Sow There!

WANTED: Advice to get dirt from underneath fingernails.

I'm the type of person who is more worried about how to get dirt out of her fingernails than how to avoid getting dirt under her fingernails.

My fingernails are usually pretty nasty. There doesn't seem much sense in painting them when after one day they'll be chipped.

Typically I'll have an occasion to paint them, maybe a party or the holidays.

Then I'll forget about my fingernails and wait until the paint chips off. Typically I choose a light color so it doesn't look as nasty when the paint inevitably begins to chip away 10 minutes after it is dry.

For some reason, I've decided lately to paint my fingernails.

Likely it's boredom.

My nails are relatively long right now because I haven't been working out in the garden.
Tommy gets a funny smirk on his face when I paint my nails. Usually he teases me and asks me if I have a hot lunch date tomorrow.

Now that they look relatively nice I notice I have a hard time getting the dirt our from underneath my nails.

Garden gloves just don't work for me. You can't get the same sort of torque that you can bare-handed.

I've used the little hand brush I keep at the kitchen sink --- the one I replaced after Tommy thought the brush was used to scrub the crevices in between the sink and the counter top.
But my nails still have dirt under them.

I paused briefly to wonder how many times I must have been at some important interview with some important muckity-muck and never realized I had dirt under my fingernails.

Then I realized I couldn't be the first person to have this same problem.

I'm asking readers to write in and let help me with this one. Surely there is some gadget or goo made especially for this very problem. Please let me know and I'll share the most plausible under-finger-gunk remedy with other readers.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 03:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Brrr.
Here we are.
It’s cold.
With the cold weather comes a restlessness.
While friends have invited us to several get-togethers, it’s hard to pry ourselves out of the house. When I get home, I’m thinking of a couple of things — my electric blanket and my really toasty fleece socks.
Tommy and I still do the morning garden tour, but it’s tough to linger.

(Things got a bit steamy for the new rubber chicken who was a good sport when we posed him legs-first in the new mulch pile. Note the steam rising from the top of the pile).

Mulch ado about nothing
“Nothing has grown since yesterday,” he might say from clenched teeth, one foot headed back toward the front door.
I had good intentions in fall about doing some major prep work in the garden. We scouted out areas where the soil could be worked for the spring herb garden. Another area has been kept free of weeds for what we hope will be a dazzling display of cosmos and zinnia.

But except for one energized day when Tommy dug out a new garden bed, things are mostly the same.
I think many of us suffer from some degree of Seasonal Affective Disorder. When its dark outside when you get home, the natural instinct is to huddle around in warm clothes and drink soup.
Most of us get by through daydreaming about summer barbecues, hikes in the sunshine and spring-blooming flowers.

Mulch madness
Before the bitter storms that caused major damage throughout the Northern Sacramento Valley, Tommy was chatting up a tree trimmer who was working in our neighborhood.
He asked if we could have some mulch rather than have the truck driver take it to the composting center out at the airport.
Time passed and we completely forgot about the idea.
Tommy called me at work one day recently to say it had finally arrived.
It’s a huge mound, about the size of a car.
Understandably excited, we investigated the mound o’mulch. Tommy tried to climb to the top of the mountain, while I snapped several shots with the new digital camera we bought each other for Christmas.
We had fun posing the rubber chicken partially submerged in the shredded tree limbs.
In the cold morning air, steam rises from the top of the mound, showing compost in action.
The friendly tree trimmer said it was mainly from pine and eucalyptus trees. From within about a 15-foot radius we can smell the vapors.
I know from the little I know about gardening that pine needles make good mulch but they can cause the soil to become slightly acidic. This is great for plants like rhododendrons, roses, azaleas and hydrangea.
Some people pamper these acid-loving plants by asking coffee shop chains for bags of used coffee grounds.
Eucalyptus mulch, the stuff is sold in big bags at garden stores.
Our plan is to send out the word to my gardening friends and offer them a chance to come dig out a bag or pickup load of the mulch we can’t use.

Then we’ll use the mulch to cover places where we don’t want weeds to grow.
This worked great last year in the tomato garden. The soil is fairly wretched in that part of the yard, because it was historically used for parking.
Last year Tommy dug holes three feet deep and three feet wide (what a stud) and filled the holes with compost and a lining of bagged steer manure.

