Sad stuff and cat pictures…

My sister’s bike was stolen. It was locked up in her backyard in Kenton (North Portland) It is a dark green Terry. The really sad thing is that bikes are really hard to find for short ladies. Gr. Anyway, if you see this bike let me know.

There is a special place in hell for bike thieves, indeed!

At least cats are still cute.

This is what you see out of our kitchen window. The next door neighbors have a cat named Miss Ohio (Don't ask) She often stares out the window at me. She looks a bit like Nermal and is sort of the kid sister to Jackie and OJ. Also, if you look close you can see that their curtains have cats on them...only on the outside, so we can see it!

 

Jackie and OJ have been sleeping on the shady side of the house IN THE DIRT. It makes me sad. Jackie could be curled up with me but no, he wants to wallow in the dirt with his dirty brother cat.

Also, I finally got around the releases the day lilies that have been hating their existence under the Himalayan Cedar. I don’t know why I planted the lilies there. I just thought it was a  waste to have them tucked in the back of the house and figured I’d move them. That was before I got a grasp on gardening I guess. I placed them across the front of the house interspersed with the tiny white and purple irises. At least we will have plants that are span two season.

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I’m looking forward to Mercury going direct on the 26th. How about you?

Last week was expensive. I spent about $400 in button parts, $400 buying all new toner colors, new laser paper, and a bunch of postal stamps. There were a couple other small expenses. I had the money, I just hate it when I have to spend all of it at once. ugh. So, if you were thinking of ordering buttons, now would be a good time. I’d like to have a little extra cash before my trip east at the end of September.

Stuff that happened at my house this week:

-Paul and I ate the first tomoto from our garden. There are seriously few things tastier than standing in the garden barefoot and eating a freshly ripened sun warmed tomato. I planted lots of tomatoes because I’m going to can them to make soup in the winter.

-I have been picking blackberries from the tiny patch in our back yard and I plan to make jam out of them instead of pie. I always make pie, eat one piece, and then try to get other people to eat it because I’m just not a sweets person. I have all these scratches on my arms from picking blackberries and I worry that people will think I’m a cutter!

-We had two lovely folks staying in the guest cave for a few days. They just got back to the US from WWOOFing in New Zealand. You can check out their blog about their adventure here. On their last day they made us a great meal and then…

-OJ jumped up on the table to get attention/entertain us. We had this berry basket on the table with candy and weird toys left over from the symposium. There were 3 or 4 DumDum lollypops in it and OJ would pick them out with his paws and drop them on the table. Sometimes he would chew on the end of the stick, sometimes not. But, if you put the lollypops back in the basket he would fish them out again. What a silly cat!

-Paul has to leave for work at 6:30am and he always comes up stairs to hug me and give me a kiss goodbye. Today, he came up stairs as usual and when he  let go he grabbed something under my pillow…there was a Sharpie there. Then he told me the Sharpie Fairy must have came to visit. I checked my mouth to make sure I had all my teeth! My hair is getting long enough again to put it up with pens so I think one must have fallen out in bed. it still made me giggle this morning to think about.

-I decided to tweak Brainscan: Nine Stories and Brainscan: it’s complicated and release them as issue numbers later this year. Hooray for tiny zines that require me to do a lot of work. I’m a glutton for that.

-I went to the book store at the community college down the street to buy a pen and a new notebook. I’ve joined a group on facebook where we plan to write 15 minutes everyday in September. Let me know if you want to join. I plan on using it to work on the fiction stuff for the split zine I agreed to do. I was also thinking I could spend a week using that 15 minutes to write down recipes for the cookzine I have been meaning to do.

Speaking of cooking…I’m going to go think about what to make for dinner tonight. We got out Organics to You box yesterday and we have some many vegetables!

