Garden, interrupted

My first post back after my long hiatus was going to be about my finding a group of cyclists I can hang with – that would be the Sun City Cycle Club, i.e. the octogenarian set. Then I was going to write about my most amazing awesome time in Portland, OR with my beloved Cancerchicks, Kim and Melinda, and we were also joined by Katie and Debbie for part of the time as well. I couldn’t love these girls more than if they were actual sisters.

Then there might have been something about the magnificence of The Kone, then more training tips for the little people, and so on.

But all of that came to a screeching halt today, when I went out to my garden in Skokie for the first time since getting back from Oregon. The last time I was out there was last Tuesday, and at the time there were so many tomatoes, billions of them, that I pleaded with my Tomatoettes to go there and pick some so that they wouldn’t rot on the vine. Even though I was going out there every 2-3 days to pick them, there were still billions. So many that I gave baskets to friends, my doctors, charity auctions, neighbors, my mom and all her friends, the folks at Starbucks, and so on.

We’re talking a lot of tomatoes.

The pattypans, I have to say, were an underperforming lot, but there were a couple of those, and a few zucchini too. But the tomatoes, the glorious tomatoes! Ah, they were beautiful. Literally hundreds of pounds of them, waiting to be picked.

And so they were. But not by me.

Because I went out there today, and as I was walking closer I thought hmm, how odd that I don’t see millions of tomatoes as I usually do. Then I got to the plot, and saw….nothing. Not a single fucking tomato. No ripe ones….no green ones even. The plants were completely stripped bare, and it looked like the lazy POS scum-sucking douchebags just clipped the vines, as I guess that was easier than picking them individually.

I wandered up and down every row, in shock. Noticed that the zucchini and pattypan plants were trampled, and of course, no squash. But the tomatoes! I should have been picking tomatoes for the next 2 months if the weather had cooperated, but now? Nothing. There’s nothing. It’s all gone.

While I usually don’t see anyone when I go there, today there were a couple of women from the neighboring plots – one of them was sweet and offered me some of her tomatoes, and the other almost got her head cleaved open by a shovel wielded by yours truly. Because quite frankly, when you’re totally devastated like that, the following platitudes aren’t helpful:

• “That’s the risk of a community garden”
• “Gosh, I’ve already picked so many this year, I don’t know what to do with them any more!”
• “I just love gardening, it’s a fun hobby for me” – after I mentioned how much hard work and time and money I had put into the garden

Because yes, the risk of a community garden is that some lazy-asses come and take stuff, but we’re talking taking a few things, not an entire garden plot of stuff. And yes, I’ve picked a lot already, but I should have been able to pick a hell of a lot more. And yes, I too love gardening, but I also like enjoying the fruits of my labor, dammit. You know, after spending months growing plants, hundreds of hours planting and weeding, thousands of dollars on supplies.

I should have been able to enjoy my own fucking tomatoes. Even if I just gave them away.

And now I can’t. And for that, I hate people. I hope you tomato thieves burn in a fiery hell, slowly and painfully. I hope you’re cursed by the money you made selling my tomatoes. I hope your lives become like one long Stephen King novel, where the clanging monkey toy portends all kinds of doom.

As for me, I’m going to go cry now; my sadness at the garden destruction is overwhelming. I put my heart and soul into my garden - it's one of the few bits of happiness in my life. To me happy is The Kone, riding my bike, friends and family, the garden. Because I sure as shit don't have a hell of a lot else going for me. And now the garden.....is gone. And did I also mention that now the IRS is saying that they made a “mistake” in the papers they gave me before, and now I supposedly owe them over twice as much? Yep, happy happy joy joy.

If I ever have anything resembling the slightest bit of luck some day, the shock of it might truly kill me.

This means war

Normally, I’m a mild-mannered, some would say meek, person. This is what I’m known for. But there are certain things in my life that people do NOT mess with, at risk of sudden and painful death. Theirs, not mine. These things are patently obvious. The Kone. My bike. And, of course, the garden.

