I'm getting pressure from various sources to blog again, so for today's reminder on just WHY I stopped blogging in the first place, we're going to discuss one of the dangers of suburban living: gardening.

When we first bought our house, we were instantly charmed by the small, cozy tree lined lot. The western side lot has a grove of pine trees and a black walnut tree and was taken up by a winding cottage garden, filled with wildflowers and tall lush grasses. The current owner, Lori, was on her knees tending to some tulips, which ringed the fir tree, and the walk to the door featured flower beds lined with decorative stones and tiny terra-cotta pots filled with small African violet. The front beds boasted more of that tall grass and viney ground cover along with some hardy scrubby bushes and a few varieties of hosta.

It was very pretty, and very dangerous. Bryan took a look at the yard and said "Lady, I'll mow the lawn and you can do the gardening!" Needless to say, I was not happy with this arrangement because I am not an idiot. I know many people adore gardening in the same way many people adore running. They have that fanatical gleam in their eye that people get when they force themselves to do something which you know from harsh experience is painful and really, really boring. I am also NOT a gardener. Plants that will thrive anywhere die under my cold, evil touch. I also knew that mowing the grass twice a week on a 1/4 acre lot would be nothing compared to dealing with the beds and the tiers of flowers our skilled former owner had planted. She knew her stuff---early blooming bulbs for March and April, tall gorgeous wildflowers for a carefree summer look (all edged with low useful herbs of course), and late blooming shrubs for Indian summer. I knew instantly that 1)I would fail and 2)that Bryan uses the appearance of guileless ease to disguise the fact that he is Satan, and wants his wife to toil every day in the Garden of Endless Maintenance. It wasn't helped by people who would come over, squint critically at the yard and say "you should GARDEN! Gardening would be nice, wouldn't it? You should do this here, and that there, and these (insert name of expensive tropical plant) are LOVELY!" Most of these suggestions were for annual plants which need to be planted every year (what's the point?) and did not take into consideration things such as climate, rainy lake shore weather, or the fact that I have a full time job with a long commute, in addition to cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping and general tasks and hobbies.

Nevertheless, one of the hazards of buying a house in the cheap cottage district of a nice neighborhood is that people have gardens, damnit. Or they pay people to garden for them, since I've only seen three other people outside cursing at the soil and screaming "GROW FASTER, I PAID GOOD MONEY FOR YOU!" (OK, maybe I'm the only one who does that. But to be fair, the only other three people I see outside are men, and they spend more time frowning thoughtfully and bustling about in a manly fashion than they do pulling on their frizzy hair and shrieking.)

Last spring was difficult, since I had no idea of what to do to winterize the lawn. We'd (and by we, I mean Bryan) harbored the mistaken belief that covering the beds with leaves would protect them from wind and erosion during the winter, not stopping to think that they would also make a huge gooey damp mess to clean up in the spring. Also, since we bought the house in July we weren't sure which plants were the early blooms and which were horrible weeds which would surely take over the plots. I spent too much money at the garden center trying to cover what probably would have been better if I'd actually, like, spread new dirt over the worn areas and just planted some rosemary or something as ground cover and said the hell with it.

This year we heeded the lessons from last spring and tried to get up as many leaves as possible. It worked great, except that the city didn't pick up our leaves for a week and a half and by that time most of them were in the beds again. Also, it turns out one of the hazards of living on a shady romantic plot is that there are leaves everywhere. Not the delicate autumnal leaves gently gracing the walkway, but knee deep leaves molding from the underneath upwards, plastered to the foundation and strangling everything but the weeds and killing the grass.

It also turns out that in order to have a carefree riotous burst of color in your lovely low maintenance cottage garden, you actually need to trim down the long plants after the bloom, or else they will die and leave horribly scraggly grassy trails across the lawn, tangling with the leaves and making a nightmare out of raking.

