Attack of the Kick-Ass Tomatoes

While we talked about developing a garden in the back yard, and even got so far as cleaning away the weeds for it, we never planted anything. We considerd corn, tomatoes, herbs, peppers -- stuff we always eat. We even have a compost pile to fertilize the hypothetical garden. In this pile, we put all our food scraps (except meat). We used to put paper towels in there to degrade naturally, but the local birds stole it for nesting. A few weeks back, we noticed that the pile had growth. A weed here, a flower there. And then we saw the tomato plants. And then we found the tomatoes. How hard is it to grow tomatoes? Apparently, not at all. Throw seeds in the back yard. Bam, you gots tomatoes. I plucked some this week, had them with dinner, and they're just fine. Our first tomatoes. Straight from the crap bin. I think there's also a squash vine in there too.

Your Parents are also giving us tomatoes from their small bin at home. And a fellow teacher is handing us overflow from her garden, including tomatoes and basil for homemade pesto. I have no idea about their nutritional content or calories, but I'm eating them like they're going out of style. Your Sis, of course, hates them with a hate that dare not be named. But lukcily, my appetite will make them vanish before long. When Travis came over Wednesday, we're were throwing them back amid the popcorn and beers.

Picture of the Day
Maybe the only legally licensed Cavin and Hobbes product. All those car stickers you see with Calvin peeing or praying or Hoobes dancing? The fraternity shirts? The ties? Bootlegs. All of them. You can see more rare stuff from the artist here.




In the News
Apparently I was right about the confession in the Jon Benet murder. He is indeed wacko.

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A federal judge ruled against the warrantless wiretaps. Does anyone think the administration will stop the program even if the Supremes rule against it? Or that the Justice Department will completely end it when a Democrat takes office?

She Should Really Butt Out

The Indignant Christian Neighbor emailed me again yesterday to respond to my reply. She admitted she had only gotten her divorce info from Debbie and that it was all years old. She also, after two emails, decided what she was doing was -- oh hell, here's her email:

I'm sorry, I feel now what I've done is really inappropriate. I apologize if I have caused you to drudge up painful memories. Please forgive me and I wish you and your family the best.

She might be sincere or she might only have offered a faux humble exit from a conversation she no longer controlled. I don't think she was prepared for me to answer with calm, direct point-by-point retorts of her accusations. Either way, I'm not convinced this will be the last I hear from someone in the Debbie Camp.

After work, I hosted Travis for a marathon of "Venture Brothers" while our wives attended another Ladies Night dinner party. When Your Sis got home, I showed her the emails from and to the Indignant Christian Neighbor. And we laughed. Not at debbie's alledged financial plight, but at this person's sudden attack of the haughty allegations and quick retreat from her moral high ground.

Picture of the Day
Screenings start tonight.



In the News
Caer Caradoc at Mynydd y Gaer, Glamorgan, an ancient Welsh city and possible gravesite of Uther Pendragon, has been found.

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Police arrested a suspect in the Jon Benet murder. But the story is weird. He was arrested in Thailand and hails from Georgia. Hs ex-wife says he was with her in Alabama when Jon Benet was killed in Colorado. She also says he studied new reports of this case and the murder of Polly Klaas. He lived for a time near the family when they moved to Georgia after the murder.

Oh, The Drama

Your Sis had a teacher workshop yesterday that included details on the state teacher mentoring program. This allegedly welcomes new teachers to the system and includes a 150-page manual and tips such as making them a welcome basket and getting the local paper to write about them. She also learned that mentors are paid a certain amount each month, and one district is pooling all its mentor funds to pay an administrative position; its mentors are treated as volunteers.

We watched two glorious hours of "House" last night, and this is officially our new favorite TV show. I recently discovered "The Venture Brothers" on Cartoon Network and added it and "MASH" to our TiFaux record list. We now have three Eddie Izzard performances saved as well.

I just received an indignant email from a former neighbor of mine when I was married to Debbie. This lady decided to write me from her office to say I had abandoned my wife and Christian obligations, for which my wife must know suffer in poverty among the black people (really). I wrote back very calmy and reminded her this is the first she's reached out to me in this matter going back five years since Debbie left. She's working off of Lifetime channel movies about lonely, devoted wives treated like shit by Treat Williams and Joe Penny. I hope she writes back. I really do.

And Debbie is where she is because that's where Debbie's choices lead her. She wanted out, she ran away, she lied like a rug to cover her tracks, and she can get another man if she wanted to. She's not ugly at all. She's just not taking care of herself.

News of the Day
The International Astronomical Union proposes we have 12 planets in our solar system.

Back from Virginia

The mini-moon was a humdinger for a Shakespeare nut like me. Staunton's American Shakespeare Center knows how to put on a show. With eleven actors in residence this season, they will run four plays -- As You Like It, Othello, Macbeth, and Tempest -- on alternating days, with two different plays on Saturdays. The trip looked like this:

Wednesday
We arrive after a seven-hour drive and find our bed and breakfast inn is made up of at least three different buildings. We have a roomy room on the top floor of one building a half block up from the main lodge where breakfast is served. Staunton, while a lovely town to stroll, is dead. It's built like Asheville but functions like Brevard; it's designed for weekend, daylight retail business and sightseeing. For dinner, we try a place open only a week earlier, The Clocktower Tavern. Fantastic steaks. We find a gaming store and buy a travel chess set to kill the time when we're not in the theatre. In this town, you can catch a play, catch a movie, or eat dinner. That's all your evening options.

