It's over, it's over, it's ohhhhhhver ......

IT'S OHHHHHHHHH-VER!

The local Little League season, that is.

Now, I knew when I bought my house late last summer that there was a park with a little league playing field right next door. I mean, duh, it's kind of hard to miss.

What I did not know was that the Little League games would start up in April and not end until, oh, ....... LAST SATURDAY.

Jeezus f*cking CHRIST I got sick of coming home from work every night and hearing over-testosteroned dad-coaches SCREAM at the little kids on the teams. I mean, yelling so loudly (GO BACK TO FIRST!! GO BACK TO FIRRRRRRSSSTTTTTT!!!!) that I would flinch, out in my back-backyard. I can only imagine how loud it was on the field itself.

I hope those dudes are prepared to pay the psychiatrist bills in twenty years or so, is all I'm saying. Why a grown man would think it's okay to scream at a little kid is .... well, it's beyond me.

And this would be every weeknight, from five-fifteen until seven-thirty or so, and often all day on Saturdays. It got a little ..... tiring.

Admirably, there was very little cussing, although there was one memorable night when a dad-coach lost his shit, and the F-bomb flew fast and furious for several minutes as the stands went silent and younger siblings of the players started to cry.

Ah, youth sports.

The best part of the season, for me, happened last Saturday, during the marathon, ten-hour season-ending extravaganza of games. One of the coaches was out in the practice field (adjacent to my backyard) losing his shit and screaming at one of the kids, when evidently a large bug of some sort flew into his wide-open mouth, because what I heard was something like this:

TODDDDDDDD! CATCH THE BALL!!! CATCH THE BA-*hack hack hack HAAAAAACKKKKK HAAACCCCCCCCKKKKK* *cough* *choke* HAAAAAAACCCCCKKKKKKK *gasp*

Yeah, that was pretty sweet.

Next up: Soccer. Oh, and this morning the dozers were back in the undeveloped part of the park they started to level out for new fields last year, so I'm thinking it was a good thing I dug up all those plants. The Good Samaritan, that's me.

RockyCat and the Ghostly O-Ring

So, Sunday morning I got out of bed, went to the bathroom, fed the cats, brushed my teeth, glanced at the paper, and then hopped in the shower.


And on one of the shelves in the tub-surround, next to a bottle of shampoo, was an o-ring. A black rubber o-ring, about half-an-inch in diameter.


Where did it come from? Ya got me.


Seriously, I've been wracking my brain, trying to think of where on earth that o-ring came from, and ....... I got nothin'. I thought maybe it somehow broke off the showerhead, but it's still intact. I can't think of any possible other place that o-ring came from; I mean, my house isn't exactly overrun with o-rings to begin with, and how one would end up on a shelf in the shower ....


Right now, my best guess is that I have a ghost. A ghost who got tired of listening to me bitch about the slow-running shower drain and got sick of watching me dump Drano down the drain and plungeplungeplunge and bitch when it backed up AGAIN less than a week later and .... well, the ghost went down the drain and located the errant o-ring that had been gumming up the works and then set it on the shelf to let me know what he had done because - you know what? - the shower's been draining FINE since the o-ring appeared.


Yeah, that's all I got.


Any guesses?

Music like you've never heard

Okay, so I was watching "Glee" the other night, and they did "To Sir, With Love". As soon as those first notes started up, I knew what song it was, and I remembered the jolt I got the very first time I heard the song on the radio - I must have been five or six at the time. That song was like nothing else on the radio, like nothing I'd ever even heard before, and I remember that every time it played, I'd sit, transfixed, until the final notes. Some time after that, the movie that the song is from played on one of the local TV stations, and I remember seeing it in the listings, and FREAKING OUT, because, well ...... THAT SONG!!, and I remember begging my mom to let me stay up to watch it, because obviously it must be the best movie EVER if it had THAT SONG in it.



It's happened for me with other music, too. I have a sister who is eight years older than me, and I got exposed to a lot of cool stuff as a kid. When "Fragile" by Yes came out, my sister was eighteen and I was ten, and that song "Roundabout"? BLEW MY MIND. I can still remember the thrill I got listening to ..... that song. That song!



That song.



"The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" by Genesis (I know. I KNOW.) came out when I was twelve, and I remember being up at the lake, eared pressed to the radio, listening to that music ..... there was something so different about it ...



See also, "Carpet of the Sun" from the "Ashes are Burning" album by Renaissance - I was eleven when that came out, and I would listen to that song over, and over, and over, wishing that it would never end, because it was so ...... something.



It still happens now and again, although not with the same gut-wrenching impact of the first time you hear a song that you think might change everything. The first time I heard the "Avenue Q" soundtrack, it blew me away, just because it was a Broadway album that was actually ...... gasp ...... funny! The first time I heard Susan Werner's song "Time Between Trains" on the radio, I called up the station, desperate to find out who that singer was, because she was doing stuff that didn't sound like anything else I was hearing right then.



It hasn't happened in several years now for me, hearing a song that's like nothing else. I hope it happens again.

The Runt says ....

..... I am fine. Thanks for asking. Thanks for not making me talk LOLspeak.






Please excuse me ..... I'm busy .......





Seriously, The Runt is doing much better. He's still grooming, but not the excessive digdigdig grooming he was doing. I don't know if it's the flea meds, the steroids, the miticide, or the (attempted) change in diet, but his welts seem to be healing and the bare spots look like they are getting better as well.

Keeping fingers crossed ....

Freaky Friday - Lookin' out my front door edition

I looked out my living room window this morning and saw this:

Why did the deer cross the road?

To get to the tasty shrubbery in my neighbor's yard, of course!:

Riddle me this: Why, when DIRECTLY ACROSS THE STREET from this property is acres and acres and acres of undeveloped, tree-, shrub-, bush- and flower-laden land, do the deer insist on coming into the neighborhood to eat the shrubs? Do they taste THAT MUCH BETTER than the stuff growing wild all over the place?

Is a mystery.

Oh, and the deer COMPLETELY BYPASSED all my plantings on her way to the neighbor's house. Heh.

If this doesn't scream "old", I don't know what does

I am now the proud owner of a Craftmatic Adjustable Bed.

Duuuuuuuuudes.

I can explain!

I'd been looking for a bed for the spare bedroom since I moved in last summer. At first, I was going to put a full-sized bed in there, and I even bought a full-size bed frame, see?:



Is pretty, no? Twenty bucks at the thrift store. Win!

But the more I got to thinking about it, the less sense it make to put a full-size bed in there, the main reason being that I have overnight guests approximately once every kabillion years. The room isn't that huge to begin with, so I decided to go with a twin-size bed. If I get more than one person sleeping over, somebody's going to Sofa City, is all.

Enter a guy at work, who was cleaning out a deceased relative's house, and wanted to unload a twin-size Craftmatic Adjustable Bed that had only been used a few times.

Score!

Just call me Gramma.

Oh! And did you know that Craftmatic Adjustable Beds are fun? The head-part goes up! The foot-part goes up! You can do both at once and be all pretzel-y!

GodDAM, I'm old.

You can't make this shit up

Okay, so I'm reading the local paper yesterday morning, and there's this blurb with the heading, "Miracle on Hudson passenger to speak". And the blurb goes, "Dave Sanderson, a passenger on the "Miracle on the Hudson" US Airways flight that made an emergency landing in the Hudson River in January 2009, will be at the Barnes and Noble in (insert local town here) from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday."

