Diggin' up bones

There is a blister on my right thumb. It makes me exceedingly happy, not because I like blisters generally, but because it serves as a badge of honor and a tangible reminder that I did something useful yesterday that was also great fun.

Alicia has a yard. She likes pretty trees and plants, and likes to do her own digging and cultivating. That being the case, we got to spend a whole afternoon shopping for plants at North Haven Gardens and carted them home in my little Mazda3. She even got a tree! Granted, a very young tree, although I think it would have been hilarious to get a bigger tree and have it stick out through the sun roof. The place was great, and I went into little kid run-around-touching-and-looking-at-everything mode. I even called my mom to inform her of this locale, as she is a full blown plantaholic who is always looking for a place to get a fix. Currently I have been trying to convince her that we need to plant an assortment of ground hugging plants between the flagstones in the backyard back home, and I think it's going to happen. Yay!

Alicia had been preparing for planting for a while now, and had some pretty new garden tools and even a set of new guest gardening gloves available for my use. In addition to the purchases of the day, she also had some flats of begonias and petunias awaiting their meeting with destiny. The weather was perfect for our endeavour, being cool and sunny and downright gorgeous. We worked on a couple of large concrete planters first off, loosening and composting the soil to prep it for the addition of some lovely mandevillas. For some reason, there were large chunks of flagstone buried in both, so it felt like a mini treasure hunt everytime we found one.

Now, there is a spiffy garden tool known as the Garden Claw, which will henceforth be known as THE CLAW. Because that's how I think of it, and that's how I say it. It is awesome! She's had it for a while, and it even has an infomercial. It is possibly one of the best outlets for excess energy of any kind that I have ever encountered. I mean, you essentially tear through the soil with almost manic glee, smashing through hardened clods and ripping out unwanted vegetation, but the end result produces beautifully composted earth that begs to be planted. You destroy and create, all at once!

During the course of using THE CLAW, I encountered a cable. I became subdued immediately, because I don't like mystery cables. Some are important, and some are just trash, but usually I can't tell the difference. In this case, it turned out to be... Christmas lights. That were for some reason buried 4 inches underground. Why? Who knows. We lacked the patience to dig up the whole thing, so we merely tore out what we could and proceeded with THE CLAW.

We did good. All plants were accounted for, and additional planning is already in the works by Alicia for her next planting day, which will take place in the front yard. The baby Japanese maple still awaits it's home in the ground, but in the meantime is still living in it's pot. It's time will come soon enough.

In broad daylight

The other day while driving past the grassy knoll with Alicia, she pointed at a beat up pickup driving across the field nearby. "What is that truck doing?" I turned and appraised it. It might have been white once, but was now a pale shade of dirt. There were no other identifiers painted on the doors, no insignia. But I pointed to the back, where some shovels were visible, and said, "It's just a groundskeeper or caretaker." "Yeah, that's probably right."

Driving a bit further, though, and the idea that it might have been something else was a fun topic. Because, seriously, if you were going to be ballsy about burying something that you didn't want found, be it a body (gasp!), money, or the lost Ark of the Covenant, wouldn't that be the way? Just get a crappy pickup, toss the stuff in the back, and drive into downtown Dallas. People might be curious for about 5 seconds, and then, "Eh, it's just a caretaker. Or maybe one of the electric cable guys."

It reminds me of being back at UNT, where I had a tendency to clamber up to assorted perches on trees and walls to read/people watch/blow bubbles/have in depth philosophical discussions. People don't look up. You could throw acorns at them, talk to them, or shower them with bubbles, and most people look frantically around and behind them. I believe the results of a casual study I undertook found that only about 61% look up, and only 3% look up first. It was hiding in plain sight, and quite fun.

Curse you, WoW

I was shocked to learn that I have spent nearly 20 entire days of my life playing a troll on World of Warcraft. That's 480 hours of my life spent running around with my loyal pig Dusty shooting ne'er do wells in the virtual realm. Crap, that's a lot of time. If I'd spent that time walking briskly, 134400 calories may have been burned, which is about 38 pounds of fat. Or I could have gotten through about 49000 pages of reading/studying.

Crazy.

That upsets me so much, I think I'm going to have to go hunt some yeti. Just for a bit.

BTE

Everyone has their blue songs. A blue song, you say? I like to define it as a song that you play when you're feeling down and out. Sometimes you want your blue songs to run parallel with your mood, and sometimes you blast Aqua because it's ridiculous and makes you laugh your way out of it.

I've got quite a bit of both. Most recently I've been in the first category phase. I'm seriously hoping it's just a brief lag until I start listening to Barbie Girl .

Backyards and spring

This time of year, I spend a lot of time staring at trees and craving a backyard. Everything has that almost neon sheen of new growth, and post-thunderstorms it really seems that the greenery is glowing. The Japanese maples are gloriously crimson, the flowers are running rampant, and the highways in Texas are turning blue and orange.

Good thing for friends with homes. Part of my afternoon I got to lounge pool side (albeit briefly) and indulge in tres leches cupcakes. Delicious. The evening found me lounging outside with a soda and soaking in the approaching dusk after getting to play dress up with baby Zoe and hearing her giggle for the first time. Shockingly, I spent no time in the hammock. A beautiful evening concluded with some homemade lasagna (also delicious) and some good conversation.

The Fool

There is a certain type of folk tale that involves an idiot. Stories like Lazy Jack and The Foolish Brother. Stories about people that are so stupid that they always say and do the wrong thing. Stories about people incapable of thinking before acting.

When I was younger I wondered if there really were people this dumb.

Oh.

I need a napkin

Not to be a copycat, but given my love of singing and my occasional tendency to burst into song at the drop of a hat, this post is essential.



These guys are great! You can find tons of their stuff online, and I suggest you take some time to laugh.

Oh, and their website has a script and music in case you want to stage Food Court Musical at a mall near you.