Slowly Ripening

Wow, it's been a while.

Uhm, let's see.  Still haven't worked on the pictures from the trip this year.  Just haven't had the energy.  Well, that, and FFXIV has been around, so I've been doing the beta and now, for the last week, playing it live.  I'll burn out on it here shortly and get around to doing other things.  The upcoming three-day-weekend may do it, actually.

Some of the gardening stuff is starting to come in. My garlic was basically a failure, but I predicted that: it just didn't get enough time in the ground to really form cloves before it got hot.  The "rounds" are a decent second, though, and I'm drying them now.  I'm getting (very small) Scotch Bonnets every few days, so I'm storing them up to make stuff with later; the one plant I transplanted is bushing out well, so I know what to do for next year.  Picked my first cayenne pepper yesterday.  The mini bells are multiplying and should start ripening in a week or so.  no Thai chili peppers yet; one plant is still around, but I haven't seen it fruit at all.

Tomatoes.  Well, one is starting to ripen; it'll be the first I pick. It's not one of the larger ones, though it's off the tallest plant.  It's probably about 4-5 inchest across; the largest on any of the four vies right now is about 6-7 inches across and still growing, literally filling my hand when I "cup" it.  But oh my god these things are taking a lot of water: each planter has two tomato vines, and I'm pouring two gallons of water into each planter's reservoir every two days.  Since the water is stored *under* the soil and there's a thick layer of mulch, there's very little evaporation taking place.  So, that's half a gallon of water per plant per day.  Even the peppers are taking a lot, albeit not nearly that much.  It's been in the 90s the past week, though, so that has probably increased the amount of water they need.

Work's been interesting.  I've been included in two grants that were submitted for funding (no word yet), and I'm probably going to have my name on publications around a third.  One "side" project I've been working here is finally taking shape, so we'll see how it develops.

I've been emailing back and forth with a couple guys online, but I haven't even really wanted to try to go on a date in months.  Might just be the heat, or post-vacation letdown, or who-knows-what, but I've been pretty apathetic lately about most things.  I still hang out with the one friend every Saturday night, but even with that, I'd really rather blow him off and just stay home.

Part of it is probably that I'm still helping out around my parents' house periodically.  Stepdad's doing a lot better: pretty much the only lasting effects are *improved* kidney function (Mom's still not really believing it, though he's had two tests now with +10% functionality over what he had before) and his left wrist being bad (from where they didn't realize he'd broken it for two weeks).  Still, the wrist thing keeps him from being able to do some tasks, like start a lawn mower.  So, I'm still on a regular go-over-and-mow-the-lawn-and-do-other-stuff schedule.  Don't get me wrong; I don't mind helping out.  I think, though, it's the regular need to help out that is the problem, psychologically.  I've always had this thing of wanting to be wanted but hating to be needed and it's probably coming into play here.

Oh well.  Still waiting for the lottery investment to pay off.