Ah, what can I say about the garden that I haven’t said before? How about this – that it is a huge honking pain in the ass. Really. Gardening is tough, brutal, back-breaking work. It’s expensive. I’ve spent literally hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars on my garden. And even though I have vague hopes of selling some heirloom tomatoes to restaurants, say, in August, this is definitely not a money-making venture.

But I love gardening. With a passion. It makes me happy, puttering around, digging, even weeding. There’s something very tranquil and soothing about the whole thing, being one with nature and all that crap. But I could certainly never be a farmer, because it’s all just too anxiety-inducing, with too many things to worry about. The weather! Hail! Locusts! I read recently that farmers are having a bumper year, and while normally I seethe with jealousy at other peoples’ good fortune, here I think, you go farmers!

Plus in addition to the natural elements, one has to worry about the scourges of society known as garden thieves. Yes, thieves. Much to my dismay, when I was out at the garden last week, I noticed that someone had stolen a zucchini. A zucchini of all things! Need I remind people that these are the erstwhile Rodney Dangerfields of the garden?? So I was puzzled, and yet, figured that perhaps this was a crime of opportunity, if not passion, by someone with an unnatural fondness for large, tasteless vegetables. I passed it off as a fluke.

Until. I went back to the garden Sunday, to weed and water in 98 degree heat and humidity (yes, there are those hours of back-breaking work again), and discovered – MORE zucchini gone! This time, many! J’accuse!

This, I thought, will not stand.

Because if someone is craven and baseless and degenerate enough to steal zucchini, then what’s going to happen when the heirloom tomato crop starts coming in? Or, dare I say it, the pattypan squash? Will this cretin be able to resist those bright yellow harbingers of hope and change? Hell no. Do I really begrudge someone a few squash? Damn right I do.

I don’t know where anyone might have gotten the idea that I’m some kind of Lady Bountiful, planting everything for the good of mankind or random garden marauders. This is so not the case – I am a mean, bitter, selfish person, and don’t you all forget it. Okay, so I might tell my fellow tomato aficionados at the garden to go ahead and try some of the different varieties, and sure I give tomatoes to friends, and yes, I do plant cherry tomatoes along the perimeter of the garden as a snack for my fellow gardeners – but those are the only concessions I make to pretending that I am not in fact the mean and selfish person that I naturally am.

So yes, that means that the zucchini may be large tasteless vegetables, but they’re MY large tasteless vegetables, dammit. That I’ve nurtured from seed and grown for months, fretting over them and coddling them and……okay, that’s a lie. Zucchini are pretty easy to grow – but that’s all the more reason for people to grow their own. Even an idiot could grow them, unlike, say, the pattypans, that require the skill of an artisan such as myself.

But I digress. Clearly, to nip this trend in the bud, I need a foolproof plan. Oh sure, all the usual things immediately came to

mind: land mines, insisting the Skokie police put a 24-hour guard on duty (hey, it’s the suburbs – what else do they have to do?), motion-activated klieg lights with sirens, etc. Sniper fire. Alert Friend and Reader Bridget has offered to take up this particular gauntlet, and this woman has the military cred, so I’m confident she’d do a good job. Barbed wire. Steel traps.

Then I realized: all of the above.

My mission is clear now. Society must be made safe for the hard-working gardeners of the world, who deserve to pick the fruits of their own labor. This one Thieving Zucchini Bastard can serve as a lesson to the other wanna-be garden thieves out there.

I will report back.

Blame it on the rain

Scenario: Home Depot in River Park on Saturday

Deanna and I have darted inside, because of course it’s started monsooning. Again. We pick up what we can inside, and then we need to go to the uncovered part to get plants and such. I’m perusing the pepper plants, and it starts raining harder.

Me, yelling at no one in particular: STOP! Make it stop! Can’t someone make the rain STOP??!

Home Depot Lady poking her head around the corner of the aisle: Can I help you dear?

Me: THE RAIN! Make it STOP!

HDL: Oh! I know, I wish I could!

Scenario: I see Kathleen my tenant over the weekend in the backyard.

Kathleen: Could you cut the grass in front? It’s getting pretty long…

Me, thinking about the grass in which jungle tigers or Jimmy Hoffa are probably hiding: Oh SURE, I’d be HAPPY TO, if it EVER STOPS RAINING!

