Recent Reads...

Today I will share with you some of the books I've been reading recently.

*cue applause*

I just finished two graphic memoirs.  I have a love-hate relationship with graphic novels - not the least of which is what do you call graphic non-fiction?  When the Japanese manga books first started to rise in popularity at the library, I HATED them.  Still do.  I hate the art, and pretty much everything else about them.  I used to say that manga was the way that the Japanese were going to take over America.  They would dumb down the populace with books devoid of words, and the next thing you know...
But then there started to be more and more in the way of non-manga graphic novels.  Not comic books - they're not to be confused with the Marvel superheroes or the classic comic books one can get.  And a lot of them are non-fiction, thus my issue with the term "graphic novel."  I've read graphics about science, true crime, memoirs... and fiction.  They're smart, funny, and often very touching.  Most recently I've read two memoirs.

 

"Drinking at the Movies" is the story of comic artist Julia Wertz's first years living in New York after moving there from San Francisco.  Crappy jobs, crappy apartments, and a bit too much drinking fill her not so happy time as she tries to find her place in the Big Apple. I liked all of it, but particularly the tales of her runaway wallet...  You'll just have to read the book to find out what happens - does she find her bliss?

 


Next up we have "Marbles" by Ellen Forney, another comic artist who happens to live in Seattle (I liked the local touch, especially her little map of traveling to Doe Bay and the commentary about how long it took!  Haha).  This book is the story of Ellen's diagnosis with Bipolar disorder, and the years it took to both come to grips with it and find a workable combination of medication to bring her life into uneasy harmony.  I personally have very little experience with anybody suffering from bipolar disorder, so I found it to be quite fascinating and educational.  I say I have very little experience, but reading Ellen's book I realized that I probably deal with many bipolar people at the library.  It's just not something one advertises about themselves.  I felt that the graphic format worked especially well to convey her experience - the weeks spent wrapped in blankets, barely unable to get out of bed, or the manic periods when the world was her oyster and nothing, NOTHING was impossible!  I hope if nothing else Ellen's book helps break the stigma of mental disorders and helps people have understanding and compassion.  I also deduced that Ellen and I share the same birthday, though I'm three years older!

Should you read these books?  Hell yes.

I'm reading something completely different now, a teen novel.  I need to finish it before I write about it.  But I have plenty of thoughts already...

Beach stuff!

How many people do you know that found a drawer on the beach? Not many I bet. None, except for me. I found it. It's mine.  I carried it back to the car.  It's mine.  MINE!!!!

I'll be planting flowers in it and moving it here and there in the garden. This may seem like a mundane thing, but I must say I'm quite excited about the things I might find on the beach these days!  I was hoping for a float, but this was quite a spectacular find!  Much better than a mere float.  But I still want floats! Last year  we saw these floats from a distance - unattainable!  Drats.  Way far below us...

And good ones, those.  Oh well.  I'll have to stick closer to home to find things for our garden.  But I do hope to end up with something like this someday!

It will take time, patience, and many hours on the beach!  I'm not sure we' ll never accomplish this (seeing as we don't live directly on the coast)

Oh well... a girl can dream.

My time off...

Just waiting now to hear about the job!  Hopefully news will come soon this week...  many of my coworkers are pulling for me!
In the meantime, I enjoyed my time off, though most of it was full of rather mundane activities.

1. Monday - Michael to the doctor
2. Tuesday - Me to the dentist
3. Wednesday - job interview, Syd to the vet
4. Thursday - Me back to the dentist, a bit of fun poking around downtown in the antique shops
5. Friday - FUN AT LAST!!!  Driving off island for lunch!

I can't really complain, it was really nice to have the time off.  I enjoyed poking around downtown, and managed to get some good photos of clowns and dolls.  What more do I need, right? On Thursday afternoon I headed "downtown" to see what was up in the shops.  My first stop was the jesus thrift store, which is worth checking into now and then despite the despicable music one has to endure.  I found one of my favorite sweaters there, and also these great ceramic mushrooms.  Nothing particularly great on this visit, other than the charming little cross stitch kit below.  I declined to purchase it, however.

I saw this flyer on the window of several businesses, and it both frightened and disgusted me at the same time.  There is just so much going on here that is WRONG.  For instance, why is this taking place in a public school facility?  Are they open to any and all groups?  It seems a bit dodgy to me.  Not to mention TOTAL WANK!

Then I headed over to the Trading Post to look at overly expensive antiques.   They had a set of four clown pictures that were a bit intriguing, but had not price tags.  I figured I'd ask, and it turned into a big rigmarole with the young kid working calling the owner.  There was a long conversation about them being "on hold" for some guy, but if I really wanted them they could call the guy and see if he still wanted them and BLAH BLAH BLAH.  The original price was $125 but they would let me have them for $75 BLAH BLAH BLAH.  Well of course that was way more than I was willing to part with (and I knew they'd be too expensive), but it was an interesting exercise.  Especially when I got home and told Michael about it, and then he explained how this is a standard sales technique!  Here's one of the charming clowns I passed up ~

They also had this very special "vintage" ashtray (collective groan, we are all older than VINTAGE now) - it looks like a second grader made it!  In fact, I was in second grade about that time...

