...what plants grow in JUST shade?

I love old Chicago buildings. Sometimes they mean you get weird nooks and crannies, or a bonus living room. Sometimes they mean you have two windows in your apartment that form a tiny heat wind-tunnel triangle with a brick wall.

There's little to no sunlight here (think Bane's "The Pit" but not in the desert). Some plants that don't just handle partial shade, but complete shade:

Impatiens, Forget-me-nots, Begonias, Lily of the Valley, *wild* Violets, and Pansies.

How Stuff Works has a good list with quick, useful details, but not all of these love complete/full shade.

If you're like, "Hey, what is this planting zone thing? What zone am I?" you can enter your zip code on the USDA Plant Hardiness site and it will tell you the deets.

...how to take a cutting of a plant?

*work with new growth
*healthy dark green leaves (not light green or flowering)
*should be 2-5 inches
*strip the bottom leaves
*a single fluorescent light or indirect sunlight is good. Not direct.

Unshockingly, most of the how-to I found was from the UK. The plants I want to "propagate" are... well, a lot. I'm kinda just experimenting here because I have a eensy bit of garden space for once AND an empty pot or two. :) WikiHow was a big winner here, as it seems to offer the most lazy man's methods. I liked these easy tips on why NOT to root just in water, even though that's what I'm going to try first.

Hydrangeas-->
-Same tips as above. Choose one with a woody base, make it about 5 inches or so. Apparently hydrangeas are easy to propagate, so I'm just sticking them in some water and will change it frequently.





<--Succulents:
-Samesies. Stick a good sized cutting in water, then replant in a planter that isn't much bigger than it. They like cozy homes. *This isn't my hand. In case you haven't noticed, I'm trying to get out of doing a lot of work but still do things that usually take a lot of work. So finding a picture that looks like one I'd take and upload was handy. :)


Here's a short (albeit unstable) video that shows you clearly what to do:



All in all, do these things to just about any plant. Some are hardy and will regrow pretty much no matter what, while others are fairly delicate and would do better if you bought root growth hormone and made it a mini green house with a plastic bag or plastic pot cover. I'm not ready to mess with / invest in those yet, but you can also make your own root hormone from willow clippings (don't have one) or from honey... this one is so easy I might even try it! :) Just boil a 1:3 ratio of honey to water, let it cool completely, and then dunk your clippings in it before sticking them in moist (ew) soil. Yay!

...about not having tapioca "pearls" or whatever. (And other peach pie issues.)

Mariano's had a mega peach sale the other day. Amidst patting myself on the back for finally mastering the art of "skinning" peaches (I did it, Paula! don't overdo the time in the boiling water and ice water REALLY means ice water), I was like, "Damn! I should really share this slippery peach moment. Eh, that's not really long enough to post about." But then I ran into more questions.

Tapioca pearls? What? I don't have those.
Also, the big ones are gross to me. Bubble tea is like sucking down giant fish eggs. But what are they?

1. It's the starch extracted from the cassava root. If you've ever read Things Fall Apart, you'll remember hearing about it, kinda like yucca (...pretty sure it's not the same). If you haven't read TFA, stop reading this crap and go do it now. Then come back and finish reading.

2. They may or may not cause cancer (Germany says yes, Taiwan says no... but also Taiwan makes it). This appears to be less about tapioca and more about sketchy manufacturing practices; apparently, chemicals we figured out in the 70's were no good are still hanging around and getting mixed in, albeit in small amounts. Not that tapioca is otherwise good for you... it's like 100% carbs. Eesh: "One cup of dried tapioca pearls (152 grams) contains roughly 544 calories, 135 grams of carbohydrates, one gram of dietary fiber, zero grams of fat, and zero grams of protein." 

3. Also if you're allergic to latex, you might be allergic to cassava. Also, I feel bad for you. If you cook cassava wrong, it can produce cyanide, which is super deadly to eat. GREAT. But I think one cassava has been tapioca'd, it's past worrying about cyanide, so that's cool.

4. How to replace? Well, you can use 1/2 the amount corn starch instead. Or some ratio of flour. Bad news is that tapioca can handle being frozen and thawed, whilst corns starch apparently cannot. Great time to find this out as my frozen peach pie fillings are already IN THE FREEZER. Guess I'll add more before baking?

