While cooking a couple nights ago, I heard a hearty "YOO HOO!" followed by a series of full stomach chuckles from my porch. I looked over at the front window, figuring the sounds came from a friend on her way in the door, smiled, and waved at the window. The light was sufficiently dark outside that the light from the kitchen reflected me back in the window, so I couldn't see who the caller was.

When I opened the door, I quickly realized my guest was not a friend, nor an acquaintance, but rather a person I had never met before.

"I'm going to have salmon tonight for dinner," she quickly said as I opened the door, "and I was wondering if I could have some of your lemons."

Now, this has happened before, more than once actually, as I've found notes on my door with quarters taped to them, or people in the middle of snagging them when I arrive home, or children asking me politely. I usually tell people to take the lemons from the front tree and leave the back tree alone, but most of the people who snag my lemons don't ask me, so I can't tell them to take from the community tree and not the personal tree.

I gave my standard answer when people ask about food in my front yard, "Sure!" expecting her to take one or two lemons and leave.

She said "Thanks!" and tried to hand me a couple dollars cash. I pulled my hands away, telling her no, she didn't have to pay me, just pick the darker ones, they're sweeter. She was surprised, but left with a bounce in her step.

As she stepped away, she pulled out a plastic bag, presumably to fill with lemons. I noticed this morning that I don't have any yellow lemons on either of my trees at this point.

My mom had a similar problem a couple years ago, where someone asked if they could have "some oranges" from her trees, the oranges hanging over the fence, accessible from the road. After she said yes, she noticed two trucks, four Mexicans and the guy who had asked for her permission stripping all the fruit, ripe or not, from her trees. In a huff, she shooed them away, disgruntled a bit at the abuse of her good graces.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about it at the moment, with my lemon trees in the front. No one seems to have snagged any of the pomegranates from the tree in the front yard, though all of the almonds were stolen (I assumed by squirrels, though I have no proof of that one way or the other). Perhaps when the full front yard garden goes in, I'll have to put up fences, even a low one, to delineate "my" space from "public" space. Maybe even a trellis over the edge of the driveway, to further limit the space.

I really don't want to do that, but I really do like my lemons.

Okay, I've finally switched the spam control on the site from Akismet to Mollom. I've been annoyed at the fact that posted comments are ALWAYS put into the Akismet pending queue, even though the number of spam comments has been incredibly low (count 'em, two hands).

Since people I don't know (hi, everyone!) are posting comments, I'd hate for the process to be frustrating for them.

So, switched.

Maybe Mom will start posting comments more.

Shirley stopped by this afternoon. She was on her way home from volunteering at the Full Circle Farm and was hoping for some apples from my trees. I had not 10 minutes before receiving her call to see if I was home, been walking among the trees and thinking that I wasn't going to be able to eat all of these apples before either they spoiled or the mice managed to nibble just enough out of each one to make it unappetizing to even me - I who am just as likely to cut out the bad part and eat the apply anyway as I am to hand it to the dog to eat.

So, I enthusiastically invited her over, even though I forgot to unlock the door, and helped her pick apples after she arrived. I forced a couple pears into her bags before she could resist too much, as Kris hasn't been eating them, and I can't stand them. Admittedly, I'm a little annoyed that he hasn't been eating the pears, since I planted that tree for him in the first place. Not annoyed enough to remove the tree, though, as I learned the lesson of "plant what you'll eat" only last year, and the tree went in three years ago.

Shirley let me know that she was cooking this afternoon with the apples. She was planning some apple walnut zucchini tasty thing. I had intended to head up to the City for today's Super Happy Dev House, but, well, Shirley's cooking declaration inspired me to also cook with apples. I stayed home instead and made a couple apples pies, listening to book four (of which, oh, good lord, the first 20% is the gory, painfully dull details of Bella's wedding. Do I really need to read a book about some 18 year old's marriage to a vampire? Really?).

So, today was a happy, lazy day of cleaning up crap, doing laundry, and baking apple pies.

I really like the William Sonoma Pie and Tart book, circa 2004, which has a pie crust recipe that both tastes great AND doesn't need to be refrigerated for a while after rolling out. Though, I am annoyed that the apple pie recipe says "pile apples high in bottom crust," as I always end up with a 6" gap between the pie crust and the baked down filling.

At one point, I ended up with excess crust, so I rolled it out, doused it with some of the cinnamon and sugar juices from the apples. I put it into the toaster oven at 350° and waited to see what would happen. Shirley had commented recently to me (possibly in the four hours of driving to the Good Life event) that she wanted to make homemade poptarts. I figured I could use this extra crust as a test, and mentioned it to Kris:

"You might be having homemade poptarts."

He looked up at me.

"They might be APPLE poptarts," I continued.

"With appropriate levels of whipped cream and sugar?"

Man after my own heart.

The second pie is for Megan, who had brought over a pie for a communal dinner months and months ago, and left the pie dish with me. I think they had just started packing up their house in anticipation of the tear down, and wasn't going to need the pie dish for a while.

One of these days I'm going to make a pie in every tin and plate I own. All eight of them. No, wait, nine of them.

Better make one or two savory, or I'll be in a world of hurt.

