When Washington changed their marriage paperwork to accommodate same-sex marriage, they debated replacing “wife/husband” with “spouse a/spouse b”, “applicant 1 / applicant 2″, and other varieties.  I can’t recall off the top of my head what language they chose.

Last night Andy referred to me, out of long habit, as wife.  “Spouse, dear”, i reminded him.  “Spouse”.

Andy:  Oh right!

me:  Which do you want to be?  Spouse A, or Spouse B?

Andy:  It should be Spouse A and Spouse 1.  Which do you want to be?

me:  Spouse A — the one with the letter, of course.

Andy:  Oh good, i wanted to be Spouse 1.

NERD MARRIAGE: when English and chemistry majors wed.

I kind of love welcome mats.  I love when they have cats on them, when they’re silly, when they’re seasonal.  But i’ve refused to actually purchase a welcome mat for our place because we live in an apartment where, by the time you’ve walked across the carpeted halls and stairs of our building, you arrive at our door with pretty clean soles.

But, c’mon, this thing was half-off, so like i wasn’t going to buy it.

Every now and then i stop in my tracks in the middle of the day and wonder to myself, “Why am i not re-watching Back to the Future right this very second???” I’m not even sure that i’ve seen it since the ’80s. What is wrong with me?? Well, guess i have my plans for the weekend.

Andy:  “I think i love Zuko so much because his voice reminds me so much of yours sometimes.”

my garden & 'Easy Growing' (by Gayla Trail)

Gayla Trail‘s newest book (Easy Growing: Organic Herbs and Edible Flowers from Small Spaces @ Powell’s) arrived at exactly the right time:  TODAY.  Today was unseasonably warm (60F+!!) and sunny in Seattle.  I was able to eat lunch on the deck (while browsing my Seed Saver’s Exchange catalog, which also arrived today!)!!  “I am so ready to start gardening,” i thought.  And then i picked up my copy of this book on the way home.  I’m really excited to start reading it — i’ve loved Gayla’s other 2 books, and have no doubt this one will be every bit as useful as those.

I am eager to get my hands in the dirt and start gardening this year.  Last year was lousy in some ways¹, but i guess great in others because the plants that made it thru’ my inability to maintain a consistent garden-tending schedule are really buff.  This year i’m going to manage garden maintenance via repeating tasks in my Remember The Milk, since RTM has been working (more or less) pretty well for me for the past 9 months.

I’m itching to start a few seeds, but i guess the 1st step is to plot out exactly where i’m going to plant everything.  I always wind up with more plants than space — in my head the number of self-watering pots keeps multiplying.

One of my garden goals for 2012 is to really master companion planting.  I suck at (a) knowing what plants i can put together in one pot, and (b) keeping them going all summer.  What can i plant beneath my dwarf cherry tree?  What can i plant in with my rosemary now that it’s in a spacious self-watering pot??

And why won’t my mint grow??!

Oh, hey, if you’re interested in starting stuff from seed, stay tuned.  I need to catalog my seeds soon, and once i’ve done that i’ll have a list of stuff i’m happy to swap/give away.

1. Why?  Whyyyy am i the only person on the planet who cannot keep mint growing?? [↩]

I have an enormous rant to make about what an awful process it’s been to switch cell phones, but i’ll make that its own post.  I didn’t even want to stop using my old cell phone, but it is a nearly-5-year-old smartphone and she’s starting to slow down a bit.  Rest well, mighty Pigwidgeon!

So Andy and i switched back to Credo Mobile¹, which means we’re both going to be using Android phones now because apparently smartphones don’t actually come in “we’ll leave you alone to do your thing without making you live in ‘the cloud’” varieties anymore.  [sob]  Andy got his last week; mine will be here next week².

Now i have to figure out how to replicate my beloved Pigwidgeon on this weird new gadget.  Let’s talk apps!  My phone will be the HTC EVO Shift™ 4G.  The apps i’m already planning to get (because i’ve been using the old Windows Mobile version on Pigwidgeon and i love/need them) are:

• Evernote
• Last.fm
• OneBusAway
• Seattle Public Library

I’m also going to try:

• Remember the Milk (I’m a subscriber, but there wasn’t an app for Windows Mobile.)
• Happy Cow (Because i want to eat more vegetarian, and it’s hard when you’re in unfamiliar territory.)
• Winamp (Because it really whips the llama’s ass.)  [And if Winamp doesn't work, i'll try the Android version of MortPlayer Music, because i've been pretty happy using the Windows Mobile version on Pigwidgeon.]
• WordPress (Because you all want me to be able to update this blog from the bathroom, right??)

