So I am trying to eat more vegetables. I discovered that I really like the Trader Joe Indian food in a pouch- each is about 300-400 calories total, and that has been my lunch for the last couple weeks. Very convenient and according to the packaging, no nasty chemicals.

That's another thing, nasty chemicals. Of course I am typing this with a Diet Coke next to me. What the fuck is BENZOATE. Once all of the pop is gone, I'll go cold turkey (have done this before, I have pretty good willpower).

And food packaging- why is there so much wasteful packing on everything? The only garbage I throw out is cat litter and plastic food packaging. Everything else gets recycled, but I still feel uneasy about all of this refuse I am generating. Store clerks act so surprised when I tell them I do not want a bag, that I will just carry things. I HATE those damn plastic bags at stores. You drive down the road in Arizona and they are everywhere- stuck to trees and bushes.

The big downside of living in Tucson is my inability to have a regular garden and grow my own vegetables. I just haven't figured out how to do so, and anyways the amount of water you use to get a tomato is probably pretty disgusting.

In other news, I am experimenting with Indian cooking. I made potato and cauliflower curry and discovered that the recipe didn't use enough spices for the amount of potatoes and cauliflower I used (it would probably have been better to specify cups or ounces instead of "two medium potatoes." What the hell is a medium potato?

The birds spilled sunflower seed into the pots on my front porch. Some of them started to grow.

The cats leave nose prints on the front window from watching the birds.

Where the deer and the antelope play.

This antelope posed, standing still while I took its picture.

Antelope (click on picture for a better view).

I traveled north to Flagstaff to spend the weekend with Evan. We went to see some petroglyphs and this lizard posed as well.

Lizard.

Saturday night we watched a movie, the Red Violin. Evan spoiled me by making supper.

This morning we went to look for elk, but only saw a pair of deer.

In the woods.

Bark beetles and climate change are killing many of the biggest trees.

Deceased pine tree.

A trail of sherds led to a small two-room structure in the woods. It always surprises me how many archaeology sites there are in the Flagstaff area.

Indian Paint Brush.

When I got home it was 106 degrees. I guess summer is here.

My neighbors got a little chihuahua puppy a couple of months ago. By now they are mostly bored with it and little Tiny (my name) mostly sits in a lattice cage in the front yard, bored out of her cute little mind.

Tiny.

She is always so excited to see me in the morning, and this morning she had got out of her cage and so I reached over the fence and picked her up. She and I watered plants together after she finished licking my cheek.

This video contains two of my favorite things: Fleet Foxes and goats.

The blue door is now purple.

Homer and Snowball.

Doug the Handy-Man is busy doing some work for me- painting, repairing a chimney, coating the roof, fixing the mailbox, and so on. Things that I am too lazy or uncoordinated to do myself. It is nice to come home and see things looking better or actually working.

Memorial Day- I stopped by the cemetery on the way back from Lowes. I wandered around looking at the tombstones, searching for soldiers.

Unknown soldier.

They moved graves from the old cemetery here in the 1910s and there are several unidentified soldiers from the Grand Army of the Republic plot.

I saw tombstones in English, Spanish, Russian, Georgian, Chinese (possibly Japanese too), Arabic, and Greek. Some of the old stones have little enameled photographs, long gone people peering out at you. Some of the new stones now have engraved images, in one case a woman with her dog.

There was a ceremony going on, but for whatever reason I was feeling sad so I came on home instead. I'm going to work on my latest project- compiling biographies of the 380 or so Civil War soldiers buried in the local cemetery back in Traverse City. Never a dull moment at my place.