Tomato timing
Even though its still dreary outside, now is the time I start tomatoes indoors. Tomatoes germinate at temperatures between 50 degrees and 95 degrees. I know its too cold right now but I’m hoping the peat pots will be cozy enough on top of the refrigerator.
Last Saturday at the farmer’s market downtown we chatted with Mike Morgenroth who sells plants and seeds. He suggested sprouting tomatoes by putting the peat pots on top of the water heater.
Mike has a table set up at the market with an impressive display of seeds from tomatoes he grows locally. I like the seed packets, first off because they are only a buck. Also, they contain only a few seeds, which is perfect for my needs.
Mike graciously answered our questions about which tomatoes would be best for salsa vs. spaghetti sauce, which ones produced early, were tall or short, etc.
We picked out “bloody butcher,” mostly because the name is so dramatic. The second selection was “ruby gold” which is a bicolor beefsteak.
I can’t wait for summer tomatoes.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every once in a while I'll come across something exquisite that is fun to share with readers.

This one came in the form of Shelley's shrimp dip.

After only a slight bit of prodding, she shared the secret recipe with me.

E-mail from Shelley:

(She credits Paul Prudhomme)

Sauté a chopped small bell pepperin butter and garlic and about 2 tbsp. dried basil.

Add as many rinsed shrimp as you can afford (a mixture of baby shrimp and the larger ones for
effect works well) untillthe shrimp turn pink.

Glop a mixture of half mayo and half sour cream onto cooled shrimp and pepper.

Add as much ground cayenne pepper it takes to turn the dip a light pink or as hot as
you can stand it.

Chill for at least an hour and prepare to have a lot of new best friends.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The new rubber chicken has arrived.
For those 14 people who regularly read my column, I apologize for repeating
the history of the chicken.

For the past two years or so, Tommy and I have been traveling around with a
rubber chicken. We like to take photos of the chicken in various locations and
in various poses with various people.
It's a silly hobby, but hobbies are sometimes like that.

After a while, for various reasons (Jacquie and Steve, you know who you are)
the chicken has gotten really grody. He melted where his spine was too close
to the heater in the car, then dog hair stuck to the gooey rubber, etc. etc.

I ordered a new rubber chicken via the Internet.

(The new chicken made himself right at home, going where no rubber chicken had gone before).

The package arrived and our new friend, made in China, was bent into the box
awkwardly. We had to stretch out his or her neck and
legs so it didn't look like it was doing some new Yoga position.
Poor chicken.

It didn't look anything like our old chicken. The rubber is less pliant and
looks cheap.
But like parents, we need to accept what the Internet God, Goddess or the Gods
that may be gave to us.
It's a little bit of an adjustment though.

Chicken (the first chicken) will always be our first love. We'll always
remember the fun times we had and how he was there the first time we asked a police
officer to pose with him for a photo.
Chicken was there when we hiked up to the sulfur pits at Mt. Lassen.
Chicken was there when Tommy skinny dipped at the side of the road on the
backroads on the way back from the coast.

But this new chicken will have adventures as well. We'll see if it has the
same kind of charm that makes us remember to pack it in the car again and again.
Only time will tell. But we're willing to give it a try.

(New rubber chicken looks like he just might fit in. Here it is already mastering games of skill).

Posted by Heather Hacking at 02:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It was tough at times to keep ourselves entertained during the power outage.
We were home listening to a little transistor radio and making do with
something or another when the 10-year-old next door came home all excited.

There were lights on at the house across the alley and he was certain his
power would be on as well. When he and his mom pulled up in the car, he jumped
out screaming and waving his arms.

"Our power is on again, our power is on."

(The utility company's new campaign to make power outages more kid-friendly is to dress PG&E lineman as power rangers. The multi-colored workforce makes waiting for the arrival of the work crews more exciting).

He raced to the door, no doubt to see if his XBox now worked.

If the XBox had worked, "Our power is on," would have been the last words we
heard from him for several hours.

Alas, the power was not on. Somehow the lines were filled with precious
electricity just 20 feet from our front doors, but everything was still black inside
our houses.

To say he was impatient for the power to go would be like saying Nelson
Mandela was good and ready to be released from captivity.

The next morning at about 3:30 a.m., the power did return.
When we woke up Sunday morning, we yelled out the front door, jubilant that we
could crank on everything in our homes again.

After about an hour, Tommy had a fantabulous idea.
What if he snuck over to the side of their house and flipped their circuit
breaker so the power went out at their house?

