Ohh, it's been a week. Monday nights have now been officially dubbed the blogging hour, frozen-chocolate-dipped pineapple tastes better than mini Dove bars, I've danced in adobe-cob mud (while building with it!), read an excellent book - The Town That Food Saved - and put some significant time and thought into that List Of Colleges That I Might Apply To Come Autumn. And been introduced to Lacan's Mirror Stage Theory, and added some random whatsit to the bottom of that page about me, among other things. Bottom line: I have a lot to share, so bear with the verbosity and appreciate the efforts at brevity (it's sad, but those efforts are probably more frequent than you'd guess).

Now. Dipped berries are delicious any evening. It was Thursday night and I only wanted to do a dozen or so, and around about the last strawberry something miraculous happened. There was leftover chocolate! Not wanting to dip something as plain as Ritz crackers or as complicated as peanuts, I turned to survey the contents of the fridge. Carrots might be messy whole, and too small - like peanuts - if cut (although maybe one day chocolate carrot sticks will find their way into my lunch, assuming we run out of pineapple first). I rejected as well the grapes, the cheese, and the leftover grilled chicken before moving the latter to reveal a container of cut pineapple.





I then stuck these in the freezer for the night, recalling how good frozen pineapple tasted just plain.

You should know that my parents have this competition every year where the person to turn on the air conditioning first loses. You should also know that it hit 100 in Phoenix last week, which translated to 96 for Tucson, and it was only the end of March (gotta love the heat wave - "you thought you were in for a nice weekend? April Fool's!").

The next morning, after sleeping on top of the blankets and opening all the windows, I went back to the choco-cryo-pineapple and bit off part of a frozen chunk. Ambrosially-textured fruit melted in my mouth, complemented by the softening undertones of dark chocolate. Folks, definitely try this at home.

dance move #1, the step

[nice transition forgone] ... Adobe cob building is one of the most fun demonstrations ever. I mean, seriously. When else are you allowed to dance around on top of a pile of mud in the name of mixing it properly to make something productive?


It does take some getting into, which was the point of the demo. Note the skeptics as they observe with crossed arms. After a basic introduction, my crew-leader-fellow Andre joined in (left, holding the hose).



dance move #2, the twist

And once the actual building got going, everything and everyone was so covered in adobe and straw that I was glad to have put the camera away after the demo. (I'm the dork in the red-banded hat, by the way. The program manger, Shanti, took those pictures.)

And so went another Saturday, extensive cleanup included. I'm looking forward to being a part of next Saturday's curriculum, which actually begins on Friday night with a campout. Dinner will be cooked in the recently renovated mud oven.

Come next Monday, there will be some pictures from the YFP's field trip to Sleeping Frog Farms.

Stay tuned.

(Tomorrow will bring the results of the purple Kool-Aid. Mystery sentence? Catchline? Blonde sister?)