Happy Day

Well, it seems as if summer is well on its way. We've had more hot sunny days already this spring than we had all of last summer. It's looking like we're going to have a good year for gardeners. My Mom likes to garden but she has a relatively small yard in a pretty populated neighborhood. She gets plenty of sun in the front yard where she keeps a couple beautiful perennial gardens; but it would be too unconventional for her taste to plant our vegetables in the front of the house by the road. Oh, how the neighbors would talk about us then!

So we have our vegetable garden in the back yard in the space she has allotted for us. She probably would have planted a small veggie garden whether we were here or not; but I believe that us being here lends some excitement to the task for her. So I'm hoping the year will be a good one, with plenty of sun and just enough rain. My Mom ordered some rather cheap siding for raised beds and Mikey assembled them in the back yard. For some reason, though, my Mom insists on them being in a location the doesn't really get full sun. Maybe it gets about three-quarters of a day of sun, but that's about it. And almost all veggies need a lot of full sun in order to produce fruit. So hopefully we'll have enough sun for all the stuff we planted.

There is a decent herb garden in one bed with all the typical herbs present: parsley, basil, oregano, dill, thyme, sage, chives, mint, rosemary, and savory. Among the herbs we've planted nasturtium which is supposed to help keeps the pests at bay. And in addition it has beautiful, bright orange and yellow blooms. The second bed is filled entirely with types of squash. Of course we have zucchini, summer squash, and cucumbers. But we also have lots of acorn squash. My mom must have figured we would need a lot of squash this fall. We didn't get any pumpkin plants, but I think we should. And we still have time as long as they are started already in a six pack. I like ti carve designs or names into green pumpkins and when they are grown the scar remains. The third new bed is filled with cold crops, like broccoli, cabbage, and kale on the upper level, and peppers on the lower half of the bed. We have some decent patches of rhubarb and a fledgling bed of asparagus. And we couldn't go without a small raised bed, constructed two years ago, filled with tomatoes. We have mostly cherry varieties but also a couple big beef types just in case. I'm sure our neighbors, however much they despise us, will gladly accept gifts of vegetables come mid-season and we have more than we can possibly eat. I'm sure we'll have plenty to jar after giving too.

One of the things I'm most anticipating is the growth of our morning glories. They have taken to dropping seed every year and we don't even have to bother with them and they come back fierce every spring. They are practically six inches high and twining amongst themselves already. They grow so lush that they almost cover the two sides of our screened-in deck. They twist up both sides and over the top of our front door, cream centers glowing in their deep purple halos. I hold a certain regard for plants which are both beautiful and dangerous. And morning glories fit that bill with their gorgeous flowers, heart-shaped foliage, and psychedelic seeds.

It will be interesting, as well, to see if all the work of dead-heading the supposedly ever-blooming lilac bush will pay off. Apparently, if you remove the small, browning flowers that appear at the end of the spring, this variety will produce another couple rounds of fresh, scented blooms. Here's to hoping.

I've always been into gardening myself, and so I don't mind helping out. Most of the time it's pretty enjoyable. But it's a lot of work and a lot of time. It takes a couple hours just to water the whole shebang. And we had to fill each new bed. I filled one, my mom filled one, and Mikey filled one. And we all planted a bit of each. But it takes constant care to keep them kept up and producing. We still haven't even come close to mulching all our existing beds for the summer. I believe mulch does a great job keeping moisture in. It's worth the effort alone in the amount of time and water it will eventually save. But it's a big job. And my Mom is away a lot, so it pretty much falls to me. My brothers are finally working, which is great. So they're gone on weekdays and sometimes Saturday. So I don't mind doing house jobs since I'm not working. But there are just so many. My classic complaint. I can't get a single post written without bitching about housework.

