Wooohoo, msbelle!

I've missed 2 calls from different neighbors and both went to vmail when I tried calling back. Hrmph. Both are no doubt about the weekend: porch supplies and my birthday. Which might be one and the same.

Had a funny conversation with the pool staff tonight. We were talking about the regulars (including the students in the lesson tonight, they were a hot mess) and mentioned one woman who swims for like 3 hours and how after like 10 years of a steady, slow pace, has begun doing sprinting laps here and there. But only when I'm sharing a lane with her. I was like "I thought I must be slowing down! I usually pass her every second lap, and then all of a sudden it would take 3.5!" Hah. And then they were giving me shit for missing last saturday, and I informed them I was cheating on them with Ellicott City. "So you really are crazy and never miss a day?" Then it turned to "some crazy dude" who does 3 miles on weekends. "You know I do 2 miles 3 days a week and 1.5 the rest ?" "OK, you are crazier. And have better hair." (This is a running joke because of course they always see me in a swim cap. But one of them, finally recognizing me pre-swim said "I didn't recgonize you" *flails hands* " hair!")

I like being part of communities.

and the extreme afternoon thunderstorem.

That's what monsoon season is in the Southwest deserts.

I don't miss the heat, but I do miss those thunderstorms every many days. A lot.

I am just nodding my head while reading questers post and THEN I'm all WHA?!?!?!? sweetened shredded coconut is AWESOME!! just light marshmallows and pecans. It just so happened that those three items were stored in matching tupperware containers in my mother's kitchen and I would often add all three to dishes of ice cream and coke floats.

and I'm pretty sure there will be no Hookers or Blow, or sadly anything even close to it. maybe beer and ice cream.

I like nuts. The oilier the better. Cashews, macadamia, peanuts, piñon or their shelled sistren the pine nut, pecans. But nuts are not nice to my skin. Probably the oils. Serious crack to me are the TJ's honey-sesame-d cashews. OMG. But my face and my guts hate those.

Sorry to disappoint you, msbelle!

Brazil nuts

They make my teeth squeak. I hate that!

Pecans and cashews are my favorite nuts. Raw for the former and salted/roasted for the cashews.

I especially love pecans in my faux cake. (nuts, dates, cocoa/carob/protein powder, with a little bit of water...to which I sometimes add candied ginger, mint flavoring, etc.)

It gives me the dessert feeling while being reasonably healthy. Very rich and satisfying.

No icky nut texture.

but I do miss those thunderstorms every many days. A lot.

Cass is me. Well, these days I bargain with nature for t-storms to not interrupt my swim, but I do miss the storms you could set a watch by, the smell of mesquite and creosote and wet ozone. I miss watching the wall approach and the air cooling and standing in the cold runoff in the gutters.

Right now, my parents are dreading the monsoons. Fires haven't been so bad in their area that they have serious flood concerns, but the bad freeze this winter killed a lot of vegetation . My parents are hauling off dumpsters of dead cuttings. Won't know until next spring really if some of the vegetation made it. Some of the massive 50ft pines are questionable, and some of their massive mexican elders have had to be pruned back to stumps. With that and the drought, monsoons bring lightning, lightning means more fires. It's going to be a rough monsoon season.

When I think of what the freeze did to their xeriscaped yard, it makes me want to cry. That's stuff that we planted largely in the first 5 years they lived there, so it is 15-20 years of growth. And it was gorgeous and native. And 2-4 days of seriously fucked up cold (froze utility plants, caused blackouts, loss of gas pressure) killed a lot of it. Thousands of dollars in their mere 1/3 acre. The smaller stuff is easier to replace. The big trees, nsm.

Jesse, did I submit a Batman link to the goodstuff tumblr?

Yeah, it should have posted by now, but I haven't gone to check...

I had drinks with a new friend tonight, and am now sweating like a pig and thinking about chocolate chips.

Gah, you guys, just reading all the nut talk makes me want macadamias!

(What? I *said* I was easily swayed.)