Adventures In Southern Gardening.

Is it too soon to start making a list of things I'm not going to miss about living here? Probably, since we don't really have a move date yet. But, you know what they say: No better time than the present and all that.
So I was out in the garden this morning. I have been meaning to put up a trellis for the cukes and zukes to climb on, but since we don't own a ladder I wasn't sure how I was going to get those seven-foot stakes pounded into the ground. I have had a couple people offer to bring over ladders, etc., but have never managed to work it out. So today, I got all McGuyver. I backed my car through the yard and up against the side of the garden, then hopped onto the trunk and stood there and pounded in the stake. All I have is a rubber mallet, so there were flying chunks of it spewing out and I was using both hands, wobbling precariously all the while. I'm sure the people in the office complex behind me were highly entertained. The whole time I was standing up there I thought how lucky I was not to be trying to use a ladder, as I would surely have fallen off and broken something.
For the second stake, I had to recruit the b.h. I had already worn a blister into the crook of my left hand, and since the ground seemed a lot harder on that side it was near impossible for me to get the stake in. He did fine, though, and then went back in to resume backing up the shit on our desktop, which we think is virus-ey and dying.
So I unrolled the metal fence, and wound it around post A, folding the edge around the post as I went and using my other hand to fend off the other end of the fence, which wanted to roll itself back up again with me in the middle. I was doing this very slowly and methodically, even though it was hotter than hell and I was sweating like a whore in church, because I had a vivid picture in my head of trying to drive myself to the hospital with a section of fence stuck in my eye, and frankly I had no idea how we'd both fit in the car. What I didn't realize, however, was that while I was being so careful with my hands and my eyes, I was standing with my right foot planted firmly on a fire ant hill.
After I ripped my shoe off, I had to hop on one foot most of the way through the yard and all the way to the porch, where I began ripping off my clothes while running through the house to the shower.
No,I will not miss fire ants, but I suspect those people in the office complex are really going to miss me.

I actually finished a second book before my Novel reading Month time ran out. Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict was fun- a nice pot boiler, as my brother-in-law would call it. Nothing like the great literature being created by Michael Chabon, but I did manage to finish it in three days, unlike The Yiddish Policeman's Union, which I have still barely cracked. Chabon requires my full attention and wakefulness, neither of which I've had much of recently.
I found out on Monday that my hours were cut- by more than half!- at the BS2. Which is a huge shock to my system and my bank account, but since the temperature has been well into the 90s all week, I can honestly say I was a bit relieved. Of course, I will likely need to find a different job now, but what the hell. Unfortunately E was layed off, so now I have to face the BS2 with Scooter as my only co-worker. Sigh.
We went to see the new Indiana Jones movie on Tuesday night. I didn't hate it the way that most people seem to, though I found the CGI animals to be both pointless and annoying. Fucking George Lucas. Also, it apparently did not occur to anyone that the skull, being made of Crystal, should have weighed more. I noticed that the first time somebody picked it up, and after that it was like the laugh track on M*A*S*H, which I will never forgive my sister for pointing out because it is all I hear when I see that show now. All things considered, though, I was entertained. There was no way I was going to wait for that to come out on video. I saw the first IJ movie in the theater, and it shaped who I was as a kid. I seriously wanted to be an archaeologist for awhile.
Tonight there are several shows I'm looking into. We'll see where I land. For now I'm going to watch some TV.

Oh yeah- my tomatoes are infested with fucking aphids, too. Fuckers.

Betrayal.

"This was not part of the deal!" I shout, hurling a pine cone at his head.

He ducks his head briefly and says nothing.

"Seriously, why would you do this to me? After five years? We have never once had a fight- not even a disagreement. I know you didn't trust me at first, but things have been going so well."

He remains unmoved.

"You are such an asshole," I hiss, not quite under my breath, hitching the hose up over my shoulder. He looks at me blankly, completely unapologetic.

I turn my back on him, watering the lantana. I am seething with rage.

"I gave you strawberries!" I know this argument is futile, but I have to say my piece. The dog is pacing nervously at my feet. He has seen me like this before and he doesn't like it, but he knows there is nothing he can do.

