A friend asked me to go clamming this morning, but she wanted to leave at like 6:30 and while I am in fact usually awake at 6:30, I am not usually happy about it. So I gracefully declined and did not go clamming but she brought me clams anyway. This was lovely. I like clams. My brother, on the other hand, is afraid of them, partly because at some point in his life he internalized a gout diet directive that strictly forbade clams and partly because, I have no idea, but I suspect a horrifying story is involved. It is okay. I ate his clams.

I got my brother a cheeseburger and I made the first recipe from this pdf, kinda sorta, and ate it on french bread, and it was scarily delicious and also, I recognize that I might die. That is the thing with shellfish. You might die. There is no predicting it. My father used to tell a story about a friend of his who ate a bad oyster and that was it, cut down in the prime of life. I will probably have a panic attack later but right now, full of clams – I ate a lot of clams, y’all – I don’t much care. It was worth it. Still, DOOM!

Well, DOOM! CLAMS! Clams also mean money, or they did at one point like a hundred years ago. Not really in my lifetime, although in my childhood it came up often enough in ancient cartoons that we got the gist from context. And money is no longer worth what it was just, oh, like two months ago? Or something? I got paid on Friday and took myself to the gas station, where it cost me $75 to fill up my tank even though I had a discount from the grocery store. Then I bought a very few things from the natural grocery store – not, mind you, the fancy good natural grocery store, the chain one – and that was $50. For 2 dozen eggs, 6 gallons of water in containers I brought with me, soap and a piece of salmon jerky for me and Harvey to split in the car. Doom, doom, doom, doom I sang in the car. Doom! Doom dee da doo dah DOOM! I have several doom songs I sing these days. If you have a bleak enough sense of humor you will find that the word DOOM just lends itself to all kinds of songs. Just swap it in. As the country collapses and runaway inflation takes full hold, the DOOM song gets louder and louder and louder. I went to Costco today. I’m not even going to say how much that was, or comment on how things have gone up another dollar since last week but I will say, y’all. $10 for strawberries in May seems a bit steep for, I don’t know, most of the citizenry? Things are getting dire around here and strawberries are not on the menu. We already eat beans and rice two or three times a week. There is not much more we can do. Our bootstraps are breaking with a terrible plunk sound every time another bill comes due. It is kind of like the sound I think it might make when somebody builds a six flags looking arena wall of death thing on the fucking white house lawn. Plink, plank, plunk, this is the sound of doom or a boiling frog.

On to the photos and the news from last week! On Sunday Four was at my house, helping with the garden by making a waterfall with the hose on the steps. She managed not to get soaked, which was nice. I am slowly trying to reclaim my front yard garden even though it is really just a circle of mint, rosemary and tall tall grass now. On Monday, which was Memorial day, it rained and here’s a deer. I love photos with raindrops. On Tuesday another deer, this one at my work with the full glory of the Columbia* behind it. Yes, indeed we do have a lot of deer here. That would be why my garden consists of mint and rosemary. On Wednesday I only took one photo and this is it: Harvey on the other side of the airport trail. Thursday, I went to two openings. This is the 8×8 show at AVA, Astoria Visual Arts (note my sneaky selfie) and I have two pieces in it. It’s a benefit show and you should go buy something to support them because they are awesome. The second one was the student show up at the college, also well worth checking out. On Friday I went to work and then when I came home I watered my pathetic kitchen pothos. Saturday, in a beautiful illustration of the triumph of hope over experience, I finally got my four tomato plants into pots. I planted them with hope in my heart even though I have been trying for seven years to grow tomatoes in pots in my courtyard and pretty much failing. There is just not enough light and it’s too damn cold. I know this, but I’m still trying. Maybe this year will be different! I’m only doing cherry tomatoes and two of them are specifically Oregon cultivars.

* Four goes to a proper hippie school as all children should and they have learned this song, so now it plays in my head every time I say Columbia! Gods bless Woody he had his heart in the right place even if we nowadays do not celebrate dams so much. If he was alive he’d be helping tear them down too.

So, doom doom doom notwithstanding, let’s all hope we have a good week. I have an extremely scary medical test on Tuesday, so send me good thoughts and well wishes, internet people, I need them now. Love to you all!