Most excellent.
I hurried inside and turned off the radio and make sure the microwave and
coffee maker were turned off.

We heard the desperate screams from inside the house. First the 10-year-old
and then my best friend. They were hollering and lamenting.

Meanwhile, Tommy and I tried really hard to contain our snickers so they
wouldn't know we were messing with them.

When the 10-year-old came racing out of the house, we tried our hardest to
look dumb, and say "oh no, is your power still out too?"

Leify was yelling at his mom to call the power company. And for good reason.
The power had been out for an entire 30 seconds.

I calmly said I would go into the house and call the electric company, but
maybe they were just adjusting the lines and the power would come back on soon.
This quieted him for a moment, but then he realized he had not saved the last
1 1/2 hours of his game on the XBox, and now he was SERIOUSLY bummed.

Tommy and I felt badly for him losing so much precious XBox gaming
conquests, so we conspired to one another that we would not tell him that it was
actually us who turned off their power.

A few minutes later Tommy flipped their power back on and all was well.

Until the next time we couldn't help ourselves and the power mysteriously
went out again, this time just at their house.

My best friend yelled "It just figures!" throwing her hands up in
the air. "It figures my house is the only house on the block without power."

After the fourth time their power mysteriously went out, our
friend the Shepherd was visiting. Tommy and I snickered and confessed to him that
this was the fourth time we had turned off the power.

When he heard my best friend and the 10-year-old making a huge fuss in their
house, yelling about the power, and complaining about lost XBox conquests,
our friend the Shepherd was a little surprised.

"Heather, don't you think turning on and off their power all day is close to
harassment?"

I thought for a second and had to agree with him.
But then Tommy and I couldn't help but cracking up.
The last time we turned off the power that day, we let them catch us and let
them get mad at us for pulling a joke on them.

However, we pretended that was the first time we had pulled the hoax.

That's why I'm writing this in my blog and not in the column, because my best
friend doesn't read my blog.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 03:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When it comes to timing of pruning roses, there are different opinions. Unlike some things such as paying credit card bills, putting the garbage to the curb or filing a story on time, there are no lasting repercussions from pruning your roses a week early or a week late.
However, I like to have a general rule of thumb, so I called someone smart.

Bill Reynolds, a mainstay in the Butte Rose Society, said now through the end of February is a good time to hack your roses into shape.

“Roses are pretty forgiving,” Bill said, but you should prune them every year.
There are a couple of reasons to prune roses. One is to get rid of any diseased leaves that could contribute to the long-term ill health of the plant.
Also, pruning helps the plant to thrive and “makes it want to grow,” Bill said.
Clipping the rose 1/3 to 1/2 is about right. Bill said he prunes more severely because he plants his roses closer together than many gardeners.
With the warm weather around Thanksgiving, one of my rose bushes managed to produce two new rose buds, which have been in about the same stage of development for about a month.
Although Bill could empathize with my desire to allow those buds to bloom, he said the best interests of the plant would be to cut those blooms off to allow the plant to go dormant and rest for the spring extravaganza.
I also have some stems that have produced new leaves, really healthful looking, glossy leaves.
Again, Bill said its really best to remove all the leaves and give the bush one good pruning.
Even plants in general good health can have some disease present. Bill said he is an advocate of composting, but its best to put rose cuttings in the green waste can to make sure any disease is shipped off to the composting professionals.
When pruning, the gardener should be thinking about creating space in the interior of the bush, so there is plenty of air circulation. The barren stems of the bush should create a vase-like shape.
When you prune, the cut should be made above an outward-facing bud eye. The bud eye will be a little protrusion on the stem. As the plant begins to “wake up,” you will see that the bud eye gets swollen, and sometimes a reddish color, where the plant will send out a new leaf.
Cut about a quarter inch above this point and at a 45 degree angle with the cut parallel to where the bud eye will grow.
(For a good illustration, check out: http://www.geocities.com/spokanerosesociety/grow.htm).
Also, cut out any branches that look dead or dried, until you reach a green or cream color in the interior of the stem. Also remove any canes that cross or rub against healthy growth.
Roses do not need to be fed right now, but Bill said you can put a couple of handful of alfalfa pellets at the base of the plant 2-3 times a year. Don’t use rabbit pellets and don’t buy alfalfa pellets mixed with molasses.
If you have just a few roses, you can buy alfalfa pellets in small quantities in the bulk section of some garden and feed stores.
Some people also take the extra step of sealing the cut of the stem with white glue, which can prevent against disease.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're in the process of taking down the Christmas tree.
It’s a tough decision to take down the tree, because it was so much fun to put it up.
We enjoyed it most nights, the extra bit of glimmer in the room and the homey feel of our collection of ornaments.
Judging from announcements of the Boy Scouts Christmas tree removal, we’ve kept our Christmas tree up longer than most people. However, since we cut it fresh it wasn’t in imminent risk of shooting into flames or dropping needles all over the place.
We will take our tree to our friend the Shepherd who will offer it to his goats which go crazy for the delicacy of pine needles.