The turtle floats about five feet from shore, munching the last of what used to be a two and a half foot tall Canna contemplatively. I squirt him with the hose and stalk off in despair.

I heard somewhere that there is good eating on one of those. He is very lucky that I am a vegetarian.

So Much for the Wellies.

So I scored a whole lot of water plants again today. They are all on sale, and as Barb is keen to be rid of them all, I got them for a song. Eighteen of the, in fact. One Calla Lilly, several Cannas, some Pickerel Weed, Elephant Ear, the beautiful if grossly named Bloody Dock, Lizard Tail, and a couple of Water Lilies. There were lilies when we moved in, but once we started feeding the turtles and fish, feeding frenzies knocked everything loose and it all disappeared. This time I planted everything off to the side, away from but still well within site of our deck, so we can feed the animals and still enjoy the water garden.
As soon as I got home today I went straight to the water's edge and began unpotting the plants. I used the long staples that you would use to keep landscape fabric in place to loop through the root balls and, kneeling down, plunged my arm into the water to secure them to the bed of the pond.
Now, you have to understand that the pond grosses me out. More than I can describe, and for multiple reasons. I like to enjoy it from a distance, but due to the massive quantities of fertilizer and pesticide that I am certain wash into it every time it rains (not from us, but from our neighbors), as well as the massive amount of goose, duck, fish, turtle, and beaver shit that are surely mucking up the bottom, combined with the snakes and algae and pond scum and old metal and garbage and fish hooks that I know are just under the surface, I have no desire to touch the water ever ever ever, and in fact do not allow even the dogs to set foot in it. So I'm kneeling on the shore, screwing up my face and steeling my resolve and jamming these things into the much at the bottom, and I realize that they have to be spaced out better. Which means that I have to put some of them farther out. I stood up, and since I was wearing waterproof shoes at the time, I allowed my toes to breach the water line. Then I moved out just a little further to put the water Iris in, and well, I think you know where this is going. I finally got tired and hot and frustrated and said fuck it and waded in. My shoes were fine until my socks got soaked, at which point it all got very squishy. So I hurried and put as many plants in as I could. I figured fuck it, I'm wet and I'm not going through this again, so I ran down to the other end, far away from the house, and stuck in a few more. Then I came back, and as I was standing there trying to decide what to put in next, a heard a splash. When I turned around, there were three turtles wrestling for a freshly plucked Canna leaf.
I turned to Wyatt and sighed, and hanging my head in a not-unlike Charlie Brown fashion, trudged into the house. I removed my shoes and all of my clothes and put them immediately into the wash machine on the hot water cycle. I'm out of the shower now, beer in hand, but the rest of the plants are still littering the yard. I can't bring myself to go out there.

Ding Dong.

The Witch is Dead.

Remember how I said that Grandma will not be told what to do? Apparently it was more serious than I thought. I didn't see her all weekend, and since Scooter was there a couple days in a row, I started to wonder what was going on. Apparently she told some one that she had hurt her back, to which Stupid Redneck Sarah, in a rare moment of brilliant wit and comic timing, snorted

"Hurt her back doin' what?"

I nearly peed myself.

Anyway, Grandma has not returned to our little corner of retail hell, and I learned through a visit from Peggy Plants and her boss today that Grandma will not be returning. Ever. Which is about the best thing I could have hoped for. Apparently Barb went into a meeting with them and gave them her opinion of the situation, singing my and E's praises and basically just telling them the unfortunate truth about Grandma. I told L that I owe her a beer and a hand job (from the person of her choice, as I assume she has no desire to get a hand job from me). Seriously, this is fantastic news. And I can't wait to run into Creepy Christy now. I decided that rather than chewing her out, which was my first instinct, I am going to thank her earnestly for the warning and apologize for offending her with my trash talk. She loves drama, you see, and a good shouting match will only fuel her fire. If I make her believe that she has in some way helped me, it will totally ruin her day, which is exactly what I want. It will also lead her to believe I am naive, and I always say that being underestimated is the best way to have the upper hand.

In other news, I busted my ass all weekend, and my garden now looks more like an actual garden than a big fenced-in weed patch. We have about ten kinds of tomatoes planted, as well as four kinds of basil, four peppers, and green beans. My big dirt delivery won't come before next weekend, so I am at a bit of a standstill until then, but I think I need the rest anyway.