Post symposium post where I don’t really talk about the symposium…

So, the symposium was over a few weeks ago. I took a much needed trip to the Riverhouse and have slowly be getting my house and life back in order. I think the symposium was a hit this year. I’ll have more to talk about later. The new space had its problems but as someone put it “it seems more like a space the symposium should be in.” The last 10 years were on a campus of a university that may have given it a stuffy, institution feel. In hindsight, I’m pretty happy with the space and the people we worked with there. We had our post symposium wrap up meeting/reward dinner at Portobello, a fancy vegan restaurant, last night. It was good to talk about things.

We are already scheduling a meeting for next year on September 18th at the IPRC.

Other than that, Portland is starting to feel like autumn, even thought it is pretty warm this week. I haven’t spent enough time in my yard but I did take some photos:

Despite Paul taunting the artichokes with how he is going to eat them, a few of them managed to go to thistle.

We have a small bit of invasive blackberries at the back corner of the yard. We didn't trim it back enough this year so we should have a good harvest. We usually get enought for a black berry pie made with my great-grandmother's crust recipe. This was the first bowl full and I just clean them and throw them into the freezer until there is enough for pie. maybe I'll make jam this year?

 

We used to have a lot more calendula in the yard. I have planted other things and now they are disappearing. I'll have to fix that.

Paul may have been taunting the artichokes about eating them, but I'm showering the hops with praise and a glimpse at their glorious future in my home brewed beer!

 

fairy wand peeking through my front fence. I think I'm finally going to transplate some daiy lillies there. They are miserable under the cedar tree, even though they get a lot of sunlight.

veg garden from the porch. It only gets afternoon sun.

 

Veg garden from another corner

Trailing pumpkin that only has one pumpkin growing.

 

Sunflowers in the veg garden!

 

Sunflowers on the porch.

OJ hanging out under the pation table and next to the hops.

 

He is a silly kitten.

I had some food pictures I was gonna post but I’ll post those tomorrow. I made saffron rice and baked it with herbed squash and tomatoes over it. It was super yummy. I also gathered up my squash flowers and, after giz got all the ants out,  stuffed them with cashew cheeze and lightly friend them with a sort of fresh herb tempura batter. They were really good!

International Zine Month Day 13…and cats!

I might be running out of shirts. Know any I should buy? how about one your want to send me?

The shirt for today is the 2009 Portland Zine Symposium. The story about how the theme became cats is pretty silly. I think we were having a meeting at house that had 4 cats milling around us. We kept coming up with these ideas and we kept coming back to cats and everyone was all “Yeah! Cats!” and I was all “Cats? really?” then I realized that it was the 9th year of the symposium and that cats have 9 lives so I said sure

I think 2009 was the year of the cat for me because not only did we have a cat theme for the symposium, I think that was the same year that our house mate moved in with two cat friends. I had never been a cat person before….ever. I’m still not a cat person but I absolutely adore our fuzzy housemates, Jackie and OJ. They are inside/outside cats who hang out with me while I work. I’ve grown used to talking to them. They are also really protective. I didn’t know cats could be protective, eve of houseguests. They escort people away from the house and back to the house. They generally keep our block on lock down. I love these cats:

I love how they look like secret agents here.

Did I mention they are brothers? They fight like brothers, but they also just chill sometimes.

"I don't mind if you forget me" Jackie, or as we sometimes call him "Morrissey Cat", is my favorite. He likes people but he doesn't like to be picked up. he preens himself a lot and he really really likes me. Paul calls him my familiar. I never ever thought I would allow a cat to sleep in my bed but this guy does quite often. Maybe I should plant him some Gladiolas?

Oj....is a bit different. We call him Keanu Reeeves cat. He's a goofy muscley weirdo. He got in a tussle with a racoon, hence the cone, but he's kind of a bad ass. He also likes boxes and I worry I might accidently send him off to distant lands by accident.

They like to hang out with me while I work in the yard.

Ok, enough cats. Time for me to get back to work. If you wanna see more of my cat friends, you can see my “i’m becoming a crazy cat lady and they aren’t even my cats” album.

International Zine Month Day 9

My zine shirt for today is from the Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC) and was drawn by Nicole Georges. The IPRC is where I will be volunteering tomorrow evening.

