susse_fusse

I just have to write this down somewhere. I'm having one of those days where I just realize things. A lot of the "realizing" is more an emotional reaction to things I already know.

I entirely did not know that I could ask for what I needed or how to ask for what I needed until I was about 22 years old.

I'm still learning but its been such a liberating feeling to just address my needs and go about fulfilling them. Watching my middle schoolers interact and living with countless roommates, I have realized that I am somewhat odd in this respect. I mean there are lots of us "unconditional (with inner aggravation) acceptors" out there. I chalk it up to my family dynamics. Or maybe it is low self confidence.

Pat made me the sweetest valentine. I can't explain it, because there weren't any words. Needless to say, there was a photo with two dweebuses standing on talus next to a remote lake and hearts. He even confessed carefully practicing the squiggle on the one heart. And I was laughing at him the following morning, and made up a personal ad for him:

Mountain man seeks lady love.
Loves flowers, especially perfectly pink wild roses.
Loves all the animals, plants trees for the squirrels, gives his kitties, dogs, and cows special nicknames:
Heferlumps, Bullfurious, Skyball Muldoon, Grapeleaf.
Helps old ladies out with their groceries. Takes care of his mom.
He loves to snuggle, will draw you hearts, smother your face in kisses, warm your side of the bed, bring your mother firewood, save you the last piece of blackberry pie.
His biceps make a perfect pillow and his heart a safe home.

I had a very nice happy VDay taking care of the big yellow farmhouse in LaConner with Charlie, the chickens, dying Jamie-cat, and my dearest Pat. I knit him those convertible mittens that turn into fingerless gloves. We split a pizza, I drank too much beer/hard cider much to Pat's amusement. But I said something mean about these friends of ours as I walked out of the restaurant (they had just gotten back from Thailand and I told Pat "how fucking typical"...ok, I'm just bored with the homogeneity of parkie conversation and pasttime) and hope they didn't hear me. I have this damn cynical streak that I would actually rather not have.

And so.

I really should be doing some deep breathing exercises or yoga stretches instead of blogging right now, 20 minutes before I go teach in the middle school. It's going to be weird doing my old job with kids who know me from the AVID tutoring job. I had to tell my boss earlier this week, "I'm going to come in late because my old job wants me to teach at the other place I work." And then I realized that, although this made perfect sense to me, it was gibberish to her. Fortunately, she's awesome, and said, I'm find with you coming in whenever you can manage to come in. Good thing, as it would be impossible any other way.

They switched my powerpoint around from last year and put back in all the big overarching ideas about riparian areas and native vs. invasive. These arguments become so entrenched in natural resource people's minds that they seem to think that everyone will understand the epic battle between the two. I don't know. I think we should just foster some appreciation for plants instead of always throwing issues at the poor kids: here is another struggle going on in your world, kids. Even if it's plants we're talking about, there's still a good and an evil.

I filled out my timesheet for WSU yesterday. I was excited and thought I'd get a nice paycheck, since I'd been able to work four days last week. It was 22.5 hours. This means that, at a maximum, I make about $400.00 a month. My rent is $341, plus additional utility bills. That leaves $60.00. My cell phone bill is $45.00. That leaves $15.00/month for gas, food, school, health insurance bills. When I did the math, which I generally avoid because it always has the same result, it kind've made me want to scream.

If I got a weekend job, I think I would just get really depressed. I already get so exhausted by the logistics of my week, that I can't bring myself to make weekend plans.

At least P. got a job with benefits and great pay with the park yesterday. I'll just have to beg him to take me out to eat and drive me around.

I forgot there is a curse in this little upstairs room of mine...I can't go to sleep before 11pm or else I will turn into a pumpkin. So to pass the next 8 minutes, I'm going to write a list of things I'm working on, fun things, to shake it all into place in this jumbly mind of mine:

- Fiddle lessons start tomorrow. I didn't know I'd be this excited. I knew I'd be excited, but I didn't know I'd be this excited. It's funny, childhood dreams that were put off as part of childhood. When they start to sort of come true, all that childhood excitement is reignited in my brain.

-Wool shirt for Patrick. yup. I'm going to teach myself to sew this year. My dear aunt and mom went on a colossal expedition to find washable wool. Now I have to uphold my end of the bargain and sew it for him. I'm going to embroider "I love you" where the tag should go. My mom has a kickass sewing machine.

-Grocery bag for Merlene. Merlene was telling me of a bag that her grandmother knitted for her. She won't use it, because it is a family heirloom. But I found a matching pattern online and knitted it, but fucked up the last bit. So I've got to spend some good time fixing it before 12/11.

-Making lace. Yup, I'm teaching myself to make lace with this beeeeautiful angora/silk yarn I bought with Pat's gift certificate. It's going to take me about a year.

-Quilt. I also want to learn to quilt, so I'm going to make Marilee a quilt for her wedding. It's a small quilt with 12 different houses embroidered on it, and I'm going to embroider her and her husbands names into it. I've got until July sometime.

-Bridesmaid dress. I was pretty bummed that Marilee wanted black wedding dresses. I'm determined to make myself a plain black sleeveless thing (yup, I better learn to sew), although I wish I could wear that really pretty dress that Sarah's stepmom got me for her wedding.

-Christmas presents. I'm going to make a cheese-making kit for Chelsea, which involved hemming some butter muslin (I think I'll add a ribbon to tie it up and hang it for fancies sake) and designing a pretty recipe card on Pat's photoshop.

-Do research on mini-hoophouses for next year's garden. And asparagus. I want an asparagus patch.