Scenario: Starbucks this morning, after the dog park

I walk in and am greeted as my usual rock$tar self.

Holly: Tasha! Grande?

Robert: Petite scone?

Me: MAKE IT STOP! Make the rain stop!

Robert: We’re working on it, but…

Me: Do what you have to do! PLEASE, make it STOP!

Scenario: Doggy daycare, after Starbucks

Nancy: Hey, how’s it goi….

Me: MAKE IT STOP! Make the rain stop!

So we can see from the above scenarios that yes, Miss Tasha has finally lost her ever-loving mind. April was one of the coldest on record in Chicago. This May was the 3^rd wettest on record. Every single time I go out to Skokie to plant tomatoes and anything else in between storms, the monsoon rains move in shortly thereafter. Of course.

This morning I spent hours not planting anything new, oh no, but replanting half of the tomato plants, which had gotten flattened and drowned and killed by the damn massive storms. I also had to replant cukes and zucchini and beans, since the seeds apparently rotted in the rain.

Worst of all…….I have yet to plant the pattypan squash.

This must stop. Now.

Squashless in Skokie

Thanks to the yuppie scum neighbors who moved in next door into their wretched-looking gut rehabbed place and immediately put up a 7-foot “privacy fence,” I no longer get any sun in my backyard. Their Taj Mahalian garage that takes up the width of the yard and casts a massive shadow over my former tomato patch doesn’t help either. This means that I’ve had to branch out, and now my main plot is in a community garden in the ‘burbs.

So I head out there the other day, eager to see what surprises await. The tomatoes are growing like hotcakes, ripening in July which for my tomatoes is unheard of. That’s the main crop, but then there are the beans (eaten by wabbits), the peppers (muddling along, though I don’t pay too much attention to them), the cukes (wee, since I started them late), and of course, the squash. Oh, glorious squash! How many odes have been written to your beauty, your versatility, your tastiness!

Come to think of it, probably not very many, since squash is kind of the Rodney Dangerfield of the garden. The classic joke being that people have to lock their car doors in summer not because crime goes up, but just so that they don’t come back and find a pile of zucchini on the front seat. And then you’re stuck trying to figure out what to do with the damn things. Some squash beckons to you at the farmers’ market, looking so adorable and healthy, so you buy them and take them home and they sit on the counter, mocking you, until you decide that they’d make a lovely decorative tableau along with other incomprehensible vegetables like rutabagas, so you arrange them and let their very presence do the heavy lifting, saying to all and sundry “Look at me! I’m a squash! Only people really dedicated to their health and svelteness eat squash!”

Until the day they all start rotting so you throw them out, happy to be done with it all until the next time you get suckered in. Umm, not that I’ve ever done anything like this.

Or you look up recipes on allrecipes.com, your regular go-to place for such things, and half of them involve cut up squash, milk, and saltines, in what must be some weird Southern ode to inedible casseroles. The other recipes follow the approach I do – to the squash add ground beef, Italian sausage, marinara sauce, lots of garlic, lots of cheese, bake the whole thing, and voila, you have something that’s actually pretty tasty – no thanks to the squash.

The point being, I wound up with a squash plant because I was at the garden one day when my garden plot neighbor was thinning out her plants, and asked me if I wanted a stray squash. I thought, why not? There’s plenty of room, I’ll just stick it in here where it’ll be out of the way.

Of course, a month later it’s the Squash Plant That’s Taking Over the World, growing with alarming speed, churning out pattypan squash with determination. I went there one week – no squash. Exactly a week later? 3 squash, one the size of a hubcap. No lie. I picked two, and left a small one because I wasn’t sure how big I was supposed to let them get.

Fast forward to yesterday at the garden. I hop over my fencing and go eagerly to the squash plant, to see what kind of behemoth we’re dealing with here, and…….what ho? No squash? Someone has STOLEN my squash??? I’m so dumbfounded by this that I look under every (immense) leaf, even though the squash are bright yellow so they’re impossible to miss. I then head over to the tomatoes, but I still keep looking over at the squash plant, as if the missing vegetable will somehow magically appear. Alas, this doesn’t happen, and I remain squash-less.

