Hi people! I just (yesterday) turned 36 years old. It's like I'm twelve, but thrice! I had a groovy weekend on Cape Cod, staying at a low-rent motel in Provincetown. Well, not IN P-town proper, but a nice 2 mile walk from the action. Our hotel was also just across the street from a bay beach, so we could go and wander around on the sand during low tide. I didn't choose the place -- my friends made reservations for 2 rooms for their bandmates, and only ended up needing one. So me and CJ went instead. We hung out with them a lot, and did some things on our own -- it was a fun way to vacation. When I left I got all sad that my friends wouldn't be right next door to me anymore. (Because I am 12, remember?) (The sadness could also be attributed to it being my birthday, and for the end of the last trip of the summer.)
Anyway, on the Cape we ate some great food, did a lot of walking, ate some more, walked through the dunes to the ocean, waded in the icy Atlantic, fondled some hermit crabs in the wild, sighted a seal, watched plovers plove, and saw our friends' bands play. On Saturday, CJ and I had a fancy meal in Wellfleet, and got soft-serve in P-town afterwards; he stuck a candle in my cone and sang Happy Birthday to me on the street. My actual birthday was the day we needed to drive home, but we managed to cram in a visit to the seashore, the three-county-fair, and the new episode of Mad Men, so I was happy. I even got some presents: A faux-Creuset dutch oven, a ridiculous stuffed patchwork cat, an excellent ski jacket from the 1980s (found online), The Warriors (an old PS2 game), a how-to-sew-knits book, pinking shears, and a gift certificate to the art supply store. And I have a couple more gifts to come, so I pretty much scored big time.
Here's what we watched at the fair last night, while eating fresh-from-the-oil french fries:


Updates on other matters: My garden has had some issues this year. My tomato plants have contracted some kind of nasty disease that attacks the leaves and makes them yellow, then brown spotted, then entirely crispy and dead. I am still harvesting tomatoes, but not nearly as many as last year. My eggplant are also very disappointing; I have four pieces of fruit total on two plants and none have yet gotten big enough to pick. My bean tepee is out of control, however; my freezer is almost full of blanched, bagged green beans. I am also happy with my zucchini yield (from one plant!), green bell peppers, and basil, which had a very slow start. My zinnias look great, the result of my first seed-saving experiment from last year. I'm growing other fresh herbs (the usual rosemary, parsley, and thyme, but also tarragon and shiso) but I, um, haven't so much been eating those.

And our mattress is much harder than the one we tried in the store. We (and by "we" I mean CJ) went back and talked to the salesguy, who determined that our mattress is formulated slightly differently than the one they have, so they would take ours back, no charge, for another model (store credit only, in other words). We were also assured that the mattress should loosen up over time (and that walking on it would help -- leading CJ to spend 45 minutes pacing on the bed one day), so we finally decided to keep it. It is big (my first queen-sized bed!) and despite having no boxspring and the most basic platform bed possible, feels super tall. I like the size and feel "meh" about the height, so I'm happy enough.