sailboat backing into us. It only takes a quarter-second to get there, because of course boats don't have breaks, the best you can do is slam into reverse and then neutral.. but there is no neutral. In the 2 seconds it takes me to notice the lack of neutral, hit the insta-kill on the engine, and look up, we're under this sailboat's nose. We managed to hand-over-hand the thing out of the way before we got popped between it and the dock, eventually I started to be able to breathe again, and mom and I hung out in the sauna for an hour while our clothes (got wet in the waves) were washed.
Whew.
So, date with Juggler (sometimes I get total skin cravings. I want want to breathe in skin. I wonder if that was an adrenaline aftereffect?) that just narrowly prevented me from walking over the Granville bridge by myself. I love walking over our bridges, they're so... nice. I did get some time on the swings at the marina (grown up swings) before I met up with him. He made rice pudding, which was yummy.
This morning, I snagged a couple of tomato plants (they're at his house, they now should be at mine. Mine! But it's three flats which is too much to carry on the bus) and headed to work. After work, which was short today, I went to my COMMUNITY GARDEN PLOT.
Excuse me, I'm going to be very silly for a moment.
COMMUNITY GARDENS ARE BETTER THAN SEX. You get there, and there are *all these gardeners* who talk to you about gardening. You get there, and your plot hasn't been touched since last year, when it was inensively gardened by someone. This means YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PICKAXE THE GARDEN OUT OF THE GROUND. In fact, it has VERY NICE SOIL already, and it's mostly planted. You can easily pull all the thistles out, because you have gloves. You take most of the forget-me-nots out, but not too many, because this garden ALREADY HAS A GOOD COLONY OF BENEFICIAL INSECTS LIVING IN IT. You leave their habitat, and you DO NOT HAVE TO SPEND A SEASON GETTING HABITAT THAT IS ACCEPTABLE TO BENEFICIALS. They're already there. Also, there are perennials that have been left there by last year's gardener. It is also full of big spiders that live in the soil and clutch eggsacs to their tummies.
There is ALREADY sage, thyme, jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes), BLOOMING HOLLYHOCKS, STRAWBERRIES WITH RIPE FRUIT, lemon balm, sage seedlings, pulmonaria, iris, I think crocosmia, a random unidentifiable non-weed plant, california poppies, violas, and hollyhocks for next year. Sage is my favourite herb, because it's the first thing I ever grew outside sucessully. Burying my nose in it (it was blooming like crazy) and finding seedlings, was heaven.
I add my tomatoes (one each of pink brandywine, black krim, peach, and cherokee chocolate) and some squash seeds and a pineapple sage. This is easy, because there is a shed there which I have the combination to, which has ALL TOOLS IMAGINABLE except the curved hand forks. It even has a wheelbarrow to haul my weeds over to the pile. After a good couple of hours, I put everything away, water my garden with the convenient hose, drink from the convenient hose, and come home.
I chat with my roommate a bit, and come up here, and write this.
I have an evening free now.
Tomorrow, I go to the farmer's market. I hang out with Tillie and babboo at Playland. Sometime this week, I go sari shopping.
Very good bunch of hours, altogether. Hope you guys are enjoying it as much. :)
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Date: 2005-06-06 05:29 pm (UTC)Also, established gardens do require time - I was in on the first three years of our community garden in Surrey, (building the beds, spreading the crappy soil the city gave us, hauling the gravel for the paths etc. etc.) it took me three years of ammendments for my soil to be half as good as my current backyard, and then I had to leave! Hrmph!
I like the idea of swings for grownups - I rarely pass up the chance for swinging :)