I've also put in another lantana, and my blackberries are in a bigger pot because I couldn't decide where they should go in the yard. The raspberries ( I had to check that spelling twice. It never looks right to me. I blame the advertising and marketing geniuses who decided that "razz" was snappier) haven't bloomed, but both of my gardenias are surviving. Gotta get my butterfly bush in ASAP. It is already starting to bloom. Wish that digging in our yard wasn't so difficult. But like, my mom always says: "Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills up faster." Not sure what the hell that means, but I get the idea that it has something to do with not saying "I wish" followed by something stupid all the time.

Photos to follow, but right now I've got some broccoli to eat.

Score.

I had a long day at the B.S> Squared yesterday. It turns out that Creepy Christy, the passive/aggressive sociopath with the big head and the bad skin, was listening in on a conversation that E and I had in the break room last week. We were talking about bartending, about drunk customers, and gods only know what else, and she was sitting there the whole time, not making eye contact, typing furiously into her sidekick (I think that's what they call it- one of those stupid phone thingies for people who can't seem to hang up the fucking phone). She was probably transcribing our entire discussion for later use. Thing is, we weren't exactly keeping her out of the conversation, nor were we concerned about whether or not she overheard, because it was all very run-of-the-mill.
Well apparently not in Creepy Christy's opinion. She waited almost an entire week for Grandma to come back, then went out and told Grandma within easy earshot of several other B.S. Squared employees that she "had better tell your girls to be careful what they talk about in the break room."
This is exactly the kind of ammunition that Grandma, no slouch in the passive aggression department herself, needs in order to make me/us look bad. She will tuck it away in a vault and "accidentally" leak it to Patty Plants one day.
This is exactly the kind of ridiculous shit that made me steer clear of the break room for the first two months of my employment at the B.S. Squared.
By the time I found out that Creepy Christy had said this to Grandma, both of them had left for the day. This was on Monday. So I spent Monday night fuming, and I went in on Tuesday morning with the intention of clearing things up immediately. i went to Grandma and asked her

"What did Creepy Christy say to you yesterday?"

"Creepy Christy?" she repeated, wrinkling her brow as if trying to remember. "I haven't even seen her."

Well, any delusions I had about her playing this one cool are now gone. What a fucking crunt.

I looked for Creepy Christy for the rest of the day, but she successfully avoided me. Now I'll have to wait until tomorrow to set her straight. Very frustrating.

In the meantime, I picked up several water plants on clearance. Now all I need is a pair of Wellies and I'll have the coolest pond garden on the block.

Speaking of, the b.h. and I were wondering: Are Wellies shoes, or do they go over your shoes, like galoshes?

Sometimes We Socialize.

Sunday we went over to Jenn's for a birthday shindig. I ate like a pig. It still hurts. Her house is super cool and her new deck totally rocks. I'm looking forward to more adult beverages on it this summer (yep- sometimes I invite myself over, too). It was great to see everybody in that context. Unfortunately much of my socialization takes place in bars, more often than not while I'm working, so it felt good to relax and have real conversation. Thanks, Jenn. We needed it. Hope you had as much fun for your birthday as we did.

We came home early and watched TV a bit, then crashed. I'm sitting on the couch listening to our new Okkervil River records- yes, records, my friends. Thank the gods some people are still pressing them. And speaking of which, does anybody know if the new Replacements reissues are coming out on vinyl anytime? Man, I hit the Rhino website today and just drooled.

The yard is looking really great. Still haven't planted any veggies yet, though. Gotta get the dirt/mulch/compost mix put in. I think I'm going to build some boxes around my raised beds this year. I meant to do it last year and never got around to it, and consequently I have lost a lot of soil. Ah well. Live and learn.

The b.h. is making asparagus risotto right now. It smells amazing. I think I'm going to go see if he needs some help.

Small People.

I'm not talking stature here, people. I'm talking about stunning idiocy and the kind of behavior that people practice when they have no power and no self-esteem, and they find somebody else that they think is somehow beneath them. Stupid Redneck Sarah (Now with more breast!) and I were putting out some plants today when Not Very Bright Neil (a New Guy who has already fallen out of the pine straw trailer twice- and no, this is not a common occurrence, bless his heart) asked her to come over to where he was working for a minute. It was twenty five feet away, but obviously the question he had was about something that he couldn't bring with him, so he needed her to come and look at it.

