A Song in the Trees

Got to eat some cake with my parents before I left their house. Arrived home yesterday and have since spent a lot of time sleeping. Z made me whole wheat cupcakes today, because he is the sweetest.

My garden did okay in my absence. Six eggplants are nearing ripeness; one might have been ready to pick today, but I'm giving it to tomorrow just in case. Not sure if any of the peppers are ripe - I tried to google the variety using the name I was given when I bought them, but came up with nothing. They're a pale kind of yellow; might just have to pick one and see how it tastes. And I harvested a bunch of basil leaves, but cannot seem to find pine nuts in the grocery stores so I can make pesto. Maybe the health food store downtown?

While the relationships may be complicated (I need to update my chart), I am finding Genji to be pretty compelling. Even if the main character is not always a good person, like when he kidnaps a ten-year-old girl because she's so beautiful that he wants her to be his wife when she grows up. At least he treats her like a princess? He was also nice to this other lady he slept with that turned out to be homely and strange and continued to send her and her staff members presents. There's also this one passage where he imagines the brother of the woman he cannot have (this brother is also the father of the girl he kidnapped) to be female, while said brother is imagining Genji to be a woman; after I read it, I immediately checked and someone has actually written fanfic of that one paragraph, so thank you, Internet.

Nothing very exciting as of late - I've been doing work, writing a lot (have a couple of things to post, maybe tomorrow). My mom just had hip replacement surgery and is apparently doing well. She sounds very determined to heal up as fast as she can. I'm going to be seeing her in a couple of months - we're meeting up in the city to see a ballet and to visit a museum or two while we're there - and hopefully she will be walking okay then. Since she had an injury a few years ago, she's had a distinctive rocking/limping gait, and she texted me that she doesn't do that anymore while shuffling around.

Today I finished planting everything in the garden - this year I bought six eggplants, five sweet peppers, and six basil plants (last year one was not enough; six might be a bit much, but eh, it will freeze) along with a mint mint and a lemon mint to replace the mint that got stolen/confused for garbage last fall and disappeared :( But the mints are going to have to wait until I buy them pots. My family once had some catnip (which is a mint) that we planted outside; it took over a fair amount of space before we pulled it out a few years later. The cats were pretty happy while it lasted, though I wish I'd know back then that you can make tea from it. I also planted some radishes in milk cartons and a couple have sprouted so far - I'm worried about lead contamination in the ground here, but haven't had the change to buy real pots, hence the milk cartons. We'll see if it was actually the right time to plant them and if I'll get any radishes in the end. No tomatoes this year, since the two I had last year produced a fair amount, but also had some sort of disease. Not entirely sure what they had, but from what I read, what I think they caught can overwinter in soil, so. I'll just buy my tomatoes this year and eat them with all of my basil.

My planting arrangement was thwarted somewhat by a very frustrating rock. The soil here has tons of rocks - I've dug out plenty at least as large as my hand, and lots of smaller ones - but this one was at least twenty cm by fifteen cm by at least fifteen cm deep, which was around the point where I gave up. I only had a hand spade, and the rain was still light but starting to come down harder, and I could rock the stone slightly but it was very stuck, and it was easier just to shift my plants around.

Still working my way through the Tibetan history book. Still annoyed at the authors. I asked the relative who gave it to me about a passage in it comparing the native Bon religion and Buddhism and saying, essentially 'Bon really should be considered a kind of Buddhism' and she was all, uh, no. There were some correct facts there! There are even some good parts of this book! But not one I'm going to be recommending when I finish it. (I cannot wait to do so and start on the second one she lent me.)

On a happier note, not only did Welcome to the Madness hit the Yuri on Ice fandom, we got a creditless version of the pair skate in episode 12!! (You can see it here, along with parts of an actual rip of Welcome to the Madness, if you haven't already.) The one thing I wanted most from the blurays! Now, when are we getting them in America?

Oh, and have some pictures of Koro, Z's new kitty.
( Images under here )