Cicadas: Uncensored

Quit leaving your exoskeletons on my garlic.

Thanks to my wonderful job (that's not sarcasm, I promise), I'm now an expert in all things cicada-y.  Seriously, ask me anything – I torture my cubicle-mate spouting from the vast amount of cicada fun facts that I hope will help me win Jeopardy one day. I know the difference between tenerals and tymbals (the former are freshly molted nymphs; the latter refers to the muscles the males use to make the buzzing noise to attract a mate). I know what trees they like. I know which animals like to prey on them. I know the difference between broods. I know that they're not locusts. And unfortunately, I know how to cook them, though I wasn't the lucky party who had to participate in the cooking or eating of cicadas:



I know all of this because of my work on Cicada Central, which one blogger raves as being "whimsical to dead-earnest" – I'll take it, even if he was probably referring to my link curation skills. I actually did end up enjoying this project much more than anticipated. (Though expectations on an insect-centric microsite don't start off that high.) As hilarious as the above video is, the most fun aspect of this was my interview with one of the many cicadas on Twitter, who I happen to know (well, enough, to be Facebook friends with and to run in to on occasion in Nashville and, much more randomly, in Atlanta).

Now, if you know nothing about cicadas, know this: Brood XIX comes out every 13 years to sing, mate and die, as some so eloquently put it. That means many of the cicada tweets are basically akin to TFLN. So as funny as Jem's cicada responses were, I did have to censor it a bit. Below are the questions/responses that I had to cut – check out the Interview With a Cicada for the rest.

Why do you only emerge every 13 years?
A: We’d like to say it’s due to years of scientific adaptation but we’re going to be honest- we were waiting for Osama Bin Laden to die.

What are your thoughts on this video?
A: Oh, I don’t know- how would you feel if I showed you a video of Hannibal Lecter cooking up some human for dinner?

Have you ever been to Abbottabad?
A: No, but my 86th cousin twice removed has. He said it was pretty low-key except for this giant compound in the middle of a residential neighborhood that no one was allowed to talk about. Apparently it’s a great spot for those who just want to hide away for an extended period of time.

This is Music City – what's your favorite song?
A: There’s been quite a bit of speculation on this subject. We actually have two favorite songs, the first being Ginuwine’s “My Pony.” This song really gets the lady cicadas in the mood to find the males in the swarms, and it’s a classic. It’s been around since our last foray above-ground and we’re pretty sure it’s still on the Billboard Top 20 list, or featured every day on TRL, right? Our other favorite is “Bad Reputation” by Joan Jett. It really encompasses our overall attitude of disregard once we come out in droves.

Singing, mating and dying all over my poor little tree.

Springing Forward in the Garden

The dogwoods and redbuds are in bloom, the lawnmowers are out and about, the tornado sirens go off once a week.... it's officially spring.

Some random bush thing our home's predecessors planted – whatever it is, it's pretty!

Around the end of March, I planted some spinach, chard and lettuce in my raised beds. Then, last weekend my mom came up and we planted more:

Kale
Mesclun mix
Asian stir-fry mix (that's what she labeled it... I don't know)
Carrots

So I should be enjoying some tasty salads in a few weeks. In fact, the lettuce has started sprouting already:

I also have about a third of each raised bed filled with garlic, which I planted last fall. Apparently it still won't be ready until June, but it's monstrous.

My mom also planted onions (yellow, I think) interspersed with the garlic. I guess those are good companion plants. She said as the onions grow, we'll have to pick some and use the greens (as in chives).

baby onions, giant garlic and a hyacinth I forgot I planted last year

In addition to the greens, my mom also brought me a new rose bush and tulip magnolia tree to replace the big tree we lost due to straight-line winds a few weeks ago. Still has a few blooms on it:

You can also see my new screen door (and Lola, who hasn't figured it out). New favorite thing is having the door open while it rains. Love the sound/smell of spring rain. Although I am not into this 50-degree weather we're having....

Reading Resolution 2011

So far this year, I have read the following. Tried not to give away too many spoilers – just enough to know whether or not you'd like to read the book.

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Takes place in New York City 1974, when Philip Petitte walks on a tightrope between the Twin Towers. (Watch the documentary "Man on Wire" if you haven't.) The novel is about other characters who are impacted by the act, both directly and indirectly. Great writing, with each chapter following a different character and written in their voice (though some are more relatable/enjoyable than others). Recommended if you like great prose, New York City, character development.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Takes place mainly in London, where an odd set of 21-year-old twins move when the aunt they never met leaves them a flat overlooking a famous (and real) cemetery. The relationship between the sisters is interesting, as are the people they meet, including the aunt's lover and an OCD-to-the-max neighbor. Recommended if you like twins, hauntings, crossword puzzles, predictable twists.