And I'm reading along ......

"He'll sign copies of "Brace for Impact", a book to which he contributed his story about the crash and how his life has changed since the crash."

Still reading, and here's the killer ....

"His appearance is being sponsored by the (local town name) Airport."

What. The. F*ck.

This dude survives a terrifying PLANE CRASH into an ice-filled river, and the LOCAL AIRPORT is sponsoring a stop on his book tour?

Maybe it's just me, but maaaaaaan, I just don't get that.


Don't even get me started on how the local Alzheimer's Association holds a fund-raising "memory walk" every year. Errrrrrm, "memory walk"? For Alzheimer's? That's just f*cking cruel.



What are these people thinking?

A buck a can

So! Friday night The Runt and I went back to the vet. I'll tell ya, finding that cat and getting him into a carrier to go the the vet's on time, twice in three days, is a miracle akin to the loaves and fishes, but we pulled it off.



The scraping {shudder} wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and he tested negative for mites. The vet is treating for mites anyway, just in case they were all burrowed in when she took the sample. She suggested getting him started on hypo-allergenic cat food (Nutro), mixing it in with his regular stuff to start with, just in case food allergies are the problem.



Oh! And you can give cats benadryl! Who knew?



Saturday morning I was off to the pet store for some hypo-allergenic cat food, and peeps? A BUCK A CAN. Sweet jeezus. I took thirty bucks' worth of canned food, dry food and anti-itch spray home.

The anti-itch spray was a big fail. I sprayed it on, he licked it off. *sigh*. At least his tongue's not itchy. The benadryl worked okay, basically making him sleepy, but I don't know how many times I'll be able to get that stuff in his mouth without him throwing an armed revolt.

It was time to try the food.


I mixed the hypo-allergenic stuff with their regular stuff, fifty-fifty, set it down, and ........ nope. Both cats turned up their noses. Next mealtime, I tried a ninety-ten mix, nine parts old stuff to one part new stuff, and ....... nope. At this point, if there is one molecule of that new food in their bowl, they won't eat it.



What the hell do I do now?





Oh, and The Runt did land a mouse on Sunday, and spent much of the weekend stalking his sister and pouncing on her, so it's not ALL misery around here. Just so you know.

Freaky Friday!

This started out as a black chandelier, and by the time I got done messing with it, it looked more like a birdcage, so I added a bird.

It hangs in my kitchen, facing so the bird can look out the kitchen window.

In other Freaky Friday news, work edition, there is a guy out in the company parking lot right now, pressure-washing a bunch of refrigerators.

Don't ask me. I don't know what the hell he's doing out there, either.

Yes, I WAS in a bit of a bad mood yesterday .....

..... could you tell?



The Runt was sick. He's always been a, well, rather conscientious groomer, but over the weekend it got to the point where he was literally licking his fur off and developing bald spots. And then he'd digdigdig at himself until he raised welts. He felt awful, and I felt awful for him, so obviously a trip the vet was in order.



And the lawn mower, which had been acting pissy all season, finally crapped the bed on Tuesday night and was at the shop for repairs.



It was just one of those days when all you can do is sigh and pull out the checkbook.



So when that jerk on the bicycle shit his pants over having to use his brakes (I didn't come anywhere NEAR to hitting him, I swear; he was all pissed off because he had to slow down for me), it was pretty much the last straw. Kind of like Michael Douglas in Falling Down, where he goes all medieval on people's asses.



Hey! Maybe they'll make a movie about me!



And maybe Julia Roberts will play me, just like in the Pioneer Woman movie! (Can you even believe that shit? Jeezus Christ.)



ANYhow, the vet seems to think The Runt has a case of flea allergy dermatitis (which I tend to disagree with, for various reasons, but hey, she's the vet) and she started him on Frontline and steroids. If that doesn't work, I'm to try hypo-allergenic cat food (oh dear Lord), and we go from there.



Poor cat. Although he DID manage to take down a mouse last night after we got home from the vet's, so he must not be feeling TOO poorly.

Dear dude on the bicycle

I. did. not. see. you.

Yes, I did pull out into traffic in front of you, causing you to have to *gasp* step on your brakes. And yes, guys-who-have-so-many-DWIs-that-they-lost-their-license-and-can-no-longer-drive DO have the right of way over cars.

But I did not see you.

And the reason I did not see you is because you were peddling madly down the wrong side of the street, up on the sidewalk where you are not supposed to be.

I'm sorry I pulled out in front of you, but you know what? When you jumped off your bike and started swearing and screaming and giving me the finger?

You are goddamn lucky I didn't pull a fucking u-ey in traffic and come back and run you over, you fucking fucktard.

Keep that in mind the next time you're pulling a fit, you asshole.

Movie Review: The Keys of the Kingdom

The Keys of the Kingdom is a 1940s-era movie about a missionary priest in China in the early 1900s, with Cary Grant in the leading role. Boy, he was a tall drink of water, wasn't he?


It was interesting, if dated. The Chinese were portrayed pretty stereotypically, but I guess that's to be expected, given the era. I liked the book better, mainly because they cut so much out in the movie, including the part where the priest and two of his companions get waterboarded in the river - that was the most vivid and compelling part of the book for me.


Oh, and I was surprised to see Vincent Price show up in the role of a bishop - How many movies was that guy in, anyway?


So! An okay movie. I probably wouldn't pay to rent it again, but if it turned up on TCM on a rainy Saturday afternoon, I'd watch it.

TV alert

Tonight, some PBS stations are showing "Alone in the Wilderness", about this guy who went way into Alaska, built himself a cabin, and lived there, alone, for many years.

The first time I saw this show, it boggled my mind how self-sufficient this guy was. And how lonely he must have gotten - he didn't even have a radio to listen to! And ohmyGod it got cold there in the wintertime - I can't even imagine how he made it.

So anyway, it's a really good show, and if the thought of watching America's Got Talent makes you want to stab yourself, you might want to catch it.

Notes from the weekend

On Friday night, I got home from a trip to CrapMart to discover that I had been charged twice for a package of razor blades. Being that razor blades are not cheap*, on Saturday I went back to CrapMart with the razor blades and the receipt, and they actually refunded me the money. They didn't have to; I mean, I had no proof or anything that I hadn't actually bought two packages, but they did. Thanks, CrapMart!

More daisies and ferns in the playing fields next door volunteered for my relocation program and are now residing around the mailbox. See also: Broken wooden bird feeder down by the creek, which is now a planter.

Speaking of the mailbox, I concreted the post in the ground over the weekend so that it'll stop falling over when my niece's boyfriend backs into it. Which ....... oh, crap, that means that the next time he backs into it, it'll probably break in two. Shit. I shoulda thought that through a little more. Too late.

Okay, so I finally watched the finale of Lost. Did I cry at the end? Yes I did. I cried until tears were running down my neck; I sobbed until I choked. You know what did me in? The dog.

Did you know that everybody smokes at the flea market? They do. It's really quite amazing; I wouldn't have been surprised to see a baby or a dog with a cigarette.

There was some kind of drama at my sister TIB's house yesterday involving a missing bowl of macaroni salad. Don't ask me; I wasn't invited to that particular cookout. Not sure why everyone felt I needed status updates.**

Did you know that pileated woodpeckers sound like demented, laughing chickens? They do. Oh, and there was one out back yesterday doing his very finest impression of a choking crow.

