Last year, I gardened like crazy. I grew tons of peppers and tomatoes. I roasted and dried and sauced and froze. I spent most of my summer weekends cooking and weeding. I watered every morning and every night. When we went away, I enlisted one of my friends to come water for me. I was a gardening fool. This year, I watched my garden get invaded by weeds while I worked on my rewrites. And it was okay, because I was still getting a reasonable amount of cukes and eggplant, with promises of peppers and tons and tons of tomatoes. But then the tomatoes stayed green for a really long time. … [Read more...]
Archives for August 2009
Ode to Wegmans and Pat Conroy
If you live in Western New York, you spend a lot of time at the mothership. It's just a fact of life, and probably one of the best parts of living here. On average, we have over 200 cloudy days a year, our winters are long and hard, our summers can get really hot and humid, and if we want to climb stuff we have to take a trip (it is flaaaaat here!). But we have the most awesome grocery store in the history of grocery stores. So there. When I'm shopping at Wegmans, my favorite activity, of course, is to visit the book section. Many a pint of fro yo has gotten good and melty while I parked my … [Read more...]
Item # six million and ninety-two on the Why Neil is Awesome list
When I talked to Neil on the phone last weekend he hinted that I should keep an eye out for something in the mail.I assumed it was a cartoon. Neil draws the most amazing cartoons (that's item # six million and seventy-four on the list). It wasn't.On Monday, a small white box arrived. It contained four hats and a letter. The first three hats say "The (Character Name Here) Hat," and the last one says, "The 4th Hat for Jeremy."In the letter, Neil says that while I've been focusing on Van, now I'll be juggling support for the book with moving forward with my next projects."What should go on … [Read more...]