By the middle of August, the tomato plant had only coughed up three tiny, tough-skinned babies. Still, it was a marvel to us to watch something -- anything -- move from seed to bearing fruit, so we would go out every evening after work just to check on those three little green globes, to praise them and water them and urge them along. Finally, during the last week of the Olympics, they were ready to eat.

And now, it's the beginning of September. The State Fair is underway and I'm dying to have Food on a Stick, and suddenly we have three dozen baby tomatoes, with more buds threatening to sprout. Just like everything else in this life, the timing is completely off, and I'm wondering if we'll be able to harvest any of the newest fruit before it cools down.

"Hi, I'm calling with the [name redacted] campaign and I was hoping to urge you and your husband to come out and volunteer."

"Dude, we live in the third congressional district."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah."

"But that's on the West Side."

"We're self-loathing."

"Wow. Are you sure you live in district three?"

"Was the primary three weeks ago?"

"Oh. Dude. You should move."

"Tell me about it."

::click::

I gave my notice at the last gig a year ago today. A year ago today, I was about 95% certain I had made a huge, GOB-like mistake. I even came up with a contingency plan that involved welding and/or cupcakes.

I'm so glad it didn't come to that. I mean, so, so glad.

So. I'm thirty.

Not much of a change from twenty-nine. That's the blessing of being born middle aged, I suppose, though I did bounce around on Wednesday, threatening to live up the final hours of my impetuous youth by getting a tattoo, quitting my job and chunking the mortgage to live as an olive farmer on some Greek island.

And then I ran out of time and entered the fourth decade tattoo free and still gainfully employed in Albuquerque.

If thirty is even half as fun as twenty-nine was, it's going to be sincerely awesome.

Lot of talk about traction control this weekend.

In Formula One -- traction control's gone this year, which meant watching Kimi go skittering across the kitty litter countless times.

In my life -- I turn thirty in five weeks. There's a definite slide out of my twenties that's unnerving as all hell.

I'm more comfortable talking about Formula One, so . . .

That was a hell of a kick-off race. Three safety car periods -- one of which featured Whozits in the Williams bunging up his Formula One debut royally, another which featured the stupidity of the new Honda chief mechanic and the beginning of Ross Braun's season-long headache -- Linda winning, Nico looking pleased and the amazing run for Toro Rosso before the car broke. Exciting! Exciting enough to keep me from being lulled to sleep by the gentle hum of 19,000 RPMs! That's great!

Heck, there was even some passing -- this could be a fine season for racing.

But it was all about the loss of launch control, of traction control. From the shakeout of this race, the boys who grew up karting (and who aren't far removed from karting) are probably going to have an easier time adapting than the guys who've been playing the role of human analog in the engineer-driven hyper expensive RC cars of seasons gone by. (I mean, do you remember DC's Monaco 2002 win? That'll never happen again.) I think once the middle-level veterans get comfortable with the car, they'll be back in business. Fred's got a chance to climb back up -- the car's not spectacular, but he seemed to be showing a bit of the fight. A bit.

Bahrain in a week will prove me wrong or prove me right. I'm just glad it's back; it's been a very long off-season.

Labels: f1

One that I wish came from the Wayback Machine, 2005 version:

Man, I friggin' heart XM radio! Specifically, I heart Lucy because she keeps me in all 90s alternative, all the time.

I'm turning thirty in April, one of those gasp-inducing birthdays that has me examining my skin every night and using the anti-wrinkle cream and sneering at the Jonah Brothers for being too pretty, too packaged and too friggin' young. "They don't know what real music even sounds like!" I rail at the husband, because he's just about the only person who I rail at these days. "Damn whippersnappers!"

He would agree and then we'd go back into the archives of our iPods, listening to another Pearl Jam bootleg and wishing it was still 1995.

And then we discovered Lucy. Like I said, I completely heart her.

Lucy keeps me awash in the music I was listening to when I first moved up here and discovered radio beyond the two-honky-tonk-station town I had grown up here. Lucy is The Edge, when The Edge was 107.9 FM. Lucy is the soundtrack of my college years, when I lived in a tiny dorm room and caught up on the music of the first Clinton administration. Man. Lucy is that mirror into who I was when turning 30 was waaaaaaaaay down the road, when the world was my oyster and possibilities were endless.

(It's quite possible that that Sarah would be dismayed to meet me, but that's her problem.)

Lucy is also the answer to the question the husband posed to me a few weeks ago, before we knew of Lucy's existence, which was "So, when we're old and Nirvana's been classified as ancient history and is played only on oldies radio, are we going to listen to that station incessantly?"

Well, yeah.

Lucy, you rock.

Adam took that. I cannot believe how friggin' awesome it is.