The fireflies are back! I never used to see them until July at the old place, but they were flashing like crazy on Saturday night. Welcome back, dudes.

Somehow, with three days off, I still didn't manage to get the lawn mowed. Oops.

So! How was your weekend?





*Razor blade manufacturers price their product using the "polaroid" method. Charge almost nothing for the original product (camera), then charge a frickin' fortune for replacement parts (film). Crude, but effective.

** (ring ring ring) "Hello?" " We found it; it was in the breadbox!" "Um ..... okay?"

Freaky Friday - Memorial Edition

This is a micrometer, also known as a "mike". Behind that is a level.


I used a mike when I worked at my Dad's tool and tie shop. I have no idea if they're still used today; I assume everything's digital now. Mikes are (were) used to measure the exact widths of things. The mike and level shown above were my Dad's; my mom gave them to me after he died.

Dad died eleven years ago today. You can read a little about him here.

I love you, Dad.

The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here!

.... I'm somebody now!

Yeah, I'm pretty good at getting excited about nothing.

In other breaking news:



The peonies are blooming!


I know! Can you STAND the excitement?!

This is a plant that I transplanted from the old place last summer, so I wasn't sure if it was going to make it at all, let alone bloom, but it's come through like a champ.

Oh! And in what-a-difference-a-year-makes news, I was just toodling through the archives here and discovered that at this time last year, I was struggling to recover from the world's worst case of tonsillitis and was about to be homeless.

Holy shit, I can't believe I made it through all that and came out the other side.


What's new with you?

Little Girl vs. the woodpecker

Last night, Little Girl decided she was going up a tree after a woodpecker.

When she was about forty feet up, the woodpecker hopped over to a nearby tree, and Little Girl had to figure out how to get back down.



These cats have a long and storied history of getting stuck in trees, which I'm too lazy to link to right now, but trust me, I knew last night's voyage down the tree wasn't gonna be pretty.



She started out coming down head-first, which works about as well as if you or I tried to come down a tree head-first.



She actually made it about ten feet down before she fell, and then she free-fell about another ten feet before - ooof! - catching a branch with her tummy, at which point she grabbed onto the branch with her front claws and - I shit you not - actually did a loop-the-loop around the branch, just like a circus aerialist, before falling again and - ooof! ooof! ooof! - catching branches all the way to the ground.



And then she sauntered away nonchalantly, all, "I meant to do that", while I laughed myself silly. What can I say - I'm a sucker for slapstick.



A little while later, The Runt decided to show her how it's done, and went up THE SAME DAMN TREE, about fifty feet, before realizing - dang! - he had to get back down again.



But The Runt, being the veteran stuck-in-tree-er that he is, hesitated only a moment before swinging around and heading down butt-first, the only sure way for safe egress from a tree.


Good job, Runt!





Little Girl with a recent conquest:





Check out the size of that frog! Don't worry, I scooped him up and carried him to the swamp out back, where he swam away good as new.

Oh, like THIS isn't the cutest thing ever

Check this out:

http://cam.dellwo.com/

It's a live baby hummingbird webcam!

I was sitting outside last night when a hummingbird buzzed me on the way to the feeder I set up outside the kitchen window. Hummingbirds are really bold little things, and if you get two males at the feeder at the same time, you're in for an airshow, as they'll attack each other in mid-air to establish dominance.

Check out that link above to catch some live hummingbirds!

Hoodlums: The Next Generation

Friday night, I had a front-row seat to some neighborhood kids plotting and executing a ring-and-run on my neighbor Terry.

I thought about chasing the kids away (HEY! KIDS! GET OFF OF MY LAWN!), but heck, they didn't even have the ol' flaming bag of poop. No harm, no foul, right?

But I got to wondering, do kids who pull silly pranks on their neighbors turn out okay? Or do they turn into bad teenagers?

I don't remember ever pulling pranks on adults when I was a kid, mainly because of the fear factor - fear that I'd get caught.

How about you - did you pull any pranks?

Freaky Friday - Neighborhood Edition

Directly behind the parking lot for what was supposed to be the new ice cream store* in my neighborhood lies the hermit house. From what I've been told, a hoarder lived there for many years. After he died/went into a nursing home/nobody's-sure-what-happened-but-he-doesn't-live-there-anymore, somebody bought the house and cleaned all the accumulated stuff out. They replaced some of the windows, and started work on the plumbing, and then, for whatever reason, abandoned it.

I've been told that approximately nine billion feral cats live there, but I didn't see any on the day I trespassed stopped by to take some pics.

Obligatory spooky basement:

Weird outbuilding with grass growing on the roof:

hahaha Rob, see that? IT'S STILL SNOWING HERE.**

I've been calling it the "hermit house", because that's what sprung to mind, but really, I think this looks like a good old-fashioned haunted house. I think I'll start telling the neighborhood kids ghost stories about the hermit ghost who lives in the house, just to scare the shit out of them and infuriate their parents when the kids insist on sleeping with them for the next ten years or so, because THE HERMIT GHOST MIGHT GET THEM IF THEY SLEEP IN THEIR OWN BED. Hey, not my problem! And besides, every neighborhood needs a haunted house, no?

Let's see: He has a hook for an arm and only comes out when the moon is shining .......




*Still just a vacant store. I'm not happy.

**Not really.

Movie Review: Orphan

Hahahahahahaha ...... I wish I could say this one was so bad it's good, but .... no. It's just bad.



"Orphan" is about a couple who adopt a little Russian girl with ....... ooooooohhh ......... a deep secret, and the whole thing is just so bad it's reedonkulus. This piece of crap actually got some good reviews on IMDB, which is pretty much mystifying.



So! You can skip "Orphan". If you want to watch a "bad kid" movie, try "The Bad Seed" from the fifties - that one's actually pretty good.

F*ck tha gutters

I tried caulking the gutters. I tried taping the gutters. I tried taping over the caulk, and STILL the gutter seams all leak.

Arrrrrgggghhhhhhh.

Screw it. Let 'em drip. A couple of giant tree limbs came down on top of the shed last night, so I've got bigger fish to fry, anyway.

Am I the only one who loves this commercial?:





I watched it about 15 times before I even realized what the commercial was for. I wish I was the person who came up with this - it's genius.

Updated to add: On the way to work this morning, that Lady Gaga song Bad Romance was on the radio, and now it's ricocheting around my brain and driving me crazy. I can't stand Lady Gaga. And then I learned all about the Budd Dwyer suicide on Mental Floss and went to youtube to watch the video, which makes me wonder what the hell is wrong with me.

Patron Saints

So! After all the excitement over Saint Jude, I did a little googling to see how many patron saints there are.


Holy cow, you crazy Catholics, there's, like, a ton of them!


As ~~Silk pointed out in the earlier post, Saint Jude is the patron saint of lost causes, which is actually kind of perfect for me. But I did find some others who would also fit:

Patron saint of Doubters: Saint Joseph. Gardeners: St. Fiacre, St. Sebastian. Notaries: St. Luke, St. Mark. Secretaries: St. Genesius. Stenographers: St. Cassian Tangiers.


There's some I can only aspire to, like St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers, and St. Sophia, the patron saint of wisdom. I could find no patron saint of beer drinkers, which is probably just as well.



