Summer, Lately

Kitters assuming her afternoon nap alter-ego: The Trashball

Bell Peppers, Danver's Half-long Carrots, Roma Tomatoes

Petunias, doomed Lavender. Not pictured: Sweet Basil

The cappucino at Luce- I may or may not have

taken a sip before I was able to capture its

beauty. It's Soy. Of course.

My brother looks so handsome in his doctoral graduation

outfit...and crab bib.

GRADUATION!

Things have finally settled down in my little sphere of existence. This week, I had the chance to scrub my bathtub (!), mop my floors, clean my kitchen, sweep my patio and finally shelve stacks of textbooks. These banal tasks were significantly satisfying because I had to budget time and energy during the last weeks of college and the inaugural days of summer- the cleaning account got no love or deposits during this time. Those that know me well are aware that I rely on a clean kitchen in the morning/evening, a working coffee pot, and a tidy room to sleep well at night. Beyond that, dust collected, the tub got a little dirtier and my patio looked more akin to the sahara than a space for commiserating and leisure time. In other words, if it didn't make me hyperventilate to see less than clean, it got the kabash in the daily routine.

In addition to giving attention to these neglected tasks, I also undertook a new venture in yard maintenance: cactus wrangling. Over the last few months, as Tucson received unseasonable amounts of rain, a certain large cactus next to my house, who we will call "Burb" in light of its species (Burbank Spineless), has grown to Hulk-sized proportions and slowly taken over my walkway, roof and some power lines in the complex. I have had several close calls with "Burb", missing s/his racquet sized pads by inches with various parts of my body. On Monday, though, things came to a prickly head with Burb. Literally. I walked strait into a wrath of pads, covered not with spines, but little pokey baby hairs, akin to hundreds of splinters. Adding to the injury of the encounter was the simultaneous verbal protest issued by Tim in the process, causing me to flail about like a half-seized spazz and forcing the contact of my face, forearm and right hand into the mix. If it had not been painful and traumatizing, the whole scene would have been hilarious. Once I calmed down enough, Tim took a look at my limbs and face and proclaimed that I had quite a bit of baggage sticking out of my extremities. To which I responded by stomping back to the house and seizing the tweezers for an hour-long, semi-successful removal session of Burb's five-o-clock shadow(s).

The incident alone would have been enough for me to decide to take action against my encroaching friend, but the missed hairs stuck in various parts of my body provided a constant reminder of the necessity of scaling back Burb's sphere of influence. I undertook this task yesterday.

Luckily for me, I possess of some heavy duty gardening gloves, certain saw-shaped bike tools, Google and an iota of creativity. The first two were used to protect my supple flesh from anymore unwelcome encounters with Burb's fuzz. The second two were put to use researching effective ways to remove the pads from the cactus without causing harm to the plant at large, as well as looking up the ways to prepare nopales. I don't know if Tim and I will actually get around to cooking the cactus, but I imagine the satisfaction I'd feel ingesting something that caused me bodily/psychic annoyance in the past would be significant. You know, kinda like Hannibal.

Here's Burb.

I know, wtf, right? He's like the Barry Bonds of cacti.