quick story

I am a fearless blogger

Check out the Chinese Dogwood that’s in full bloom in my yard. To get the shots, I went up to the 3rd floor of the house, where the kids’ rooms are, and climbed out a window and onto the roof for a better angle. Not the perfect angle, but you can see it’s a lovely, lovely tree. I did not steal this tree from Barbara’s yard. She scares me.  

But what scares me even more is the mess up there in kidville. I know I’ll get nightmares about mountainous dirty-laundry monsters that loom behind doors. 

Who you calling...

I've been accused of 3 things in my life that I didn't like too much. As it turns out, at least 2 of them are not true.

1. "You turned left in front of me and made me hit you!!"
2. "You're damaged goods."
3. "You stole plants from my garden and put them in your garden."

Number 1 was yelled at me by an elderly driver and his 2 elderly passengers. When they reported this to the traffic officer, the cop asked, "but then how did you end up across her lane with a dent on your passenger side door?" Exactly.

Number 2 was some crap yelled at me by my ex-husband in a moment of extraordinary malignancy. He wanted to reconcile, but then stood me up on our "date." I cried, mad as hell that I let him hurt me yet again. His explanation--"you're damaged goods em."

And 3. A recent accusation made by my neighbor. "I see those poppies and other plants and rocks from my garden in your garden."
me: "What? Why would I take your stuff?"
her: "I've been asking myself the same thing."

This could not stand. I didn't steal anything from her garden, and I had to make her understand that. So I returned in a couple of days to discuss it with her.
me: "Barbara, what in the world makes you think I would steal things from you? I bought all my plants at the store in Pennington--"
her: "You and I both know you can't buy poppies in a store!"
me: "--What the...? OK, whatever. I bought my plants at the store in Pennington. I was with my mother at the time. Would you like to speak with her?"
her: "No, that won't be necessary."
me: "And anyway, here are your poppies right here, in this overgrown section."
her:  "You and I both know that I had lots more poppies than that. I also had garden lamps--where are they then?"
me: "Are you crazy?!

Yes, I still needed to convincer her that I didn't take anything from her garden. So I sent my mother over on Saturday while Barbara sat on her porch to explain that we shopped together recently for a variety of plants, including poppies.
Mom: "Hello Barbara! How are you? Now what's this misunderstanding about poppies all about?"
her: *dramatically ignores my mother*
Mom: *uses her measured mother-voice* "Barbara, em and I bought her poppies and some other things recently at Stony Brook..." 
her: *whistles in her over-cooked depiction of one person ignoring another*

That does it. You've been disrespectful to my ever-polite and friendly mother. The gloves are off and Plan: Make Barbara Feel Foolish is in full swing. When I drove by yesterday evening and she was outside I slowed down and told her that I’ve got a new Astilbe plant still in its container in my garden...
her: “A wha?”
me: "An ah-still-bee, Barbara. It's a perennial. A friend gave it to me the other day; please don’t decide it’s yours.” Then I pulled away while she crabbed nonsense at the back of my car.  I might just stop by every time I get something new and show her the receipts.

Why she would ever jump to such conclusions, and then hold tight to them despite all the reasonable arguments to the contrary is just beyond me. Newsflash! There’s a thief in Trenton! Must be em!

hose malfunction

I had to rush out of the house at an unGodly hour Sunday morning, and as I tumbled out the door with keys, bag, cheerleading skirt, travel mug of coffee, glasses, etc, I heard a strange spritzing sound. And then I slipped and fell at the top of the porch steps. Somefuckinghow, my garden hose decided to turn itself on, and arc a steady stream of water up over the bush and across the porch all night long, icing everything over solidly.

Damn garden ghosts. The sunset was otherworldly too.

Tit for tat

The squirrels living around em manor are crafty.

I strung the Christmas lights last weekend along the porch roof in a festive loop-de-loop arrangement (loops only somewhat uneven), and in no time flat those squirrels had figured out how to swing over to the bird feeder from the lights—a full bird feeder was emptied in half a day. Because I’ve got a bigger brain than most squirrels do, I eventually figured out how to rearrange the loop-de-loops so the squirrels could no longer swing over to the bird feeder. And Sunday night, I came home to 1 lonely light bulb hanging at the start of the loop-de-loop arrangement, a gnawed strand of 10 bulbs broken on the porch floor, 5 more light bulbs in a short loop-de, 8 bulbs shattered on the porch floor, and a final sad little loop of 3 lights. This was not at all festive.

The fuzzy-tailed little rats are retributive too. I think they also gnawed through the computer cable last night. Repairmen coming today, thank goodness. 

Domestic em

Leave it up to me and we'll all eat boloney sandwiches and baked beans.

I'm not much of a cook. I've got a limited range of offerings, most tailored to appeal to the children of the house, so as to keep the whining down to an abrasive screech. But, this weekend I got busy--I located and dusted off the slow cooker/crock pot that I've been storing for 2 years, and I made 3 daring, delicious, and delectable dishes (No whining about the alliteration--I could have gone on, but I didn't). 