"I'm busy," she growled. Then she looked at me and snorted. "Did yew heeyar that? I tole' him I wuz busy!" she said, grinning at me proudly. I looked at her blankly for a moment, waiting for her to go see what he wanted, and then went over myself. He just wanted to know where to hang up a sign.

Grandma is making an ever bigger nuisance of herself. Today she came to work before I did and immediately started telling Elizabeth that I was basically an idiot and didn't know how to do my job. Then she proceeded to do very little all day while she looked over Elizabeth's shoulder and while I was outside busting my ass. I swear to the gods I like the job, but the woman is so fucking insufferable I don't know if I can take it.
I celebrated eight more hours of not killing Grandma by buying some three hundred or so gladioli bulbs that were on super clearance. I will likely put a few in my yard, give a few to my boss, and donate the rest to Community Connection, where I hope they will find their way to a community garden, nursing home, or the battered women's shelter. I have a call in to them already.
In other news, I got to meet two of L's six kids - of the four legged variety, like mine - today. Phil is the calmest, coolest Great Dane I have ever met. I can't remember the other guy's name, but he was much smaller and still managed to hold his own in the attention-getting department. I fed them peanuts through the car window while they waited very patiently for their mom to come out of the store. I wish my kids were that well behaved. They bark like mad when anybody gets near the car, and should anyone be silly enough to stick their hand in the window, I am quite certain that they would lose it. Ah well. You can't have everything.
My not blue roses are blooming. I was going to post a picture of them, but I waited too long and now it's dark outside, so maybe tomorrow. Despite the false advertising, they really are very beautiful, and they smell fantastic. They're even giving my Meyer Lemon tree a run for it's money. I put a few more things in the ground today and spent some time turning the soil in the veg beds. Still need to get more mulch from Harold the Tree Guy, and this year I intend to actually put some boards around the beds to prevent erosion, so no veg in the ground yet. But my seeds have almost all sprouted, so things are moving along.

"Before" Pics.

Inspired by Z's recent photo-heavy post, I snapped these after working in the yard a bit today. Hoping that the drought will cooperate (i.e., go away) and these will be the "befores" next to some lovely, lively shots of the abundance ("after") that is my garden.

This is the start of a hellabore (not sure if I spelled that right). I bought it at one of the nurseries last week, just before I rescued a couple others from the dumpster at BSBS. Ah well. Live and learn.



These are going to be raspberry bushes. I haven't put the blackberries in yet- mostly because I can't decide where to put them.



I have cut these forsythia down to the ground three years in a row now, and they just keep springing back. this year I said fuck it and left them alone, and now they've taken over half the house. But they sure look nice, so I don't really mind.





This old Jack Daniels barrel is right outside the kitchen door, so I planted it full of herbs. I want to keep them as convenient as possible for the b.h. while he cooks.
I've got flat leaf parsley, sage, lime thyme, and mint in there. Also had some African basil, but the frost two nights ago seems to have killed it.



The hollyhocks are the only thing coming up in the flower garden right now. I also put a knockout rose in that back right corner, but I'm waiting to see what comes back from last year before I plant anything else. That sack is full of pecan hulls, which the crows have enjoyed immensely (and noisily) for the last two mornings. Can you see the hole they pecked on the right side of the bag? Yeah. Might be time to make my first ever scarecrow.

Zen.

