First, thanks for all the great comments on the last post. The title was more rhetorical than anything else, but I was really interested to read what everyone had to say---and thanks for your visits, even if you don't comment. It's nice to know I'm not shouting into a black hole.

I survived my first full (well, half) week of work at the newspaper. I'm feeling more comfortable about all of the things I have to remember to do, which is a lot!, and next week will be even easier. The woman I am replacing will still be there next week in case of emergency, but I'm going to try to do it like a big girl all by my very own self.

It's so convenient to work downtown and be able to run errands during the day. There's a tiny (no, TINY) "health food store" (in quotes because they have such a limited selection) just a couple of doors down--I bought some banana chips and soap there. And I got my watch battery replaced at Johnson's Jewelry across the street. And sometimes I eat lunch with my friend Laura who works at the clinic about 2 blocks away. What I should be doing on my lunch hour is taking a nice brisk walk so I don't get Giant Chair Ass. Anyway, my point is: I'll be kicking ass in no time. I got my own desk set up today and I'll take some dog photos in next week to spruce up the place.

Until I remember to take a picture of it myself, here's a stock photo from the newspaper's website.

Kamiah's gimmick is that all of Main Street (or most, anyway) is decorated with old-timey storefronts. The paper is on the right and the left side is for rent if you're interested.

We harvested our first produce out of the garden this weekend---lettuce!! We cut both baskets, although the spinach went to seed. We're going to see if it's salvageable.

This is how we rinse the lettuce. And, yeah, it's kinda redneck. Don't worry, we put it in a salad spinner and the ziploc'd it. Then we ate it. (Almost all of it.)

It was hot this weekend, too, so after breakfast on Sunday morning we took the dogs down to the river. It's dropped a lot since we were down there last... we were able to walk out onto the rocks and sandbars and the dogs went swimming.

Well, Lazlo and Itchy went swimming and Mia kinda stood on the bank and tried to be brave. She's getting better every time we go. Keith threw a couple of sticks into the shallow water for her so she's starting to figure out it's safe. It's really pretty impressive she's willing to go in the water at all considering she survived a hurricane!

Lazlo dives for a stick that sunk to the bottom. Hilarious!
(My auto focus is broken. Apologies.)

Neighbor Pam gave us a jar of her homemade jalapeño-raspberry jam. I was a little leery of that combination, but she said to try it on cream cheese and Ritz crackers. We did just that and we scarfed it down. Great, like I need another excuse to eat cream cheese. I am really going to have to get out in the garden to work it off.

Someone told her to skip the County Fair and go directly to the State Fair and I'm inclined to agree! Delicious!! We're definitely going to have to barter for some more of it!

And this weekend we also got the greenhouse out onto (and attached to) the foundation.

Keith is building shelves for it. We'll be putting our heirloom tomatoes out there this fall so they can keep growing. Off-season tomatoes should be very popular---maybe we can sell or barter them. If we even get any. I guess I shouldn't count my chickens before they hatch.

And because I love trivia, here's the origin of that phrase, courtesy of the internets (so you know it's true!):

Who Said It: Aesop
When: c. 570 B.C.
The Story behind It: This saying occurs in the fable "The Milkmaid and Her Pail." Patty, a farmer's daughter, is daydreaming as she walks to town with a pail of milk balanced on her head. Her thoughts: "The milk in this pail will provide me with cream, which I will make into butter, which I will sell in the market, and buy a dozen eggs, which will hatch into chickens, which will lay more eggs, and soon I shall have a large poultry yard. I'll sell some of the fowls and buy myself a handsome new gown and go to the fair, and when the young fellows try to make love to me, I'll toss my head and pass them by." At that moment, Patty tossed her head and lost the pailful of milk. Her mother admonished, "Do not count your chickens before they are hatched."

I bet that little harlot learned her lesson! She must have or it wouldn't be in Aesop's Fables. Right?

And because I've been enjoying re-reading the behemoth Infinite Jest, I'll end with one of the several smarty lines I read last night, in the section of the book in which David Foster Wallace outlines the many "exotic new facts" you might learn "[i]f, by the virtue of charity of the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA's state-funded Ennet House:"

That everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn't necessarily perverse.