Wow.  I haven't even gotten to the dolls yet!  They were in the antique shop, which is full of dolls.  I love that when you walk to the back of the store, they are EVERYWHERE... Here are my favorites from this visit.  The dollie with spider legs for eyelashes, and the bag of arms and a head.  The way she's fondling her own arm - my goodness!

Okay.  This post is getting a bit long.  I haven't even gotten to our trip off island yet!  I'll tackle that one next time!

Haaaaawwwwwt...

The next few days here are going to be very warm.  I realize for us that means something far less then the 100˚ plus temps some people have experienced for weeks, but hey - we do have the ocean waters that help cool things down.  Call it the luck of geography.

I was born here, and only managed to move far enough from north Seattle to land on an island.  LUCK!!!

As it turns out.

We have our issues here - lack of nightlife, for instance - but I must say the pros are outweighing the cons these days.  It rained like mad while the rest of the country sweltered... my garden is happy.  It's blazing hot now (haha), and the plants are loving it - we will soon have beans and even more zukes coming out of our ears.  I dug the first small batch of yukon gold potatoes up, and they are quietly aging in the garage.

I swear, I'm going to till up the majority of the yard next year for more garden action.  We could maybe even have a corn maze!  As long as you don't mind walking in a straight line...

Here's some nice cooling water to help you through the hot days.  Enjoy!

Pig Roast!

Yes folks, it's that time again here in lovely Oak Harbor - the annual block party and pig roast.  We missed the last two, as we were trapped at the Coupeville Arts & Crafts Festival running the music stage - but not this year!  Two years was enough.  We wanted our freedom to attend any old local fest and we got it!  So to the pig roast we went...



Mmmmmmm... look at all of that pork!  This was one of many cookers roasting madly away to cook enough pork for the greedy festival attendees.  We were glad to arrive early!  The line wasn't too long and there was still enough food - last year they ran out, apparently.  Added 500 pounds of pork this year.

The good people of Oak Harbor love a free meal.  They solicit donations to cover the costs, with extra going to local charities.  But payment is not required.  We paid, we're not cads.

The best part of the event is the sampling and voting in the BBQ competition.  There weren't as many entries this year as the last time we made it, but they were good.  I'll be curious to see who wins.  We voted for the Oak Harbor Tavern entry, in honor of Syd who could not attend the pig roast due to obvious conflicts between his nose, mouth, and behavior.  They had a damn good vinegar sauce for their pork.  Maybe not the best plain, but the vinegar sauce was soooooooo good!



On the topic of dogs... why do people bring their dogs to events like this?  They're no doubt overwhelmed by the crowds, hot, and tempted by the tantalizing pork smells.  It's madness!!!  We will never torment Syd in such a way as this.  It doesn't seem fun at all for the dogs.

New this year was a chalk art competition on Pioneer, down the hill from the pig roast.  It looked like a bit of a failure - poor guy sitting at a table with tonnes of chalk and pretty much nobody participating.  There was this though -




Syd approves.  He always approves when there is any mention of food involved.

Can you blame him?

There is still one reminder of the pig roast lingering on downtown... three days later and this poor deflated sap is still stuck littering up downtown.  Typical...

Stranded

A few days ago we took the dog for a walk on our favorite beach - and we saw this:



I'm pretty sure he was stuck.  The path down looked pretty treacherous - and in fact there really wasn't a path.  Just a cliff.  Easy enough to climb up, not so easy to get down.  I worried that when we passed by again he would have fallen and snapped his neck.

But no, he was still sitting in the same spot, and talking on his phone.  I wonder what happened to him?

Nice sandy cross beds, by the way...

Frankenzuke!

This is the 4th year for our backyard garden - it gets bigger and better every year.  I have half a mind to rent a tiller and dig up a big chunk so we can really go big next year.

Might have to anyways, what with rising food prices and all.  But I digress, sort of.

What I really wanted to talk about are the volunteer plants coming up this year, all over the garden!  I have a very unruly garden this year.

Plants of all sorts coming up randomly here and there!  Sunflowers, borage, snapdragons, feverfew, cosmos, potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins (I think), and squash!  IT'S A FREE FOR ALL!

Ahem.  Sorry, got a bit carried away for a minute.  These things happen when you have a sloppy compost pile.  I've threatened to leave a bit of the garden open next year just to see what comes up.  But back to the here and now, especially the squash plants.

Earlier in the season, I noticed several zucchiniesque plants coming up here and there in the garden.  I decided to let them go and see what kind of trouble they got up to.  Turns out, there's two kinds of trouble.  A couple of the plants have very distinct pumpkin characteristics - long snaking vines, tendrils wrapping around anything nearby... and one of the plants now has a small round yellowish fruit.  We'll see where that one goes.  Unfortunately, the other plant gets stepped on and bumped almost daily because of its location - if it can produce even one fruiting body I'll be thrilled.

But the others... they looked just like zucchini plants!  Just like them!  Until they didn't.

FRANKENZUKES!

And guess what - they tasted just like zucchinis.  We've eaten them twice, and they were just wonderful.  Michael made stuffed zucchini the other day, and tonight we had zucchini parmigiana.  NOM NOM NOM

In other news... Syd!

The weather has been decent, I'm ready for summer reading to be over, and I only work 10 days in September.  

I suppose I can't complain too much.