Now, I'm not sure how authentic some of the ones I found are. I mean, there's a patron saint for illegal drug dealers? Really? And kidnap victims? I mean, are there really that many kidnap victims that they need their own saint? Oh, and how about "Tongue Trouble"? Allegedly, there's a patron saint for that, too, which sounds kind of sketchy to me.



Oh, and evidently there's a patron saint for "Enemies of Religion", which is kind of surprising, seeing as how Catholics are not really that tolerant of non-believers. Why would they give us non-believers our very own patron saint? And I mean, it's not like we non-believers are going to believe in our patron saint, or anything.



luckymojo.com/patronsaints lists a whole boatload of patron saints. Did you know that the patron saint of basket-makers is Saint Hilarion? Sounds like a pretty funny guy. *groan* (Sorry, I just couldn't pass that up.)

I think I'll make up my own patron saint. Saint I'm-Trying-My-Best-Here, maybe. And who's the patron saint of home repair? I could use him right about now.

DAMMIT, LG!

'
'
Frogs. Now she's bringing in frogs.





Looks like you guys were right.

Freaky Friday!

Some of you long-time readers may remember Dead Ted Head, my roadside rescue.

This is Ted, almost two years ago, air-drying after cleaning:

Dead Ted Head is currently residing in a comfortable pile on one of my bedroom dressers. He has a view of the park. He is still awaiting his calling in my House of Odd; one day soon, it will come.

Not my experience

The latest blogger to happen big appears to be Hyperbole and a Half, and she deserves it, because she's hilarious.

She's gone from total anonymity to, like, a kabillion page hits a month in less than a year.

That's not my blogging experience.

Mainly because I will never be one-hundredth of the blogger that she is, and that's fine with me. I am very happy with the little niche I've carved out for myself here.

And then there was that convenience store worker down South who played the lottery a few weeks back and won a kabillion dollars.

I've been known to buy a lottery ticket every once in a blue moon, but actually winning money? Not my lottery experience.

I guess I got thinking about this whole "experience" thing when I found out my ex was living in a trailer park. If I had stayed with him, who knows? That might have been my experience. But I left him, and it wasn't.


Not sure what I'm trying to get at here, except that maybe life is equal parts effort and serendipity, and as long as you're happy with where you end up, all is well. I think that most people, when in a good situation, will try to stay there, and most people, when in a bad situation, will work to get out of it. But sometimes, I think inertia sets in, and it's easier to just stay where you are than to try to move on. Personally, whenever I'm in a bad place, panic sets in, like, "holy shit, what if I'm stuck here forever?", and then I get my stuff in gear and work to get to a better place. Sometimes it takes a while, to be honest, but I do get up and go. But I've seen an awful lot of people stay in really bad places, just because they don't want to put in the effort to get out, or don't think they're worthy, somehow, of getting to a better place.


Right now I'm in a good place. I'll try to stay here.

Playing favorites

In the next couple of weeks, I'll be buying some plants to fill in bare spots in my garden and around the perimeter of the house. I brought some of my favorites from the old place with me: Tiger lilies, asiatic, oriental and turks-cap lilies, bleeding hearts, lilies-of-the-valley, phlox, hydrangeas and rose-of-sharons all came along and are doing well as transplants. Well, the rose-of-sharons are kind of iffy, but I think they're gonna pull through.



Some things I had to leave behind because they were simply too big or too root-bound to move: Lilacs, ferns, azaleas and rhododendrons all stayed behind. I didn't bring the poppies or the columbine, either, because they had died back for the summer at the time of the move and I was afraid they wouldn't transplant well.

When the trees and bushes at the edge of the new place started to leaf out this spring, I was surprised to find that I had lilacs! The white kind, though, not the purple which I prefer, so I did a lilac exchange with one of the guys at work: White lilacs bushes for purple ones, which he had at his place. It'll take a few years for the new plants to get established, but I've got time.

Oh! And I relocated some bluebells and ferns from the creek to the new place, and ordered some hibiscuses and a butterfly bush and a weeping cherry from mail-order, all of which have arrived and been planted. I'm still waiting on the magnolia - get on that, Michigan Bulb, would ya?

So! Back to the point. I'm going to be buying some more plants. Columbine, I think, to replace the one I had to leave behind. Maybe a trumpet vine, although I never had any luck getting them to bloom at the old place. Maybe wisteria, which I've never tried before. I was at Agway today and they had dutchman's pipe vines, which I remember my mom telling me was one of her favorite plants as a kid. I bought a heliotrope the other day, because the name sounded familiar to me, and then I learned that they're also called cherry pie plant because the blooms smell like cherry pie! So I gave mine a great big whiff, and yep, cherry pie it is. It's only an annual, though, so I'll have to dig it up and bring it inside this fall if I want to keep it around.

The point, the point, here it is: What's your favorite perennial plant? Preferably one with fragrant blossoms, that can make it through a Zone 5 winter (hardy to -20 degrees). Do you have a flower or plant or bush you remember fondly from your childhood?


What should I plant in my garden?

One born every minute

They're selling potted Mayapples at the local Agway. Mayapples look like this:






And this time of year, local woods look like this:






It's like an ocean of Mayapples.

I should go back to the Agway and ask them if they're actually selling any of the Mayapples. If so, I think I'll dig up the dandelions from my lawn and start a little garden stand. Is genius!

We interrupt the regularly scheduled Freaky Friday to bring you ....

............ FIRE!


This was the scene in the park last night:









The view out my front (screen) door:






A brush fire started down by the creek - I suspect the local kids who sneak down there to smoke may have played a part, but it's hard tellin'.



The fire company was there for a good two hours. They finally took in a backhoe to do ...... something. Not sure. I was a little nervous when they left, because the fine local volunteer firemen have a history of ..... well ...... not completely extinguishing fires; often, local fires tend to start back up a few hours after the firemen leave, but all was well this morning.



Let's see. So far at the new place I've had a flood and now a fire. What's next? DON'T ASK.

Home Improvement

Peeps? I've got a confession to make.


I ..... I ..... I can't stop working on my house.


Every night, I go home from work, and I change out of my "work clothes" and into some jeans, and I swear that I'm gonna pop a beer and just chill for a few, and then ....


...... and then ......


....... and then I look out the window and see that the grass needs trimming around the mailbox or that the willow has shed yet more giant branches onto the back yard, and so I go outside to tend to that, real quick-like, and while I'm out there I notice those lilac saplings that I was going to relocate and the windowsill with the peeling paint that needs to be scraped and painted and the drainage ditch that really needs to be dug out and that hollow spot in the lawn that needs to be filled in and .....


...... the next thing I know, the little-leaguers playing ball in the park next door are packing up their gear and I look down at my watch and holy shit! It's eight o'clock - where did the time go?


I need help.


I fall into bed at night, exhausted, with aching muscles, and swear that the next day will be different. That I'll get home from work, pop that beer, and just relax and enjoy the house.


And of course, the next day I get home from work, pull in the driveway, and oh crap those gutters need to be caulked and the grass around the shed needs to be trimmed and .....

I mean, some of this stuff I enjoy. Anything to do with the garden is pure fun, and even some of the grunt work is satisfying in a get-it-done kind of way, although dear God it was raining this morning and those gutter seams that it took me two hours to caulk last weekend are leaking AGAIN and it looks like I'm gonna have to get up there with some kind of thermonuclear device to stop that f*cking dripping and ......