Anyhow, my Mom also rented a dumpster for "spring/all the crap since she moved here" cleaning. But we only get it for a certain amount of time. So she's been on me to get everything thrown away before it's too late. But most of this stuff isn't mine since I just moved here. So I don't really know what I should throw away. I want to have a huge yard sale too, before just throwing stuff away. But even with just throwing away stuff I know for sure is crap, I've half filled the thing. And it's enormous. Since my Mom couldn't care less about any of it, I'm hoping I'll be able to keep any money I make from the yard sale and save it towards buying my own car. Once I actually, finally, get my license straightened out that is. I've been tossing a ton of stuff from the basement. And that's been making it better to stay down there. It's opening up the space and I feel like I can breathe. Getting rid of all the crap will cut down on the cost and the labor of having it remodeled. I'm trying to talk my Mom into having the basement re-done before the fall. It would be pretty nice if it were just me down there and it was just re-finished.

Well, writing of all this work that needs to be done is making me feel guilty about just sitting around blogging. The day is more than half over and I've been taking it pretty easy since I woke up. I had to drive to the clinic first thing, of course. But even that hasn't been so annoying ever since I found out about the clinic that is much closer and discovered I may be able to go there instead. It would cut down on my travel time significantly.

I hope all is well with everyone. Have a great Memorial Day. That is the holiday we're celebrating, correct? I can be a little spacy sometimes. Until next time......

Nantucket Dreamin'

Today's inspirational visuals are of Nantucket Island. I admit I have never yet been to Nantucket. My parents, for some reason, were into Block Island instead. Block Island is definitely nice, in fact, I've been told it's quite similar to Nantucket. But still, Nantucket is where I want to take a summer trip this year.

I Love the ocean, the beach, the atmosphere of a small, vacation oriented island. The pace of life is slow and no one expects for you to hurry.

There is something calming about the sound of the waves and the smell of the water. And the breeze makes sleeping by the ocean in summer so comfortable.

This is an aerial view of the Island. It's quite small, isn't it? I think it's bigger than Block Island though. I've always wanted a black Vespa to drive in the summer. I'd drive it to the clinic and the grocery store, even. As long as it wasn't raining, I'd drive it anywhere. I love those things, and they're way better than a car on gas mileage.

I thought that maybe I should learn just a little bit about the place before I decided I had to visit. Makes sense, right? So I thought I would share what I learned with my few devoted readers, just in case anyone cares, or is perhaps planning a Nantucket vacation.

Nantucket is, without a doubt, a summer destination. There are, certainly, a small number of year-round residents who enjoy the quiet, isolated winter months. Just about ten thousand people live there through the winter, a population that swells to over fifty thousand come summer. According to recent census information, there are only about four hundred students attending the high school in Nantucket. That's about the size of my high school, back in the day. And let me vouch for the fact that it is quite a small number of kids. It gets pretty cozy pretty fast. It's really expensive to live on the island, as you can imagine any island would be. Simply due to the fact that everything, and I mean basically everything, has to be shipped in by boat or plane, the prices are quite a bit higher than they would be on the mainland just thirty miles away. Therefore, the majority of actual residents are quite wealthy. There are a good number of celebrities who own homes on the island. I hope I can even afford a hotel there for a long weekend.

I've always been fascinated by history, mostly the history of people and the way they settled the land, one people always displacing another and then claiming ownership. And it is no different with Nantucket. Not surprisingly, Nantucket was mainly populated by Wampanoag Indians until the English began to sail by, taking notice, around the early 1600's. Traditionally, it seems as if the Wampanoag and similar local tribes spent just the summer months on the island, doing a lot of fishing and eventually harvesting whales that washed up on shore, then returning to the mainland for the winter. But as the mainland, around Cape Cod, became more, and more densely populated by Europeans the Indians began to make Nantucket a more permanent home in order to flee the unwanted influx of immigrants. They lived mostly undisturbed, in relative peace, until around 1641 when Nantucket was sold to Thomas Mayhew and his son by English authorities. It was about this time, similar to neighboring Martha's Vineyard, that this area south of Boston became a popular hub for fishing and whaling.

