it is done

Music: Various Artists: Pop Ambient 2008 (2008)

Yesterday I turned in my tenure packet to the angels in the department office. Although I had planned to photograph the ritual, I just sort of ran out of steam because of the events of last week. The gesture was somewhat anticlimactic, because I also know I'm not really done. I'll be asked to redo things after it comes back from the department committee. Then, I'll be asked to redo some things from the dean's office before it goes to college committee. After the packet comes back from the college committee, I'll be asked to tweak things yet again---and rinse, repeat for each remaining stage (university-wide committe, central administration, provost, and so on). It's not really "done," then. But at least the bulk of the labor is finished.

Speaking of finished, I'd like to turn to more cheerful things, like my garden and its gnomes. My garden is also "finished," in the sense that the plants cannot take much more of this triple digit heat any longer! When I was out of town, the neighbor didn't water the hanging plants for some reason, and when I returned they were dead. Or almost dead. I pruned and fertilized the crap out of them and put them in sunny spots. They are re-sprouting leaves, so to borrow a phrase from Skinny Puppy, they ain't dead yet!. I went to Home Duh-Pot and replaced the hanging plants with new ones that were literally $2.50 a piece, on clearance.

The rest of the garden is still growing, however, with two waterings a day. So much so, in fact, that over half of the gnomes are now grown over! You can only see their little red hats poking through the leaves. I'm somewhat disappointed that my zucchini plant didn't produce me something. And I confess I'm not terribly excited about the Tabasco peppers I planted instead of jalapenos. I think I will go back to jalapenos next year.

So, to see the progress, you can compare my garden from the planting season, to a couple months after planting season in early summer, to the dog days of August.