Great. Moving on. I also have all these peach pits, and if you read my "how to use the whole duck" post, you'll know I like to not waste. So what can I do with them? And what are those almond looking nuts inside? If this turns out to be where almonds come from, I'm going to feel like a real asshole.

>Okay, that little nut things is a "noyau" (thanks, French people) and is NOT an almond, only almond-flavored. I've definitely eaten one before, on a whim, which is always a great reason to eat things, so when YET ANOTHER CYANIDE reference came up, I was duly creeped out.
Wine break.
Back. Btw, that wasn't really because I was that creeped out, I just needed it. I pre-made TWO pies I don't get to eat today, okay people?! Here are recipe basics from Brave Tart (ahaha):

1 peach pit (or other stone fruit pit) per 2 oz. liquid (= 8 pits / pint)
Bring whatever liquid you want flavored to a simmer (yes, even alcohol), then shut it off and leave for 2 hours to overnight in the fridge depending on the depth of flavor you want.

*You can get the noyaux after all this, too. Roast the pits at 400f for a half hour to dry them out after a steep, then crack 'em. To avoid the "scary, scary cyanide" (it may be best not to get cheeky about poison...), roast the little nuts for another 15 on their own and you're good to go.

Apparently even up in Chicago we can grow peach trees. The winter is a weirdly good way to induce them... if you want to grow a peach tree, check this detailed post out. Thanks, Michigan Non-Profit Peach Sponsors! Okay, even I'm maxed out on this. Good luck with your cooking, people, and let's hope the cyanide doesn't get us!




Bonus facts I wish I didn't now know:

-Raspberry and strawberry flavorings are often enhanced (SuperTroopers!) by castoreum. Which comes from beaver glands. Since it's from an animal or plant, however, it can still be listed as "natural flavorings." :X

-Even if I'm eating all these nutrients, what if I'm also eating ANTI-nutrients that block my body's ability to uptake them?? What's the POINT?!?!

...how to move this piano I spontaneously purchased?

Congratulations, me! :) I saw a free piano on the community webpage and didn't get to it in time. Damn. Then I saw one for $300 at this vintage furniture thriftshop place, A World Through Rose Colored Glasses. But it wasn't tuned and I wasn't mentally prepared and that one got sold, too. THEN I went to buy reclaimed wood at the Rebuilding Exchange and they had a piano! For $250!

I have this secret little change purse that I stash $20s away in as "mad money" for occasions like the time I went to Alinea or this piano, so that way I can't judge myself and it doesn't hurt. :) It's like FREE MADNESS!!! It makes me feel like a high roller, because I'm like, "Sure, I'll drop a few hundo, nbd." Anyhow, I bought it. Immediately. I didn't quite realize there were different sizes of uprights, but on Quality Piano Moving's estimate site, I guess I bought the smallest real piano possible. My pitch to the third moving company I contacted (QPM seemed super nice, but $230 wasn't left in that mad money wallet): "Okay, I bought the smallest upright piano sold, the warehouse it comes from has a ramp, and I live only 1.5 miles away and only THREE stairs DOWN in a garden apartment and I promise my bigstrongboyfriend will help you." $160.

I haaaaad been thinking of renting a baby uHaul and trying to wheel & deal since it's like, what? 2 hours? 1.5 miles? I bet I could get a few friends. Plus this video:



But that might still be like $80? Then I was like, "Well. This is a thing not to screw up." So instead of half-assing it, I'm 3/4 assing it by getting this guy, his truck, his supplies, his dolly, etc. So that happens tomorrow... will update. :X I've also heard that after being moved, they might go out of tune. We shall see! Congratulations me?

...how do I erase (peel off) my childhood interior design choices (stickers)?

Soooo when I was little, my parents bought me a really nice, solid wooden dresser. While my mom tried to make sure I took care of it, my dad was definitely the more indulgent. When I entered the Bermuda Triangle of little girl sticker phases, he let me "just put one sticker on". Sure. One sticker.