The real population boom apparently came around 1659, when Mayhew sold his interests in Nantucket to nine original investors. This is when sea merchants and whalers truly began to invade the island, displacing the native populations once again. Nantucket then remained a major port until the 1850's. Decline occurred due to a convergence of circumstances, some of which affected just the island, and others which took a toll on industries across the country. First, there was the "Great Fire" of 1846 which was so destructive due to all the whale oil and lumber. The fire managed to burn the main town and about 36 acres, causing a great many people to lose their homes and leave the island poverty stricken. Then, according to sources, the harbor began to silt up, making it impossible for large whaling ships to enter the harbor. That and the development of the railroad, made mainland ports the more logical choice.

Without the draw of the fishing industry, there was little to bring new settlers to the island. And it remained a rather isolated and dreary place to visit until sometime in the 1950's when investors began to see some potential in the island. With Martha's Vineyard being a model both of what could be done and what not to do, investors began to create a vacationland for wealthy New Englanders. And that is what it remains as today, a high class destination for super rich summer vacationers and the college students who serve them. With the occasional middle-class blemish like myself, trying to imagine, just for the weekend, what it would be like to be privileged.

So there it is. My speedy, probably somewhat inaccurate version of the History of Nantucket.

Anyhow, now that I have placed in the world something positive and happy for people to think about for the day, I can feel somewhat satisfied. I have a ton of crap to get done today. Turns out, the clinic in CT decided it would be okay for me to receive my host dose there afterall. I think, really, it was my counselor, and my clinic that was trying to create an uncomfortable situation for me in order to persuade me that marijuana smoking is bad. Well, screw them. They are not going to bully me into doing something I really don't want to do. I don't think it's wrong to smoke weed. Like Jeannie mentioned, it is not much different than having a drink of wine. And they don't make me take a breathalyzer everyday. They don't withhold take-homes to people who admit to drinking occasionally. Honestly, I equate smoking weed with smoking cigarettes. Once people smoke weed regularly, that is about how affected they are by smoking. I don't smoke tobacco, but the few times I have I got so sick and dizzy I wanted to puke. I actually have puked from tobacco on three occasions. And I would not be able to drive after smoking a cigarette. If I insisted on building a tolerance for it though, I'd be able to drive just fine. Same with weed for habitual smokers. I think that the clinics should only test for heroin, cocaine, and benzos, because those are the drugs that can have fatal interactions with methadone. And I think that after a certain amount of time, say five years, of testing negative for those drugs, they should just stop wasting money on tests unless behavioral signs show that something is off with a particular patient. Anyhow, I could go on and on about this particular subject. But I really don't have the time right now. And I wanted to devote an entire post to urine testing at methadone clinics. So for now, I think I'll leave you with what I've got here so far.

This is the path on the way to a lake I have no idea the name of. But it's very quiet and the water is black. It's surrounded by pines, blueberries and huge granite rocks protruding out into the water.

These are some of the smaller rocks around where I was swimming (actually, wading is more like it). But some of them are much larger and you can jump off into the water which is really deep. I, however, did not do that because I am scared of deep, black water. So I just sat on the edge of the rocks where they were submerged but not quite all the way into the scary black part where, of course, there is some kind of lake serpent thing waiting to eat me.

Here you can sort of see the rock under the water, it's the brownish, shadowy lumpy thing at the bottom of the picture. That's about as far as I will go. But there were a bunch of people jumping off and some swimming all around in the middle of that thing. Crazy bastards.

Maybe if I had been with a bunch of people and knew there would be some of them around me in the water, maybe I would have dared it. Next time. Maybe.

When I was younger I stayed down in the Florida Keys with my friend Camilla. The beaches there are strange, at least in some parts. It's shallow for ever, and murky brown colored from the fine sand I guess. And then suddenly it drops off into the middle of the ocean. And it literally is the middle of the ocean. By the time you're in Key West, it's only 90 miles to Cuba. I'm not sure how far it is from mainland Florida, but it's far. Creepy ass mangrove islands.

I obviously would not linger far from shore, but Camilla would walk all the way out to the ledge and swim right off it while I was wringing my sweaty hands for her safety on shore.