When I was in first grade, my class was going to put on a play for whatever reason it was that schools have to torture the students by making them perform on stage singing and acting for the parents to sit and watch, bored as they fantasize about that other, also currently bored, parent two rows up and four chairs over.

In class, we had just read the story that had some parts like the Three Billy Goats Gruff, in that it had a troll, but was different in that there was a cat, named "Kitty," and her mother, named "Kitty's mother."

Now, at this point in my life, my nickname was Kitty. Note, please, that I rarely admit that for the same reason I changed my name in the first place. That reason? Well, let's see, there was "Meow meow meow meow" (to be sung in the Meow Mix jingle's melody), and "Shitty Kitty" and all sorts of other cat references that after 14 years becomes just TIRESOME. So, when I switched schools (well, and states), I switched names.

In first grade, though? I was still Kitty, and oh how did I relate to the main character in this story! She was smart and clever and talented and, hey, she HAD MY NAME Clearly (CLEARLY!) I was the one to play this character when my teacher told us we were doing the play for the school's year end parent boredom event.

When deciding who would play what part, my teacher started reading off the various names of the characters available. If no one voluteered for the part, the teacher assigned someone the part. I sat eagerly in my chair, my hand poised to shoot up, just waiting for the teacher to say "Kitty."

She managed to say "Ki..." when UP shot my hand, as I propelled my whole body out of my chair. This was my moment.

Until I heard her finish, "...ty's mother?"

I sat down twice as fast, but the damage was done. I was Kitty's mother, and no amount of begging or pleading would change my teacher's mind. Nope, she had eyes for another student to be Kitty, someone who WASN'T named Kitty.

She didn't deserve the part! Any girl could be called "Mother." Heck, half the boys at that could be.

So, at the presentation, I was Kitty's mother. A fact I had pretty much forgotten until last night.

At the end of the Startonomics one-day conference yesterday, in order to encourage conference participants to fill out the evaluation forms, the conference organizers were giving away a handheld Flip Video recorder. I had filled out my evaluation form with excrutiating detail, giving each presenter thoughts on what I liked, what I didn't, what helped, what didn't and what I'd like more details in for his next presentation (I can say his, since there were only two female out of about 14 presenters). There were about 150-200 participants, not all of whom would have filled out a form, so I had about 0.5% chance of winning this recorder.

Now, I'm thinking I totally want one of those video recorders. ESPECIALLY if it's free. I'm not particularly interested in spending $200 for one, but if I win one, hey, cool, I'd use it as much as I use my camera (which, come to think of it, would be sure to annoy my teammates).

So, when Dave starts to draw the winner out of the stack of completed surveys, I was thinking, "Pick me. Pick me. Pick mine. Pick me. Pick me. Pick. Me."

Dave reaches down, draws three surveys, pauses as he looks at the name at the bottom, and reads off "Kitt Hodsden."

WHOO! I'm so excited! My heart starts thumping. YAY!

I turn, sling my backpack over my shoulder, and hustle up to the front.

To be handed a t-shirt.

An XL Google Analytics t-shirt.

Uh...

Um...

Thanks?

I stepped to the side, shoved the shirt into my backpack, and stood disappointed as Dave continued, "And now, for the Flip Video!" and drew another name from the stack of surveys.

Pick me my foot. What am I going to do with another oversized t-shirt that's too big for even Kris? Another night shirt? Maybe stuffing in a dog bed?

Yeah. Pick me.

Wanna hear small world?

On days after Velocity, Kris will drive me to the nearest Starsbuck closest to his work, and drop me off. I'll order a milk and some other item, usually pumpkin bread, sometimes oatmeal, possibly something else. The baristas will comment on my milk ("Milk? Just milk? Ice? (No.) Mocha? (No.) Steamed? (No.) Just milk? (Yes.)). I'll sit down, log onto the wireless, eat and drink and read my overnight spam. Some time later, Doyle will stop by and pick me up, and off to work we'll go. The double carpool works for me. I enjoy it, spending a half hour with Kris, and another half hour with Doyle.

So, I'm here in San Francisco at the Startonomics one-day conference. When I was walking back to my seat on a break, I noticed this guy who I see 2-3 times a week, at the Starsbuck. Just last week, he had been talking to two other guys about starting up a company, and the technical things they needed to do. Well, two of the three guys were talking technical, the other guy was talking nonsense, but we'll ignore that fact for the moment.

The guy in question is there nearly every time I am, but last week was the first time I had heard him speak. It was a moment not unlike when movies began to be heard: some people's voices do not match their face. This guy is one of those people. I was expecting a low voice. Actually, I was expecting a voice like Paul's, and not, by far, what I heard.

I wonder if I should say hello.

Maybe I'll wait until our next join Starsbuck visit.

P.S. Yes, I know. Starsbuck. It's on purpose. Ask Kris.

Update: This world is smaller than I thought it was, and smaller than I want it to be. THAT client is apparently here at this conference. The client that over one year later STILL owes the company money. Maybe if I actually run into the "I'm not a Jackass" jackass, I can tell him just how much I despise both him and his business practices.

Doyle says I'd be better just ignoring the guy.