I went in to work for two hours yesterday, but there wasn't much to do so I left early. I knew the b.h. would be working for several more hours yet, so i slipped over to Thym3 After Thym3, a local nursery, to try to find a birthday gift for his dad.
The place was a little overwhelming, frankly. I spent a good hour or more wandering around, and finally settled on a Winter Jasmine for his dad, while picking up some African Blue Basil (kind of peppery, in a way- it is beautiful and tasty), Orange Thyme (smells like it sounds- I can't wait for it to get big enough to snip some and throw it in a soup), Lime Thyme (the b.h. is particularly fond of limes, and the plant is also beautiful and healthy- I split it when I got home), and a couple of very small ornamental perennials. Hope fully the drought will let up so I can get some more, but for the time being I am being very conservative. When I got back in the car, I was in a fantastic mood, and it was still quite early, so I decided to venture out a bit further and see if I could find G00dness Gr0ws, another locally owned place, out in L3xington. It couldn't have been a nicer day. There were scattered clouds, it was breezy and warm but not hot, and I cranked up the radio and cranked down the windows and drove. I stopped for gas in Crawford, bought myself a c0ke, and continued on until I saw signs for Lexington. When I got there, I simply pulled over in front of a small government building, hopped out, and asked an older man who was smoking outside where to find G00dness Gr0ws. Two quick turns later iI was there.
The place is beautiful. When I got out of the car and walked up the driveway, there was a woman quietly snipping some ornamental grass in pots on a table. Everything there was neat, orderly, and looked individually cared for. We chatted for a minute and she pointed me toward what I was looking for. I picked out some bay and fennel for the herb garden, as well as a Pee Gee Hydrangea for the b.h.'s dad. I got a couple of very nice shade perennials, too, and an ornamental grass that looks similar to bamboo that I will plant in a particularly tough spot next to the house. The woman ( I supposed that she was the owner, based on our conversation) told me that it could be quite invasive, but since I have failed to grow anything in that spot successfully in the three years we have lived in this house, I thought Id risk it. In all I probably spent an hour and a half wandering around the place, and honestly if it weren't for the fear that I would spend all of my money i probably would have stayed longer. I wrestled the hydrangea into the back seat, climbed in, and was pulling out of the parking lot when I looked up and saw one of the women waving at me.
I waved back enthusiastically, thinking what a great experience that was. Then I pulled back out onto the highway, humming happily and rolling the window down. Another woman in a truck was driving toward me. She rolled her window down and stuck her arm out of the window, gesturing wildly. Just as I was thinking what an insanely friendly place Lexington was turning out to be, I realized that I had left the rest of my plants, as well as a long-sleeved shirt and a catalog, on the roof of the car.
I stopped in the middle of the road. They were all intact. I started laughing out loud and waved back at the woman in the truck. Potential disaster averted, I returned to my exuberant singing and driving.
I went into town and got a cup of coffee at the Jittery Jo3's Roaster. I sat outside in my favorite chair (an antique metal glider- they have two and I covet them), listening to a selection of old R&B and Soul that my friend MT gave me on the iP0d, swinging and reading and generally enjoying the hell out of life. This is Spring in Athens. This is why I came here in the first place.

Itchy.

I planted a bunch of seeds the other day. Two kinds of tomatoes (reisentrube and another I can't remember right now), broccoli, lemon basil, fennel, dill, peppers (habaneros, jalapenos, cayennes, and poblanos so far) and cucumbers. I know that cukes are meant to be sown directly into the soil, but it worked last year and the earliest ones were the only ones that the blasted pickle worms didn't get to. On the flower front, I have zinnias, moonflowers, nicotiana, and hollyhocks (the ones I got last year should flower this year, so I figured I would start another batch- that way they'll bloom next year, when this year's are on break, and so on). I have yet to order new seeds this year, but I have my eye on a lemon pepper and a variety of cherry tomato called black pearl, which purports to have a "concord grape-like flavor when served chilled". Count me in.

I also put some onion bulbs in yesterday, and spent an hour ripping out some particularly feisty wild blackberry vines (we never get to them before the birds do anyway, and the thorns really suck) and cleaning up a boxwood shrub on the side of the house. My hands are pretty ripped up, despite the fact that I wore gloves, because again, the thorns really suck. But the area looks a thousand times better already, and now I get to plant something there that I actually want. Maybe lavender.

I have been itchy to get the garden going again. Working with plants is great, but it isn't the same when it's not in my yard. The great news is that I have managed to get a few real bargains because I was in the right place at the right time. The daffodils I salvaged from work won't bloom again until next year, but the price was right so I don't mind. I have yet to see which of my perennials survived the drought. Most of them are planted over the septic tank, though, so I have high hopes.

Sixty-Seven.