Now, not that I begrudge the squash thief, because quite frankly, I still have about 3 containers of squash casserole in the freezer from the last one, but……seriously? Squash??

And people think I make this stuff up.

On another note entirely, today I went for my usual 80-mile Donut Commute, passing through the Evil Nasty town of Capron, IL on my way to the Bucolic, Lovely Town of Sharon, WI. And as soon as I reached the sign that said “Capron,” a menacing shadow appeared immediately overhead – so I look up and see the biggest, darkest turkey vulture I’ve ever seen hovering and circling right above me. And staying there. Hmm. Coincidence?

I think not.

Kona for the Cure!

There I was the other day, toodling along in the car and visualizing running on those very streets once I’m recovered from the major surgery* I had last week, but hewing to my strict training regimen nevertheless as I focused on tightening my ab muscles, building up that all-important core strength. Suddenly, I heard something on the radio that caused me to gasp in disbelief and subsequently almost choke on my bonbon. An advertisement for Tickets for the Cure. Tickets as in lottery. What? Now we’re supposed to sit around chomping on our buckets of fried chicken and gambling?? This was a joke, right?

(*It has been brought to my attention that because I’m a rock$tar who’s so used to having one surgery after another, that I’ve inadvertently downplayed the latest one, which did indeed involve full anesthesia, lots o’ stitches, major cutting and slicing – in other words, a procedure that would fell lesser mortals. And by being all blasé and heroic, I’m doing serious damage to my Bonbon Receiving Potential. So let this be official notice: ouch!)

Nope, no joke. There actually are Lottery Tickets for the Cure, to go with our fried chicken and Ding-Dongs or whatever the hell else they’ve slapped that pink ribbon on. So my question becomes this – how is it that *I’m* not cashing in on the pink ribbon bandwagon? How come *I’m* still po’? Yet all these other organizations and companies are making buckets (ha!) of money on me and my people. On the backs of the cancer-trodden, as it were. And I think to myself – self, this just isn’t right.

So, for all you kind-hearted and generous folks who like to give your money to others in order to get that warm, fuzzy feeling inside – and I assure you, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that! – I present for you the following: Kona for the Cure!

What is this brilliant Kona for the Cure that I speak of? Well, it’s another one of my schemes – I mean, worthy endeavors, in which I try to make money for a worthy cause. In this case, me. Me and Kona, that is. My DIY Fundraiser which revolved around selling my beautiful little heirloom tomato seedlings was kind of a bust (ha, no pun intended) – in that my wonderful friends bought plants, even those who I suspect don’t even have any actual gardening space – but the people to whom I’ve given dozens or even hundreds of plants to in the past? Not a peep. That’s a bit of a disappointment, in them as people. But my tomato-buying friends? You’re the best. And you’ll all be invited to the Gala Tomato Tasting at my place at the end of the summer – god willing and the creek don’t rise, as they say. (And assuming we have a good tomato summer for once, please god please god pleasepleasepleasegod.)

But it also occurs to me that I erred slightly in my seedling marketing, in that I should have slapped pink ribbons on them and boldly called them Tomatoes for the Cure!, and I’m sure they would have been flying out of here.

No matter. This is why we have Kona for the Cure, which offers you the following:

- A 2-day affair of walking, camaraderie, and heartfelt tears and hugs, as we battle breast cancer together, bravely and strongly, with Kona as our courageous mascot. We’ll probably just keep walking around my neighborhood, in case it’s hot, so Kona doesn’t get too tired.

- Your choice from a range of Fuck Cancer attire, from the classic FC hat, to the equally classic Fuck Awareness, Find a Cure t-shirt, in resplendent pink, of course.

- A catchy slogan that we can chant as we’re walking and hugging: “A scone for The Kone!” Now granted, that makes no sense whatsoever, but hey, neither does Komen’s “I am the cure!”, right?

- To mimic that rustic, on-the-road experience that seems to appeal to so many walkers, we’ll set up pup tents in my backyard, and to take care of your bathroom needs, I’ll send you to the Wendy’s a couple of blocks away, as that’s the closest I can come to Porta-potties. I will try to work out a deal for participants – I mean, pink soldiers in the battle against BC – so that you get discounts on Frosties.