I am actually hoping for rainy days right now. To keep me inside. Except then I'd just look around inside the house and see that the bathroom ceiling needs to be painted and the insulation in the garage still needs to be covered up and .......


...... oh man.


You guys were holding out on me. Nobody told me that once you buy a house, you start a to-do list, an ever-changing to-do list, that will NEVER BE FINISHED until you sell the house. Or drop dead. Whichever comes first, I guess.


What else did you not tell me? Fess up.

Little bug

When I took this pic of the bluebells I "repurposed" from the woods:

I never even noticed the little dude hanging out on the blossoms:

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If I'd have known he was there, I would've macroed in on him and gotten some really cool pics.

'

Oh well. He probably wouldn't have been too jazzed about having his picture splashed all over the internet, anyway.

Breaking News!

Rumor has it that the former carpet-and-tile store three blocks from my house is being converted into an ice-cream store.


Yippee!!


Paging Jillian Michaels ........

Oh, have I got a story to tell you ....

Call me petty, but I experienced a little frisson of happiness this morning when I discovered that my ex-husband is now living in a trailer park.

Now I, myself, lived in a trailer park back in the day. A pretty run-down trailer park. Actually, I lived in a run-down trailer park with my then-husband back in the day. Because we were young and poor.

We were actually living in that run-down trailer park when I packed up and left him. Because, you see, I found out through trailer-park sources that he was sleeping with another woman. A married woman. A married woman with children.

(Note: You cannot get away with ANYTHING in a trailer park. They are like the worst little small-town Peyton Places EVER. Should you ever find yourself in a trailer park, BEHAVE, because if you don't, everybody in the place will know your bizness in about half a day. The trailer park grapevine is a mighty thing to behold.)

So! I left him, the woman left her husband, they moved in together, and here's where the story gets REALLY GOOD.

When I left him, ex-husband and I agreed to split the cost of the divorce 50-50. I should have made him pay for the whole damn thing, but I knew the odds of that happening were zero, so I decided to settle for half. I had my half of the money and went on with my new single life in my new apartment (over a bar) (movin' on up!), waiting for him to cough up his half of the dough so we could make the break official.

Fast-forward to several months later, when I'm in the parking lot of a local grocery store. An EXTREMELY PREGNANT woman walks up to me, says, "Um .... excuse me? Are you *Insert first name here*? *Insert first name here* *Insert last name here*?"

"Yes," I said. "Do I know you?"

Yeah, you got it.

It was the ex-husband's new girlfriend, whom he had managed to knock up in world-record time, and she was just about to pop.

"Why won't you give him a divorce?" she asked. "We want to get married so we can give the baby his last name."

How honorable, I thought. I then explained that we had agreed to split the cost 50-50, and that as soon as he coughed up his share, we would divorce. ASAP would be fine with me. Yesterday, if possible, as far as I was concerned.

"Oh!" she said. "He told me that you were refusing to divorce him, and that's why we can't get married!"

"Honey", I said gently. "Is that the first lie he's told you?"

"No", she said quietly, a sad look coming over her face. "I'm sorry to bother you."

And she walked away.

I don't know what happened to her or the kidlet, but my ex is now living, by himself, in a trailer park.

And because I am mean and petty, this little factoid makes me happy.

The End.

"Ominous trend", indeed

On Saturday, Little Girl got her first snake.

On Sunday, she got her second snake.

Last night, she got a rabbit*.

Shit.





*I managed to rescue the rabbit, but still.

You better think .......

...... is what I told the lawn mower on Saturday afternoon when it conked out. I left it alone to peruse its options, and when I went back an hour later it started back up. Wise choice.

Other random weekend stuff:

When you've got a bad shoulder, it's probably not the best idea in the world to spend two hours up on a ladder with your arms over your head caulking the gutters.

On the other hand, if it will stop the damn gutters from leaking, it's worth it.

The locksmith showed up! Hallelujah! Now all the locks are keyed the same, which is like a miracle, until of course I lose the key, at which time it will suck. (Yes, I did have him give me a couple extra copies. Thanks for asking.)

Painting window frames takes about five times as long as you think it will. As far as that goes, ANY type of home repair takes about five times as long as you think it will. At least.

Wasps do not like to have their nests moved. Bite it, wasps. You're not nesting on my window frames. Be thankful I didn't bust out the Raid.

Little Girl got her first (that I know of) snake on Saturday. On Sunday, she got her second. I'm sensing an ominous trend here.

The same Little Girl who hunts down snakes is scared of the ceiling fans. And The Runt is terrified of the ceiling fans. It's gonna be a hot summer if I can't get them past this.

I saw a barn owl yesterday, which was very cool.

The trilliums are blooming:





Oh yeah, which way are ceiling fans supposed to turn in the summer? Clockwise or counter-clockwise? I know you're supposed to run them one way when it's hot, and the other way when it's cold, but I don't know which is which.

Of course, it won't matter much, if the cats keep hitting the floor like they're being strafed by the Luftwaffe every time I turn the damn things on.

Freaky Friday!

The subject of today's Freaky Friday has been on my blog before; forgive me if you're seeing a repeat.

I'm pretty sure this was some grade-schooler's art project.

I like to imagine what a massive papier-mache mess must have been created to come up with this thing. The bow tie's a nice touch.

He likes to look out the garage windows. Keeping an eye on things.

(Oh, and doncha love the supa-dupa paint job on that window frame? I DID NOT DO THAT. Thanks, previous owner! Thanks also for painting the garage windows shut. Jeezus.)

More hare-brained schemes than Lucy Ricardo

So! Some of my mail-order plants arrived yesterday. You know how it goes: They show giant, full-grown bushes in the catalog, and what shows up on your doorstep is a couple of sticks with a few leaves on the top.

I was going to put the weeping cherry out in the far corner of the backyard. But right now it's only about six inches high; if the lawn mower doesn't get it, the deer/rabbits/whatever-else-is -roaming-around-back-there surely will.

I think I have a plan. I think I will plant that weeping cherry in a pot-with-drain-holes, and then plant the pot itself in the garden close to the house where the lawn mower and the deer can't get at it . In a couple of years, when the plant is hopefully bigger and more able to cope with the wild wild west of the far backyard, I'll dig up the plant, remove the pot, and re-plant the plant itself where it's supposed to go.

That's it - my Cruise-azy idea. Is genius! Or not? What do you think?

Speaking of death .....

While rooting around in one of my cupboards the other day, looking for the jar of mayo I was sure had to be in there, I discovered a bag of goldfish crackers with a "Sell By" date of April 5, 2008.


Yeah.


You know what that means? It means that I bought that bag of goldfish crackers sometime (presumably) before April 5, 2008 and stuck it in my cupboard. At the old place. And it sat there for over a year, until August of 2009, when I packed up and moved. And at some point in the packing process, I picked up that bag of goldfish that had expired OVER A YEAR AGO, took a look at it, evidently shrugged, and packed it up to move to the new place*.


Where it sat, for almost another year, until I rediscovered it the other night. I took a look at the expiration date, sighed, and took the bag to work to snack on. (I mean, I'm going to snack on the crackers inside, NOT on the bag itself, although at this point in time, there may not be a whole heck of a lot of a difference.)


I'll let you know how they taste.


