Postal Service

I think I discovered a secret to the United States Postal Service. If you get mail for a former tenant and you write "No longer lives here" on the outside of the envelope and stick it back in the mailbox, it disappears with the rest of the outgoing mail and you stop receiving mail for that person. It's like MAGIC. I call it a secret because no one seems to know you can do this and that it works. I discovered it after reading the envelope from a mail-in ballot that was addressed to a person who used to live in the house. The envelope said to write "no longer lives here" and put it back in the mailbox if the person is no longer a resident of the house. So I tried it for other mail and it works for everything! Cell phone bills, personal mail, even advertisements as long as they don't say "or current resident" on them. So I've decided to pass my secret along, in the hopes of decreasing your unwanted mail and maybe saving some paper in the future. 

Saltwater Sandals

When I was little I would see my Granny every Saturday. We'd go down to Portland and do something fun, often going to the waterfront or playing in a fountain or going to Saturday Market. I remember this one day she took me to I think it was Nordstrom's. She said "we need to get you some saltwater sandals," and we proceeded to get matching navy blue ones. I just bought some tan ones from here: http://www.saltwater-sandals.com/index.html

I am happy Starzy!

My weekend

Planted a couple more peas(5 or 6 sprouts have come up!), a bunch of scattered carrots, and 4 artichoke starts I bought at the farmer's market today. Also, Hannah and I went to Bark and Garden and got air plants :-). i now have my own baby air plant and don't know where to put it. I'm thinking of using Hannah's idea of hanging it in a window from a wire or string. 

I'm incredibly tired because yesterday was a long day of way more activity than I'm accustomed to. I went to the Great Wolf Lodge water park for Peter's birthday party and went on slides and played in the wave pool and other such nonsense. It's fun to play with my friends :-). 

Benji's working on some homework and then I think I'll make him go to bed with me, as I am very sleepy. It's almost impossible for me to fall asleep when he is still awake, I keep thinking he'll come to bed any minute and then I can't sleep. So that is my story. Also, I have knock-off Chuck Taylor's that are white with pink cupcakes all over them and a typed recipe for cupcakes in black Times New Roman scattered about. They're basically the best shoes ever, thank you Payless. Also, allergies are the suck and I have taken 12 freeze-dried nettle capsules today to keep them in check. My throat hurts and I am itchy and it is hard to breathe. STUPID. If anyone with health insurance and a prescription wants to sell me some Allegra that'd be awesome. Turns out even the generic is $90 for a month's supply without insurance. Fuck me, right? I used to get it for $10 or $20 a bottle. Ah the good old days. 

Also, I've recently read Bonk by Mary Roach and recommend it highly, along with her previous two books, Stiff and Spook. Now I'm reading The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory, which I borrowed from Hannah. 

Also, don't go on the yellow/red slide at Great Wolf Lodge unless you want to pee your swim bottoms.

I now know that chicken needs to be cooked hotter than beef

The food handler's card class is one of the most boring classes ever. It was only about an hour but it felt like forever. I was the first one finished with my test. I even got a question wrong because I was filling it out so fast, the better to escape. Also, having to be at the courthouse at 8:20 am sucked too. Now I have an hour to kill before I can go meet Ben for lunch. Also, it is possible I'll start work tomorrow. I am very excited, way too excited for a food court job, but my boss is really optimistic about me and that makes me feel optimistic about me. He wants someone to be friendly to customers and go out into the food court with samples and coupons and chat people up. I am super good at chatting up customers. Customers love a tiny blonde 20-something with free food. I am a dream come true. Life is good.

Starzy Update

After much distribution of my resume, I got hired at Charley's Grilled Subs in Capital Mall. So that's good news. The owner is named Charlie, but it is a coincidence. He says I have experience, enthusiasm, and spunk. Yay me? I do have those things though :-P

Also, I am probably going to get health insurance, but it's up to a six-month wait. It's through Washington Basic Health and if all goes as planned, I will have good Group Health insurance for $22 a month!! If you've ever done research on getting health insurance, the cheapest you can get to actually be able to see a doctor regularly or get prescriptions is about 80 bucks. 50 bucks will get you the barest minimum of insurance so you won't get completely wiped out if you have to go to the hospital or something, but is otherwise useless. I'm psyched that I qualify. Everyone besides the college considers me a resident of Washington, which is a relief. I also qualified for Take Charge which is an awesome program that I found out about through Planned Parenthood which gets you free birth control for a year. I'm going to be in Washington for at least another year for school, so I might as well be a resident. 