The whole ritual of putting up a Christmas tree is sacred. First the trip to cut it and find the perfect tree in the middle of a beautiful forest. Then ornaments are brought down from their hiding place in the storage room.
I like to play Christmas music when I decorate the tree — schmaltzy music where you have to use the actual record player to play those aged albums I got from Mom with songs from Bing Crosby and the Carpenters.
As each ornament is unwrapped, it's a nostalgic moment as I vaguely recall making that angel out of macaroni, a glue stick and some spray paint in third grade.

Taking the ornaments and lights down is like shoving sleeping bags and camping gear in the shed.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Entertainment options were limited last Friday night.
The power was out.
What to do with ourselves?
Hmmm.

We didn't need to buy anything, but decided to just kick it at Walmart.
At 11-something the parking lot was filled.

We browsed through the clearance center in the women's section. There was a cute pair of shorts in my size, but the fitting room was closed.

The Muzak was playing "Let's do the time warp again ..." so we took a jump to the left, and then a jump to the right. Put our hands on our hips ... and were dancing like dorks between racks of women's discount clothes.

After a while we worked our way to the furniture section. We'd never looked through that section before, because we are not in the market for new furniture.

Too early to think about craft project for Christmas? Not that night.
There were other browsers. A group of men in their early 20s was checking out some towels and testing out the balls in the toy section. Like us, they did not have a cart.
In the daytime it is sometimes difficult to maneuver through the aisles at the crowded store.
This night the main obstacle was people busy restocking shelves.

We managed to reach the 75 percent off clearance of Christmas items, which was less than a treasure hunt.

The games section was fun. Some of the games were charged up and had LED screens that read "try me." We played an electronic hand-held 20 questions game where the computer asks questions to try to guess the word you are thinking.
We were in awe of the toy because we were thinking of the word “power” and the game guessed “electricity.”

After that relatively long diversion in toys, we decided to check our blood pressure.
Strategically located next to the blood pressure booth is a demonstration massage chair.
Who knew?

Social options in the aisles
About an hour into our adventure, we ran into two of my coworkers. They too were also trying to kill some time by visiting a place with heat and light.
They had just arrived so we told them some of the fun things we had found to do that evening.
"Hey, I saw a lawn furniture display in the garden section,” I suggested. “Do you want to go hang out and talk?"
Our friends decided they'd rather just wander around.

We left leaving many entertainment options yet to be discovered, including checking out the demos of video games in the electronics section and riding around on bicycles.
Heck, if it had been earlier we could have checked out the fish in the aquariums.
There's always next time.

Friends in the ’hood
We were lucky that our power was only out for two days and that we found plenty of things to do.
Saturday we visited our neighbors to check on the status of their boredom and to ask if they wanted to run an extension chord to the generator we had borrowed.
While chatting, we noticed their Monopoly game spread out on dining room table, natural light provided by a west-facing window.
After we left Tommy said he was surprised that we had not invited ourselves over to our neighbors' house before, maybe to play a game.
Funny how it took us something inconvenient like a power outage to make us think about spending an evening with our neighbors playing a game.
Over at my best friends’ house next door, she and the 10-year-old were also playing Monopoly. I couldn’t help but wonder if two days without X-Box would cause him to lose the callouses he had built up on his hands from gripping the X-Box controller.

Post-storm garden tour
We drove around that weekend without power, snapping photos in case the newspaper needed more photos of fallen trees.
Luckily, the damage was minimal in my garden. Another fun game we discovered was the original version of Pick-up Sticks — off the lawn. Our sturdy, old trees got whacked about, including sending some limbs sailing toward the house.
However, after seeing giant trees shaken like it was time for almond harvest, chunks of pavement scooped up from the soil and fences laying on the ground, we were quite content with minimal damage.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lyrics to "Time Warp" from "Rocky Horror Picture Show"

RiffRaff:
It's astounding;
Time is fleeting;
Madness takes its toll.
But listen closely...