Or, you know, not, depending on the outcome.




*And I can even tell what my thought process most likely was at the time: "Meh. It's only been expired for a year. It's still good - might as well pack it." I swear to God sometimes I think I'm a guy.

So bad it's good. Almost.

On Saturday afternoon I stopped at a cemetery to visit my Grandma and Grandpa's graves. I hadn't been there since my Grandma died over twenty years ago (the cemetery is a ways out of town), and I decided to take a walk around while I was there. The last time I was in a cemetery, I found some, well, unusual headstones, and on Saturday I found another doozy:

You can click on the photo to embiggen. Sorry about the poinsettia in the way. (Dear relatives: It's April. You can remove the poinsettias.) Basically, it's a bucolic nature scene, with a man, a woman, and a cat (!) on the left; the man is reaching across a stream to a buck on the other side. Why is he reaching out to the deer? I don't know! Maybe he had a pet deer as a kid?

One thing's for sure: They had a cat named Morris.

I have all kinds of questions about this headstone, namely: Why is the lady so flat? Granted, I myself am not chestfully endowed, but if I was going to be represented on a headstone, you'd better bet I'd give myself a nice rack. Why not? I'd be dead; who's gonna call me on it?

'

Also, who's the artist? Oh, wait, was it Morris? And he signed his name? Nah, I'm pretty sure Morris was the cat. I am guessing that the artist was one of the deceased (before they died, obv), or possibly a family member. Frankly, the artwork leaves a little to be desired*, but then again, maybe the headstone maker was at fault. Maybe he was presented with a fantastically detailed piece of art, and this was the best he could do.

'

And I got to thinking, having a bad headstone is kind of like having a bad tattoo; you don't have to look at it, but everybody else does. Forever, in the case of the headstone.

And then I wondered if the cat was buried with them. I mean, he is in the picture, after all. But then ....... what about the deer?

It keeps coming back to deer, doesn't it? I found YET ANOTHER set of deer remains on Sunday; I'm not even kidding you. One of these nights I'm gonna hear a tap, tap, tapping on my front door, and it's gonna be a deer, wanting in. Wanting his dead relative's bones, probably.

*Could I do better? NO I COULD NOT.

The reason why I haven't mowed the back yard yet

Freaky Friday!

Meet Gatorduck:



Gatorduck was a white ceramic goose in a previous life.


Here's Gatorduck being sprung upon by his archnemesis, MoonCat:




Their battles are epic.

Step AWAY from the tree

The Runt got himself up a tree the other night. WAY up. With bluejays circling his head, just like in a cartoon.

When he was a kitten, he had a nasty habit of getting stuck in trees. And needing neighborly intervention to get back down.

So when I saw him in the tree the other night, I was relieved that at least it was a many-branched tree, one that he would have a good shot of getting out of all by himself. Unlike the no-branches-for-the-first-forty-feet pine trees he was so fond of at the old place.

And thankfully, within a half-hour he had made his way out of the tree. No neighbors with extension ladders and tuna-smeared-poles were involved.

Stay out of the trees, Runt. Trust me on this one.

Holy SHIT he actually came through

If you've been reading here for a while, you may know that my boss has a habit of ignoring things like Administrative Professionals' Day (it was yesterday, btw) and work anniversaries.

I am not above using subterfuge and guilt to collect my due on special occasions.

This year, I was truly not expecting anything, especially as my boss has his foot in a cast and is, well, not doing so hot with the whole crutches concept. Actually, I almost took the day off, but decided at the last minute to come in.

Little did I know when he grabbed one of the guys from the office yesterday morning "to go to a job site" that he was actually going to the local garden center to get a flowering almond for my yard. He even got a card! And put money in it! Without me guilting him into it!

Duuuuuude. Thanks!




Oh! And the icing on the cake? The guy he took with him to schlep around the garden center and cart the plant around (because the boss is on crutches) was this guy. How do ya like me now, brudda?

How appropriate that this should happen during Administrative Professionals' Week

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'
Dear CAD drafter:

When you said that the secretary (i.e., me) should take over some of your job responsibilities, implying that because I make less than you, it would save the company money?

What you didn't know is that I make MORE than you do, not less.

Get ready to do a bitchload of filing, asshat.

The bluebell thief

I was down by the creek the other day and discovered a huge patch of bluebells growing wild. We're talking at least a hundred plants. So I went back to the house, grabbed a spade, and dug up a couple of them for the garden.

I am a bluebell thief.

Now, as far as I can tell, bluebells are not endangered in any way. This particular patch of bluebells possibly arrived via the recent floods, as they're in an area that got about three feet of water in January. And, the spot where they're located is very likely going to be overrun by Japanese bamboo in a few years, as it's already within about thirty feet of the bluebells.

Justification blah blah blah

I stole some bluebells.

And just the other day I noticed a bunch of ferns popping up where the new playing fields are going to be put in .......

The Osprey Cam is back! The Osprey Cam is back!

Guys! The Osprey Cam at Montezuma Wildlife Refuge is back up and running for another year!

Last year Mama Osprey hatched three - count 'em, three! - little ones, so be sure to check in and see how many baybies appear this year!



Click here. The link is also over on the left, there, under ..... wait a minute, let me find it ..... Okay, it's under "Interesting People" - click over there on Osprey Cam!



Or, you know, click here. Heh.

Freaky! Friday!

First off, many thanks to the kind Jess Riley, who sent me milkweed seeds to plant. Thanks, Jess - I can't wait to get started.

Also, the lawn-mowing-Mexican-standoff in my neighborhood has officially ended. Everybody was holding off on mowing their lawns, knowing that once they started, the lawn-mowing season would carry merrily on for the next SIX MONTHS. So everybody was waiting, waiting for a neighbor to mow first and shame them into mowing their own lawn.

I resisted the peer pressure when T. across the street had her lawn mowed, but when L. right next door to me mowed? I bowed.

Lawn-mowing season has begun. *sigh* On the plus side, that's a pretty good sign that snow-shoveling season has ended.


Okay, on with Freaky! Friday!

I picked up this book at a thrift store (where else?) - it's a Christian Science book. An inscription on one of the title pages is dated 1919, so it's at least that old.




The thing that kills me about this book is the seal on the cover:



In case you can't see it, it reads "Heal the sick - Raise the dead - Cleanse the lepers - Cast out demons."

Raise the dead? Sounds like zombie action to me. Count me out.

craigslist.weird

The former owner of my house left behind an upright freezer in the garage. He left behind a LOT of crap, actually; boxes and boxes of old shit up in the attic, and a couple of garbage cans full of old shingles and ceiling tile out IN THE BACKYARD, and cans and cans of paint, opened and God only knows how old, in various places.

Thanks, former owner! It's bad enough that I had to clean out the place I was moving FROM; it just adds insult to injury that I had to ALSO clean out the place I was moving TO.


Sheesh. I don't get paid enough for this shit.



ANYhoo, I had myself a freezer. Unfortunately, I do not have a ton of kids or a husband who hunts, so I had no need for said freezer. And it was taking up valuable real estate, i.e., a corner of the garage that I would prefer to fill with crap of my very own.



First, I tried to barter it with the various people who were doing repairs on the house. No dice. Then I tried to GIVE it away. Nope. Finally, in desperation, I put an ad on craigslist.



