it's almost lunchtime, can't you tell?

is it wrong that i think sloppy joe pizza sounds like a good idea?

because it feels wrong.

but sounds sooooo good. i might come up with a recipe and try it out. i'll let you know how it turns out.

the final countdown

man i loved that song. i got the europe tape for christmas one year, and played that song endlessly. now it will be stuck in my head for most of the morning, i imagine. regrettably, i hardly remember any of the lyrics/tune except for the nasally and dramatic chorus.

but in this instance, the final countdown that i am referring to is the countdown to BROWN FAMILY BEACH EXTRAVAGANZA, 2008 - launchtime estimated at 6:00 (or, likely 7:00) a.m., saturday. 5 days(ish) from now! in preparation, i have a billion and one chores for every evening this week - laundry, hosue cleaning, rustlin' up supplies, packing. the usual stuff. i don't know about you, but i hate HATE coming home from a long trip to a dirty/cluttered house. i hate it. with a passion. scott can vouch for that. i am usually a wee bit testy after a car ride of any length and just about anything will set me off into a tizzy of a tantrum, but i am especially sensitive to piles of dirty crap all over the place. that gets me every durn time. i hate walking in the door, exhausted from a 7 hour ride in a hot car, to be greeted by the stench of cat litter and rotten garbage cans whilst tripping over a pile of bags by the door then slipping in a stack of old newspapers. while carrying piles of wet towels covered in sand from the beach. call me crazy, but the experience leaves me annoyed to say the least. SO. i have some work to do before we leave. :)

i also have to obsessively go to the weather channel website to check the forecast for next week. so far so good! although anyone who has spent any length of time on any coast will agree that the weather channels tells dirty dirty lies. the weather on the ACTUAL beach - you know, where sand meets surf and turns into fun and kites and drippy castles? - can be completely different from the weather inland. even a few miles can make a huge difference. so while weather.com currently says the week looks gorgeous and sunny and not too hot... it's anybody's guess, really.

and actually, the weather doesn't really matter that much. we've had plenty of fun during crappy weather in the past. and i can just go to the beach some other time for fun in the sun (assateague camping!), but the ohioan inside me - the one who used to drive 12+ hours to get to the nearest beach, and only saw the ocean once a year - just won't be truly satisfied without sunny weather.

in other news, i am wearing a new skirt today. and it is remarkable how wearing a new skirt can make me so happy.

weather watch, 2008

Beach Vacation Countdown - 9 days. NINE DAYS, PEOPLE. that means nine days to lose 25 pounds; nine days to fit into shorts; nine days to daydream about doing nothing for a whole darned week... and, nine days to stalk the weather channel nonstop to fret about the weather for the week.

and you know what? my family has been luck (knock, knock on wood) for most of our vacationing years. sure there was that one year that we got evacuated from wrightsville beach and my entire family had to crash at my tiny 2 bedroom apartment in greenville. then there was that other year where it was freakishly cold and windy, and the only way to get some sun was to huddle on one of the upper decks in a wind-shelter fashioned from towels and sheets. no matter! the other years were lovely. and we always have fun anyway.

today was the first day that the week creeps into the 10-day forcast on weather.com. saturday is partly cloudy, high of 81. perfecto!

correspondence - then and now

as an archivist, part of my job involves bringing new collections into the archives. often these new additions, or accessions as we call them, arrive in odd containers - old cardboard boxes, paper sacks, laundry bins. this time, the donor was attending a history symposium at our center and arrived with a rolling suitcase in tow - full of old letters. over the years, i've gotten good at just whizzing through stacks of correspondence - picking up the general date ranges, maybe a overall theme or subject to add to the catalog record - without getting too bogged down in reading the actual contents of the letters.

this time, i've gotten reeled in.

i know the donor - she's an older lady, and an astronomer. we have other collections of her letters and papers already in the archives, so i knew that this addition would contain mostly letters to and from her parents. this bunch is from the 40s and 50s, and begins while the donor is in college and sort of follows her as she starts fellowships, and research projects, and moves around the country - still writing her folks 2 or 3 times a week. sometimes the letters are signed from "Daddy" or from "Mother," but often they written by both parents. They are all typed on an old typewriter with crooked and skippy letters, and often - especially when Daddy is writing the letter - full of cross-outs by the other parent, correcting facts and adding details to the letter.