IPRC "A Safe Place For Nerds"

We just got home from the Riverhouse, which is a shame because it is really nice and sunny today. Oh well. I have a lot of work to get to and apparently needed the nap I just took with Paul and Jackie the cat. Then we are going to get our geek on and go see Trek in the Park  and  then we will come home and watch the new Torchwood!

Saturday

We seem to have a crow nest in our tree. That’s what we have figured out by the aggressive jerks that caw without end and swoop down on us when we leave the house. My neighbor came over to say that she saw Jackie on a fence with 3 crows swooping down at him and fur was flying.  That’s the same neighbor that hosts BINGO at the sports bar down the street. Paul and I went last month and won cash prizes and a gift certificate to our favorite pizza place. I couldn’t go yesterday because I had too much work.

I was getting annoyed at the crow that wouldn’t shut up outside and took a bit of a break thinking that if I brought OJ inside that the crow would stop cawing at the cat. Well, when I opened the back door OJ started walking to the door just in time to miss the crow pooping right where OJ had been sitting! I hope the crow babies learn to fly soon because between them and the neighbor who has TWO starling nests in her roof, or corner is a noisy place. At least the hummingbird has been visiting again.

I have been tending my yard a lot. I have some photos here if you are interested. I guess having a lot of flowers means that people can steal them. I catch people stealing irises, poppies, love in a mist, and lupines all the time. The three weeks when the irises are in their full glory are my favorite time of the year so it makes me angry to see teenagers walking away with fistfuls of my flowers. I wrap loudly on my 100 year old melting glass windows like and grouchy old lady to get their attention. If they had asked or if they had offered some sort of trade I might let them have them. Hell, if they did it at night I might not even notice. if they offered to pull weeds and dead head flowers for an hour I would totally give them some.

Yesterday, one of my across the street neighbors came over with a basket asking if she could have some of my roses for her relative’s wedding. It might have been for the girl from across the street that I have watched grow up the past 10 years I have lived here. She needed flowers for the flower girl. I thought it was so nice of her to ask that I told her to take as many as she wanted. She wanted roses after all. I’m not a fan of roses. They are the prima donna of flowers.  So, she filled a wicker basket and I watched a pack of older ladies in finery pack into a minivan and be off.

I must be getting old when I bought myself some truffle oil and some saffron for my birthday. My saffron came in the mail yesterday and paul and I had to decide what to do with it.  I settled on Moroccan seared tofu and a saffron pilaf. I actually almost followed the directions!

Seared toful over saffron pilaf

Kingpin is one of our new favorite beers.

I had been looking at the messy stacks of records in the dining room. We have to go through them ever few months but I think we have only gone through our 7″ records once in the 5 years we have lived together. I picked up way too many new records last summer hanging out with Steve, the record buying enabler, and I started going through and alphabetizing the 7″s leaving a specific section for old Salt Lake bands. I have this problem that whenever I find old Stench, Insight, or Brainstorm 7″s in dollar bins across the country I MUST BUY THEM. It is sort of ridiculous, but good.

Once I did all the 7″ and started sorting the Lps that hadn’t been up away Paul started putting them in order with the rest while he made me listen to Fleetwood Mac. I think I cleansed my palate with Operation Ivy Energy while we debated on whether we should but all the Aaron Cometbus bands in once place or if we should put Julian Cope under J or C.

The view from the table.

A full IKEA EXPEDIT of records and 2 full crates full of 7"s!

I’m glad we went through all the records because my birthday is next Sunday and Paul wants to take me record shopping at the place down the street that is also a bar. It’s pretty great, they have these pint glass holders for you to place your beers while you shop.

This was sitting on the table so I took a photos of it...

 

That’s the Leatherman that my dad got me complete with my given name engraved on it. I bought one for him and he found it so indispensable that he bought one each for my sister and me. I was born on Father’s Day in 1977 and this year my birthday, yet again, falls on Father’s Day. 34 years ago I became a human and my dad became a dad. I always like when it completes the cycle and happens on the same day again.