Here are some other things I've learned, in our charming fucking gardens:

1. Everyone else on the street will have lovely looking plots but you will never see THEM out there in ill-fitting jeans and stupid sun hats, and you will get the impression that the entire time they are watching your bent over body and laughing, thinking "that idiot knows nothing about lawn care! Why didn't she do that two months ago?"
2. Pruning after blooming is very important. Very. Important. If you prune after the bloom, you will save yourself work in the spring, although you will have to risk bees and giant spiders in order to clear away the debris.
3. Pine needles make a lovely fragrant scent. They are also a bitch to rake up, especially when intertwined with the straggly dead plants you failed to prune in the summer because you are afraid of both bees and spiders.
4. Even if you are diligent about picking up dog poop in the winter, and even if you try to pick up dog poop OTHER dogs leave on your lawn as the snow melts, there will still be MORE poop molding underneath the leaves that have blown into your plots all winter, not to mention those dead plants you failed to prune in the summer.
5. Black walnuts sound romantic and are a pretty green. They are also deadly and can kill you in a windstorm. Or at the very least, they will make fun dents on the hood of your car.
6. Whoever planted a black walnut tree over the driveway and over the tin awning for the side door must have had a death wish.
7. Black walnut pits and snow-damp dog poop look a lot alike. Pick both up with a plastic bag or shovel, NOT your thinly cotton-gloved hands.
8. After hours of backbreaking effort to clean winter wind blown leaves and junk out of your beds, you'll still look at them and see leaves and wind blown junk. My solution to this will be to dump more dirt on top of it and kill anyone who dares to mock this brilliant method.

In conclusion, if you inherit a garden, you might want to consider using a book to locate the high maintenance plants. Then dig them up, fill in the plot with dirt, and start over with some nice hardy junipers or something that don't take any work. Or you could pay some handsome, sweaty young shirtless thing to come tend the beds while you sit on the porch with your mint julep. Mmmmmm. Maybe I could learn to like "gardening" after all.

Lately I've been getting some pressure to start blogging again. However, for certain reasons (career, legal and personal), I feel that a typical diary style blog is no longer appropriate for me. So, in order to satisfy both my urge to spew my personal thoughts all over the internet, as well as my urge to stuff my face, this blog is going to transform into something a little more...cheesy.

Oh, I hear you skeptics now. "But Steph, aren't you lactose intolerant?"

Ha ha, only mildly. Pah. Screw lactose intolerance, anyway. That's why the good Lord invented Lactaid.

I won't promise that the upcoming entries will be intellectually challenging or politically controversial, but they will at least give me an excuse to eat more cheese than I ever though possible. And I'm from the midwest, for crying out loud. That equals a lot of freaking cheese.


I don't know about you, but I'm feeling pretty excited.

Wasn't it Ben
Franklin who said
he pitied people who
couldn't think of more
than one way to spell
a word?
Well,
that's a paraphrase.
And come to think of it,
it may not have been
Ben Franklin.
Hmmm,

story fail!

It has been brought to my attention that I don't post enough of the minutia of my life. I've been silent because life has been pretty general and Midwestern, but you asked for it, so before this post is done you will rue the day you asked for more of me and my whining. RUE IT!

As many people know, I have four cats. This isn't necessarily something I brag about, but I feel that it is important to the general tone of the story. Three of the four cats are very clingy, and will often roll up on a ball of orange and calico colored fur and groom each other until their fur is damp. It's equal parts cute and creepy. One day I noticed that Sprocket's gums were red, and he was missing some tiny top teeth. Loooong story short, they all have gingivitis. The antibiotics have helped, but if it's a recurring problem they might one day need to get their teeth pulled, which I guess is no big deal and might actually make them healthier in the long run without the recurring infections. Still---expensive. And bizarre. They all need to get jobs. Well, except for Louise, the smart one who managed NOT to get gum disease.

This story is eerily similar to an incident in which a friend of mine broke up with her boyfriend, and he ended up sleeping with someone in their circle of friends who slept with another person who broke up with someone in the circle who went and slept with another, until everyone in their social group ended up with chlamydia except for MY friend, who was smart enough not to join in the post-breakup disease fest.