Magenta:
Not for very much longer.

RiffRaff:
I've got to keep control.

I remember doing the time-warp
Drinking those moments when
The Blackness would hit me

Magenta:
And the void would be calling...

Transylvanians:
Let's do the time-warp again.
Let's do the time-warp again.

Narrator:
It's just a jump to the left.

All:
And then a step to the right.

Narrator:
Put your hands on your hips.

All:
You bring your knees in tight.
But it's the pelvic thrust
That really drives you insane.
Let's do the time-warp again.
Let's do the time-warp again.

Magenta:
It's so dreamy, oh fantasy free me.
So you can't see me, no, not at all.
In another dimension, with
voyeuristic intention,
Well secluded, I see all.

RiffRaff:
With a bit of a mind flip

Magenta:
You're into the time slip.

RiffRaff:
And nothing can ever be the same.

Magenta:
You're spaced out on sensation.

RiffRaff:
Like you're under sedation.

All:
Let's do the time-warp again.
Let's do the time-warp again.

Columbia:
Well I was walking down the street
just a-having a think
When a snake of a guy gave me an
evil wink.
He shook-a me up, he took me by surprise.
He had a pickup truck, and the
devil's eyes.
He stared at me and I felt a change.
Time meant nothing, never would again.

All:
Let's do the time-warp again.
Let's do the time-warp again.

Narrator:
It's just a jump to the left.

All:
And then a step to the right.

Narrator:
Put your hands on your hips.

All:
You bring your knees in tight.
But it's the pelvic thrust
That really drives you insane.
Let's do the time-warp again.
Let's do the time-warp again.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What to give to someone who has everything?

Among the thoughtful gifts we bestowed upon my dad and Lynda this year was a rubber chicken. The hope was that dad and Lynda would take th chicken with them on their recent trip to Hawaii and snap some photos.

I was not disappointed. Below is the first photo dispatched.

It looks like their chicken was having a good time on the beach in Kauai. For a land bird, this chicken seemed fairly taken with the wonders of water, at least the wonders of shallow water.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New Year can be a very hopeful time.

Personally, I like to make an inventory of the past year, think about things that I did right and things I could have done more gracefully. I also map out things I'd like to work on this year.

These aren't resolutions, mind you. They're more like goals or priorities.

This year I was very hopeful. Although 2007 had its moments, there were many
things I would just assume put behind me.

I had a little bounce in my step thinking about the new year.

Then Friday came.

It was as if God, the Goddess or the gods that may be were saying "don't get too cozy there in your thoughts. Here's something for you to think about."

Blam.

The storms came in to create a new type of "hopeful."

I was hopeful the power came back on soon.
I was hopeful the meat in my freezer did not defrost.
I was hopeful that the big, shady maple tree in my yard stayed put.

I was also thankful:
Thankful my car did not get munched like so many in the photographs on our Web site.
Thankful I did not have a job that required me to climb trees in the rain and wind.
Thankful we don't live in a place where snowstorms and major calamities are the norm.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

New Year's Eve was fairly calm and collected. We thought about doing
something different such as going bowling or out dancing, but every place that offered
these types of diversions wanted at least $50 a couple.

Late in the evening we decided to go to the 10 o'clock showing of "The Golden
Compass."

We suspected that the movie would run past midnight and I wanted to make sure
that we watched the countdown to 2008 so I could give Tommy a big, wet kiss at
midnight.

While they ran commercials on the screen in the theater, I ran out into the deserted lobby of the movie theater to try to find out the exact time. My watch said 5 minutes before the hour, but my
watch often varies 7 minutes slow or fast.

I met up with a couple in the lobby who must have been visiting from Japan.

They had a watch but it was a serious test of my "charades" skills to decipher
weather they had accurate time. I did not bother to try to explain to them that
I had tried to call POP-CORN but that service is no longer available.

Watching a movie as the clock struck midnight wasn't exactly romantic. But my
watch has a light on it, so we squeezed each others' hands while the
countdown began (give or take 7 minutes) and shared a wet kiss at midnight.

About 15 minutes later the credits on the film began and Tommy yelled out a
jubilant "Happy New Year" to the eight other people who were in the movie
theater.

As we returned home, we could hear people still shooting off guns and
fireworks in our neighborhood.