 

 

radio, pizza, cats and plants…

Last week I did two podcast recordings and neither of them were for my own Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast, although Marc and I do have plans to record another soon. I was on the Stumptown Vegans podcast with Jess my sister Webly where they stuffed me and a few others with mass quantities of  vegan baked goods until we wanted to brush our teeth and eat a whole field of kale. The show’s not up yet but I’ll let you know when it is. Here’s a picture of my sister trying to figure out what best to attach the mic to in order to pass it around. We eventually settled on a banana, but I like this shot of a mixer:

testing!

Blue and I were also on Nerd Report Radio with Emily and Sabrina talking about the Portland Zine Symposium. It was pretty rad and you can listen to it here. about 10 minutes before we were supposed to be on the air Blue, Emily, and I got stuck in the elevator. It wasn’t so bad that we were stuck on the 9th floor, but the fact that the elevator dropped about 6 inches terrified me! I immediately grabbed Blue’s hand and wondered if I put my bicycle helmet on it would help with the fall. We were stuck for at least 10 minutes and got to push the “HELP” button. I also noticed this:

If you can't see the caption says "when flashing help is on the way" Well, the light flashed and we were saved!

I got a bulb of fennel from my Organics To You box and wasn’t sure what to do with it. So, I sauteed it with onions and garlic and tossed it on top of a pizza with homemade pesto.

As I'm a vegan and Paul is an omni we have real cheese/vegan cheese pizza. This was my first experience with Daiya chesse and I think it's pretyt good. A bit like velveta in a gross way but I miss the stretchy-ness so I enjoyed it.

On to other weird things. So, there are these two cats that live at our house. They aren’t my cats. I’m not a cat person but I adore these cats. Sometimes I think I spent more time hanging out with them than most of my other housemates.  I worry that I’m becoming a crazy cat lady when I catch myself talking to them or letting Jackie sleep on my bed. Well, the other night OJ busted into my rook with his thick skull, jumped on the bed and proceeded to drink out of the pint glass of water by the bed. I had just changed his water the other day but apparently he really wanted to drink of the pint glass and/or disturb me while I was sleeping

he really wanted the water I guess.

cat tongue! OJ would drink drink drink and hyperventilate and shake his head and have to go up for air! Silly cat! Also check out of CCRadio. It even has a shortwave option.

I spent this morning working in my yard. I dug up a bunch of my irises to plant a bunch of native plants that my sister got me for my birthday. Then I dug up even more of the irises and mixed up the roots and replanted them. I’m excited to see what colors got placed where when they come up next year! I’ll post more photos soon of the yard but for now, here’s one of my many foxgloves:

foxgloves make me happy.

Garden show and tell

The garden is pretty much in full bloom and I’m loving it. We had a cold and wet spring that kept me out of the yard but it seems like it has paid off. Let’s no confuse me with an actual gardener. I do not coddle plants or claim to know all about plants.. If they don’t grow well in my yard, they don’t stay in my yard. Fortunately, a lot of stuff does grow well in my yard. Sometimes I say it is because I have garden faeries. Who knows, maybe I do. I have plants that move in the winter, plants grow that I never put there and I also find random treasures in my yard.

I have spent the past two days working on things. Yesterday I turned the veggie garden, added compost, mixed it all together and planted some plants and seeds. Today listened to Fifth Hour Hero on my ipod and pulled out all my grass and started putting down some landscape fabric to keep the stupid grass out. I have also been amusing myself with the two hummingbirds that hang around…and so have the cats. I saw a 3rd once but haven’t seen it again. The two that hang around are pretty aggressive and even chase off other birds bigger than they are.

Irises on my fence line

yellow iris

Part of my veggie garden that backs up to the irises. That's an old bike frame and some old artichoke stalks for the climbing veggies to grow on.

