August 1!
Monday, Aug. 01, 2016 - 14:15

I just spent a week amongst some very conservative Catholics and I didn't hear any of them voice any support for Donald Trump; in fact it was just the opposite. When I was driving back here I saw a trailer with that dumb "patriot"-style TRUMP 2016 thing painted on it (you know, with the swath of hair that's supposed to kind of look like a Revolutionary War hat but also looks like how Donald Trump's hair really looks), and a couple weeks ago I saw a Donald Trump bumper sticker, and that's the extent of the support I've seen for him around here. And this is a pink state. So I think all the supposed support for Donald Trump isn't real, and I still don't think he's going to win. (Ha ha, and now he's saying that if he loses it's because the election is rigged. He's so obvious and insecure, it's hilarious. I bet if the polls get really bad he'll just drop out of the running.)

As much as I miss the puppy - and I miss him very much - there are certain benefits to not having him around right now. Grass is growing again in a couple parts of the lawn that he either ran bare or fried with his pee; the potato and squash plants are overflowing into areas where he likes to jump up and down while barking at people in the alley; and the gray kitty from across the street has been coming over in the evenings to visit and hunt moths. If the puppy could just get over his illogical speciesism, I think he and this kitty could become good friends. I am constantly in countdown mode, though - three and a half more weeks!

Now I will talk about tomatoes.

I cannot adequately express how pleased I am with the tomatoes this year. Last year was so gross I can hardly think of it - I think the sweet 100 or early girl I bought had some kind of blight which spread to all the other goddamn tomatoes and they looked horrible and behaved even horribler all fucking summer. I don't have tomatoes in those same beds this year but I worried that the same thing would happen. So far it hasn't. So far the worst thing this year is the flea beetles, but those little shits are hardly making a dent.

In early March I planted an Oregon spring seed directly in the garden and it's a lovely, healthy plant now. I'll see how the tomatoes from it are - I've read reviews saying they're actually not that great, although people are always complaining about everything so you can never be sure. If they are good, and they're looking good, I'll do the same thing next year, planting earlier than you'd think you should.

The costolutos are looking freaking amazing. Reviews for that tomato are also bad so we'll see how they turn out. But they are lovely crazy-looking tomatoes.

I am not a fan of orange tomatoes due to having grown a couple dumb and gross orange tomatoes in past years, but I'm growing a sweet persimmon this year and have high hopes. They're supposed to be good so I believe that they will be.

I've got two black cherry tomatoes and one chocolate cherry tomato and we'll see if there's any difference between them. These are our favorites so that's why I kept multiple plants.

My parents had what they kept calling chocolate cherry tomatoes and they didn't like them. I told them how much we liked ours and it was confusing how theirs were so gross. Well, theirs were never chocolate cherry tomatoes, they were small purple tomatoes - I think they're the indigo rose from Oregon State. My mom gave me one of their volunteer plants and so now we've got little purple tomatoes coming on that look like jellybeans. Apparently they have to get really super ripe to taste good.

Last year I got two tomato plants for the puppy's roommate's birthday (or at least that's what I said they were for) - a yellow pear and a pink brandywine. The yellow pear was a nice plant but I didn't care for the tomatoes. The brandywine only produced one tomato and I ate it and it was delicious. I felt kind of bad that I ate the only tomato from this plant that was ostensibly a birthday gift for someone else but hey. This year I have one brandywine and it's looking like it will produce more than one tomato. Should be super rad.

I've also got a couple black krims. Hopefully those turn out because that's what I was most excited about.

Also have a couple super Siouxs.

And a northern delight, which has two ripe tomatoes. I wished I'd been able to get a mattina or a prairie fire but the northern delight will have to do for medium red tomatoes.

This year we have 14 tomato plants, a much more manageable number than the 24 or whatever we had last year. Oh, no, we have 17, but three of them are unwanted bastards that I threw into the compost pile and didn't have the heart to kill, so I'm watering them and we'll see if anything comes of them.

Marlins vs. Cubs! You can't root against Ichiro!

I JUST GOT AN EMAIL FROM THE TEN CLUB SAYING MY TICKETS FOR FRIDAY ARE IN THE TEN CLUB SUITE AND WE GET TO GO IN EARLY FOR SOUNDCHECK!!!!!!! FUCK YEAH. I WONDER IF THEY WILL HAVE SNACKS FOR US.

It occurred to me the other day that most of my existence over the last five years has been a quest for food.