the correspondence is useful in a couple of different ways - the donor's father was a scientist as well, and he often asks questions about his daughter's work or mentions well-known people that they both know. the donor often talks about lectures or classes taught by well-known people, or speaks of research and schedules of study. but the BEST part is the everyday story telling by her parents. at first i wondered if the daughter was bored out of her skull reading these letters, but maybe not. her parents wrote extremely detailed accounts of their days: where they went shopping for food, how much a cantaloupe costs at the market, who stopped by for bridge (and what kind of ice cream they brought with them, and what kind of cookies Mother served with the ice cream, and when they went to bed), what Daddy accomplished in the yard, how many times the dog threw up in the flower bed. crabapple jelly and how many pans of applesauce from the neighbor's trees. "desert bridge" and "supper bridge." it just goes on and on. i thought it was kind of ridiculous at first. but you know what? they were writing these letters instead of calling each other on the phone - nowadays, letters are reserved for more serious topics or for special occasions. if i compare these letters to phone conversations that I have today - with parents, siblings, friends - the content is pretty much spot on. i tell my mom what i am making for dinner, she tells me what she and dad watched on TV the other night, or how much it rained that morning. dad might say how he fixed something on the car, or his latest project at my sister's house. so these letters aren't ridiculous at all! they could almost be transcripts of any conversation that we have with our own parents, especially those of us kids who live far away. conversations like these keep us from forgetting what home is like, and they show our parents bits of our lives.

aside from all that, these letters are completely inspiring me to sew more. the daughter was going to college in a town without much shopping, and later working too many hours at secluded observatories (most are far from cities, to get away from the city lights) to shop for clothes. she would describe what kind of design she wanted in a blouse, or a skirt or a winter coat - and Mother and Daddy would comb the Baltimore shops for candidates. there are many debates on the color "plum" versus the color "aubergine" and "copper" versus "golden brown." discussion of plackets, and gussets and facings and linings. placement of zippers. aqua fabric with the red sailboat "motif" and the dove gray trim. recycling old clothes into new clothes - aprons made from dresses, belts made from the trimmed-off hems of skirts. this kind of seems modern again.

okay, i am off to go read more letters!

the power of rain

i am almost afraid to go home and look and my garden and yard. we've had nonstop rain since yesterday afternoon. and before that, it rained for part of each day for almost a week. the plants are threatening to overthrow the human regime. i didn't know that hollyhocks could get so big. mine (planted from seeds last year) have morphed into giant bushes taller than my knee right now - and it's only may! early may! i fear that i've planted them too close to the sidewalk. i might have to move them, so that visitors don't get lost or eaten on the way to the front door.

our power went off this morning. as the Gods of Monday would have it, the power went off just as i started my shower. the rest of my shower was a memory test, to see if i could locate my shampoo, conditioner, soap, etc in complete pitch-blackness. you see, i don't have a window in my bathroom. when the lights are out, it is D-A-R-K in there. and you know, when you stare at a darkdark room for a while... your eyes start to play tricks. you start to see weird blobs and become convinced that monsters or killers are creeping around you. or, at least, you do if you're like me.

lesson learned: you really CAN tell the different between shampoo and conditioner, just by feeling it. try it! you'll see.

one thing i am thankful for, living in a city: when the power goes off, you still have water! and you can still use the stove, if you have a gas range! okay, so that's two things. growing up on the edge of the boonies, we had a well for water and an electric pump. that meant at the threat of a storm, we would fill up pitchers of water - just in case. and the bathtub, so you could use buckets of water to flush the toilet. and if the power went off for a long time, and there was enough rain... then the basement would start to flood, since the sump pump was electric as well. that meant a 3 or 4-person bucket brigade from the sump hole in the basement, through the laundry room, up the goddam-slippery basement stairs, across the goddam-slippery wet kitchen floor, out the back door, across the porch... then you had the toss the water from the bucket into the yard and head back in for more. all without falling down in the goddam-slippery dark. plus, the yard would be all scary and stormy and dark, and full of werewolves and/or killers. once all of us kids left the house for college, my parents got a generator. go figure.

i hope the power is back on when i get home. but if it's not, at least i can still cook dinner. and i can take a bath if i want to. and that's fine by me.

cutest baby in the whole world:

maddie!

pictures, pictures, get yer pictures here!!!

i charged up the ole camera last night and took some pictures of the deck and patio garden, and the lovely new hedges! i didn't get any "before" pictures of the backyard. just picture in your mind's eye a dirty weed patch next to a shifty-looking alley. then make it a little uglier, just to be safe. then tip over all the garbage cans. and add a few empty beer cans. and that's probably pretty close to reality.