But anyway, back to the post about my cats. (Are you ruing your desire to read this post yet? Really? Not yet? Well, you asked for it.) One of the more terrifying parts of going to the vet is that Sprocket is sort of a special needs cat who looks the part. He has a cloudy eye, the newly missing teeth, and he had a grooming problem earlier in the season so we trimmed part of his tail. Well, that looked dumb, so I let Skipper trim the rest of his tail fur right down to the skin. Because, you know, that wouldn't look dumb at all. So he's a fluffy orange cat with one busted eye, no front teeth and a poorly shaved tail. Strangely, the vet didn't even ask. She just wanted to know if his eye had always been cloudy, or what (it has.)

You may be wondering what this has to do with my love of free furniture. I assure you, I'm working my way there. See, much like my cats, the furniture in my house is what I like to think of as previously loved. When we first moved into the house, it was summer and 100 degrees outside, so we moved our red sofa and TV into the basement and used that as our living room. It was nice and cool, and it got even cooler a few weeks later when the basement flooded.

The sofa (which is still in the basement) is reddish leather that came from a hippie couple we knew who traveled the country in one of those short school buses which they converted into a camper. The leather is so bad that the back of the couch is just falling off. When we moved it from apartment to house, I tried to duct tape the back on so that we wouldn't lose any more stuffing/pieces of frame. When the Great Flood occurred we were forced to move to the living room and live above ground like normal people. Unfortunately the oddly shaped hippie couch wouldn't fit up the stairwell again. So we lived for months without a couch because couches are expensive and we needed a new fridge. Which is another story.

Jenny's mom happened to have a spare couch laying around, a wonderful unused thing that started its life as a lovely pink and blue plaid, and was later partially covered in warm florals, and finally was slip covered in hunter green microfiber. After a thorough febreezing (at this point, Jenny also had four cats) it was living room ready. And what a couch it is! I love this couch. Jenny doesn't understand why we think it's so great, but then, she wasn't sitting on folded blankets on her hardwood floors for months. The couch may be older than I am, but it's nice and firm. Not overstuffed. No stupid side cushions that always need fluffing. Long enough to sleep on. It's great. And it was free!

One of the reasons I was glad to get a couch is that people often sleep over. One time we laid out blankets and Skip and Jen actually slept on the hardwood in the living room. They must have been pretty tanked, because it would have been more comfortable if they'd just slept in the car, or out on the lawn. We have a guest bed, but it's very small and it's in the attic which isn't insulated and can get very, very hot.

So when my friend, Lovell, called to tell us that he was moving to Florida and was getting rid of his junk, including a futon, we were very excited. For some reason Bryan has always wanted a futon. Kind of like a little boy who grows up and always wants to have a shiny red sports car, only much much cheaper to insure. We planned on putting our new-to-us futon in the basement and using it for both fun and profit. I thought Lovell was being pretty generous, but he seemed eager to downplay his contribution to our Castle of Free Furniture. He kept repeating to me that it was a shitty futon. A shitty OUTDOOR futon. A shitty outdoor futon with a plywood base. As though we couldn't just replace/wash the mattress or something. We drove out to Cleveland Heights, and sure enough, there it was on his porch. Apparently he and his fiancee would sit out there on the crappy futon and drank pitchers of margaritas while melting candles into little tiny penis shapes. There were dozens of these wax sculptures, littering the porch floor and their coffee table. (Their shitty OUTDOOR coffee table.)

We got the futon into the hatchback and were all set to go when we realized that 1) a folded futon is STILL too long to fit into a Chevy Aveo hatchback and 2) we did not have any bungee cords. We did what any group of twenty somethings with messy cars would do (insert old-timey suspense filled organ music here)--located a mic cable and used that. It worked great. Until the lid started flying up and the whole mess started to slide out the back while we were on the road. We had to stop a few times and re-strap it down, and I ended turned around in my seat for the last 15 miles, just holding onto the thing and throwing my weight back every time it shifted. I know I sound bitter, and believe me, I was, but I must say that Bryan's MacGuivering with the mic cords was pretty impressive.

It's actually not that bad, for all of Lovell's cautionary posturing. The mattress isn't fabulous, and because of the plywood you can only lay one way when it's reclined. Still---free futon! Am I wrong in saying that there is no such thing as a bad shitty outdoor FREE futon?