And then there’s everything else, which is where i have questions — not least of which because some of my absolute favorite Pigwidgeon apps do not all have Android verions.

Twitter

I need a Twitter app, because Twitter is where so many of my friends live.  On Pigwidgeon i’ve been using moTweets, which has been pretty great over the years (i’d almost stick with this awful, irritating Windows Phone 7 just to keep moTweets).  What do you like for Twitter on your Android?

app monitor

I need something that will show me what apps are running and will allow me to turn them off.  I know Android has some functionality like that (i’ve been poking around at Andy’s phone), but i’ve read varying reports on its usefulness.  I want to be able to fully shut down an app, not just send it to the background.  Pigwidgeon’s Windows Mobile had a built-in system monitor where i could shut down any app, and it’s been baffling me that Windows Phone 7 doesn’t have anything like that.

Outlook syncing

I maintain both my calendar and my contacts in Outlook.  Suggestions for syncing to Android?  Keeping in mind i want to keep maintaining my calendar and contacts in Outlook.  Ay, there’s the rub, because, no, i don’t want to maintain this shit in Google.  Yeah, i get that Android is probably going to put this stuff into Google whether i like it or not, but i don’t want to muck about with using Google as the method for maintaining the data.  So, yes, i’ll want to be syncing my Outlook data with my phone once or twice a week.  Suggestions?  I’ve been reviewing PC Magazine’s article for ideas.

office suite

I use Windows Office for documents and spreadsheets, and i’m a pretty skilled user who doesn’t want to switch from Office right now — thus, any documents that i might want to put on my phone to read/edit later are going to be Word and Excel docs.  Andy’s already warned me that he hates Android’s built-in document editors, so i’m sure to hate them even more.  Any suggestions for apps that have good Word/Excel reading/editing functions?  I need to be able to carry my zine library list on my phone so i don’t wind up with duplicates, and it’s an Excel spreadsheet.

time

I’ve been using SPB Time for timing functions, and it’s been absolutely brilliant.  It’s not just a stopwatch function, but also has 5 pre-set countdown timers.  I use the stopwatch function, and it’s been useful, but having pre-set countdown timers is what i really need.  My 5 are: 3 for teas, 1 for 20-minute bursts of productivity (tidying the house, writing emails, &c.), and 1 for my office lunch break (because if i don’t come back in time, the office manager becomes enraged).  It looks like there’s an Android version of SPB Time, so i’ll probably try that, but for one thing, it doesn’t look like it comes with a free trial (booo!!), and for another it looks like a version i tried on Pigwidgeon the other year and didn’t really like, so if you have a time app you like that has both robust pre-set countdown timers and a stopwatch, let me know!  I don’t need something fancy, i just need to time my tea.

travel

It’s hard to fully express my love for SPB Traveler (which, alas, they don’t seem to have ported over to the Android yet).  It combines things i’ve seen individual apps for — clocks and weather for cities around the world³, conversions for clothing sizes and currency, a calculator for figuring tips.  Plus the travel function itself, where you can enter all the niggling details of your trip — flight/plane times, hotel check-in/check-out — and it both keeps track of it in the app (with a handy count-down function so i know exactly how many days until WisCon) and also adds the details to the system calendar.  And, i know, there are probably apps out there that do one or more of these things, but i’ve loved having an app that manages them all in one integrated package.

stars

I’m an astronomy nerd, so keeping track of the stars on my phone is fun.  I’ve been using Pocket Stars, and i like it well enough but i’m not quite as married to it as i am moTweets.  Any suggestions for Android?

Your suggestion here….

Anything cool you really like and want to recommend?

1. ‘Cause we’re hippies with decent paychecks. [↩]
2. See above re: “awful process”. [↩]
3. I know, the Android phone i’m getting has a built-in weather function.  But it cannot find any of the towns local to where my mother lives, whereas SPB Traveler can.  Suck it, Android. [↩]