living green

today was a day i wish i had my camera. i had some random sightings of things i wasn't expecting to see but which were very relevant to recent happenings in my life.

during work i just had this intense desire to leave, because i suddenly got spring fever. i do miss north carolina, if not for the suburbian life, but for suburbia itself - the cookiecutter plots of homes in raleigh and cary did come with a sizeable backyard, and the clay soil could be worked to grow a good number of crops. it made it that much more interesting too. so today, i don't remember why but i started thinking about wheatgrass, then that just led to a strong desire to plant herbs.


mmmm....wheat grass...

so today my schedule was actually very busy. at the risk of sounding like some busybody housewife, this was my plan: i went to work "early" (8 AM) so i could leave around 11, leave early around 4 to go turn in my recycling cans, maybe catch some surf before going to costco, buying gas there which is the cheapest around at $3.05 a gallon (blech!) and then going home for sprint workouts.

this spring obsession gave me an extra detour around the clairemont area to the local home depot, and i'd also check out local recycling centers because i'm sure the one near vons is ripping me off. like a penny per can, goddamnit! (yes i'm a treehugger who reads the consumerist. so what)

well i made it to costco and home depot, but not to the recycling centers. i'll just keep carrying the bags of recyclables from work around in my car like a bum.

but then at home depot, as i was looking for charcoal i saw these puzzle mats, like the ones you use in taekwondo, but a bit smaller, much more thinner, but puzzle mats nonetheless. they were for covering your kitchen or your garage, etc. and the price was $12 like a regular mat...but then i looked and that was for a set of 6...i thought maybe i could create a taekwondo ring for the ucsd club after all! i was really really tempted to buy them....costco is a wonderful place even though their onions cost a hell of a lot more than ralphs.

and now looking into it more i could so make my future living room or basement into a taekwondo ring, as well as a child's playpen:

Puzzle mats!

and again i wish i had my camera because the costco ones were pretty cool. not really for taekwondo, but still running into it was so random.

Then, i go to home depot and i basically go crazy on plants. it's literally been 6 years since i've done any gardening and i used to be a little kid obsessed with stuff like compost and growing companion crops, and i had a huge bulb collection. yes i was a nerd in many ways. i even had a garage composter once when i just started, didn't really understand the idea of compost, started throwing eggshells and bones into it, and a week later the garage was filled with flies and maggots.

but tomorrow i'm going to want to leave work again...this time because i want to get home to put in my basil, oregano, and peppermint. i think, if i can make myself one nice tomato and basil and mozzarella sandwich, or a good pizza, and just a single mojito, i'd be satisfied. hellz yes for planting season.

I also realized that it's the first day of spring, and since la jolla has decent weather and no risk of cold snaps, now would be a good time to plant tomatoes and other crops. i don't think we'd have room or the time to care for an actual tomato plant, but i was very very tempted to fill up the largest planter, and see what happens..

so the last sighting of the day was when i went to the track to do some sprints. the first thing i see as i go down the stairs is this big tire, and i immediately thought of the 300 workout. i literally thought there were some huge fucking guys doing tire flips earlier during the day...maybe for track? maybe for football? but actually i don't think a single person would be able to lift that one. next time i'm seriously going to start the 300 workout, just with a smaller tire.

happy first day of spring. hopefully we'll get some sun soon in "sunny san diego" and then it's surf time.