now it looks like this!



my garden is also getting bigger and better:


tomatoes gone wild


lovely peas starting to blossom

and little wild kitties getting bigger:




head over to my flickr to see the rest:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/melaniejeanbrown/sets/

shampoo-free, day 6

on day 6, my hair has made a complete turn-around! it is clean and shiny, bouncy and swingy, smells great, feels squeaky and well-behaved. a miracle, you ask?

sadly, no.

i am weak. i caved and went back to shampoo last night. i couldn't take sleeping on a greasy head for one. more. night. i think the nocturnal grease-wallowing was not helping my flighty complexion, either. so i slathered on immodest handfuls of ooey, gooey, smelly, sodium-laureth-sulfate laden, organix nourishing coconut milk shampoo and conditioner. and i have never been happier.

ahhh, chemically cleanliness. how i love you.

don't tell the hippies, but i also clean with bleach. a lot. sometimes i dream about pouring undiluted bleach on all the surfaces (non-porous or otherwise...eek!) of my house, sniffing the burning scent of clean. but i also like vinegar! i do! but i like bleach more.

amen. over and out.

shampoo-free, day 5

considerably less greasy, due to omission of vinegar rinse. i washed my hair last night with the baking soda and things were pretty okay. i am looking rough today, however, because i overslept and didn't wash my hair this morning.

i am *this close* to giving up on this hippie venture. i will give it one more day, because i feel that today is a poor representation since i overslept and skipped the shower. if tomorrow looks bad, i am jumping headfirst back into the den of sin that is scented, frothy, wonderful shampoo and evil, soothing, shine-making conditioner.

oh sin, how i miss you.

shampoo-free, days 3 and 4

still greasy, but it's the weekend so who cares. i read that i should stop using the vinegar rinse altogether, and that should nix the hobo-esque greasiness and general malaise that my hair is projecting. i'll try that next...

weekend of action

wow, did i ever accomplish a lot this weekend. please allow me to brag for a moment:

1.) i spent most of saturday cleaning out the hell-hole of my bedroom closet. it was an embarrassing mess, and i kept having these recurring nightmare-ish scenarios in my head where the house catches on fire and my messy closet is unveiled to the world/neighborhood in all its unholy glory. i mean, seriously. nearly all the hangers were hanging all snaggly and empty on the rod. all the shelves were either suspiciously empty or contained odd items like an empty tea mug or a wadded up beach towel from last summer. i had shoved my dresser into the closet last year to free up space in the bedroom, and somehow that action rendered the dresser useless - the top two drawers were filled with knotted up tights and hose, probably all riddled with holes and runs, and an assortment of seldom worn and ill-fitting bras. the other drawers were empty, and remained blocked by a drift of tangled clothes and shoes that reached mid-thigh. how does this happen? i am a grown woman and should be ashamed. it was also time to switch my winter clothes for my summer clothes, so i thought i would pull the ol' clean and switch all at once. and it worked! it was hellish, and involved 3 groaning bags of garbage on the curb - but it is done. i purged myself of all broken or worn out shoes (why did i have them in the first place?), all bags with rips or broken straps, and a ton of clothes to take to the thrift store. all in all, very cleansing.

i also found the camera charger buried in the rubble, so i will be posting pictures soon - very soon.

i also found that 90% of my summer clothes are either very, very ugly or too small. i will be the next contestant on "what not to wear" unless i go shopping very soon.

2.) scott and i planted our hedges in the backyard! most of sunday was spent hacking with a mattock, digging holes, hauling bags of dirt and mulch, planting bushes, pounding fence posts into the ground using a miniature sledgehammer, and wiring up bamboo fencing. scott did all the digging, so he's probably a lot more sore than i am! haha. serves him right, the manly man. i supervised the digging - which is a much harder task - by skipping around making helpful "suggestions" and trying not to be too bossy. he handled it very well and never once threatened me with the shovel. everything looks grand! and we only ended up making two unscheduled trips to home depot. i think all home improvement days involve at least two back-to-back unscheduled trips to either home depot or ikea. always. i can't really go to our neighborhood hardware store, as it is run by a mean, rude, old pervert who marks up the prices in his store. and he doesn't even carry flyswatters! fool.

