Summer has arrived in Salem!

Saturday it was HOT. Loved it! It's been a long time coming.

As usual, up early and to the Farmer's Market where we picked up two Chocolate Cherry tomato plants we'd ordered from the quirky lady who sells the best tomato plants at the market. (I say quirky while she's always very helpful and has tons of knowledge... she isn't what I'd call friendly.) She suggested that variety last year, and they were FANTASTIC. So sweet, so flavorful, so unique to look at (dark purplish-brown fruit)... with only one plant we simply ate them right off the vine while puttering around the garden. None even made it inside the house for salads! This time I also asked for a recommendation for a paste roma to round out my soup garden as well.

Saturday while walking through Fred Meyer, I made my acquaintance with what I have self-diagnosed as sciatica. Concern for why in the hell my left calf would hurt/ache/tingle/go numb for 15 seconds out of the blue resulted in me calling off a trip to WA on Sunday to dive. Txt'ing my buddies at 1am Sunday morning (pickup was just 5 hours away) was tough... I wanted to go so bad not only to chat and get to know these guys better, but to get wet of course! Making that call was hard. But, the right thing to do. While I had a handful of occurrences Saturday and consistent symptoms upon lying down in bed, by morning it was gone and there was no recurrence on Sunday.

Luckily, the day was put to good use in a patio remodeling project that is almost show-worthy. Pictures to come.

I'm still mad-crazy to get into the water, though; Wednesday I just might take a road trip up to dive with a shop owner/instructor I've met who I really enjoy chatting with and look forward to getting to know better. Six hours of driving in order to get about 1:45 in the water? Probably a few more hours of hanging around before/after? Dinner with friends? Sounds like a good deal to me!