Yes, We Have No (More than 100) Tomatoes

Apparently I overdid it a bit when I planted twelve tomato plants back in the spring. After years of either no garden or disappointing gardening efforts, I went in the other direction and found myself picking 55 huge tomatoes on Friday. Fifty-five! In addition, I picked 111 � that�s One Hundred and Eleven � cherry tomatoes. And this is the third �harvest.� There will be more. If you are hankering for real, honest tomatoes and don�t want to pay the $15/lb price, I�ll be more than happy to ship you some. Just say the word. Especially since I thought: oh, I�ll just blanch some and freeze them; use them in tomato sauce this fall. Then, I opened my Joy of Cooking and read: �Don�t attempt to freeze tomatoes, no process has been found to work well.� That�s just fucking great. Thanks Joy!

Speaking of cursing, as I so often am (both cursing AND speaking of it), I amused my own self yesterday to discover myself singing a Stevie Wonder song and simultaneously cussing at the dimwitted slow-ass driver in front of me who refused to go more than 40 in a 55 mph zone. Here�s a transcript:

�Love�s in need of love today---�
�Fucking get a move on!�
�Don�t delay, send yours in right away---�
�What the hell is so hard to understand about 55?!�
�Hate�s going round---�
�Christ in a half-shell, fucking GO!�
�Breaking ev-ery heart��

Like that.

We broke the news to Dusty on Sunday about the demise of her beloved preschool. She took the news well and then told us, �Gracie told me they were closing.� Fuck. Scooped by a four-year-old. Then, we went to visit the new school and she played on all the playground equipment until every mosquito alive sucked us all dry and we went home and had dinner. The director of the doomed center is planning to spend as much of the center�s money as possible during its last three weeks. They�ve had Movie Day where they watched Scooby Doo shows and Dusty assured us that she wasn�t too scared of all the monsters and ghosts. �They took off their masks and they were just bad guys.� Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Today they're visiting the Children's Museum. Thursday is Beach Day. Bring a bathing suit!

Dusty asked me about heaven the other day. It came up in a book we were reading, a really fabulous book called Jellybeans by Sylvia van Ommen with simple line drawings of a cat and a rabbit who are friends and meet to drink hot chocolate and eat jellybeans. They discuss meeting up in heaven when they die and whether there are jellybeans in heaven.

�What�s heaven?� Dusty asked.
�Well, it�s the sky. Some people believe that when you die, you go up to heaven, up on top of the clouds, where there are angels and everything�s perfect.�
Dusty wrinkled up her face in disbelief, �That�s not real!�
�No, it�s not real.�

And while we�re on the subject of Dusty, we were chatting about this and that last week as I was driving her home from preschool and she was astonished to learn that when you grow up, older than a teenager, you leave home and get your own place to live.

�Really? Won�t you be lonely?�
�No, when you�re a grownup, you�ll want to have your own apartment.�
�Well, I�m going to live with you and daddy forever. Because you might be lonely.�
�Okay. That would be good.�

So, now all I have to do is teach Dusty how to clean, cook and do laundry and my golden years are set! That also frees Red up to go off and do whatever crazy thing she�s destined to do. Because she�s destined for greatness, this strange little blonde girl. I just know it.

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