3.) we saw a movie on friday night - part of the final showings of this year's Filmfest DC. it is called The Fall and it was just great. beautiful scenes and imagery, great story, cute little girl in the lead role. sort of like a fantastical Princess-Bride-meets-pan's-labyrinth. some gruesome parts, and some fairy tale parts, and everything good.

shampoo-free, day 2

kind of disgusting. even though i took a shower this morning, i have that greasy, tired, unwashed feeling. and my head is a teensy bit itchy. in fact, just seeing those words typed makes my scalp feel even itchier. *scritch scratch* overall, rather unpleasant. not to be deterred, i am going to do a tad more research and see what i can rig up to get rid of the oiliness. it's almost the weekend, and who cares how grease my hair looks. i am not going anywhere but home depot... maybe the grocery store... that's about it.

exciting updates on monday!

no-poo

as in, no shampoo.

one of the blogs i read has been discussing the use of baking soda and apple cider vinegar to clean(se) your hair and scalp, instead of shampoo and conditioner. hmmm. it sounds dodgy to me. i recall the paper-maché volcano projects of my youth. you know, the ones where you fill the innards of your homemade volcano with baking soda... pour in the vinegar and red food coloring... and stand back to watch the gurgle-y explosion... but i suppose that's not what will happen (surely not?) because in this shampoo-free regimen you don't mix the two parts - you apply them separately.

as someone with naturally greasy hair - no, i mean GREAZY hair - it still sounds dodgy to me.

but hey, i am always keen to subject myself to slightly hippie-ish beautifying treatments. why not give it a go? plus the benefits supposedly include shiny, bouncy, vibrant hair, the likes of which haven't been seen since the days of eden. because i am a brilliant researcher in my work-life, and a very lazy one in my own life - i only consulted the two resources that i accidentally stumbled upon:

1st one, very friendly and light on details (this is one of a couple of different mentions in her blog): http://angrychicken.typepad.com/angry_chicken/2008/04/melts.html

2nd one, militant and scary: http://babyslime.livejournal.com/174054.html

okay! so now i am armed with every bit of information out there, so i am ready to begin. i was really jazzed up about the idea last night. i wanted to start immediately, but i only had a sprinkling of baking soda left after a recent cleaning binge. and i was fresh out of apple cider vinegar. i suppose i could have used white vinegar, but it seemed extra stinky and harsh. then i remembered the militant lady saying that you should alternate the baking soda/vinegar thing with days of just washing your hair in plain ole water. so that's what i did today.

verdict, after day one - water wash, no soda/vinegar: my hair is just as limp as usual - no more, no less. slightly greasy - normally if i skipped a shower, my roots would be wet-looking and greeee-zay at the roots by mid-day. i think the water-wash simply distributed the oil and the result is mild, but uniform, greasiness.

tonight, i buy the supplies. updates to follow.

hedging our bets

or hedging our yard. either way, we're hedging this weekend!

scott and i went to Behnke Nurseries last night (which apparently just got a freaky looking new website) to pick out plants. Behnke's is the greatest nursery in the area. or maybe the greatest in the world. they have the best staff and the best selection of old classics and exotic varieties, and lots of regional plants. so anyway, we went and after a whirlwind tour of the shrubs and bushes... and after a lengthy discussion with one of the shrubbery professionals... we chose the japanese yew. i would link to a picture, but the camera is dead once again and none of the google image search results really look like what we got. so maybe i have the name wrong. but the important things are: the bushes were reasonably inexpensive so we could afford a slightly more mature plant to start with; they can be pruned into a thin hedge; they cap out at 7 or 8 feet; and they grown pretty durn fast. and the best part was when the shrubbery lady was walking around with us, making recommendations. she said something like, "well, you might consider a yew? now the yews are over here... no, wait, they were just here, i swear... now where have those yews gone?" and i had slap back my inner must-make-a-stupid-joke-at-all-times-gland which wanted to say "are you sure they aren't WANDERING YEWS? har har har." because, although the lady knows her plants, i wasn't sure if she would think of the PLANT called wandering jew, and think i was making some crazy antisemitic remark. but golly i wanted to say it. i still want to say it.

scott is working on saturday, so i'll do a little prep work and we'll do the big stuff on sunday. !! in the meantime, i need to find a place to rent a roto-tiller. the digging that happened during the Patio Adventure was enough to teach me that our yard is full of random crap suspended in a mix of hard clay and dirt. and that mixture is highly resistant to shoveling.

i am still hoping to make it up to the maryland sheep and wool festival on saturday, but those plans might be scrapped at the last minute. we'll see.

if i can dig up the camera battery charger over the weekend, i'll take pictures to document the mess. stay tuned.