After a very social evening and an indulgent ending at In N’ Out burger I woke up this morning hoping to round it all out with a trip to the Farmer’s Market in West Hollywood.

The avocados are beautiful, even though they take 10 days to ripen, they are well worth it.

There is an entire booth devoted to mushrooms, one for sprouts, one for nuts and seeds another one for artisan bread, a fish cart.There is something about purchasing my food from those that grow it that puts me in a great, grateful mood. I was going to buy some halibut, but decided to consult my recipe book and plan for it next week. Any suggestions?

Over the last few years I’ve made several attempts at getting my t-shirt company up and running and each attempt had one common flaw: It was too much work. I don’t mean that in the “I want something for nothing” way, it was more work than it needed to be and that sapped my enthusiasm even more than my resources.

After a few dazzling debt hurdles I suddenly found myself relatively free of financial obligation. Finally I was able to make my money work for me and let me tell you sister – it’s been workin’. Gone are the days of inhaling bleach fumes all day with my place littered with pails of dye. No more self-advertising, self-selling, pavement pounding nonsense for me. Let someone else take care of that for a change, someone who does it PROFESSIONALLY. I don’t make my own butter because there are people that do it better than I ever could and this is the same sort of deal.

My new line, Hazz-been, is a tribute to and a reflection of my green ways; I’m so green that I don’t use plastic bags when I collect PD’s little nuggets, I use paper towels (I do however, keep a couple of plastic bags on hand in case we have an ass-plosion). The name Hazz-been was a last resort after I learned my original idea of Haz* Mat was not so original, and neither were my other choices; I think I was only able to get Hazz-been because someone let it expire. I am currently working on another line that is more masculine, edgy and true-to-form, a little mischievous, but for right now, today and the next couple of days this is Hazz-been.

A few Thursdays back the Pilgrim Monument here in P’town turned 100. It is the largest free-standing, granite structure in the U.S. and it is P’town’s claim to fame… among other things.

I knew there would be fireworks, but thought that by turning the radio on high and the AC on loud it would smother the noise for PD. At 9:30 I was serving one of my last tables and had a feeling that I should go home quickly and check on the dog. I was 3 minutes away by bike and my boss was kind enough to let me go.

As you might have imagined PD was gone. He had managed to flip his crate upside down and separate the walls to escape and push open the back door (by the grace of God I did choose to lock it, otherwise there would have been extensive damage done to the apt before he finally managed to get out, which he would have).

I returned to work only to say that I had to go and search for the dog. The town was packed; I have never seen so many people and I knew that the increase in population would only serve as a terrible obstacle. I asked anybody who was standing outside if they had seen a white dog run by. A couple of people said they had seen a “wild dog” tear through there about 20 minutes before. Shit. I knew what state he was in and the direction he was heading toward was bad. I got into my truck to look for a body on the side of the road… I gave up realizing that I had to go home and wait. PD has tags and angels so I was comforted in trusting that would take care of him.

At 3AM I got a phone call asking me if I was the owner of a dog named PD. 10 minutes later he arrived in the back of a Honda with some hippie dudes who were brave and kind enough to pick him up. He was filthy, scared and covered with scratches. I bathed him, welcomed him home and we went to bed. It was the next morning during our walk that I noticed a limp… upon further investigation I could see that the pads beneath his paws were worn down with chunks cut out of the larger portion of the pad.

My vet got us in and bandaged 3 of PD’s paws. I was instructed to keep them really dry and was given IV bags to keep the paws protected. That so did not last. After a weekend of the bandages and that dreadful collar they came off. For one day I had to keep them covered yet still allow air to get to them. This was a challenge as a simple sock was not doing the trick. After some drainstorming and creative flow I designed a garter belt looking thing that attracted much attention and questions from passers by; for the entire day we took back roads and avoided eye contact with anybody… PD of course I feel felt the sympathy and opted to cash in on it any chance he got. At the end of the day… I’m glad he was found and the shit makes for a good story.

Imagine my shock when I paid a visit to my shop only to discover it had crashed and was displaying an annoying (and embarrassing) error message. Ugh! And the day before I was supposed to have the stupid thing ready with my new merchandise. What I had pictured as an hour long task turned into a day and a half of e-mail tag with tech support all the while feeling helpless and foolish. Thankfully that’s all behind me now and the first batch of new shirts is proudly displayed on my not-quite-dead-yet e-commerce site!

This year I’m selling each shirt individually online so what you see is what will arrive in the mail (if all goes according to plan, that is). I hope this will make the experience a little less grab-baggy than it was last year. Anyway, drop by the old shop and check out what I’ve got. If nothing strikes your fancy then hold on a while and a spanking new bunch will be there very soon.

It turns out that I have an entire month left on the membership site so sorry for jumping the gun last week. At least that gives me some breathing room. I finished my final update earlier in the week and it sort of sucked that the site was closing so soon after. Well, now there’s time again! I just love a second chance.