In today's utter absence of other newses:

Whoever designed this monitor (Samsung, I am looking at you) clearly had no notion of the possibility of cat. It has a very sexy way of being turned off, where you need but touch the light that says it's on. The light that sits on the monitor's lower right-hand corner, just three inches above the desk.

The light that either one of my cats is perfectly happy to brush against, as they nestle down in their favourite place on the desk, between keyboard and screen. They utterly do not understand why they get yelled at and evicted; all they're doing is lying there, entirely innocent for once. Mac has just stomped off in a huff, after getting chucked off twice in two minutes. It's utterly unfair, but, y'know. I need my monitor to stay switched on, sometimes for minutes at a time...

In other absence-of-newses, my downtown cafe of choice has a standing offer of half-price beer between twelve and two. Ordinarily I don't start drinking till five o'clock, I'm quite rigid about that; but it's worth two dollars to get me lunched and out of the house and working before two o'clock. And I'm only going to have the one, because, y'know. After two o'clock it's four whole dollars a bottle: which I wouldn't think twice about, except that it was half that price just now. As a loss leader this is clearly not working, but I rather like it.

In further lack of anything worth saying, I am digging up the last of the yellow tomato plants and the single enormous beet. Tonight I have yogi to feed, so there will be Nepali goat curry and various greens (beet greens! sole purpose of harvesting!) and dals and so forth.

In something else astonishingly dull, the afternoons are starting to bring us big bulky solemn-looking clouds blowing in off the ocean. None of them has actually rained yet, but some of them are thinking about it. It's still warmly lovely out there, T-shirts and sandals, but change is in the air.

How loved are my apples?

So here I am rooting out my absurdly overproductive tomato plants, after fielding a plethora all summer long, and it's just suddenly struck me: in a week or two, I'm going to have to start buying tomatoes.

This must be why people do canning, right? In quantity? Because this is stupid, to go so quickly from abundance to dearth, because of reasons. Seasons. I'm going to be ... not exactly humiliated, but certainly irritated and possibly a little shamefaced, to be handing over money for love-apples.

Just a couple of hours ago, I was thinking how strict I would be with myself next season, how I'd limit the garden to a few carefully-chosen heirloom varieties. Now I'm wondering if maybe I should go the other way, splurge on some reliable productive workhorse and spend days with jars and boiling pots to lay down a winter's supply. I'd rather not, but honestly...

In other states-of-play, the rice is done, the curry's simmering away and I'm about to cook the dal. The brussels (curried brussels!) and the greens can wait. I was planning a super-hot tomato chutney too (because don't tell anyone but m'wife and I are Utterly Incompatible in the way of spicings), but maybe I need to husband my tomatoes now? *is hesitant*

SF Signal

So the latest SF Signal Mindmeld is all about heroes - and, oh look, there am I pitching in, saying my penn'orth. That was fun, actually.