Hmm. Well, we've decided that C-man/Belliful has too many tomatoes. I know! Is that possible? Well, it is. He has too many plants for us to take up the slack when the restaurants don't take enough tomatoes (and by "enough" I mean more than 300 pounds in four to five days).

So, C-man will be selling tomatoes outside the Birchwood again, starting tomorrow night. I wish he'd do something more formal, but I bet he won't. It's hard to organize more formal, and he doesn't have a lot of time to do that right now. (By more formal, I mean see if he can slip in at St. Paul, because there's definitely room for him, or maybe at Midtown).

He's also been invited -- he and his tomatoes, that is -- as a special guest to the Mill City tomato festival on the 18th. Please, please, please will he come, they'd really love for him to be there, he would *make* the festival. Well, sure, if it's still all crafty there like it was at the beginning of July, then they simply don't have enough organic/heirloom vegetable growers in-house to pull off a tomato festival.

Also, yesterday, he told me that Tor at Town Talk is all excited because he came up with a great tart (C-man said pie, but I'm thinking it sounds more like a tart) based on C-man's tomatoes. A round of pie crust, bottom-layered with arugula, then walnut pesto, then I think he said some kind of cheese, topped by a big fat round slice of one of C's tomatoes that covers the top of the whole tart. Sounds pretty. Apparently they sell out every night. I told C-man that he needs to go in and get the menus from all his restaurants to find out what they're making with his tomatoes.

This week is exceedingly busy and emotional for us. A lot of events. So, in honor of that, we sat around and did chores, mostly in the house, all day yesterday even though it was a gorgeous day.

I think I overdid it on the schultute. I know I overdid it. But I sure did have a lot of fun stuffing the cones full of stuff.

And so it begins. Today is the first day of school . . . After I handle a massive data request and the boys pick 140 pounds of tomatoes, along with all the stuff for the Tuesday night market stand.

I'm glad I get the data request.

A bit from an e-mail to a friend, which summarizes why I haven't talked about the weekend, including our Saturday at the market, our trip to the Arboretum (which was lovely but half-finished), our stalled and thwarted plans for celebrating our 10th anniversary which upsets me and I don't want to talk about it, tea on Sunday with Heather who starts her PhD program next week, pizza with Jimmy Nardello sweet frying peppers, a clean fridge and floor, a walk with the bike riding E-boy who needs the training wheels raised on his bike, or anything else***:

We are in deep discussions about where we as a family/couple, C-man in particular, me a little bit, and Belliful are all going. All of those things, but maybe mostly C-man and Belliful. I don't have much energy for journaling leftover. Plus I'm really really cranky so if I were to post it would be kind of snarky. I'm kind of just generally irritable and angry at no one and nothing right now. Par for the course for this time of year, which is very hard on me.

August is a hard month for me, because I expect a lot out of it, pack too much into it, get disappointed that not everything can be done, and invariably over-stress my still highly introverted self.

And this morning I was thinking about my grandmother and I realized that the perfectionist tendencies/training in our family run very, very deep. Good thing that, also this morning, the library notified me that my first perfectionism-related book (Freeing Your Family From Perfectionism) is awaiting me. Of course, since I'm a non-recovering perfectionist, it probably won't be the last. And I have to remember to go get books about only children, now that this is official.

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled Tuesday.



*** Backhanded enough for ya? 'Cause I could do a rewrite and make it even more backhanded. Maybe. Honestly, I think that's about as backhanded as it gets.

We are all onions, especially us quiet ones. I like being an onion.

I cried on the way to work today. Not bad tears, maybe a little frustrated. Definitely a little frustrated. C-man was late and he didn't call and I was late for work and there was no reason for his lateness and it upset me. Then that Snow Patrol song, Chasing Cars, came on, and it was the right song for the moment. And so I cried.

( lyrics )

And my child will be a kindergartner in just over two weeks. My delicate but silly, sensitive but independent child. Will he be okay? Will his feelings be hurt? Will he be excluded? Will he make friends? Will I be able to parent him through the bumps, or am I too damaged from my own bumps to know the right way through?

We got the class lists and other parent information stuff by e-mail. They are so informative, that school. There will be eighteen kids in his class, and only six are boys. It's good for him to learn to play with girls, but will they learn to play with him? I get defensive thinking about that. I don't want to gender-judge (especially not my own gender!), but my observations cause me to worry just a little.

We have another market for Belliful. Starting next Saturday, we'll be at the Mill City Farmers Market, where the fancy rich empty-nesters and foodies shop. It's a good place for C-man's eclectic produce, and hopefully we'll make good money. But that's just one more thing on top of my full plate. And lately, I've not had much appetite (literally and figuratively), so I'm just going to try to make it through to October.

I am not as gloomy as this post sounds, but I've still got that wall of tears leftover from the cry in the car, the tears I didn't let fall because I had to walk into the building and not be any later than I already was. I think the tears are falling as words.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the weekend, especially if I can finish the last 55 pages of Life of Pi before book group tonight. I forgot about the French guy, and I remembered about the meerkats.

I started a new journal for Belliful. It's called, uh, belliful. Already I'm not sure how it's going to work out, since maybe my thoughts about the business aren't the kind that would be useful or interesting to anyone but me or C-man. And also, I worry that customer-type folks -- people interested in gardening and food -- don't really want to hear about the business side of things. But that's what's on my mind, so that's what went into the first real entry.

I guess I'll see how it goes. If I can convince C-man to journal in it sometimes, I think it will turn out a lot better.

Tomorrow, C-man is delivering garlic scapes to Birchwood Cafe, and green garlic to the Modern. And so, the season begins. Go Belliful!