And let me tell you, the squirrels come out of the woodwork when you put an ad on craigslist. Dear sweet lord, there are some ODD people out there. Along with the old deaf people who try to talk to you on the phone without actually being able to, you know, HEAR what you're saying, there's the scammers and the spammers, and there was ALSO one enterprising individual who actually HIGHJACKED my lowly listing in an attempt to sell some old Nissan. DUDE: Listings are FREE. Get your own.



But! The freezer is sold. Fifty bucks, in my pocket. And hallelujah, because that thousand-dollar timing belt job that I got talked down into three hundred bucks? Has morphed into a timing belt-water pump-tensioner EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLAR EXTRAVAGANZA* under the hood of my car.

Don't ever buy a Saturn. I am telling you right now, DO NOT EVER BUY A SATURN. I won't go into all the reasons right now, but a main one is that Saturn is proprietary with their parts, meaning that if something breaks on your car, you can't go to the local parts store and buy a replacement. You have to go directly through Saturn, which in this area means a warehouse an hour-and-a-half away, which means it takes AT LEAST a day to get parts.


Which means my car has now been in the garage, on a lift, for THREE DAYS, patiently waiting for various and sundry parts.


And the garage dude is all, "well, I'm having to rearrange the schedule here at the shop because your car's on one of the lifts", and I'm all, "YOUR schedule? I'M the one with no car, brudda!"


On the plus side, Little Girl was kind enough to bring me a mouse this morning. Thanks, Little Girl! Maybe I can trade it for some car repairs.



*Updated to add: Did I say eight hundred dollars? I just got off the phone with garage dude, and I MEANT to say eight-hundred-fifty-two-dollars-and-seventy-one-cents. SON OF A BITCH.

It's like the Deer World is trying to contact me

It all started with the antlers from Jimay's. Then came the Big Box O'Antlers. Then there was the deer bones by the side of the road. After that came the bones I found by the creek.

On Saturday, I was out mucking around and found yet another area where deer had been field dressed last fall.

These remains have a little more, well, decomposing to do before I'm willing to load them in the back of the wagon. I'll keep an eye on them.

And then, Sunday, I was out walking someplace else, and looked down and saw a big ol' antler just laying on the ground:

Look how big this sucker is!:

Did you know that white-tailed deer shed their antlers every year? I did not know this. In all my time wandering around in the woods, I had never found an antler. Until yesterday. I had always assumed that you could tell how old a buck was by how big its antlers were. Silly me. Although, as it turns out, in general the older a buck is, the bigger its (annual) rack will be, so I wasn't totally off base. Just some.

But with all these bones appearing to me, it's like the deer are trying to tell me something. With their bones. I just can't figure out what it is.

Maybe they'll get ahold of me via the radio station in my house.

Random cranky Monday-afternoon-office thought

People who leave time on the office microwave clock are like people who leave the seat up are like people who litter.

Inconsiderate of those who come after them.



And hey, kid, GET OFF OF MY LAWN.

Awake and dreaming

First off: TURRRTLES! The turtles are up out of the mud and sunning themselves on logs and rocks. Welcome back to the topside, guys! A hearty welcome as well to the snakes and the rabbits, also spied out and about this weekend. See also: Mayflowers, spring beauties, skunk cabbage, bluets and trout lilies. The fauna and flora are back in abundance.





Okay, here's a weird thing. On Saturday morning, around six-fifteen, I had a dream. (I'll keep this brief; I promise.) And in the dream there was a radio playing really LOUD. I woke up, and I could still hear the radio. At first I thought that one of the cats had knocked over the radio in the bathroom and it somehow turned on, but as I listened, it sounded like, you know how when you're dialing around to find a station and you somehow get in between TWO stations and you can hear bits and snippets of both?



Except it was just, like, syllables. Like, "kay-do-me-by-ee-lan-ma-dee". Really LOUD.



And I laid there, wondering, what the heck IS this radio station? And where is it coming from? And I thought, well, maybe the paperboy's got a radio. But instead of sounding like it was coming from one specific place, it sounded like it was all around me, like I was in the middle of a stadium and all the speakers were going at once. LOUD. And I was pissed off, because THIS IS WHY I MOVED.


And then, just as I was about to get out of bed and find out what was happening, the sound started to fade. Over the course of about a minute, it went away completely.


Okay, the way I see it, there's two options here:


1. I was still dreaming. Waking up and still hearing the noise was all part of the dream, and I woke up for real some time later.


2. The mothership came back for the damn winged rabbit, and was hovering over my house beaming down instructions for return to the homeland.



The rabbit's still in the kitchen, so I guess I've gotta go with option 1.


But it was still weird.

Freaky Friday - Peter Cottontail edition

Okay, so, the antiques store where I bought Saint Jude has a Table O'Crap right by the cash register, where all the dealers pile the cheap, often broken stuff they can't get rid of. Everything on the table is a dollar.

The dude behind the sales counter was bullshitting with the customer ahead of me and I had to wait to buy Saint Jude, so I turned around to purvey the Table O'Crap, when what did I see but this:







(Note: Not actual antiques-store-Table-O'Crap. This is my own personal Table O'Crap, one of several at my place.)



What in the hell IS this? It's about ten inches tall. It seems to be made out of plaster. It's got rabbit ears and and a rabbit nose, but also wings. It also has a human body, with what looks like six-pack-abs, along with a freakin' belly button, evidence that it was not crafted to look fur-covered as a rabbit would be. Rabbit head; wings; human body. WTH?



Peeps, I don't find this stuff. It finds me.

One born every minute

So, I was driving back from the bank the other day when I passed a house with a blooming magnolia tree in the front yard.

And I remembered how, this time last year, I drove past a different house with a magnolia, and I instantly wanted one, and even looked into the details of getting one, but then realized that the backyard where I was renting was already pretty shady, and did I really want another tree, and hey, I wasn't gonna live there forever anyway, RIGHT?

What a difference a year makes.

Now I am in my own house, with my great big backyard (photo taken last year; everything's still pretty brown right now):




Jeezus, I love that backyard. Even if it DOES get squishy this time of year.

And I can plant all the trees I want.

But not too many. I like sunlight, not shade.

Side note: According to my neighbor, that tree to the right of the willow is an elm. Evidently the neighborhood was once full of them, but then Dutch Elm Disease came along, and I've got one of the only ones left. Go, elm tree!

Back to the story: I went on line and bought a magnolia. I thought about buying a Catalpa, but you guys told me they were a pain in the ass, so I'm going to pass for now.

I don't know about you, but I find it impossible to go to a nursery website and buy just one thing. Plus, Michigan Bulb (I know. I KNOW.) is having a special where if you buy forty bucks worth of stuff, you get twenty bucks off the order. Who can resist?

Not me.

So now I've got a magnolia on the way, and a weeping cherry tree, and a butterfly bush, and three hardy hibiscuses. Hibisci?

Oh! Oh! And then I was in Crapmart the other night, and there was a whole shelf full of peony plants, you know how they come, just the bare roots in dirt in a bag? And one of them was struggling to start growing, inside the bag, inside the store, under those crappy Crapmart lights.

I'm not made of STONE, people. I bought that peony. If it's trying THAT HARD to grow, against all odds, I'll give it a home. I know this photo is blurry, but check out those shoots poking up:



And then I had to stop at another store, and they had a display of starter lilacs for four bucks. Four bucks! I had two lilacs, a white and a purple, at the old place, but they had grown too big to move and I had to leave them behind. So I had to buy one of the four-dollar lilacs, natch.



