DC

Ah yes, it's that time of the month - time for me to report on my monthly trip to DC. The day after Memorial Day I flew out to DC. For a while, I thought the weather had other plans and I spent 8 hours either in the airport, on the tarmac, or in the air. Thankfully, I bought a few home design magazines in the terminal to entertain myself - CoastalLiving being my favorite. (Still no word on the house yet as we continue to wait on the seller's realtor to get off his duff and earn his commission by harassing the bank.)

The first week of June I headed up for two work days with one of my consultants. My program has grown into a coalition with 3 other NGOs (non-governmental organizations) - Humane Society, Defenders of Wildlife, and World Wildlife Fund. It's nice having more people on board, but until we are fully funded and staffed, it still means quite a bit of the work is falling on my shoulders. I am incredibly relieved to finally have a few consultants to help me with the political work (not my favorite part of the job), so we set about planning out our strategy for the next few months.

Aside from that, I performed my usual sanity-saving ritual while in town: see as many friends as I can cram into the space of 4 days. :) Monday night I went to visit my co-worker Whitney and her husband Maurice and finally meet their new baby, Will. He was as adorable and laid back as they are and they were gracious enough to let me come over for a late night visit after the insane flight delays of my day. Laughing with them and rocking Will to sleep was definitely the perfect antidote to a day that didn't start out so well.

I also was able to have dinner in Georgetown with another co-worker, Preetha, that week and we did our ritual trip to Patagonia. It was difficult to not leave that store with one of everything... but I managed to leave with our bank account intact. :)

By the time Friday rolled around, I was ready to go home, but thankful that I've made friends with such wonderful people that DC can feel a teeny weeny bit like home (oh lord, did I really just say that?).

Memorial Day weekend

This year we were actually in town for Memorial Day weekend so we decided to pack up "the kids" and head to the beach (aka Mom and Larry's house). We camped out for the long weekend and followed one of our sacred rules of the beach: do not go anywhere that would look at you funny for wearing a swim suit and beach dress (the lazy cousin of a sundress). We find that makes for super simple packing, no need for designated drivers, and low stress for everyone. :) Our only other sacred rule is to watch every sunset possible, which we also managed to do while playing bocce ball.

We were lucky enough to share the weekend with friends - Dave and Lauren, and Dustin and Katie stayed with us Saturday night (see us below at the beach); Saturday we also got a visit from Kellyn and Conrad, and Sunday Michelle came over to soak in the pool with us. For once, the obscene amount of floaties we have looked appropriate, rather than ridiculous. :)

It was great to share our "happy place" with so many of our friends. It reminded me of how lucky we are to live here and ignited a fierce hope in me that the oil well gushing in the Gulf of Mexico gets capped and cleaned up soon so that we don't suffer the same fate that Louisiana and Alabama are dealing with. We love the sugar white sand of our local beaches and I never cease to marvel at how the local ecosystem has really begun to flourish since the DDT ban and gill-net bans took effect. Birds, fish, sharks, dolphins, turtles, manatees, and everything above and below the water line that makes this coast so beautiful could all be lost due to the carelessness and greed of a corporation and people's inability to think outside the box when it comes to alternative energy sources and reducing consumption. Our version of daily prayer in practice is to look at what we can do to reduce our demand for oil and find better ways to be more efficient with the energy we do use - I think that's the most helpful and hopeful prayer anyone can say for our future. And we are not along in thinking that way - recently, the VP of my organization went to visit some of the restoration programs EDF is working on in the Gulf and he posted a blog and video about his feelings on the trip here. Here's to hoping people start thinking differently...

Summer

Well summer is definitely here - it's hot as hades, but the rains haven't started, which actually makes me a bit uneasy. I love the summer rains - the booming thunder that rattles our crappy little window panes, the musical quality of the rain as it makes it way through our tree canopy, and the sense of relief I get when the air smells of rain. It means green blooming plants, full rivers, and less people wasting precious drinking water on their water-hogging lawns.

Despite the heat, my love of the sun is unwavering. I greedily look forward to summer when the sun sets after 8:30 at night, the sunsets set the sky on fire, and I can alternate between baking in the sun and cooling off in the water at the beach or the pool. We have eagerly returned to our pool duties on Anna Maria at Mom and Larry's house and almost feel silly for how much we look forward to cleaning the pool and tending the plants. It is our little summertime oasis on the weekend where life doesn't get in the way.

I also know summer is here because our cicadas started singing just a few weeks ago and they haven't stopped since. I love falling asleep to them and waking up to their swelling symphony that fills the trees around our little house.

Now, when I'm in DC, folks are getting excited about their summer veggies while ours are winding down here (too much heat here for most veggies). But, this week I had a first and thought it would be fun to share. We've been composting for the last year (our anniversary present to ourselves last year - a composter!) and are really enjoying it. Apparently, so are our plants who have been benefitting from it, and some that weren't meant to. A few weeks ago while I was weeding around my native plants I discovered an intruder. But not one of the usual pest plants, so I didn't know what to make of it. Kind of scraggly, climbing, leafy, and had what appeared to be tiny green fruit with a star of green foliage on top... the plant had totally propped and intertwined itself up on my beautyberry bush - and I took it as a personal offense, who was this intruder?! After looking more closely, I noticed some of the green fruit seemed to be beginning to ripen into an orange tint. Huh. Not like any other fruiting plant I know in Florida. Weird. So the more I stared at it, the more it did start to look familiar, but I couldn't think of why. Then it dawned on me - it was a tomato plant?! I called Wade over and he verified then we laughed because we had NO idea where the heck it came from or how it got so big without any watering or care at all. Our best hypothesis is that it came from some seeds from our compost and the seeds must have been from the grape tomatoes we had gotten from our CSA farm during the winter. Apparently the patchy sun of the live oak trees kept it from withering in the heat, but provided enough light to grow. Go figure, nature found a way.

So, today I picked my first tomatoes from my own yard - the first veggie I've ever harvested in my own yard - ever (herbs don't count in my book). Since it felt like a real occasion I picked out a nice pottery bowl Larry had made for us (he has a passion for pottery that we are lucky enough to benefit from) and decided to have a little photo shoot with my tomatoes - and here they are in their summer glory.

They made a fabulous topping on a Mexican pizza, and tomorrow night I'm going to use them in my attempt at making pasta sauce from scratch. It's absolutely incredible how fulfilling it is to know I am cooking with food I (accidentally) grew myself. (Yes, take it easy on the city girl jokes here please)

Hope everyone else is also enjoying the bounty and beauty summer has to offer!