I will end this post with a picture. Steve likes it too. I don't even want to know what he smells. It might spoil the surprise for whoever gets to sleep on it next.

Hurrah!

Sorry you woke up at 6:15 from the dog barfing chewed up kleenex all over the floor. And sorry that I made the situation worse by yelling "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" when you stepped in it.

The Wii fit arrived yesterday. I've played it a few times before, and have experienced firsthand the creepy noise it makes when you step on the balance board ("ooh!"), the way it forces you to set fitness "goals" and the way it makes comments such as "wow, balance isn't your strong suit, is it?" The Wii Fit is kind of an asshole. Nevertheless, it's an asshole that provides feedback on how well you are doing certain exercises, and allows you to pair certain exercises in conjunction with another for a better workout. It measures results and is fun, rather than repetitive and boring. A good tool, or so I imagined.

Well! Tool is CERTAINLY the right term! Garvin just logged in and it asked him "What do you think about Stepho's posture lately?" The Wii GOSSIPS between users! And not only that, he had to ENTER IN HIS ANSWER. Meaning when I log in, it's going to say something snotty like "sooo, Garvin thinks your posture sucks. Maybe you should do more yoga."

Furthermore, the Wii is connected to other Wiis via the internet. I wonder if our Wii is chatting with Jeli's Wii. "Did you know that Stepho always chooses +4 pounds for her clothes, even when she's in her underwear?" "Yeah! Sue/Jen/Ali does the same thing!"

Ha ha ha! Garvin just stepped on and it told him he gained three pounds (probably from drinking two large glasses of water right before stepping on.) He just had to enter a reason and listen to a lecture on Base Metabolic rate. Ha ha ha ha ha! Serves you right, Gossipy McGossips!

I wonder if, when it asks me to explain my bad balance, I can enter in "cat insists on sitting on left side of balance board?"

I don't really have anything to update about, but that's boring. I suppose there are a few updates in my life but they're all pretty egocentric and have nothing to do with society at large. Therefore, I will make up updates and you will like them.

On Monday I discovered an island. I was at my office, and I decided to take a walk down to Quiznos to get some forty cent ice tea. Random thought: would 50 Cent the rapper but less hip if he called himself 40 Cent? Anyway, I tripped on my way down the stairs and instead of landing on metal and people, I landed on a stretch of forested dirt surrounded by a lake of Champagne. The natives were all dressed in Armani and had really sharp haircuts. I felt quite out of place in my deceptively sized pants (sooo not the size the tag says they are) and "wear to work" top I got at Target for $3. I looked up and asked them if they had 40 cent ice tea, and they told me that in their land, ice tea costs $15. They picked me up off the ground and kicked me back into the lobby. And that's how I ended up with stains all down my front. Don't listen to those naysayers who swear it was because they saw me drop a chili dog.

Yesterday morning I grew a third arm. I swear it's true! When I woke up this morning it was gone.

Tomorrow I'm going to change my name. I know, I know, I didn't even legally change my name when I got married. (Seriously---why do people just expect that a woman should do that? Maybe I expect that a man should always be 6'1" and buff and bring flowers everyday and he will have a voice like Josh Groban. That just goes to show you where your expectations will get you.) But tomorrow I will change my name. I'm going to be Bryan. And Bryan is going to be Stephanie. Oh...he doesn't know this yet. Let's make it surprise.

Oooh! Also, I started an organization. I can't believe I haven't blogged, what with all these new updates. I'm starting an organization where people can sit around, drink coffee, and whine about people who whine. Won't that be fun? Half an hour of each meeting will be devoted to talking about how we're so much better than everyone else. And the laugh half hour will be about how we should be the ones in charge of running things. We eat soup, in addition to drinking coffee. Membership costs $20. You should probably just mail it to me now.