- The wonderful feeling of doing…..*something*…..to help in the quest for a cure, though it’s not clearly exactly how the money is helping other than by throwing out some amorphous feel-good slogans like “because everyone deserves a lifetime” and “you’re a pink warrior” and “Buckets for the cure!” We too will be slinging plenty of those about, oh yes.

I’m sure I’ll think of other things to throw into the kitty, but rest assured, you’ll be taken care of in the manner to which your $1150 fee will entitle you (after taxes, fees, and gratuities). Yes, a mere $1150, or just HALF of what Komen expects you to raise! I can’t think of many things that are more of a bargain than this particular experience, of spending a couple of precious days with myself and The Kone, all while swathed in a big lovefest of pink hugs and friendship. And alcohol. Yeah, we’ll throw lots of mai tais in there too.

Space is limited, so act now! And remember……. a scone for The Kone!

Because everyone deserves a scone……

A note to the IRS

Alert Reader George from Canada – who, I should note, is way funnier than I ever am in my own blog postings – noted the following in a comment on my last post:

“Careful, the IRS is likely to accuse you of running a farm or bird sanctuary. They will be hard pressed to believe that a place such as yours is not a huge draw for bird watchers and gardening enthusiasts. They will be turning your place upside down looking for the gift shop!”

And so I would like to take this opportunity to let the IRS know an incontrovertible fact, which is that when I speak of, for example, “selling tomatoes”, I am doing so purely in a metaphorical manner. You see, according to Sumatran folklore, tomatoes are considered to be the fruit that symbolizes brilliance and wisdom, and so when I speak of “tomatoes,” I’m actually talking about the gems of wisdom that I’m imparting to my reader(s).

Because of course I also mean “selling” in the fashion of “Hey, let’s sell them on this schlocktastic idea!”, i.e. to convince someone of something that YOU know to be true, but the stubborn among us don’t. Hence, we can see how my “selling tomatoes” is really just a catchphrase I use when I actually mean “Imparting another nugget of the sheer brilliance that I as a Triathlon Goddess am known for- even if I have to force it down your throats, you being the little people.”

Just wanted to make sure there wasn’t any confusion on that.

The chirping, tweeting bastards....

….known as rose-breasted grosbeaks are back! Yay!




I mean…..damn. Damn it all to hell! Anyone who knows me knows that I run the same kind of tight ship with my yard/garden as I do with everything else in my life: the Kone, triathlons, work. Nothing but ironclad discipline, a no-nonsense demeanor, a complete lack of sentimentality. Practical to a fault.

In the yard, this translates into a sterile, cookie-cutter approach. My intense focus on having the perfect lawn is legend. As is my love of begonias and other so-called “common” flowers - as I always say, “common” is just another word for success! So I strive for square layouts, sharp angles, everything edged to within an inch of its life. It’s just what I do. Oh, and no riotous color in my garden, no sirree. White is right, where the flowers are concerned.

So the fact that these noisy chirping interlopers tend to congregate in my garden is an effrontery, to be sure. Here I am going for perfection in my neat, sterile little world, and yet, every time I look outside, someone else has come to call. And hang out, no less! This week, it’s the band of rose-breasted grosbeak hooligans, here for the 3rd year in a row. Apparently they like my place so much that it’s now a permanent stop on their migratory route. And the amount of safflower they go through is insane – like they think I’m made of money or something. Hmph. Then you have the sparrows, finches, woodpeckers, cardinals, mourning doves, hummingbirds, goldfinches, and on occasion even a hawk. Plus of course bunnies, raccoons, possums, and plenty of butterflies and bumblebees. All in my little postage-stamp-sized Chicago backyard. Again I say, what the hell?

Just because I have flowers that bees and butterflies flock to (Joe Pye weed, butterfly bush, bee balm, etc.), a birdbath, a couple of birdfeeders that somehow found their way back there (okay, there are 7) (those are the big ones – there a couple of tiny ones too) (the little ones don’t really count though), this invasion of nature and flora and fauna makes no sense. If someone can help me figure this out, please do.

It is truly a puzzle.