I was going to knit Pat some of those half-mitten/half-gloves, but I seem to have gotten too ambitious. I'm going to settle for the wool shirt.

Ok. Time for bed! I'm also going to get at least 8 hours of sleep until January (starting after finals).

Ah, yet, ere I descend to the grave
May I a small house and large garden have ;
And a few friends, and many books, both true,
Both wise, and both delightful too !

~Abraham Cowley~

I seem incapable of doing my homework. Gah!

So I went to my biology teacher to see if I could miss every Thursday of my class, and he had an interesting suggestion on my train wreck of a life. He told me that it would be more worth my while to get MS while simultaneously earning my teaching certificate. Same pay raise as a teacher, but you come out of it with an MS. Hmmmm... And the woman I'm working with at WSU has graduate students under her. She even mentioned it as a possibility in the interview. Hmmm... I'll just wait and see how things go. It would be an MS in agriculture, but I'm pretty darn passionate about growing vegetables. And she does organic, so it would be ecology-based.

There goes my unruly imagination.

In the real world, I now have two jobs that have patched my weeks together like frankenstein's monster. But I'm pretty excited about the inquiry-based tutoring program. And I'm not about to give up a job at WSU that supplies me with countless tree frog sightings, as well as armloads of squash, sweet corn, eggplants, blueberries, apples, tomatoes. I can't wait until they start making wine. I'm in love with our two work rigs. Two little 1980 Datsun pickups, one bright red, the other dingy yellow. I get to speed around the fields with the windows down, blasting NPR, with my rubber boots on. Great! And I'm working under the son of one of the tulip baron of Skagit County. He's just waiting for his break into the tulip business. No wonder he's so relaxed, just waiting to get the chance at being a tulip farmer.

Did I mention that I got to smash watermelon into the compost for nearly an hour?

Oh, and I had an uncomfortable moment in the midst of my meeting with my bio teacher. He was talking about my job prospects with various degrees (MIT vs MS with teacher cert) and said, "Plus, you'd be EVEN MORE attractive." I was kind've spacing out (because he was talking a lot) and it caught me completely off-guard. and I know I turned beet red. And I could see a sort of realization in his face. And then we just went bumping along and trying to disregard a moment of weirdness. Gah.

Ok. I'm really avoiding my homework. I hope this at least amused someone other than me.

Stupid dogs nearly ate E.'s little dog and then last night they chewed through my new school bag. Well, it was a handmedown from my mom. But it was super cool. It looked like an easter basket, all bright and colorful and happy. Ugh. I'm only doing this for friends from here on out.

I've already got two people who want me to cover Thanksgiving and then Christmas for them. Sigh.

Sequel to the ricotta: Manicotti filled with Italian sausage and ricotta, layered with homemade tomato sauce made from R's black plum tomatoes. I tend to find myself a little phobic of popular movements, but eating locally is great fun. I see it more as a creative form of scavenging. Noodles and tomato paste are damaged/dented goods from Deals Only, ricotta is home-made (ok, I didn't milk the cow, but I got surplus milk from Grocery Outlet), garlic from A.'s farm, tomatoes and Czech black peppers from R.'s farm. It makes for a satisfying season.

Focus, focus, focus: I'm going to be a no-person, not a yes-person.

I don't know why I go on Myspace. It always seems to depress me. I'm not sure why. I mean, I could go in a dozen directions with that. There are so many greater things out in the three-dimensional world. And I've been generally happy for a long time. And today was a really wonderful sunny day with so many friends, fiery leaves, sunshine, mountains, and happy (mostly) doggies. I only went on there because I don't want to do my hummerfuls of homework.

I've made two batches of ricotta cheese this weekend. I'm going to make manicotti tomorrow, but I figured out that I would save about $5.00, if I made the ricotta from scratch. Super easy and tasty.

-1 gal. milk
-1 tsp. citric acid
-1 tsp. salt

Mix ingredients. Heat to 195 degrees. Let stand for 10 minutes. Ladle into a cloth-lined colander. Let drain (can hang bag for this) for 20-30 minutes. And voila, there is ricotta! It turned out so much better than the mozarella.

After the September downturn of life luck, I got really lucky in October. I always say that actually getting a job is being in the right place at the right time. Well, somehow I managed it this time.

I was just desparately brainstorming what I was going to do for a living, while I slog though an eternity of school. I was picturing myself returning to my previous unhealthy model as an undergrad of eating lots of unbalanced meals and thinking lots of self-negative thoughts. But today I got a job, about one sentence into an interview.

I just applied for these temporary general laborer positions listed on the WSU PNW Research Extension for general laborer, while I was looking on a local education directory for school openings. I didn't know what to expect. But then this lady called from the... vegetable extension! She showed up with her assistant, both with dirty hands. They took me back to their lab which was full of crates of enormous butternut squash. Oh my goodness, I can't believe that I've managed to get a job that incorporates field work, growing vegetables, scoring huge butternut squash, and getting my hands dirt with science. She even lets her employees help write journal articles. And the lady is awesome! She was in the peace corps and has done work improving African crops. She was meeting with a bunch of African scientists immediately after my interview. So I get to wear rubber boots and overalls for work again. Hooooooray!

I heard a good one on NPR today in a discussion about bringing about positive change in the face of apparently insurmountable difficulties:

Well it's that thing about flying. It isn't really a knack for flying as much as a knack for falling and somehow missing the ground. Clearly it is the second part, the missing bit, which presents the difficulties.
(paraphrased from Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's G. to the G.)