One thing that’s weird — among, of course, all the things that are weird — about this current era is how much I spend staring at my own face while I talk. It’s not something that I’m able to do, normally. Now, with grid view on Zoom, my face is as prominent and visible as every other person’s. I try not to stare, but it’s difficult not to. It’s new information that I’ve never had before. I didn’t know that my face looked like that when I did my “I’m smiling so that I don’t inadvertently roll my eyes” smile, for example. So I should stop doing that.
We’ve gotten a good kale crop this year, but the leaves are getting small and wrinkly and the plants are probably on their last legs. The snap peas are thriving. A few bok choy are getting of hearty size. We had the first radish out of the garden yesterday. I put in some basil seeds a few days ago. And some of the carrot seeds have, shockingly, sprouted. I’ve never successfully grown a carrot, and I don’t see why this year would be any different, but I watch those cotyledons daily. It’s a tiny garden bed, so other than the kale (which, really, was very impressive and aphid-free this year), everything is in ones or twos, and not nearly enough to feed us for even a single meal (I’ve never appreciated how inefficient carrots are; you do all that work, feed it all that water, and at the end of the day it’s ONE CARROT — hypothetically, I mean, since I’ve never even managed to grow one carrot). But it is fun to grab a few snap peas for a pre-dinner snack.