Now that I'm an adult who has her own apartment but can't afford decent furniture, I figured, "Why not dust off that old dresser, paint it up all super cute, and be all fancy chic?" Reduce, reuse, recycle! Just about, ohhhh, 1,584 stickers to get off first. So here's some how-to:

-Nail polish remover, thanks Huff Post!

-Peanut butter?? Mayo? WD-40, and basically anything with oil, allegedly. Hmm. Gross.

-White vinegar (I had a roommate that 'cleaned' everything with this. Seems like a Catch-22.)

-Lighter fluid? This seems like a terrible idea.

-Goo Gone (oh, really? The goo remover removes goo? Ohhhh thaaaaanks)

By far the most similar question and useful answers came from Metafilter, which I hasn't consciously heard of. People copped to things that made me feel better, too. :) ("To remove 30 year old Star Wars stickers from an old painted wooden door...")  So I stopped there, and decided to just scrape the damn things off with a scraper and use nail polish remover on whatever was left. I'm painting and sticky-wallpaper-ing it anyhow. So the pre- is up above, and I'm not quite at "post" yet... will update soon.

Oh, the spatula irony.

...how bad can Sharknado be?

Bad. Like, "I hope the actors and crew recognized the sheer stupidity of this flick when they signed on" bad. 

According to my boyfriend, they made it bad on purpose. Everyone else seems to agree, so I'll leave it with this Spoony Experiment (whose video I did not watch, largely because it was subtitled, "In which I explain how to properly take a dump on someone's carpet", but the Google search summary said enough for me: "Sharknado is a bad movie made for people who do not appreciate bad movies." Seems like a failed failure?). I mean, I felt bad for Tara Reid (as a [emotionless] MOM).

At the very least, I kept shouting, "No way! Seriously?" because THE MOST RIDICULOUS things kept happening. By the end we were all making the most ridiculous predictions we could and SO many came true that we started placing bets. Like... a girl falls out of a helicopter into a tornado full of sharks, gets eaten by a shark that is somehow alive though flying through the air in a tornado for like a few hours, and then a half hour later another guy dives headfirst into a shark on purpose with a chainsaw and not only survives but finds the girl inside. Boom. Spoiled. Make a bet on it and win some pizza and stop being mad that I spoiled it. 

...when and how to eat a guava?

Unlike many people, when I'm at the grocery store (shout out to Mariano's, woot!) and see something that I can't name or figure out how to cook/eat, I like to buy it. In the past this has included things like dragon fruit (more gorgeous than flavorful, like a non-sweet kiwi) and Chinese bitter melon (should be rechristened the "Chinese really f-ing bitter melon that you can't unbitter, only hope to survive").

Yesterday, it was the guava.

This isn't the most exciting new thing to try eating, but hey, have YOU eaten a guava? I felt pretty good when my Google search returned an entire collection of "how to eat a guava" YouTube videos as well as several "how to eat a guava in 12 steps" links. 12 seems like a lot. But, Men's Health says that guava is one of the "10 Best Foods You Aren't Eating, You Idiot" (the direct address was my addition). Men's Health says you can "score" a guava in higher end produce or Latin produce markets. They have a ONE step process:

1. Eat it. (rind, seeds, everything)

Fair enough. But how do I know when it's READY to be eaten? Whelp, going back to the 12-step Wiki-How dealio, they start off bright green and then turn soft yellow-green (even a little pink) when they're ready. The other standards work, too~ smell it. Good smell = good eat. "Sweet and slightly musky, without even putting it to your nose" says WikiHow. :X Squeeze it. Hard = unripe. Blemishes = bad. 

Since I base my YouTube selections largely on how popular they are, how short they are, and the name of the creator, I chose "livelife365"'s video. He seems like he's totally livin' life 365, I mean the guy is in Hawai'i, and even does hands on guava eating demos:

There seem to be a ridiculous amount of types, and now I'm a little nervous that my guava might turn out to be one of the gooier kinds instead of the above pink interiors. A lot of them look similar on the outside, all nice and green, but this one looks like the inside of a tomato, the consistency of which I do NOT care for.

Also, apparently, Google Guava is one of Google's "core libraries", then it got jargon-y and I'm over guavas now. Maybe I'll eat it later. I just finished a bag of popcorn while writing this, soooo...