Back on Earth, where I'm from, it's getting to be the best time of year for tomatoes.

Nice and hot--though of course, you need to make the rich ground below them remains fertile and wet. You do it right, and you can get your hands around some huge, juicy yet firm, round ones.

Out here in the space in the lab, somehow the tomatoes I got are not the same. I just know they ain't the real thing.

But by gosh I'm gonna do my damndest to make'em as close as I can get.

Regardless, I've been working hard to make sure I've produced a bumper crop for this time of year. Surely those from my relative climate misses them too, and maybe it'll help'em with any yearnings they got. And those not from home can appreciate some of the simpler wonders my region got to offer.

So I've been going around, giving everyone a nice sampling of my tomatoes. Two apiece. If they want more though, I'm charging a nominal fee, just to cover maintenance and supplies--ain't like Command is generous with our budget, and a guy's got to do what he has to to make sure he's producing the best for his team.

Well, seeing with all the partying going on, I've still got to make sure security is tight for the lab.

But I'd taken leave to buy some new tomato wire (helps keep the heavy ones from dragging everything else down), and I happened to meet this fella who was looking for some work; said his "Empire" had fallen and he was looking to try work with the Federation.



Not sure about his fighting skills, but he at least looks a little intimidating.

(Sorry about the picture quality. The light was bad and only had a rather primitive imaging device at hand. Also, I'm looking a little bloated. Dammit, I never used to worry about stuff like this... wonder if it's hormone related. Also, you can't see it, but I'm wearing lipstick there. Think I got the right color down.)

Capt. Storvik had kindly responded to my request for additional security by giving me lothar to guard the door. Mind you, he hadn't been moving in awhile, but he's still intimidating enough to most folks that he's kept most people away.

In the meantime, I remembered a conversation I had with Lothar... well, as close as one can get to conversation with him.... when I was trying to make sense out of an issue of Transgalactic Cosmopolitan. (Is this really what 80% females of the galaxy read? I can't make heads or tails of it.) I was mostly enjoying the pictures at that point... I mean, they get away with some stuff Playbeing doesn't, if you know what I mean... when Lothar pointed to a fashion ad and reported "Pretty dress!"

Then he ate my magazine. But that's neither here nor there.

So anyway, I decided Lothar might be interested in helping me figure out what pretty dress to wear to the New Year's Gala, since I haven't any idea. I suppose him wearing a pink dress made him less intimidating looking, 'cause now he's disappeared.

Question is, do I go look for him, or get out the sawed off energy rifle and guard my precious tomatoes from violation?

That came out all wrong. You know what I mean.

Incidentally, I been thinking about it, and Lothar's coloration and mine are nothing alike, so using him as a test mannequin might not've worked anyway. And I don't think pink's a great color for me or him. I wonder what he'd think of a nice pastel blue...

The old log was destroyed in the recent raid on the Hydroponics Bay, so it's time to begin anew. Gosh darnit, I miss the days when Lt. Daremo helped protect the bay, but he was long ago captured by evil alien forces. Or distracted by something shiny. Can't remember which. Also had Ensign Chida helping me out for a little while, but the obsession he had with them black roses was a little creepy. Kept a few of the roses though; quite rare, you know.

I don't think I've been off the ship for a decent leave in a long time... in fact, for awhile I've been staying in the bay as much as possible, trying to prevent threats to the ship's oxygen supply (and certain other supplies), which given the ordeal's the ship's been in is an important thing to do. But as a side effect, I've mostly been talking to the plants. Might've made me a bit funny in the head, I'm not sure. On the other hand, I think I've come up with several neat things you can do with Romulan hops.

I decide to leave the bay for two seconds, just to try to remember how to have a conversation with another person... which was a very pleasant interchange between me and whatsername. Then I come back to see the special bay destroyed, as well as the vegetable bay. Fortunately, I guess, the oxygen supplying plants received the least damage. You don't get much out of'em when you smoke'em, and they don't taste much good either.

Now gotta get new supplies, new seedlings... and preferably, an old fashioned sawed-off and a very large dog with big pointy teeth.