Degrees, Outside. Right now.
The weather has been unbelievably mild, which means we are sure to get smacked by an ice storm any time now. But for today, I will revel in my good fortune. After I put another load of laundry in, I'm heading back out to the garden. I promise I will catch up soon.

Spring Break.

Well, not exactly. It isn't Spring, but it has been that warm for a couple of days now. And there were no co-eds, no exposed breasts, and no keg stands. My break consisted of doing the kind of yard work that I usually don't engage in until at least March.
Today I used my new wheelbarrow to collect pine straw and dead leaves from the further reaches of the yard and spread them over my garden beds and around the stones that line the driveway. I turned over a small patch and planted my new bulbs- crocuses, irises, and grape hyacinths, then covered them up with a very thin layer of mulch and marked the spot with my freshly broken rake (it's okay though - I was done using it for the day) so we remember not to mow over it when the time comes. Now I'm looking forward to yet another happy spot out there come spring.
It appears that I may yet see a gardenia or two out there. The bush that I planted last year, before our very late and very damaging frost, is still hanging on.

Gardening At Night.

Or at least at dusk. It's the best I have been able to do. Every week I check the weather forecast - usually the ten-day - and every week it says that it will rain in the coming week. I can't remember the last time it actually did, though I think it's been more than two months. Today it is 91 degrees outside. That's ten degrees better than it has been for a week. My tomatoes don't seem enthused. The peppers are doing pretty well, though.Here's a photo of the biggest pepper I have ever grown:



You'd be surprised how difficult it is to photograph a vegetable close up. Or maybe you wouldn't. I certainly was. Anyway, you can at least get an idea of the size and color of this lovely. The b.h. is having it stuffed- er, stuffing it, that tis. With rice and cheese and such. I can't wait.

Here are a couple more veg photos:



The small yellow pear-shaped tomatoes are fantastic. I forgot what they are called, because of the labeling debacle during my seed starting phase, but I'm sure i still have some seeds, so I will continue to grow them next season. The small purple peppers in the bottom left corner are actually purple cayennes, and they are quite tasty and hot. The moles nedd roasting before they have much flavor.



I should have taken one of the Armenian cucumber that was literally as long as my leg. I failed to capture it on film, but use your imagination. I am about five and a half feet tall. It was ridiculous. And now it is pickled, and very tasty.

Here are a couple shots of this year's mantis model:



He sprang out of nowhere to get a drink just as soon as I watered the other evening. He seemed a bit annoyed but undeterred by my presence.



If only I could keep a hundred of these guys around. We start with a bunch every year, but we only seem to keep one. And about a thousand grasshoppers per square yard. They suck. I am really happy that I decided to put in a real garden (as opposed to a container garden) this year because the weather has been hell and the container plants are not well. Turns out it was worth all the work after all. This week I will be visiting Jamie and going over seed catalogs for next year. I can't wait.

Satisfaction.

There's just something about a good heavy rain* falling on a freshly planted flower bed.


*This photo is pre-rain, and a bit old actually. And you can't see anything, so it's relatively pointless. But uploading it and adding it to this old post made me feel like I was doing something, as opposed to fucking off, like I have been. Ah well. The bed is even more full now. I'll get back to taking photos soon now that I have finally uploaded all the ones that have been in the camera for ages.

Chilling Out.

Literally, I mean. The temperature is dropping quickly, which means I only have time for a quick catchup. Gotta walk the hounds before it gets too cold.

Have finished bringing in the seedlings and covering the plants that are already in the ground. Waiting on a batch of organic pomegranate jelly to finish processing. Last night I made some fizzing bath bombs and lavender soap. Tomorrow I hope to bake some cookies and dog biscuits, and maybe, just maybe, make some ancho chile hot chocolate. Hell, if my first farmer's market is gonna be in the cold, I might as well make the best of it.
Here's a nice shot of the very weird sunset we had last night.

Catchup.

