In which I turn what could have been comments to your comments into an entire post

First off, some old business. Allie wanted to see a picture of my mutant flowering space rhubarb. This photo is a bit blurry, given that I took it from my kitchen window because I was too lazy to go back outside, but I hope it shall suffice. Also, I hope I don't regret posting a picture of my garage on the Internet. None of you are going to troll the streets and alleyways of Minneapolis carrying this photo for comparison in the hopes of properly stalking me, right? Good. Didn't think so. Here you go, then.



Note that the wispy white part extending up from the enormous rhubarb leaves is part of the rhubarb plant, not part of the large shrub next to it. It's like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, no? People keep offering me suggestions of all the delicious things I could make from the rogue rhubarb growing freely in my backyard, and yet, a plant that large inexplicably terrifies me. I'm convinced it's best just to leave it alone. If I tamper with it I might anger it, the obvious result of which being that the mutant rhubarb will pull itself out of the ground, creep over to my bedroom window on its roots, and strangle me in my sleep.

Um, I have acknowledged that my imagination is occasionally of the overactive sort, right? Just checking. Let's carry on, shall we?

The second item of old business is the raw food cookies that I mentioned and that several of you were curious about. I know very little about the raw food movement, so if I am wrong on this, feel free to fill me in, but I think that things can be cooked or baked at very low temperatures to... I don't know... meld them in some way, and yet still be considered "raw." Is that true? Or did I possibly just make that up? In any case, the cookies in question were not cookies in any traditional sense, but were small discs embedded with sesame seeds and lightly sweetened possibly with honey. They were far from terrible; I took three or four and ate all of them without complaining. But to call them "cookies"? 'Tis a bit of a stretch. I have no idea if the woman who brought them to that Memorial Day barbecue has children, but if she does, I do feel a bit sorry for them. It's one thing to deprive a child of unlimited cookies for obvious nutritional reasons. It's another thing entirely to deprive them of any concept of what a cookies actually is. Then again, perhaps she's doing them a favor. Someday they will be introduced to a real and proper cookie, and lo! The world of opportunity they'll see before them. It will be a magical day indeed, not unlike the day I realized I did NOT actually hate pizza; I just hated the thin, cardboard crust frozen grocery store pizzas that my mother bought and my father invariably burned. Real pizza was an entirely different matter. I had no idea! For nine years! Rest assured, I've made up for that lost time with ample pizza consumption since.

But back to the raw food "cookies." They were actually more like crackers. And you know what's good with crackers? Cheese! As in, the cheese that the raw cookie bringer couldn't bear to see sharing the same plate. At the party, I actually ate one of those cookies with a small wedge of cheese, and I must say, it was actually pretty tasty. And devious. I'm a rebel, folks, but apparently only in the tamest and least confrontational sense.

Which brings us to new business, of which I have very little, and even if I did have more or it, I lack the energy at the moment to write about it. The camping trip was an excellent one, despite the rain our first night and the unseasonably low temperatures our second one. None of us had a thermometer, but I suspect it dipped to the low 30s (Fahrenheit) by the time I finally gave in and retreated to the imagined warmth of my sleeping bag. My four layers were no match for that weather. Who knew a down parka would be a good idea in nearly June?? At the very least, I wish I'd brought a hat. Note to self: A stocking cap is NEVER a foolish thing to bring camping. It would have been no more foolish than the shorts I optimistically packed and did not need. Lesson learned.

In any case, I didn't sleep particularly well all weekend, and even back at home in my comfortable bed didn't manage to make up for that last night. I had to jerk my head up after nodding off several times at work this afternoon and felt increasingly disoriented and alarmed each time. True, I have been in the same job for a remarkably (some might say depressingly) long time, but as it turns out, I cannot do my job in my sleep. Each time I caught myself nodding off, I worried what I had just errantly clicked or sent. I'd really best head off to bed to avoid a repeat of that tomorrow.