9 bits 'n bobs

This is just an empty pot

1. After picking up Silas at the bus stop last Thursday, we dropped by two of our nearby Seattle Parks and Recreation community centers to see what programs they’re offering this summer. On the basis of our non-exhaustive survey, I can hereby report that the people who staff the front desks of Seattle’s community centers are the friendliest, most welcoming people in the entire city. Truly, standout interactions! They made my week. And at the Loyal Heights community center, whoever writes the preschool activity calendar is a master at cultivating mystery. A+

2. Meanwhile, at home, I have mastered the art of cultivating wooden stakes.

It remains to be literally seen whether the dahlia tuber at the foot of each stake will sprout. I’ve got 14 dahlias in the works this year: seven new tubers, and seven overwintered tubers that I dug up this spring, checked for viability, and replanted with bone meal. In the foreground and at left, we’ve also got some tiger lilies in progress, a half-dozen unexpected bangers I planted years ago in memory of a horse Silas once loved.

This is the time of the growing year when I feel cautiously optimistic, even sort of good at this? Yesterday my mother complimented me on the garden. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, I realized this was it — the only validation I’ve ever needed. Toni Wizenberg has OPINIONS about gardens. I write this down now so that I will remember, because by August, when most of what I’m growing hasn’t turned out the way I wanted, when the dahlia blooms are all earwig and no petal, when I’m like, why am I watering plants we can’t even EAT, this feeling will be so long gone, it’ll be like I never felt it.

3. But for now, while I do feel it, I bought myself a new sun-protective shirt — sunscreen shirt, as I call it — so I can go outside without scorching. FWIW, this is my second REI “Sahara Shade” hoodie, and I get zero kickback, I just like it! In the time since I bought my first one, they’ve added a “ponytail port,” which is so stupid and great, Ash had to take a picture.

so stupid and great

N.b. REI makes both straight-hem and shirttail-hem versions, but I think the ponytail port may only be in the straight-hem style. In either style, the best sunscreen shirt I’ve tried.

4. Also the best: the crema on this HOMEMADE Americano.

There is a backstory. Roughly fifteen years ago, my then-husband bought me an old refurbished Pasquini Livia 90 espresso machine. I was very excited about it, so I brought all my perfectionism to the task of learning to operate it. Possibly because of said perfectionism, I was bitterly disappointed by every shot I pulled. Also, it’s difficult to have a “growth mindset,” or whatever, when you’ve just woken up and haven’t had your coffee because the thing that makes your coffee is the thing that requires a growth mindset. I gave up and put the machine in the closet.

Then, last year, a school friend of Silas’s taught him how to use an espresso machine — these Seattle children! — and he came home asking to use ours. I pulled it out of the closet, dusted it off, plugged it in — and found it was dead. I wanted to chuck it right then, but instead I took it to Home Espresso Repair for what turned out to be a new heating element. Then, when I brought the machine home, I made an uncharacteristic decision to ~care less~??? Strange. I have since made many excellent espressos and Americanos, some okay but enjoyable espressos and Americanos, and some mediocrely frothed milk, which I don’t care about anyway. I love growing up!

5. Sort of speaking of growing up, this passage from the book-length essay Daddy Issues, by Katherine Angel:

dirty fingernail thanks to gardening; book rec thanks to Anna Lee H.

6. We recently swapped the kids’ bedrooms, and during the process, Gilbert, being Gilbert, took the opportunity to steal a little stuffed dog that Silas got years ago in memory of a dog named Davey. (Parenting: 60% pet funerals and modeling healthy coping strategies, 40% raising children.) Anyway, when Gilbert stole the Davey stuffie, we noticed that it looks a lot more like Gilbert than it ever looked like Davey, so we decided to let Gilbert keep it. I can’t help thinking he noticed the likeness? Unlike every other toy he has stolen or been given, Gilbert has not destroyed Gilbert.

7. And for all the things in life that do get destroyed or damaged — by Gilbert or anyone else — my friend Kate had me over for a visible mending lesson. Here is my first effort, a small square(-ish) of woven embroidery to cover a snag in a nearly-new IKEA bedspread. I loved doing it. Please ignore the marking pen outline, which I didn’t think to wipe off before snapping a picture.

I did this by hand, but you can also buy a darning loom if you’re into that

8. Because it was so satisfying, I had to re-stock our household supply of embroidery floss, for future mending projects. Hobby Lobby is owned by Christian bigots and I DO NOT ENDORSE SPENDING MONEY THERE, but Silas and I were down in Federal Way on an errand and there was a Hobby Lobby in the parking lot and I had no spine, and the embroidery floss was only 69 cents a hank, and of course we had to buy some eyelet trim and white cotton and Rit dye for a different project, and buttons and decorative closures, and by then we were starving, so we got Chex Mix and Albanese gummy bears, the best gummy bears. I still hate Hobby Lobby.

9. Finally, Ames and I have been “coloring” over breakfast, which mostly means he hands me crayons and barks out orders while eating buttered toast with the crust cut off. Yesterday, instead of complying, I decided to “draw” his orders and subsequent observations. Much better.

I’d love to know your bit ‘n bobs, if you’d like to share.

Happy week —

M.