Whew! It's been a long week. So long, in fact, that it's next week already and I am only now blogging about the last one. So we've been having some plumbing issues of late, and since neither the b.h. nor I has ever lived in a house with a septic tank for any length of time, it took us a bit to realize what the problem was. We called the landlord last tuesday, and he said he's send somebody out. I awoke the next morning early (for me, anyway) and came down the stairs to use the loo. I was still in my pjs, which is to say that I was almost completely naked. This is usually not a problem because our property is really large, and the windows in the house that don't have curtains look out at the private sides of the yard.
Not so on this particular morning. As I hit the third stair from the bottom, I heard a voice. Since the eyesore- er, condominiums have stared going up across the street, I have often been awakened by the sound of voices, but this one was really close. And it was female. Of course, had I been awake, I would have just backtracked up the stairs and put a robe on. Alas, I was only sort of awake, and therefore by the time I stopped I was a few feet away from a non-curtained window, looking out at an older couple with a back hoe. Thankful that the sun was in their eyes at that moment, I leapt toward the wall next to the window, looking around to figure out how to get into the bathroom without being seen. Through the kitchen? No. Definitely not, though I did take a step in that direction first (again with the lack of wakefulness). Through the living room then. Around into the office, and reach for the bathroom door with my left foot while hiding behind the office door. Opening bathroom door, I poked my head out, realised that I still had to break cover for at least two or three feet, so I reached out and pulled the curtain which serves as a door to my laundry closet(which serves as a laundry room)* over to the office door, thereby creating a nudity barrier between myself and the poor innocent couple that came to empty our septic tank. This was all probably very unneccesary, as they probably couldn't see and weren't looking, but I am quite shy.
I went back to bed, woke up a couple hours later, and went to work. When we got back in the afternoon, the couple were just finishing up. They had dug up a very sizeable part of the yard in order to get to the tank, and they had cut the (very poorly placed) telephone wire in the process, but they got the job done.
That night I slipped down to the 40 Watt to see Robyn Hitchcock. He was fantastic. He was wearing purple trousers and a purplish shirt with lizards on it. The Venus Three, his backing band, consists of Peter Buck, Scott McCoy (does that man have eyes, by the way? Has anyone ever seen them? Because every time I see him- day or night, inside or out- he is wearing sunglasses. Weird), and the guy who currently plays drums for REM. They did some new stuff and played several of my old favorites. I saw a lot of people I know and didn't really hang out with anybody, so I actually got to watch and listen to almost the whole set. It was very, very pleasant. (Photos to follow, when I get them uploaded.) The Creepiest Guy In Athens was there, front and center, as usual, and he spotted me before I spotted him, as usual, so there was no avoiding him. I also saw a woman that I had not seen in a few years, who I assumed (hoped?) was either dead or just gone. She didn't see me, though. Thank gods.
The phone was working again before we even woke up. No funny story there, just a general sense of annoyance that they didn't talk to us and then went and put the line back exactly where it had been (on top of the septic tank, where it will likely get cut again the next time said tank needs to be emptied. Fortunately it is unlikely that we will still be here then).
The patch of yard over the tank is now fenced in (chicken wire), and will make a lovely (and likely lush) flower garden. Putting in the posts was hard work, as the ground is somewhat brick-like out there. I also planted some of my pole beans. They were getting too big for their peat pots, so I mounded up some organic garden soil, bought a couple tall stakes, and plopped them down next to the "garden." It's not a real garden yet, of course, but I have a space marked off and it is currently under a tarp to keep the grass from growing. I hope to have enough cash after this weekend to get a truckload of soil and some boards to build boxes and get things started.

Today I spent a good bit of time sowing another round of tomatoes, peppers, and some flowers. The others are looking really good, though I have lost track of which are which in some cases. The moonflowers, sunflowers, and some of the four o'clocks have been planted in their respective spots and pots.

My first batch of homemade root beer was a total failure. The yeast (I used two different kinds in different bottles) must have been old, because there were no bubbles to speak of. Bummer. All is not lost, however. Both J and I decided to freeze a bottle and eat it in popsicle form. Mmmm. I will try again later, but first I am going to give Ginger Ale a shot. Ginger is a lot less expensive than root beer extract, so that's what I'll do until I get the yeast thing mastered. Bought some new yeast at the store yesterday, so I may give that a shot tonight.

Other than that, everything is pretty much the same.



I realize that this isn't as funny if you haven't been in my house, and I apologize (and Z, if you're still with me, I apologise for my spelling of apologize).