The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman

Takes place in San Francisco and New York in 2000. The main characters are two sisters, one a young CEO of a rising dot-com, the other a philosophy grad student and tree hugger (literally). Also follows a big cast of different characters, some more relatable/enjoyable to read about than others, as the older sister's tech company goes public (and her boyfriend's rival company does as well) while the younger sister's job for a rare bookseller focuses on an unusual collection of cookbooks. Recommended if you like reading about the burst of the dot-com bubble with a mix of Jewish heritage and historical recipes.

Away by Amy Bloom

Takes place in the 1920s as a Jewish immigrant from Russia comes to New York after her family is mass-murdered in front of her. Lovely! She starts out as a seamstress for a theater owner until she finds out her daughter may still be alive, then the story follows her horrific experiences and interesting characters she meets as she journeys across the Western Hemisphere to Siberia by way of Seattle, Canada and Alaska. Recommended if you like learning about how horrible it was to be a woman in the 1920s.

Next up: Palo Alto by James Franco, in honor of the Oscars. So I leave you with this, and a link to my favorite snarky gay fashion bloggers, Tom and Lorenzo. If you watch the Oscars, you should definitely follow them on Twitter.

Books I Read in 2010

Thanks to GoodReads, I can actually keep up with this sort of thing.

Books I read in 2010 (in order of date read) (bold = my favorites):
1. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium #1) by Sieg Larsson
2. Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse #1) by Charlaine Harris
3. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
4. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
5. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
6. The Girl Who Played With Fire (Millennium #2) by Stieg Larsson
7. A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
8. Living Dead in Dallas (Sookie Stackhouse #2) by Charlaine Harris
9. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
10. Little Bee by Chris Cleave
11. Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler
12. Club Dead (Sookie Stackhouse #3) by Charlaine Harris
13. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium #3) by Stieg Larsson
14. Dead to the World (Sookie Stackhouse #4) by Charlaine Harris
15. The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
16. Dead as a Doornail (Sookie Stackhouse #5) by Charlaine Harris
17. My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler
18. One Day by David Nicholls
19. Rework by Jason Fried
20. Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang by Chelsea Handler
21. Just Kids by Patti Smith

Books I reread in 2010:
Harry Potter and the Deathy Hallows (before seeing the movie, to refresh my memory)

Books I started reading but never finished (and the reasons why):
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (short stories, I was getting depressed and quit about 3/4 of the way through)
I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb (I was getting depressed and disgusted and gave up about five chapters in)
A Soft Place To Land by Susan Rebecca White (I was getting depressed)
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (only read the first two chapters and keep putting it on the back burner even though a dear friend says it's her favorite book of all time)
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith (started it on vacation, and it's MIA)


Book I'm reading right now:
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (I started this and Just Kids at the same time, apparently I'm on a New York City in the 1970s kick)

I realize that if you cut out the literary equivalent of junk food – Chelsea Handler and the Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood) books – my list isn't that impressive. And I did jump on the Stieg Larsson bandwagon, but once you get through the boring Winnerstrom part at the beginning of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, they are extremely addictive. But I did read some incredible, well-written novels (and two whole nonfiction books), and I have a huge stack to get me through next year.

Books to read in 2011 (that are already in my possession):
The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee
Traveling With Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham
The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman
Follies by Ann Beattie
Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund
The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich
The Unknown Errors of Our Lives by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Forms of Water by Andrea Barrett
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Bloodroots by Amy Greene
Nora Jane by Ellen Gilchrist
Palo Alto by James Franco (yes, that James Franco)
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Resolution for 2011: Read more than 21 books. I'm going to be realistic and admit that I won't read all of these (all are from my mom, mostly from when I needed some literature for a cruise vacation and she thought I would want to add 15 pounds to my luggage), but I am going to read more this year then I did last year. Starting today.

October Tomatoes and Other Fall Garden Surprises

Tennessee is such a weird place, weather wise, but I wouldn't change it for anywhere else. We get all four seasons, the best and the worst, sometimes all in one day. You can't say you're a Tennessean if you've never had (or at least wanted) to use the air-conditioning and the heat in the same day.

And I'd reckon it's safe to say that Tennessee is one of the few places where you can find the occasional backyard tomato in October. Which is exactly what happened to me.