Yesterday when moving my car, I noticed the prndl stick was sort of sticky. It was difficult to switch from Park to Reverse to Drive. It's been slowly getting sort of difficult to move, and I don't drive my car very often anymore, so I assumed it was gunked up and I'd just lube the heck out of it. Today I tried to start the car, and surprise, nothing happened. The electrical system was working, but the brake wouldn't really depress. I wonder if one of the cables or sensors connecting the brake to the gearshift has been declining (rusting?) and the non use sped that up. Anyway, the point is that I can't turn my car on, so I'm going to have someone come give me a hypothetical diagnosis and see if it's anything we can fix by simply rehooking a line or something. If not, I will get it towed to the dealership where I will proceed to drop a shitload of money into the car to get it operable again.

Thank God Garvin and I are carpooling right now.

I'm aggravated because I'm still making payments on my car. I know that maintenance and repairs are a part of car ownership, so that's not what bothers me. The car's actually been pretty good. Still---it sucks to sink money into something not fully paid off. I will continue to throw money at it until the frame falls apart, or I have to shove it off a bridge for insurance money, because this whole car payment thing is just not fabulous and when I'm done I want to put it off as long as possible.

Also, we found a plum tree in our yard, and two days later the plum tree fell over. Skip and Bryan hacked it up today with an axe. Easy come, easy go? I liked that tree, and now we'll need to find something else to support our grapevine, since the grapes were growing into the tree. The grapes are just starting to form, and I don't want to bruise them. Stuffed grape leaves, anyone?

I played Wii fit for the first time today, and it was fun, although the Wii is rather judgmental. It makes you set weight goals! Seriously? No. I made my goal to not change for a year, even though it yelled at me that my BMI is sickly and shrunk my Mii to an atrophied little stringbean. Wii fails to take into account the three body types. I resent the video game assuming I'm a mesomorph.

First society, now Wii fit! Uncool, dudes.

Here's how I imagine this whole rebellion thing got started:

Some dudes were sitting around on the docks one night after partaking of some of this country's fine "tobacco" cop. Have you ever wondered if "tobacco" is a euphemism for "marijuana?" Imagine that it is.

Dude one: "Maaan, my stomach doth feel the acheth of emptiness. Dost thou knwoest of a Taco Bell nearby?"

Dude two: "Thou art trippin, good Sir. Taco Bell has not been invented yet."

Dude one: "Surely this dock must harbor a delicious import from afar. Here! What is in this crate?"

Dude two: "Tea."

Dude one: "TEA?! Nay, I requireth something gooey and melty. What lies in yonder crate?"

Dude two (giggling to himself); "Tea."

Dude one: "Silence! Heeeeey....what if we, liketh, dumped ALL the tea into the harbor? Then we could bath our musky, unwashed colonial bodies in it and we could, liketh, ABSORB THE TEA?!"

Dude two (collapsing into laughter): "Awww, man....let's doeth it!"


The rest is history.
If it HAD happened like this, I'm pretty sure I would have paid more attention during fifth grade social studies.

Now that it has been made both official and semi-public, I'm very excited to announce that Skip and Jen are engaged! For those not in the know, Skipper is my little brother, and Jen is one of my cherished lady friends. Skip's had sort of this creepy, stalkerish crush on her since he was ten, and now they're going to march down the aisle. Or elope. Either way, I've decided they are going to buy one of the houses on our street and we will all have regular cook outs. Also, when Steve escapes we can call them and say "hey! Keep your eyes out for Steve!" And then Jen and I will open a yarn store, and Skip and Bryan will offer computer services and sandwich makins. Or maybe we'll all just move to Appalachia.

Changing subjects, a few months ago I attempted to call Bryan on his Skype number and connected with a very nice woman in Arizona. Apparently he'd switched numbers and I was not aware of it. She and I had a lovely conversation about how she used in live in Ohio, and I hung up feeling very connected. I'd forgotten all about it until last night, when I received THREE phone calls at four a.m. All from the old Skype number. I'm not sure what happened, but maybe she saw that I'd attempted that number frequently in the last month and she was calling to find out who the heck it was. It would make since, because of the time zone difference. Still, I answered twice and got nothing. Then I put my phone on silent and I missed one last call. I'm sure she got my voice mail and thought "oh, silly me, it's that nice lady I spoke with last month." Still---I am very tired now.