Thursday
We head to the Frontier Culture Museum. A series of functioning historic farms allows us to wander country by country and through a century or two. Your Sis gets to carry water from a well in Germany, churn butter in Ireland, and milk a cow in America. The humid weather made for slow going at times, but at least we weren't wearing woven layers while working in a small house with a lit fireplace. The museum workers must love their jobs. We left before 2 p.m. to catch a tour of the theatre. One of the actors walked us through the rehearsal space and dressing rooms and allowed us to get on the stage. The latter, of course, sparked my acting jones. We watched a rehearsal of Othello, and after the tour, we two snuck back in to watch them rehearse some more. They cooked up a nice choreography for the Desdemona death scene that makes a lot of sense. That's what this theatre does so well: They take sensible approaches, using the textual directions and logical movements. For dinner, we eat at The Beverly, a country diner, and I enjoy a sublime open roast-beef sandwich drowned in brown gravy. We then catch Macbeth, a show I've waited 17 years to see live. We take seats onstage, as was the tradition way back when. I also sat onstage for Twelth Night when the theatre trouring troupe visited Brevard. This is my favorite play because it tackles so many themes (free will vs. destiny, magic vs. nature, sincerity vs. falsehoods), and I think it qualifies as the first pulp thriller.

Friday
We visit Monticello, Jefferson's home. That's pronounced 'monta-chello', not 'monta-sello.' It was an all-day tour. The house is quite small, but the grounds are huge. It's a fantastic vista to stroll. I learn that Jefferson wrote a state statute on religious freedom. It's as sensible an argument as one can find, yet I never heard it mentioned in the foam-mouthed radio rants on church and state. Also, I have my notion of a child-free days at parks affirmed by the horrible behavior of kids from ages 3 to 15. I would pay extra to be free of them at a museum, movie, or pretty much any public space. After Monticello, we eat at The Wharf, a casual restaurant along the river and train tracks in Staunton. They have an eponymous sandwich there with roast beef and chipotle mayonaise. Wonderful. We then see Tempest done right, a vast improvement on the Montford Park production from last month. This was Shakespeare's last play, and he says goodbye a few times directly. It also has a great comedy subplot with two drunken shipwreck survivors meeting a manbeast enslaved to the island's ruler. I can't say the theatre does comedy better than drama, but they swing both directions equally well. Before the show, a high-school intern group presents short skits showcasing their various camps (clowning, pantomime, stage combat, dance, etc.). It's a mixed bag of quality, but the standout is an Elizabethan dance performance set to Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean. " It works and works well, and then the kids break out into Jackson choreography. But this bit also has the saddest moment as I spy the vocalists reading the lyrics off a print-out. Everyone my age knows the song by heart; it was an inescapable tune for about two years in the early '80s. We hit the corner cafe after and talk to some of the actors and kids. The store has a "frozen hot chocolate" that's mindblowing.

Saturday
We stroll through Staunton's shops, noting the vast Jolly Roger Haggle antique shop, a few good art galleries, and specialty restaurants out the wazoo. Staunton boasts the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, but the man doesn't register high enough on my radar for a visit. We eat lunch at the Pampered Palette, a bustling Southern cafe where all the tourists have flocked to eat. I have a gyro. We then see As You Like It from which the theatre wrings all the potential laughs. They add a lot of movement and interpretation distinct from the script, but it works to make a stronger show. This is obviously the show they have invested the most time, and it's the perfect note with which to end our stay. By strange coincidence, Kathy and Travis call me right before the show to ask me details of my syndicated wrestling column. As You Like It also happens to feature a wrestling match in the first act. I'm crying from laughter at this part. Even though we've walked everywhere for four days, we're aching for some exercise and play some tennis in the local park. For dinner, Your Sis chooses The Pullman, a swank business on the train track, right next to the station in fact, and a train whizzes by about 20 minutes after we sit down. I have chicken alfredo. We make an early evening of it and watch some "Good Eats" before calling it a night.

We drive home Sunday and play some more tennis after unpacking. We play at Silvermont where we had the formal wedding. Monday, Your Mom helps Your Sis prepare the classroom while I empty my email of all the accumulated spam. Travis and Kathy come over for wings and wrestling (and Monday Night Football, thank God), and they hand me autographed pictures of a wrestlker they saw Saturday. This is when they called me. The pictures are signed to "Matt Tracker," my old column pen name. I'm floored.

Picture of the Day
After taking about 1,000 photos the week before in Orlando, I took none in Virginia. So here's what Kathy and Travis got me. This is Dusty Rhodes, The American Dream. I grew up watching him fight Ric Flair and evil Russians.


In the News
The UK/US airplane plot arrests occured while we were in Virginia. It set off my cynic alarms, and new information out of Britain supports my notions. It sounds much like the Miami arrests where a gang of utter losers were accused of targeting Chicago despite a lack of funds, weapons, and a clear idea of jihad.