A new part

Day 128

Have you ever changed your part from one side of your head to the other? I have, but not for the past several years. This seemed like a good time to do it because I just got a hair cut that I'm not thrilled with, and I figured it was a good time to train it to lie down on the other side since it looked awful anyway.

What do you think of my chopstick smile? Haven't you heard? This is how customer service people are trained to smile in China.

Here we go again

Day #127

Remember how much I hate running? And remember how I got talked into running the Harvest Fair 5K last year on my birthday and triumphantly finished 1st in my division? And then I announced that I was a retired running champion and never, ever had to run again?

Well, I guess I'm a masochist, because I'm doing it again. Signed up today.

That gives me 2-1/2 weeks to train, plenty of time. This year it's happening the day before my birthday, not actually on my birthday.

Certified

Days 125 and 126

This is what I was doing last Friday night and all day Saturday. My eyes were glazing over by the time we were done.

(Does anybody else think "insane" when they hear the word "certified"?)

State of the Garden Address

My garden this summer is definitely not up to par. For one thing, we're letting the ground lie fallow this year and I did all my planting in containers. A bigger factor than that, however, is the crappy weather we've had. In the 26 years we've lived in Santa Rosa, CA, we've never had this little sun.

Last year at this time I was dealing with mountains of zucchini and crookneck squash. This year, we haven't even grown enough to eat our fill, let alone sneak it onto the neighbors' porches.

So, I was thrilled when Rob did some weeding and uncovered a volunteer:

We just got our first veggie off of it yesterday, and it appears to be a weird hybrid of a zephyr squash and a zucchini:

Don't know what it was, but it tasted as good as any other summer squash.

The tomatoes took their sweet old time, but now they're the only thing we're getting in excess:

Ever heard of growing pumpkins in a container? Me neither, but I'm doing it. I found out about these containers called Smart Pots that are apparently the #1 choice of pot growers everywhere because of their high-yield results due to air-pruning. This is a 25-gallon Smart-Pot, and here are the two pumpkins growing on it:

I can't remember what variety I planted but it was a type that's not supposed to get very big, since I really wasn't sure if even small ones would grow very well.