My best friend next door and her son had the lights off, so we reminded them
of the obvious change in the calendar by banging pots and pans outside their darkened
bedroom window.

"Maybe we should go downtown, ..." Tommy pondered outloud.
"Why?"
"I don't know. Maybe to watch the cops pull people over or watch drunk chicks
try to walk in those high heels."
"We could," I said, considering it for a minute. "But someone might
accidentally hit us with their car."

We decided to stay home.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We bought our first digital camera with Christmas cash and I was able to do a photo shoot with the new travel chicken.

Note how versatile the travel chicken can be. He almost fits in the palm of our lovely hand model.

Note that when squeezed, travel chicken pumps out a gross glob of murky water with the yolk-colored egg. It doesn't really get much better than this folks.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It is with great sadness and reluctance that we are retiring the rubber chicken.
As many faithful readers of this column know, the rubber chicken is a regular travel companion. We take him with us when Tommy and I take road trips, visit the nearby casinos, climb rocks, dance in City Plaza and enjoy parties with our friends.
Chicken posed with a life-sized singing Santa statue for our Christmas card last year and was drawn into our caricature portrait in San Francisco.
We’ve had a lot of fun.
Alas, rubber chickens do not last forever.

(While chicken's favorite baseball team is officially the Atlanta Braves, he also enjoys the Chico Outlaws, as witnessed here with his birds-eye view of home plate. Chicken has also spent some quality time inside the mouth of the Outlaws' mascot, Bandit). FOR MORE CHICKEN PHOTOS, CLICK "CONTINUE" BELOW.

We started noticing that chicken was getting rather long in the tooth after he was returned from being kidnapped by Jack and Stephanie.
Our friends stole the chicken from us one night. After his “safe” return, they sent us digital photos of chicken smoking a cigar, hanging from the chandelier and posing with shots of Patrón tequila.

In our haste to blame someone, we thought that the cracks around chicken’s lips and the blisters on his toes must have been caused by his captors.
But after a while I realized that the sticky, yellow goo that rubbed off onto my hands was from melted rubber when the chicken got too close to the heater on the floor board of the car.
Over the past two years that chicken has been in active use. We’ve stuffed many keepsakes in his body cavity, such as ticket stubs to museums, receipts from memorable nights out and day passes from state parks.
In that way, our chicken has had multiple roles as universal ambassador, mobile gag gift and time capsule.

About the time I was scratching my head wondering what on earth to do without the chicken, a mysterious package arrived at work.
The small package was wrapped in Christmas wrap and included a note that said it was from “a loyal reader in Biggs.”
Inside was an approximately four-inch rubber chicken, with wings and legs splayed. The tag states the toy is appropriate for ages 6 and up.
If you squeeze the chicken’s middle, a grotesque sack filled with a watery substance and a yolk-colored ball emerges.

The fact that we got a temporary, travel chicken, was much like a gift from the rubber chicken gods. Extra joy was received knowing that there was a reader out there who a) understood my sense of humor and b) wanted to perpetuate that sense of humor.
I’ve since ordered a new, full-size rubber chicken from the Internet but plan to use the small-sized rubber chicken for everyday needs.

More yellow joy
We took the miniature, egg-laying chicken to a very civilized New Year’s Day celebration at Shelley and Kevin’s house.
Shelley and I first became friends in college where we spent months in the dark, dank basement of Plumas Hall working on the college newspaper.
Many ears ago, she and her hubby Kevin bought their first house and Shelley made the oh-so-wise decision to plant a Meyer lemon tree just a few steps from her back porch.
Meyer lemons have a distinct flavor and are the darling of chefs of the “California Cuisine revolution.”
They grow well in Chico and have very few seeds.
Like all fruit trees, they take several years to produce fruit.
After visiting with Shelley and her friends for brunch, we stopped by her former house where we were told the Meyer had a bountiful crop of oranges.
As I was filling up a white plastic grocery bag with lemons, I was amazed at how prolific Shelley’s lemon tree had become, and my sense of envy was activated.
Such wisdom Shelley possessed to know that a steady supply of Meyer lemons for yourself and for your friends is a treasure.

Due to security reasons, the location of Shelley’s former house will not be disclosed.
Meyers are sweeter and less acidic than the common lemons, and have a very fragrant zest.
Because of their small size, they can also be kept pruned in large pots.
Because I have yet to learn how to propagate through cuttings, my plan is to try to sprout some of the seeds, then wait patiently for the next four years until my own tree bears fruit. By then I may well have moved somewhere else, but the plan would be to harvest the fruit by night.