I thought our tomatoes had died out, but then I went and looked closely, and on October 18 we had at least 10 green tomatoes.

So of course I used this occasion for some Hipstamatic Garden fun time.

But I wasn't sure what to do. Green tomatoes were plentiful, but I found fried green tomatoes a little too intimidating. The weather was not going to stay above freezing for much longer, so instead, we just picked the green tomatoes and waited for them to ripen. Eventually, I had a delicious yellow tomato BLT. Some of the tomatoes went to waste, but at least I managed to salvage enough for a tomato sandwich during the heart of fall.

As for everything else, well, the weeds have taken over. I had planted some fall greens – bok choy, Chinese cabbage, kale, spinach... but I only got about one salad out of it because of traveling every weekend and not taking the time to cover the raised beds.

The green beans came and went a little more quickly. Again, when you're out of town on the weekends and working during the week, you just don't find the time to give your poor little fall garden the attention it deserves.

I did, at least, end up with several hot peppers at the end of October, perfect for adding to tacos or chili.

But now my garden is done, with the exception of my aforementioned garlic. Oh well. Now I hibernate until February or March, and enjoy the fruits of my mom's labor – all the tomato juice she put up, the green beans and peppers she froze, and so on... thank goodness.

Planting Fall Garlic

About a month or so ago, I planted my first-ever crop of garlic. It's great for a fall garden because it doesn't have to be covered during the freezing temperatures (although apparently there are two schools of thought on this matter) and seems to be pretty low-maintenance, which is also helpful since during the week I only see daylight from the window on the other side of my cubicle glass. (Seriously, I suffer from Daylight Savings Time Depression.)

Somehow, like many things in life that I don't know until my mom tells me, I had never made the connection that the clove is actually the seed of garlic – to grow garlic, you plant a clove.

Simply peel a garlic bulb, find a nice-sized clove and put it upright in a little furrow in the soil with the pointy end up, the flatter end down. (Just the way a bulb of garlic would sit when upright.)

As always, please excuse my horrible iPhone camera.

Plant the garlic cloves about two inches apart from each other, covered with about an inch and a half of dirt.

Soon enough, you'll see their green shoots sticking out of the ground – a nice sight to see amongst the browns and browns of November.

This top photo was taken about a month ago, just a week or two after I planted the garlic.

The above photo was taken today, November 28, about a month and a half and several freezes after planting my fall garlic.

I just planted more fall garlic today to see if it will survive. I feel like you just can't ever have enough garlic. It's healthy and flavorful, and I put it in everything, in omelets, on salmon, in vinaigrettes – and my mom's Lentil Soup, a nice warm recipe for a forecast of highs in the 40s, lows in the 20s this week. Brrr.

Lentil Soup
¼ cup good quality olive oil
1 red onion
1 medium leek
1 medium carrot, sliced
2-3 cloves garlic, mashed with coarse salt
1 large celery stalk, diced
1 cup lentils, rinsed
5 cups water or stock
1 tsp. salt

Sauté veggies in olive oil until just turning brown, about 7 minutes, on medium high heat. Add lentils, water/stock and salt.

Cook for 45 minutes. Bring to boil and reduce heat to simmer, partially covering with lid. Skim off foam, stir every now and then until cooked. Taste for salt, add pepper, cover again and let sit for 20 minutes. Can drizzle with olive oil upon serving. Delectable!

Allen Ginsberg's Poem to My Parents

In 1977, my mom's best friend was at Naropa University in Colorado. My mom was a newlywed (younger than I am now) who had graduated college and moved to a farm in Tennessee. Allen Ginsberg was also at Naropa, and he was charging a buck to write a personalized poem, so my mom's friend stood in line, paid a dollar, and had him write a poem for my parents.

She sent the letter to my mom, who read it, appreciated it and then stuffed it in a drawer for ... 32 years. My parents moved into their current house around 1982, and there the poem sat until 2009, when my mom was cleaning out a storage closet and found all of these letters from when she and my dad first moved to Tennessee in the mid-1970s. Among those was the Ginsberg poem, which is now in its proper place, hanging in the kitchen in a double-sided frame so you can read it in its entirety.

Ghost Names!

Friends of the Strange

Jewish Lady!

Male & female phantoms!

Salutations with a

Transparent Buddhist

Signature –

Allen Ginsberg

July 6, 1977

Naropa Institute

This is the back of the poem, with my parents' names and my mom's friend's name. I asked my mom what "AH" meant. Her response: "Ahh?" Who knows. Ginsberg was quite an odd fellow.