I have Jerome and Harold snuggled up on my lap, and my arms are stretched over them to type. Jerome is grooming Harold (she thinks he's her baby. Or boyfriend. I'm never sure with cats) and Harold is licking my arm. Thank goodness I haven't waxed it recently, because in case you were not aware, cats tongues are really scratchy.

Last night Garvin had to rush straight to a rehearsal dinner for SCO-double-tizzle's wedding, so we decided to take separate cars to work. He ended up staying out with the menfolk all Friday while I got to go to Lovell's going away party all by myself in Cleveland Heights. I had a really good time. I don't always get a lot of time to myself, and while I enjoy spending time with Garvin, it was a perfect night to rock out my Pegasus Friday t-shirt at a small bar in a nice part of town, than take a long, beautiful drive home through the city and its ritzier suburbs with my windows down and the mild weather pouring, the Beatles playing on my radio. Also, while at the party there was much conversation about the whole Pegasus Friday thing, and I got to meet a lot of Lovell's co-workers who are all down with the Peg.

It was different at home without him. As much as he seems to think I'm St. Francis with the cats, he really does have a calming effect on them. As soon as they realized that I was the only person home they started knocking stuff over. I'd yell "WHO'S DOING WHAT?" and stomp into the room and then WHAM! Something would fall in the room I'd just left. I woke up with the screen we'd removed from the window for the AC unit on top of me. Someone must have tried to walk the edge and knocked it onto the bed. I'm surprised I slept through it and didn't wake up with little screen marks on my face, but oh well.

The real issue has been my need for endless litany. When someone else is here I chatter at them nonstop. "Hey did you hear that Jamie Spears had her baby? Oh crap, I forgot to pick up a wedding gift. Do you think that there's a difference appropriateness-wise between wearing rubber flip flops or those fake leather looking ones? Should I wear bangs? I like tamales, can we have them for dinner?"

I will say that it was a lot easier to get stuff done this morning. I woke up early, washed every piece of bedding in the house, washed the dishes, gave itchy Steve a bath with some calming oatmeal shampoo for his flea bites, picked up my prescriptions, filled my gas tank, bought some food, got cat food and picked up some hydrocortisone spray for Steve's bitten up areas. Oh, and I partially fixed the bathtub drain.

So I'm feeling pretty good. Aside from the occasional yelling at the animals and the fact that I smell like dog shampoo, vinegar and bleach. Garvin just informed me that he's on his way home now, and I hope he gets here soon, because someone just knocked everything off the shelves in the bathttub and partially took down the curtain. Maybe they got into the liquor cabinet or something?

This morning I faced a severe inability to dress myself. All my shirts were too short, none of my camisoles were long enough, or the shirts were too tight in the sleeves, whine whine whine. I was having some serious issues. So serious that I ranted at Bryan from the moment we got up until the moment we pulled in his parking lot. Non stop. Work, clothes, housework, people and their bumper stickers...anything and everything. Finally I kissed him goodbye and went up to my office, feeling a wee bit better.

That's when one of my bosses pointed out that my sweater was on inside out. Fail!

I've been in a lot of pain lately, so I'm going to go ahead and blame the mood and mental deficiencies on that. I strained a muscle in my neck (who can say how? Slip 'n Sliding?) and am covered with a delightful mottling of bruises from Joe C's party, including some fun finger marks all around my upper arms from being hauled out of Joe's hot tub by a rather inebriated girl. I'm sure the pain has not helped my attitude.

On a final note, we have too many cats. One of the little fuckers---and I'm not naming names, but I'm thinking that it was the fat, orange one---managed to overturn AND break a table in our absence. I'm amazed, but also annoyed. This must be what parenting is like.

I just rocked the socks off a routine dental cleaning.
No new cavities...except...the ones I didn't fix back in 2006. *shifty eyes*
But no NEW ones! Also, the hygienist was impressed at how good my teeth looked considering I have missed a dental appointment or two *cough.*

Anyway, usually I end up with a lecture and a "you need to floss more/better/spend lots of money" speech, but today I got an "it looks like it can wait until you check out your new insurance" speech and a congratulations on my outstanding maintenance.

So I'm happy.
Now...time to internet wrestle.