Let's see...Ben is doing good, he is in a class called "Marx and Marxisms" and is reading through Capital. That shit is dense, but he is doing an admirable job of making sense of it. I proof-read all his papers and outlines, so I'm learning a lot too :-). 

I'm enrolled in just 4 little credits, American Sign Language 2. I love it and continue to learn a ton every week. 

I haven't been baking or cooking much lately, just kinda lazy I guess. Not in the mood. Yesterday I wore shorts and a tank top all day. It felt great. Currently my iPod is serenading me with "Crazy for You" by Madonna. That's about all I can think of for now. I am getting shit done this week, stuff that's really hard for me to do, like making phone calls and taking initiative on things that I don't entirely understand. I made the phone call to Basic Health knowing nothing more than the flyer I got at the Health Center told me. Then I made an appointment to meet with some stranger at St. Peter's hospital and rode a bus line I've only been on once before... I am amazing. Hehe. Also, I have a sparkly butterfly temporary tattoo on my lower back. It is my ephemeral tramp-stamp.

Gardening Update

Planted tomato, eggplant, and pepper(jalapeno and cayenne) in egg cartons under a propagation dome. 

Planted blue potatoes and a few yellow onion sets directly into the garden. Gave up on the languishing broccoli and lettuce starts, gonna direct seed in the next few days as attempts at transplanting resulted in floppy leaves laying in the dirt. Sad times. Also need to direct seed some kale, more peas(digging around i found 3 of the original seeds, i think a squirrel ate the rest), kohlrabi, turnips, swiss chard, and maybe some carrots. i want to make a trip back to bark and garden, maybe i'll make hannah drive me out there when she comes up for a visit! 

350 PPM

Sunday

It's cold and windy outside so I couldn't stand to be out very long, but I managed to plant two short rows of peas and a little patch of miners lettuce. I was not expecting the lettuce seeds to be so itsy bitsy and accidently dumped the whole packet out on the ground. I couldn't even feel them when I tried pouring them in my hand. So I guess we'll see what happens. I can always buy more, I suppose. Now the sun is coming out again but I am loathe to leave my cozy warm living room. I don't want to be stuck at home again though. I get pouty if I don't do something with my day. Shoulda woulda coulda. 

More gardening updates

Feeling confident after my visit to Bark and Garden I planted 12 sections of an egg carton with seeds, six of broccoli and six of lettuce. I watered them ever so gently and put them in a propagation dome. I figure that since they don't need much watering in the dome and probably won't do anything for at least a week they'll be fine while I'm gone. And the worst that happens is they all die and I start anew. I plan to direct seed peas and miners lettuce in the garden tomorrow! I dug up quite a few more chunks of grass. It's exhilarating, except when you find a little white thing that feels like a root through your gloves but you're pretty sure it's a bug, but if it is a bug, it's a munching bug that should probably be dead if it's gonna be in my garden, but maybe it's a root and since you're not sure you can squish it and not feel like a murderer. So then you go to squish it but it won't, it's hard. This is another point for the root hypothesis, so you go to snap it in half when it explodes with white bug guts! Ew! I actually yelped. I'm glad none of it got on me or I probably would have gone and showered or something equally ridiculous. I have changed a lot since childhood. I still woulda been freaked out, but I was dirty all the time when I was little, I didn't give a shit. 

Then I spent several hours poking around on my computer like a sullen loser, missing Ben. When I determined it'd been over 7 hours since he left the house, I gave him a call and he updated me on his day(sitting in a car) and I updated him on mine and then I got off my butt and cleaned the house a bit(started the dishwasher, took out garbage and compost, swept and vacuumed living room, wiped down counter and sink in kitchen, wo0t!). Now I'm gonna chill out until Ben calls to say goodnight. Then Monday I catch a train at 11:15 or so(which means catching a bus at 10:00 from my house!) and ride it to Portland. I don't know when I'm going back to Oly, I haven't bought a return ticket yet.