First I made an easy split pea soup with ham--Used a nice dry bean and spices package but I took a short cut by cutting up a ham steak instead of using the big bone and meaty left-overs from a giant spiral-cut ham, mostly because I wasn't going to go buy a $75 ham for its left-overs.

Next, I tried the Autumn harvest stew--I had to as it turns out. Truth be told, I read a post describing some appetizing veggies over here, and I could go no further until I had some of those. This recipe called for sweet potatoes, parsnips, apples, and pork shoulder. Put it all together in the slow cooker with some diced onions, thyme, rosemary, and apple cider and you are good to go.

Last effort of the weekend was Tuscan sausage and bean soup--Get some dry great northern beans going, brown a goodly amount of Italian sausage and then toss it all in the slow cooker along with a sliced summer squash, 2 cloves of garlic, beef broth, red wine, and Italian seasonings, and when you wake up in the morning--lunch! (and dinner for the next several days.)

These will not of course be touched by any of the children of the house, but that's their loss. My freezer is stocked, and I won't have to cast about for what to have on those nights when I'm making 5 or 10 grilled cheese sandwiches and a vat of tomato soup for various and sundry peoples (althought that's pretty yummy too). 

2 things (Stones and milestones)

1. Built another walled flowerbed on the rolling grounds of em’s estate last weekend. Stole most of the stones from a construction site this time. Also walked along Jacob’s Creek, where I (mis)spent my youth, and found some excellent cappers. It’s not done yet, but here’s the basic outline...

How about this plant?! It’s called Brugmansia, and I’ve had this one for about 3 years. It normally blooms several times each summer, but I think it’s not getting enough sun in its new home. Not much I can do about that.

2. My counter will roll over to 20,000 later this week. I’d have a contest with a fabulous prize to the commenter who clicks in right on 20,000, but I have no idea how to check that. So now what will I do with all these Tiffany geegaws, gimcracks, and knickknacks? I know what to do with the large bottles of expensive boutique vodka...

Missed the garden tour?

Here's a couple of pictures. I finally figured out how to use the new camera--shut up, it's an extremely complicated piece of equipment.

Here's the winning garden--mine! ;-)

A small patch but I think it looks nice.

And here's the dock--

Gardening and partying

The nervously anticipated Island garden tour was this past Saturday, and it went pretty well, all in all. As I think I mentioned, I volunteered to organize it this year, and this was more involved than I had imagined. Got the brochure materials started early--good. Got the advertisements out to the media outlets late--bad. Deadlines, schmedlines (but you know, you'd think a professional *editor* would have a better sense of these things ffs). Most made it in anyway tho.

I (okay, Katie and her friends) distributed the lovely poster that neighbor BK had designed and printed only a bit later than intended. Took a bit of ribbing about the signage that I begged from .rz to direct people from the nearby highway into the neighborhood. Too small was the complaint. Well too damn bad. We're relying on people like him to *donate* their efforts, so shut up.

Because the weather cooperated, turnout was the highest ever, and we made decent money for the civic association. Don't ask me what they do with it, because I don't know.

I invited my friends to take the tour and then stop in at my house for a small get-together. This had me (okay, me and Katie and her friends) in a cleaning frenzy all week, but now that's done for the quarter..;-) I put together (okay, bought) some delicious and inviting platters of fresh veggies, dips, cheeses, pepperoni, and crackers; also the prerequisite bowls of chips and such; and of course beer wine soda on ice in coolers. Everything was set up outside on the porch on the 2 big tables, which looked very nice with fresh flowers in vases and new tablecloths. Because we stayed outside, the interior damage was minimal, but we did have one small mishap on the porch--tall neighbor Paul sat on the porch railing and it caved. I'm glad he didn't end up on his back in the garden 5 feet down, because he might have broke more than a hosta. The railing is old, like the house, and it's suspended between the porch pillars via connections directly into the brick pillar abutments. This doesn't seem like such a good design, although it looks nice.

It was a good albeit long day. I left the dozens and dozens of empties and food detritus till the morning.

This blog--okay, I--have become So. Fucking. Boring.

Trust me, I’m a medical editor

Boy did I wrench my back this weekend. I’ve never injured my back before, just snickered at those who had, but man does it HURT!

Cause—I tried to heave a big stone into place on the garden wall by myself.

Effect—Self-inflicted muscle strain and spasms all along the left side of the spine.

Solution—Self-medicate with a handful of prescription muscle relaxants from the armamentarium, and go on a 4 mile run.

Result of self-advice—Calcified back muscles, despite additional large doses of self-administered muscle relaxants and alcohol.

Solution—Get yourself over to the doctor’s office for a shot in the butt of something good and 2 bottles of oral meds, an opioid/acetaminophen combo for the pain and a heavy-duty muscle de-calcifier.

No, you can’t have any. I’m selfish.

Hey!

Elsie!? Is that you in that garden? She's not gonna like that!! But grab me that blue hosta, would ya? Thanks Love!