Funbelievable

It’s been a pretty decent weekend. Friday evening we finally got to sit out on the deck, where we played cards, drank stuff with booze in it, and listened to records. These are our go-to Friday nights, though they usually happen indoors around the dining room table because it’s rare that the weather is just right. So we were thankful for “just right” this time.

“Just right” is going to morph into 90+ degrees tomorrow, so no deck time for us on Monday.

Friday on my lunch hour I took a walk through the woods and came armed with my Nikon in order to take photos of the Camas lilies, which a week earlier had been abundant. I’d taken a few photos with my phone, but they didn’t turn out great, so this time I was prepared. Unfortunately, there were significantly fewer lilies in bloom this time around, and those that I did see were getting past their prime. When it comes to wildflowers, you need to act quickly. Still, I managed a few decent shots, like this one.

It’s National Wildflower Week, btw, so get out there and enjoy.

Saturday we were finally able to plant in our community garden plot. This is the second year we’ve done it, and we are a solid month behind where we were in 2016 thanks to a long, cool, wet spring. Partly because of this, and partly because there’s only so much you can do with an endless bounty of zucchini, we scaled back this year. Last time Tara showed up with elaborately-diagrammed charts and maps detailing where each and every tomato plant would go; this year we have half as many plants and we basically winged it. (Wung it sounds right, but alas, there is no such word.) We’ve got a small assortment of tomato and pepper plants, some tomatillos, lemon cucumbers, and one zucchini. We’re hoping to find some radishes at the farmer’s market, but other than that, I think we’re good. This will be the last year we rent a community garden plot as we will be gearing up (hopefully) to buy a house next summer. Once we have a yard we’ll be able to plant shit galore right out back. I can’t wait for that.

Later we drove into Portland to find a salsa we fell in love with at the Portland Night Market last weekend. Our local New Seasons doesn’t carry it but the Concordia one did, so we zipped over there, found what we were looking for plus some other things we weren’t specifically seeking out but decided we had to have. Like small-batch apricot tonic and a burnt caramel sea salt chocolate bar and one vanilla bean pod and Moon Cheese. In other words, the essentials. Then it was on to the mall, because my wardrobe of flannel shirts was in need of expansion (“summer’s lease hath all too short a date” as The Bard infamously said, impending 90-degree weather aside) and J.C. Penney had a rack of Arizona brand flannel marked down ridiculously low. They were like $6.91 apiece, or 80% off, so I stocked up. Flannel tends to be my outfit du jour eight months out of the year. After the mall we grabbed Chinese food, came home, and watched “Patriot’s Day.” It was surprisingly tense and well-acted. I wasn’t sure how they were going to make an entire movie about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, but they pulled it off well. Followed by a couple episodes of “The Amazing Race,” which I’ve gotten back into after a long hiatus. SPOILER ALERT! READ NO FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THE LATEST EPISODE. My question is this: how am I possibly going to live without my weekly dose of Team Fun? Pretty Funbelievable that they are gone now. Brooke and Scott will probably win the whole thing – just watch.

Today we are planning to hit the farmer’s market in the morning, then I’m going to give the Mazda a little TLC since we’ve got a stretch of nice weather coming up.

Hope your week’s a groovy one.