Hummingbird garden in May

I live on a corner lot and I often find bottles, cans, trash and drug baggies in our plants. This time I found a radio shaped like a harp and two stained glass lawn decorations. I figured the garden faeries left them and I put them in the hummingbird garden.

The other lawn ornament and some delphinium that's about to burst!

Butterfly on a plant.

My other Columbine plant.

Borage flowers

One of the hummingbirds sitting on a fence. Did you know hummingbird eggs are the size of a tic tac?

they are also really difficult to take pictures of.

I found potatoes growing in my compost! So now they are growing in my garden.

The front of my house still needs work. The wisteria is starting to bloom and take over my porch. Only 1 of the three wisteria plants actually flowers so I'm trying to grow it longer so it covers the other ones. It still needs to be tied up better. This side of the house only gets morning sun so when it is super nice out I'd rather not work in the shade.

wisteria. Purple is my favorite color and these flowers always make me happy.

OJ the jungle cat who has been very good about not chasing the hummingbirds even though he keeps drinking out of te bird bath!

Jackie being gnerally aloof. They are pretty funny and like to hang out with me while I work in the yard. I have a theory that they think they are protecting me or something.

and me. This was a mid work shoot. By then end of both days I had dirt all over my face.

I guess that’s about it for my yard. The love in a mist and foxgloves should be blooming soon so I’ll post more when things change a bit and maybe when I clean up the front of my house a bit more. I planted some nasturtiums in long planters across the front to cover the dead zone in front of the porch. I have had years of smoker housemates who have ashed in the really shady area where nothing will grow so planters of nasturtiums above them should do the trick!

I’m just really glad we have had two beautiful days in Portland after the cold rainy-ness we have had. I’m not going to bet on the rain being over, but I am going to take advantage of days like today.

zine symposium, an untended garden, and work to do.

It’s been a busy few weeks. I have had steady massive orders of buttons that I have just now completed … which is good because I have been sick for the past few days. I blame it on a certain zine symposium organizer who seemed to get two of us sick after one meeting! Oh well, we still love you!

Speaking of the zine symposium. Did you know that you can donate your time, resources and (unfortunately) but most importantly, money to the Portland Zine Symposium? This year our operating costs have sky rocketed and we are faced with paying very much more money than we ever have in the past for this event. Any amount is helpful from $5-$1,000! For more info check it out here. This year we are even offering gifts, as if we were public radio or something! Stickers, t-shirts, and mugs from past years will be sent for different donation levels. Ok, so really it is also a way to get rid of the stock pile of this stuff hanging out in the basement. If you want to order specific things you can go to the store here and chose what you get. Derek is coming over in a bit and we are going to start packing up the latest donations and getting them out in the mail.

Currently I’m sitting on my porch enjoying the much needed Portland Spring sun. It seems like we had two false starts to spring this year leaving everyone a little more depressed each time. But, the view from my porch is awesome! The last of the red camellias, rad tulips, purple money plant flowers (moonwort/honesty) bluebells, yellow rue, and the very first Iris has blossomed and it happens to be white with veins of lavender.

This is all nice but I haven’t had time to work in my yard much. I cleared out the area next to my door  and cleared the weeds in the veggie garden yesterday. I found my celery made it through the winter and the broccoli reseeded itself a bit! But, right now the UPS guy dropped off another 5,000 button parts, I have finished my coffee, the cats are off chasing invisible faeries and not keeping me company on the porch, and my laptop battery is about to die so I’m going to head inside.

My house is hollyhock green

Far away friends, lap cats, and the Tagalongs

I have saved almost all of my my postcards I have received over the years and I have put a good portion of them on the wall of my office. Here is a photo of some of them.

And here is a cat that snuck into my office and fell asleep on my cloak. His name is OJ. He used to seem pretty tough until the raccoon incident but now he’s turning out to be a nice lapcat.

Also, Paul, Marc, Lisa, and Ryan (The Tagalongs!) are playing tonight at Plan B. That’s where I’ll be, you should come to.