Evolution of language (or at least of the pronunciation of the language): Caitlyn used to say “fan-gees” for “sandwich”. Today I discovered that her word for “sandwich” had the initial “s” sound, which made me realize that she’s been saying “fandawich” instead of “fan-gees” for a while now. For lunch, we had grilled cheese “fandawich”, some with “potatoes” (Caitlyn’s word for “tomatoes” – yes, it’s confusing), which made our fingers messy, so we needed a “napkawin”.
The garden is winding down. I dug out the last of the potatoes today and wished, again, that I’d been keeping track of how many pounds we grew. I gave today’s collection of green beans to the neighbors, since I’ve decided that 5 quarts in the freezer is enough. There are more than 2 pints of sun-dried tomatoes in the fridge, and bowls of tomatoes on the counter waiting to be converted into pasta sauce. Ian is responsible for eating the paprika and mariachi peppers – they’ve both turned out to be too hot for me. Tomorrow, I’ll check on …
I don’t suppose it came as a surprise to anyone that the President has declared his troop surge a success. He is, after all, apparently incapable of admitting fallibility. And I suppose it was a success, if the goals were to continue racking up Iraqi and US casualties, further distress tensions with Iran, and generally destroy whatever remained of any good feelings toward the US from the rest of the world. Since it’s too much to hope that the current administration might ever see or admit to their mistakes, it falls to Congress to deny funding for continuing this bungled …
Jann Arden, one of my most very favorite musicians came to town, and I took Caitlyn to see her in-store performance at our downtown Borders. Caitlyn loved the parts where everyone clapped. After the performance, I stood in line with a CD to get it autographed. I’ve never done this before. I’m, oddly, hesitant to actually go and meet these various (and variously) famous people, authors and musicians and even the occasional actor who are somehow important to me. I want to believe that the famousness doesn’t matter, that they are just regular people with the good fortune to do …
It’s a lovely summer day… complete with the sounds of nail-guns and saws across the street where they are framing the two new houses that will be diagonal from us. I’ll be very glad when the framing and roofing and siding are done and the bulk of the noise moves inside… which will probably be sometime in October. I’ve started harvesting tomatoes. Caitlyn especially likes the orange cherry tomatoes and will eat them non-stop if I let her. Strangers are so impressed that she “willingly eats tomatoes!” She also eats carrots pulled right out of the ground and green beans …
There was a bit on NPR this morning about a power company in Massachusetts that is trying to get customers to conserve energy by providing immediate feedback on how much energy they are using. Use your toaster, get a readout on a little devise that says how much electricity your toast is using. Same for your clothes dryer. (I missed the name of the devise they are using – sleep fog and all). And then it occurred to me: why not have these kinds of meters for everything? A display in your shower that tells you how many gallons you’ve …