Sorry to hear about your sister's MIL, Laura.

I'm looking at the Food Fight Grocery website. It's making me want to move to Portland.

(Yes, I am absolutely aware that a neat grocery store is the totally wrong reason to move somewhere. And that being around people who are as completely strident about the cause as they seem to be drives me very quickly mad.)

(Perhaps I've been spending too much time in Georgetown lately. And my vegan classmate has been out of town for a while, so I've been spending what seems like way too much time getting weird looks about what I'm eating, without anyone around who'll look at the same thing and say, "That looks good! Can you email me the recipe?")

Yes, I am absolutely aware that a neat grocery store is the totally wrong reason to move somewhere.

rearranges priorities to include both grocery AND job

those effers at BK gave me decaf coffee! I finally tried some cola for my headache and I feel 100% better.

Y'know what someone needs to invent? A solar-powered plant light.

Yes, that sounds stupid. Bear with me for a second. Right now, I'm trying to grow some basil and parsely and thyme and a few other things. The windows in my apartment are located directly above my air conditioners. The plants need to be warm and in sunlight. With my apartment arrangement, this is impossible.

A friend offered to lend me some plant lights. This seems like a good plan, except that using electricity to simulate sunlight four feet away from a window is possibly the dumbest use of fossil fuel ever. So. What I want is a little solar panel that I can stick on the ledge right outside my window. It'll attach to a wire leading in to the plant lights, which will run on the power from the sun. It's the perfect solution.

And, unfortunately, it doesn't seem like anyone is selling this. (I can, however, buy a backpack with a solar panel on the back, so it'll store energy while the wearer is hiking, and then be used to power little things while camping. Which does seem very cool, but not what I'm looking for.)

t edit: it looks like I can cobble together a system to do pretty much what I want to do from various parts, but it'll be pricy and I'm not sure it'll do what I want it to. I need to review the electricity sections of physics before I try to put together different parts like that.

Could you put Grow Bulbs in solar powered yard lights, Hil? Because I've got yard lights with a wire going to a solar panel like you want, but I dn't know anything about plant lights.

So sorry about your sister's MiL, Laura. That's so fast it's hard to comprehend.

That sounds possible, t. I hadn't thought about that -- I'll check it out.

Instead of lights, what about one of the wee greenhouses that fits into a window opening? Seems like a greenhouse is the traditional (and no wiring needed!) answer to sunlight + cold.

Instead of lights, what about one of the wee greenhouses that fits into a window opening? Seems like a greenhouse is the traditional (and no wiring needed!) answer to sunlight + cold.

I've got one of those, but the plastic is too thin for it to stay warm right next to an air conditioner.

I've made it to Dallas, which is a start. My flight to Orlando is currently delayed by an hour so I'm having dinner in the nice terminal and then heading toward my gate.

MM, Aimee is on the train and on her way back to you.