In addition to being a great navigator in the car, chicken meets friends wherever he goes, including this giant mechanical snake at the Rain Forest Cafe in San Francisco.



Out with the old, in with the new. Chicken made a visit with us to my Auntie Jeanne's house in the Bay Area, where he posed with my cousin's new son Jaxson. From the look on Jaxson's face, he is too young to yet know the full joys of a traveling rubber companion.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of weeks ago I had a fairly nasty accident. I was walking over to my best friends’ house next door to borrow the hand-saw to cut the bottom of the Christmas tree.
Just then, Tommy decided to kick the front door shut because I had left it open and it was cold.

Blam.
He didn’t know my fingers were in the front door.
He quickly wrapped my bleeding fingers up in gauze and we spent the next two hours in the emergency room where I got six stitches.

There was nothing funny about the incident.

However, almost two weeks have passed now and I have not had to do the dishes.
In the meantime, I tried to keep the gash clean and dry, including an elaborate system of wrapping it in plastic grocery bags while I took a shower.

Needless to say, one-handed shaving was cumbersome. Being as it is winter, I let things go.
I’ve been shaving my legs since I was about 14 years old.

In the winter I’m not a slave to this habit, as I wear black tights when I wear skirts in the winter. But after about a week the leg hairs were getting fairly long.
Tommy didn’t really notice because I wear long johns to bed when it’s cold.
Now the finger is mostly healed and the only signs that there was an injury are a bandage on the left middle finger and dirty dishes in the sink.
Hopefully, I will not have another injury any time soon and will not have another physical reason not to shave my legs. I’m curious to see what they look like when fully grown.
Tommy really didn’t notice the new leg warmers until I mentioned it to him. However, when asked his opinion he said he hoped I would get back with the program really soon.

I bet there are a large percentage of female friends who choose not to shave their legs, for whatever reasons, and it just hasn’t been a topic of conversation.

So I think I’ll let it go just a bit longer and see what they look like full-grown, maybe even until Valentine’s Day.

According to a Web search, shaving one’s legs is common in the United States and England, but not much of the rest of the world.
In the United States, women were pretty much covered up for much of history. Around 1915 an advertisement campaign began in Harper’s Bazaar magazine with a woman in a toga-like outfit posed with her arms above her head revealing shaved armpits.

The text read:
“Summer Dress and Modern Dancing combine to make necessary the removal of objectionable hair.'
By 1922 the Sears Roebuck catalog was pitching depilatories and women’s razors, along with sleeveless dresses.

Joila.
A whole new reason for women to feel self conscious about their bodies was born.
A couple of decades later and American women were regularly shaving their legs as well.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 03:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Anytime is a good time to do some self evaluation.

It’s good to check in and make yourself feel good about a year’s worth of accomplishments. Even if you’re down on yourself at the moment, if you dig deep you can make an inventory of some cool things you did in the past year.

(Now is not the time to berate yourself for those human mistakes).

Here’s a few I’m willing to share with strangers:

• Apologized for most of my big mistakes.
• Managed to not allow my personal hygiene to effect others.
• Flossed.
• Was patient in lines while Christmas shopping.
• We also rescued four lost and sad looking dogs and tracked down their owners. I think i still have dog hair in my couch cushions.
• Stopping on the side of road when we saw a motorist with car trouble. (Three who needed help, plus two who rudely said they already had made a cell phone call).
• Buying Christmas presents without needing to use my credit card. (The fact that I later had to use my charge card to pay for groceries and gas does not count).
• Managing to keep the same size in clothing this year (even if I have considered myself 10 pounds overweight for the past 10 years).

Then there are the things that you do every year but for which you forget to give yourself a pat on the back:
• Composting
• Picking up garbage on road trips when you take a break at rest stops.
• Listening to your friends when they need someone with whom to vent their problems.
• Getting the 10-year-old next door to put down the X-box and play outside.

The new year is also a time to make a list of things to accomplish in the new year. I usually write them in my journal so I can’t pretend I don’t know where the list is.

Goals should be reasonable. Things like eating more fiber, finding ways to have more fun (and enthusiasm) for my work, being more kind to the people I care about the most and telling people when I admire something that they did.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 04:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)