I apparently forgot to mention that I actually finished Infinite Summer, on schedule and everything. I was way ahead until about two weeks out and then I realized how close to the end I was, and I panicked, and I couldn’t read anymore because 1) I wasn’t ready to be done, and 2) I was carrying around a FREAKING HUGE BOOK and I was so close to the end that I might finish on the bus, so I wanted to bring a second book, but I already had a HUGE book, and I didn’t want two books … so ultimately I just left Infinite Jest lying around at home with like 60 pages left to go, for like two weeks.
Then I finished it, but I didn’t get closure of course … I think I will read it again soon.

Then both G. and I decided to read Dracula with the Inf Sum folks. We did not keep up, though I thought I might power through tonight and finish it by the deadline. But, we found MST3K streaming on Netflix so we’re zoning out and doing that instead, as we had a busy busy day preparing for the slaughter of 150 chickens, which we hope will happen next weekend.

And then the chickens. OMG. So — one hundred fifty chickens is too many to do all at once. We will never do that many all at once ever again. Ugh. Many folks are coming over to help us process, so I am preparing the house and the slaughter site etc for everyone to come. I have a bit of a thing about a clean house — I never have one, but I feel like to have one makes one a worthy person, so when folks are coming over I have big freakouts — so in addition to the stress of OH HEY WE ARE KILLING 150 CHICKENS, there is OH HEY MY SELF-WORTH IS RIDING ON A CLEAN HOUSE. Fun times.

And then the turkeys, who have been a pleasure to raise until they started flying, even after we clipped their wings quite close. Even that was just kind of funny, until one of them went over the fence to the neighbor yard, where the neighbor dogs promptly got hold of her — no fault of theirs; they are dogs after all, and she was a big ol’ prey — and wounded her pretty bad. They didn’t kill her, but we had to. The rest of the turkeys are slightly confused, but are more affected by the fact that they now have an 8-foot fence around their area, to keep them in, finally.

And then there is the Dark Days Challenge which we as a farm have just signed up for. The challenge is, between Nov 15 and March 31, make one meal per week be as sustainable/organic/local/ethical as possible, and blog it. Please join us! Most of the fun is seeing what everyone else is eating, and getting ideas.

And last but not least, on the eve of Na*Mo, my sister and I are going to share a project for the month. Last November she posted one happy thing each day, and I took and posted a photo each day (and omg I just noticed the photos are all messed up — will go fix). This November we will each listen to one song per day that has an iTunes play count of 3 or fewer. We will listen to it at least as many times as it takes to get it off the smart playlist, so it doesn’t come up again. Then we will post about the song, including where we got it, why we didn’t listen to it before, and what we think of it now that we have listened to it.

Fun? We’ll see. She is calling it “Month of Undiscovered Music” so I guess that makes it NaMoUnMu*? Or “MUM” is easier to type I guess.

* YES it is national because I am in Washington state and she is in DC. Those are two places across the country from each other and therefore the project has a national scope. Yes.

Anyway, I made up* NaPhoPoMo and I am also going to make up the rules!

1. Take a postable photo every day.
2. Try to post it that day. If not, post it as soon as possible afterwards.

Um … that’s it?

—
* Sort of. Other folks are doing it too but this doesn’t seem to be the universal name for it; at least, googling for it doesn’t come up with anything authoritative. Anyone know a better/more standard name?

(I just hope my RSS feed is still the same address …)

In ongoing and surely fascinating toe news, it is not broken. I did get to have exciting x-rays, though! It was fun, though I felt silly for making a big deal over a toe. There was no definitive toe injury, it just hurt when I came back from a longish (for me) run. Other toes hurt, too, so I didn’t think anything of it, but then the other toes got better, and the big toe did not get better. So I had x-rays and they probably stood around and laughed at the crazy hypochondriac lady when they examined them. I went back in to a regular doctor a week later because fine, I can accept it not being broken, but it still hurts, y’all. The (cute!) doctor did various amusing things like poke it, push it, pull it, twist it all around, and apply a tuning fork (for serious!) to it. All of these things let him to confirm its non-brokenness, but he, at least, understood the “it still hurts” aspect of the situation: he prescribed me a whole bunch of Advil, which seems to be helping.
The best part is that a couple of days after that, I dropped what I think must have been a 2.5-pound weight on my other big toe. Fortunately I have learned enough to diagnose it as not broken all by myself, even without a tuning fork.

I picked the first tomato from my Very Own Garden earlier this week. It was delicious but its savoring was somewhat lost on G., who is having some bizarro heartburn issues that did not permit him to have more than a bite of it. Hooray, more tomato with salt for me!
I also have a million billion more cucumbers than I could ever possibly eat, and I can eat a lot of cucumbers. Please notify me if you want cucumbers. Please please take the cucumbers.

(Song: “I Wish I Was A Girl,” Counting Crows. I wish Adam Duritz understood the subjunctive.)

Sorry it’s taking so long to fix.

(Song: Jon Benjamin Band, “What We Need More Of Is Science”)

(song: “Firefly,” The Plains)

• feel me up (3 people searched for this and found me!)
• wel shonion (2 people!)
• fuzzy socks
• sing on key
• hairblog
• wedding flipflops
• joe janes married
• ransom miller
• lauren @ 9:08 pm
• list of ironies
• myself open
• rock&roll haircuts
• ex boyfriend pictures
• stuart ransom miller
• things to do for lauren and simon on a sunday
• rebecca bryant classification
• beast aka management
• procrastination and laziness grad school

The last is, of course, my favorite.

(song: “Deep Dark Well,” M. Ward)

Last night I dreamed about Richmond Fontaine. They were renting a house in Astoria, just for a couple of weeks, and I walked past with someone who commented on a guitar that had been in the window. I asked what was special about that guitar, and whoever it was (I don’t remember; maybe Travis? but why was Travis a guitar nerd?) said “Well, Richmond Fontaine has one and they’ve said they are looking for another.” And I said “Then that means that either Richmond Fontaine is in that house, or someone who might want to sell their guitar to Richmond Fontaine is, so we should go see, in either case.” So we went in, and there was Willy and the rest of the band, and we said hi. They said to me “We saw you walk by with your sister earlier and do a double take when you saw us because you weren’t sure if it was us.” I had forgotten, apparently.
Then later were space aliens that were attacking people, and I had to shoot things and people and then G. was on the aliens’ side and he was going to shoot me so I had to shoot him, but he didn’t die right away, but the wolves were coming so I had to stand there and wait for him to die so that the wolves wouldn’t eat him while he was still alive. I didn’t like that dream.

(song: “Somewhere Near,” Richmond Fontaine)