Time to start digging some holes. C'mon over!

Up next: Kazoo

What is going on with American Idol? Last night, that one gal was accompanied by a guy on a didgeridoo, or whatever you call those giant Australian horn thingies, and that other dude's performance featured a dramatic entrance by a ....... bagpiper.

And OH MY GOD could they have dragged that show out any longer? Gah.

Too bad none of this year's contestants can actually, you know, SING. Oh, I know, a couple of them have passable voices, but really nothing terribly stand-out-ish.

So said the girl whose cats flee the room when she sings. Heh.

Oh, boy, am I pissed (Now with updates!)

People I am currently waiting to hear from:

1. The mechanic, with an estimate for replacing my timing belt. Okay, okay, the car's timing belt. I called him yesterday, and he said he'd call me "right back" with the price. Yeah.

2. The locksmith. I've been trying to get a doorlock situation at the house remedied since, oh, last August. (Dear robbers: All of the locks work. I just don't like the type of lock. Repeat: All of the locks work. Just so you know. You robbers.) This particular locksmith got involved about a week ago, and said he'd have someone give me a call and let me know when one of his guys would be stopping by. Still waiting.

3. The furnace guy. Jesus CHRIST what is with this guy? He finally showed up a while back to put in the new blower motor, but the furnace STILL isn't running right, and he was going to just pop by when he got a break in his schedule. That was ....... weeks ago? Maybe months? F*ck.

4. The plate-glass window guy, who was out to lunch when I called an hour ago and ...... oh wait! He's on the phone. Hallelujah. Be right back.

Okay, so the plate-glass window guy said come right over, bring your windows, and I did. And he said he could replace the broken glass in my storm windows, no problem, and he'd - uh oh - "give you a call when they're ready." Shit. F*ck me.

I know I've ranted about this before, but WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GET SOMEONE TO FIX SOMETHING AROUND HERE? I am paying GOOD MONEY to get this shit fixed and WHY WILL NO ONE RETURN MY CALLS and HEY KIDS GET OFF OF MY LAWN.

Sheesh.



Updated to add: The mechanic just called back. He wants a thousand dollars to replace the timing belt. A. thousand. dollars. Granted, that includes a new water pump (which the car does not need; it was replaced two years ago, thankyouverymuch) and a system flush, but still. It's a THIRTY-FIVE DOLLAR PART. Calling other garages in three ....... two ...... one......

Updated AGAIN to add: See the comments for the latest development!

Non, je ne regrette rien

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'

Peep is Risen.

ONE

...... singular sensation.

I quit smoking one year ago today.

Can I have an Amen?

For those of you who may be new here, I smoked a pack-and-a-half a day for almost thirty years. And then I quit. Cold turkey.

One last run of the numbers:

Number of cigarettes I would have smoked between April 3, 2009 and today, had I not stopped smoking on that date: 10,950.


Amount of money saved: $1,952.75. (Just to clarify: I smoked cheap cigs I bought on line. Had I been buying name-brand smokes at the 7-11, that number would have easily been double. I used a figure of $3.56 a pack, since that's what my cigs cost at the time I quit.)


I've owned cars that cost less than that. A LOT less.


I suppose I really should get all introspective up in this space right now, but I'll try to avoid it. I've been posting Nomoblowsmo updates one a month for the last year, so I think I've pretty much said it all by now.


I hope to shit that this is not gonna come off as pretentious, but I do think that if you've got a kid, you may want to print out some of those once-a-months (posted on the third of each month) and show them to him/her. You may want to black out the swear words, but show him/her some of those posts.

Because when I was a kid? I bought all that smoking-is-DEATH stuff they taught us in school - hook, line and sinker. I remember making up anti-smoking POSTERS and parading through the smoke-filled family room, BEGGING my father to quit.

A few years later, I was bumming smokes from him.

When you're young, you think you're invincible. Lung cancer happens to OTHER people; YOU, on the other hand, are going to live forever. And besides, you can quit any time you want. It's easy!

Um, no. It's not. And maybe if you show your kids some of these posts, and they see the way I've struggled for A YEAR to quit, they'll get the picture. Just a little. Probably not, but maybe.

And I just want to mention, real quick-like, The Easy Way to Stop Smoking by Allan Carr. You can get a used copy for less than ten bucks, including shipping, on Amazon. I'm not saying that I wouldn't have been able to quit smoking without it; I don't know that. One of the attractions was that you could smoke while reading the book; honestly, I probably wouldn't have bought it if not for that. I just know that I bought the book, smoked as I read it, put out a half-finished cigarette as I read the last words, and haven't smoked since. I was actually kind of afraid to read it, if you want to know the truth; it was kind of like, holy shit- what if it actually works? What if I actually quit? What will my life be like if I don't smoke? What will I DO without cigarettes?

It works, and I quit. And there was nothing to be afraid of. What do I do without cigarettes? Everything I did before, just without a cig in my hand.


I made it.

Funny? Or not-so-much?

First off, I am pleased to report that the spring peepers were peeping away last night, which is VERY cool, because at my old place, I had to go down to the creek if I wanted to hear peepers. Here, I just open a window. AND, I found coltsfoot on my property. It's blooming away, which means spring is surely here. It also means that I have a very soggy yard, but we'll skip over that part, shall we?



Okay, so I have been delegated to bring dessert to Easter family dinner. And because it's impossible to accurately predict how many people are going to attend beforehand, I thought I'd just make a sheet cake and be done with it.


Except I thought that a sheet cake was kind of boring, so I thought, well, I'll frost it in a pretty spring color. Like pink, or yellow, or green.


Hmmmm...... green......... If I frosted it green, it would look like grass, and I could go to the dollar store and get some little plastic bunnies to put on it. Festive! *cough*


So! I go to the dollar store, and what did I find but ...... bunny peeps! Cool, I thought, I can put the bunny peeps on the cake.


And my mind keeps churning, and I'm thinking, I can do a whole Easter scenario with the peeps! Like, "Christ is risen", with peeps! And I can put one peep on a straw to get him up above the cake, and I can make a little halo, and all the other bunny peeps can be looking up in amazement ....



See, here's the thing: I think that's funny. I'm pretty sure some other people who will be at Easter dinner will think that's funny. But there's some others, in particular the Catholic deacon ...... well, I'm not so sure.



What do you think? Christ in peep form, or play it straight?

..... and these were the last images found on her camera after her death.

Duuuuuuudes, check it out:





Sorry for the poor quality - I was trying to get some pics quickly, before he stabbed me to death with his bloody horn.




It's hard to tell from the pics, but that horn is definitely not after-market or what remained after something else was broken off. The red color is original, too, and not the work of some emo kid with a Sharpie. You can click those pics to embiggen.

Here's a pic of something similar I found on Flickr*:



Who is this dude?!

Right now he's on my kitchen windowsill beneath the Cabinet Wall O' Religion. (Whole other post, right there.) But I would not be surprised if I woke up some morning to find him on my nightstand, peering up at me. **






*When I went to look it up again so I could credit the photog, I could no longer find it. Spoooky.


** ha ha, not really. Because then I would die of fright.




DISCLAIMER: This totally counts as this week's Freaky Friday. Shut it, Rob.