Vacation in 5, 4, 3....

It's hard to believe that it's been an entire year since my last big road trip. (Pitiful!)
I can't wait to be ON THE ROAD and drink too much coffee and sweat a lot and have no set agenda and no chores for approximately eight days. I've been pretty grumpy and mopey lately and I'm afraid poor Marvin is dreading being stuck in a car with me for so many hours. Me and my ruts.

 Check out our compost:

Watching stuff rot is fun!*

 Love,
Sarah












*a very good indication that vacation is long overdue.

There's good news...

I made vegan peanut butter blondies and they were gooood.

Marvin brought me a flower  and I tried to submerge it in an ugly jar.

I watched Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox and am now an even bigger fan of his products. Salary capping + the Moral ABCs. Gotta love it.

I found the perfect faux-bamboo frame at Goodwill for my Jorge Garcia autograph.

Got quite a few good salads out of the shoe rack lettuce before it withered away in the 100+ degree heat.

 I'll be hanging out with Vanessa (and her goats!) in a week and a half.

Also, the weird lump in Marvin's GROIN went away. (No photo on that one; sorry folks.) I like to think it went away because of all the herbs and vitamins I've been giving him...or an answered prayer, but it may have just been a work-related injury. Either way, we're glad it's gone!

Love, love, love,
Sarah

P.S. - I just ate a cucumber that had to have been two feet long. I'm not sure which is more amazing: the fact that a cucumber was two feet long, or that I ate that much cucumber.

Dear Courtney,

Doin'?
This is my first completed embroidery project...& it's all yours.
I hope you thoroughly appreciate his crazy eye.

Love,
Sarah

P.S. - Here is the kitten:

We nap together. Kbye.

Harvey Milk & more Hope.

I ask this... If there should be an assassination, I would hope that five, ten, one hundred, a thousand would rise. I would like to see every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out - - If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door... And that's all. I ask for the movement to continue. Because it's not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power... it's about the "us's" out there. Not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us's. Without hope, the us's give up - I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. So you, and you, and you... You gotta give em' hope... you gotta give em' hope. - Harvey Milk

Kristine Virsis & Hope.

 As we grow up we are encouraged to use our free time doing things like watching tv, shopping, and eating out. Things that keep us sitting still and spending money, as the concept of play that was so natural to us as children becomes foreign. For me learning to ride a unicycle has been more freeing than I could have imagined. - Kristine Virsis


Word of the week: HOPE [the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.]
What to do with it: GET SOME. 

 I've been letting things get me reaaaaal down lately. Things like the oil spill and homeless animals and rape and classism and racism and borders and how sad people look as they go about their daily routine. Optimism seems to get harder...but I keep reminding myself that there are (probably? hopefully?) as many good things happening in the world as there are bad. They just aren't dramatic enough to appeal to the masses, so they don't get televised.

For instance:
This week Sarah Reilly saved dozens of tadpoles from a rapidly drying puddle; they now stand a chance at becoming frogs! Marvin Reilly rescued a tiny kitten from a stack of tires at his work and it is now sleeping beneath his beard! A bittersweet farewell-to-the-pool party was had at the PleasureDome! Steve Bates didn't drown in the flash flood! Lauren Matlock and all her housemates didn't get shot even though they live in the for-real ghetto! Endangered crocodiles hatched in Cambodia! Thousands of rubber ducks raced down the Connecticut River to raise money for charity! People are overcoming stuff! Folks are loving each other! Songs that don't suck are being written! Trees are still growing nice 'n' tall in lots of places and grass still conquers the sidewalks, doggone-it!

I'm tired of the gloom.  Gonna build something better.
Amen?

I have no time to waste, Mr. Brown!

Today: Baking cupcakes and refusing to wear pants! (The kitchen AC unit is d-e-a-d dead.) Looking for a recipe for peanut butter frosting with ingredients that I have on hand. (My favorite game to play.)

One of my customers brought me an Appalachian Trail hikers' magazine. She's giving me big dreams for 2012.

I may have concocted an herbal tea capable of conquering my insomnia. I drank some last night and apparently slept through a gigantic thunder storm. Marvin wasn't so lucky. he woke up around three and ran around the block searching for one of our cats who was outside. Such devotion.

I've had two songs stuck in my head all day:





&




It's a good life, isn't it?

Mini-versary.

Today marks the fifth year that Marvin and I have been dating. You know, the anniversary that we would be celebrating big-time had we not gotten married. People tend to toss the poor dating anniversary aside once they tie the knot. I bought Marvin a cookie, tied it up with a ribbon, and will probably eat half of it and retie it before he comes home...because that's what marriage is all about.

I got paid to plant flowers at work today! It made me wish I had a landscaping job, although I'm sure the majority of landscaping isn't as pleasant as playing in a flower bed.

Last week I sent Kathleen Hanna a very unofficial letter of interest regarding a summer internship with Le Tigre. I told her that if for some crazy reason they were unable to find a suitable intern, I would gladly quit my job, temporarily abandon my husband and cats, fly to NYC, and work my happy little feminist derriere off for her. She wrote back and said that they had stopped taking resumes due to the overwhelming response, so I need not ditch my spouse and job, but that my unofficial letter had made her day. This made my day. First the Jorge Garcia self-portrait, and now a personal e-mail reply from the riot grrrl of all riot grrrls. Two responses from celebrity friend-crushes in one year. (Actually Ms. Hanna is more of a heroine. I not only want to be her best friend, but also want to be just like her when I grow up. Or at least as fearless.)