Amanda Takes Off...

Landlord: Amanda! When you two gonna come use the beach cottage that comes with your rent? I've got a new one down here and the view! It's the best view on the beach!

Amanda: How about this weekend?

Landlord: How about any weekend but this weekend?

Amanda: Mid-July? We're going to Canada.

Landlord: OK, tell you what, come down this weekend. Bring your linens, towels, you know. The kitchen isn't working yet, but we got a fridge with beer.

When someone basically demands you come use their beach cottage for free, and you can do it right now, well, how can you say no?

The beach house is a recent purchase and new windows were just installed, to take advantage of the view. The floors are unfinished, the walls are unpainted, and the front door has a lock but no knob.

And the view? Worth a million bucks.

Landlord: Tomorrow morning, around, oh, 5:40... 5:48, your toes will glow with the sunlight.

Amanda: Hmm. [Good Man] will complain. He's like a cat, he sleeps a lot.

At 5:46, the brightening sky woke me up. Good Man pulled our blanket over his head. I went out to take pictures.

I know that staring at the sun is bad, but how can you not stare when you can see it moving in the sky? When you can actually see the sun rising in the sky, how can you not look at it in awe? (No, I'm not a sungazer. I have yet to convert my body to photosynthesis.)

The photo below? That was the view from the bed in the house. It really was a great view.

06:06, 06/26/10

Good Man: I want to do wine tasting. Let's find place.

Oak Crest Vineyard and Winery

Landlord, on my voice mail: I hope you guys are enjoying your stay. Hey, listen, there are antique rocking chairs in the kitchen. Take them out on the porch and enjoy the sunset and drink some beer.

Me, to Good Man: He's like a father or something. He tells us what to do.

Good Man: Yeah, but I want beer.

So we sat on the porch. Good Man lounged around, nursing a beer. I sat in the green antique rocking chair, working on a knitting project. And then I spotted the orange, orange moon.

21:19, 06/26/10

It's been so hot lately. We've been above 90 F each day, hitting 100 F with the heat index. We keep getting promised thunderstorms that don't appear. Tuesday night it rained for all of 30 seconds. It didn't cool down the temperature, but it did cause for some nice sunset shots.

06/22/2010 Sunset

06/22/2010 Sunset

The county cut down some diseased and dead trees near the property.

Diseased

I love summer foods.

I also love the chopsticks-as-any-kitchen-cooking-tool trick I learned from Mother. And Mother seemed rather happy to have access to my cooking chopsticks when she stayed with us.

Long Cooking Chopsticks

We ate some delicious, fresh-off-the-stem sesame leaves with dinner last night. When we buy sesame leaves from the store, they come in a big pack and go bad in two days. I'm so happy I chose to plant six plants, because I can pick just the right number of leaves off as I want them.

Unfortunately, the taste isn't quite as strong as I'm used to. But they're also not as hairy as I'm used to, so that's a trade off I can appreciate.

Sesame Leaves

Dinner was brown rice and barley steamed in homemade veggie broth, fresh sesame leaves, sauteed summer squash (from my CSA), and grilled pork belly. Not pictured? Bright red gochujang.

Dinner

The sesame leaves are almost as big as my face. I can't believe how well my lazy gardening is turning out. Even that grasshopper nymph I photographed enjoyed my sesame leaves. (Said nymph was chased around my porch until he finally jumped off the edge.)

As Big as My Face

Fan Dancing with a Sesame Leaf

In the past three days I have frozen peaches, grapes, and blueberries whole. I've frozen strawberries in a dry sugar pack.

I'll be picking raspberries in Fairy Godmother's back yard next week.

My peppers are growing.

We're having fresh-off-the-stem sesame leaves for dinner.

I've got spearmint leaves drying on a baking sheet, and peppermint leaves drying in bunches.

I love summer.

Last year, I freaked out over every insect and mark on my plants. I watered my plants daily and often twice a day if it was really hot. I fertilized them with chemical fertilizers as the labels directed. I sprayed and sprayed for aphids, which solved nothing until I finally got ladybugs.

I probably loved my plants too much.

This year I've been a lot lazier. As soon as I saw those aphids, I got them with a soap/oil solution. As soon as I saw caterpillars, I knocked them off. The grasshopper nymph below? He got knocked off after I took the photo.

But I water much, much less than last year (which seems to be preventing the fungus gnats I think I had last year). I don't take heat wilting as actual wilting, and I don't water as soon as I see it. I whack off herbs, only being sure to not take more than one-third of the plant. I mixed vermicompost in with the soil when I planted, and I've soaked some vermicompost in the water before watering, but other than that and the slow-release fertilizer in the potting soil? Nothing.

I think I love my plants just enough this year, and they seem to be doing better because of it.

Grasshopper Nymph

Pepper Plant Symmetry

Twisted Blossom

First Pepper!

Dear Ms. [S],
thank you for being a
great teacher this year. You
made time fly. Thanks
for helping me, [Dead Meat], etc.
in compacted math. We
all apricate that.
Also for teaching us
all the good stuff.
When we goto seventh
grade we should be
ready in no time. Thank
you for all of
your hard work
this year
:) [AC/DC]

I have always worked in Title I schools, which means I've worked with a lot of economically challenged families. But this year was worse than most, with a lot more of my students experiencing really hard housing/job/family situations that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

After graduation, a parent cried and cried and thanked me for being her child's "school-mother." She thanked me for believing in her child, for not lowering standards, for being a point of stability during an unstable time, for treating her child normally.

I cried, of course. I cried and told her that she and her husband laid out the foundation—I just educated her child the best I could.

I didn't cry at graduation until the very end. I had promised my students I wouldn't, and I wanted their parents to get good photos of them during the recessional rather than tear-stained ones. (If I started crying, they would.)

I had stashed tissues in my pockets and during the very end of the ceremony, one of my girls was wiping away tears. I sneaked two tissues into her palm.

Fairy Godmother and I recessed first. And then I stood in the back doorway and hugged every one of my students as they recessed. Some hugs were full of joy. Some were tense. Some were really long, the students clinging until I whispered, "I have to hug [the next student] now..."

"Can I go to the bathroom?" one asked.

"I'm not your teacher anymore," I said, "You don't need to ask."

Student looked surprised. "I'm a seventh grader now!"