I've been watching the Olympics this past week with one eye while I've been working on other things like gardening, knitting and cooking. I really enjoy the track and field events, probably because you don't have to pay attention for very long to see what happens, especially with the way NBC has edited the events. Which I have to say is better than the way they edited the Athens games, but still bites hard.

I am American, but I am also interested in athletes from other countries. For example, I was really looking forward to seeing the shot put event, especially after NPR's weekly profiles of Adam Nelson, one of the best men's shot putters in the world and number 2 in the US. But after Nelson (and Reese Hoffa, the US and World men's shot put champion) failed to qualify, NBC failed to cover the event adequately. I was disappointed, because NPR's coverage wasn't just about Nelson, it was about shot put more generally, and I was very curious to see the event.

One person has caught my attention particularly, Roqaya Al-Gassra of Bahrain, a sprinter who runs wearing hijab. In stifling Beijing heat, her whole body was covered, with the exception of her face and hands. She competed against Western athletes wearing clothes that closely resemble bikinis.

I suppose my notice of Roqaya betrays some level of prejudice in my expectations of Muslim women who wear hijab, because I had no idea that they would participate in sports. In retrospect, this was stupid on my part.

I was curious about Roqaya's clothing, so I did some googling and found that there are very few companies that sell sportswear designed for women who wear hijab, but that this is expected to be a growing niche in both traditionally Islamic countries and the West. I'm looking forward to seeing more women in hijab in the 2012 Olympics.

I had resolved to update Breaching the Web more frequently, but then I was thrown a curve ball by MyFolia.com, a social networking site for gardeners.

The site allows you to track your garden's progress. You can create several "gardens" (I have one for the back yard, one for the front, one for houseplants, and one for propagation), into which you enter all your plantings. You can track milestone events, like sprouting, flowering, fruiting and harvesting. And you can journal about all aspects of the garden. It's nifty.

And on top of that, the site has social networking functions, so you can find gardening buddies and learn from them. It's been a very valuable resource for me.

Since I'm spending so much time updating MyFolia and not updating this blog, I created a widget to display MyFolia journal entries over in the left sidebar. If you are interested, you can click on any post title and read the whole thing at the MyFolia site.

I am obsessed with eye make-up, especially mascara. This tends to surprise people, because I don't look like someone who is obsessed with eye make-up. I am blond, and I have fair skin -- my eyes are English blue-bordering-on-gray, and my eyelashes and eyebrows are also blond, so all in all my face is an extremely pale canvas. I'm not comfortable leaving my house without at least mascara on, to create some definition around my eyes -- otherwise, I look like I have no eyelashes at all, which is creepy.

I've been playing with my eye make-up a lot lately, and I just found an eye shadow tutorial that I wanted to share: Idiot-Proof Eyes. It's a hands-on explanation of how to apply "natural" looking eye make-up, with pictures, put together by a real person writing about her own experiences. It's fantastically helpful. I appreciate that it's not written by some industry product designer or marketer, and that it has realistic, helpful step-by-step photos. I followed about half her directions this morning, and the results are amazing.

This weekend, I'll be trying out false eyelashes. Look out, world!

Every now and then, I like to browse the newspapers from Arizona, the place I think of as "home" although I don't live there now and didn't grow up there.

Today I was shocked, but sadly not surprised, to find this item in the Tucson Citizen about the methods Sheriff Joe Arpaio is using to identify illegal immigrants in Maricopa County (where Phoenix is). Racial profiling, illegal searches and detainments, civil rights violations -- these are all routine for Sheriff Joe and his deputies. It's shameful.

Even my current local paper, The Washington Post, recognizes Sheriff Joe's methods as an outrage. The articles mention the most recently filed suit against the Maricopa County Sheriff's department, which could cost taxpayers millions -- but Arapio has already cost Maricopa millions in various law suits, some of which were settled by the county, some of which went to court, but all of which betray a pattern of discrimination, harassment and macho-fear-mongering that the people of Maricopa could really do with out. But will they vote him out? Probably not -- Sheriff Joe is absurdly popular, at least among white Phoenicians.

He's got swagger and style and gruff charm, and he's got pink prison undies, and he's comforting to people who are afraid. And even more sadly, he seems to be laying the groundwork for a run for governor, including many events in Pima County (where Tucson is), the other large population area in the state.

Now that I think of it, I guess I'm glad I no longer live at home.

People in Iowa who are dealing with the aftermath of flooding most likely have far greater issues than their gardens to worry about.

However, I know how my garden provides a kind of refuge for me, a place where things make sense, I'm safe, and no one is yelling at me. So I was very sad to learn that people who's gardens were flooded have probably also lost that refuge.

According to several local county extensions in Iowa, any vegetables growing in a garden that was covered by flood water should not be eaten, due to likely contamination from sewage and other sources. The contamination can last for some time, so the soil should be regarded as contaminated for at least 90 days, if not longer.

As I said, I know many people are dealing with far larger problems -- but the loss of all these gardens and the comfort they may have provided breaks my heart a little bit.

I didn't plant a garden to save or make money. I planted it because I love homegrown tomatoes and have been fantasizing about growing my own for years. I came across an article on the Vermont extension service website about intensive gardening, and it included a list of the 15 most economical plants to grow in a veggie garden, based on their price in the grocery store at the time of harvest, the yield per square foot of garden, and the time it takes them to mature. I discovered that I am already growing (or planning to grow) 13 of them. Here's the list:

Tomatoes
Green bunching onions
Leaf lettuce
Turnip (greens + roots)
Summer squash
Edible podded peas
Onion storage bulbs
Beans (pole, bush)
Beets
Carrots
Cucumbers
Peppers
Broccoli
Head lettuce
Swiss chard

The two I am not growing are peas and cucumbers. The site only lists four low-value veggies, but it is not surprising that they take up a lot of room in a garden:

Corn
Winter Squash
Melons
Pumpkin

I'm not growing any of the low-value veggies.