PunkKittyDiddy

Plant Snuff Blog

Couldn't resist.  I had to have it. 

Now let's see how quickly I can kill it.

Wait - that's creepy, calling it an "it."  Serial killers de-humanize their victims in such fashion.  "It puts the lotion in the basket, or else it gets the hose."

(BUT....if I name it, and then kill it, that's probably creepier, right?  Not to mention, I'm keeping it in a basket, and it does get the hose sometimes.  Just a trickle, though.)

Anyway.......I found this at a local nursery.  It's a fuschia. 

Apparently they are really easy to kill via overwatering, and they aren't too keen on heat.   So, it's the perfect plant for a girl like me, who knows nothing about gardening, doesn't realize she knows nothing about gardening, has an itchy trigger finger (at least where those spray gun garden hose nozzle attachment thingies are concerned), and lives in a place where the summer temps reach triple digits.

It's just that.....it was soooo prettttttttyyyyyyyy. 

I had to have it.

Wow. 

Sobering moment of self-awareness. That stupid "Which character from Lord of the Rings are you?" Facebook application was right.  I am Gollum.  With a garden trowel.

Horticulture Shock

As soon as we finally had a backyard to call our own, I was pretty glib about what I thought we should do with it.  What the hell!  Let's throw some plants back there or something!   

Been a mighty steep learning curve. 

In that ongoing grudge match between me and our new backyard, the backyard is still winning.  However, it does have an unfair advantage.  You can't fight City Hall....or the Department of Water and Power.  Water rationing is underway, and since we don't operate within an income bracket in which phrases like, "Hey, the butler just informed me that we have a full-time horticulturist on staff!  Bitchin'!" get bandied about, that lush expanse of dew-covered green lawn and climbing ivy and rose bushes that I'd conjured up in my imagination when we first bought the house is just gonna have to wait. Maybe indefinitely.  (Turns out that green, in the aesthetic sense, isn't necessarily green in the eco-friendly sense.  Like I said....steep learning curve.)

For now, I'm warding off the alien-face-hugger weeds as best I can.  And while we can't afford to transform our entire outdoor living space into something less prison yard-y in one fell swoop, I've been concentrating my efforts on beautifying the patio and the yard's periphery.  Only, for an endeavor that is ostensibly about curling ivy and fragrant jasmine blossoms and tropical foliage, the results sure haven't been pretty.

There weren't many survivors in that first batch of fledgling plant recruits that I dispatched to the patio.  I watered 'em.  Sometimes.  (I was always under the impression that that's what you do with potted plants.  You water 'em - sometimes - and you go about your business.)  What kind of plants were they, you ask?  They were the kind in pots.  That you water.  Sometimes.  

See, in the past, I could never quite figure out why self-proclaimed gardening enthusiasts would classify this as a "hobby." Hobby?  Yeah.  Whatever.  Don't strain yourself sprinkling a bit of water on that begonia or anything.......

Pride comes before a fall.  And widespread plant massacre. 

My patio plants hung in there. For a little while, anyway. Then things started to go wrong.  Horribly wrong.  (Consult the picture above and to the right.  One of my ex-plants.)   The internet filled my head with all sorts of ominous theories.  WTF?  What's all this crazy talk about "root rot" and "replanting"?  "Mulch"?  "Aphids"? "Soil pH balance"?  "Planting zones"?

Turns out those gardening enthusiasts know a thing or two about gardening.  Go figure.  You can just stick a plant in a pot or in the ground......but screw you and the wheelbarrow you rode in on if you don't know whether said plant is an annual or perennial, and if it needs full sun or partial sun, and if the soil needs to be acidic or have limes added to it or whatever. 

Uh....what?

I've since learned that - GASP - some research and effort is required.  My father-in-law has enlightened me about stuff like deadheading (no, nothing to do with Jerry Garcia) and over- versus under-watering.  (Talk about horticulture shock.  What do you mean, "It depends on the plant"?!  What is this, a science or something?)  This latest batch of plants is.....well, maybe not thriving, but they are doing better than their predecessors.

Now I've gone and planted a few hibiscus shrubs in the corner.  Immediately one of the blossoms shriveled up and fell off.  I hung my planticidal head in shame.  It took me a little while to figure out that blossoms die sooner or later, eventually, even if things are going well.  Blossoms have a relatively short shelf life.  Who knew?  (I mean, besides the gardening enthusiasts....)  The same shrub that I initially thought I had slaughtered has since unfurled an even bigger and better blossom.  So I've gone from considering myself a ruthless, cold-hearted plant murderer to thinking I am the shit.  I put a shrub in the ground and it hasn't died.  Yet. 

Funny, I'd been thinking a lot lately about maybe taking up belly dancing, or getting back into martial arts, or pursuing some other activity that I'd previously considered to be a "real" hobby.  But now I have all these plants to tend to. Still...if I can get the hang of NOT butchering the poor suckers, this gardening thing might be an OK way to pass the time.....

Lighting Design So Good, It Hurts

So, tomorrow was supposed to be the date that our Myles of Style episode airs on HGTV - which would finally have revealed our new "rock n' roll" living room in all its glory.  We don't think that's still the case.  At least, our episode is not listed on HGTV's website schedule, nor is it listed in any of the new/upcoming episodes on DirecTV's guide.

Thus far, our episode just seems to have disappeared into the ether.  Is it a relatively innocent case of disorganized scheduling?  Or were we really too Al and Peg Bundy for the otherwise demure network?

Which reminds me that I forgot to show you the kick-ass custom lighting fixture that was made for us, and subsequently censored by HGTV, during the filming. 

If you needed further proof of Kim Myles' creative genius, here it is.  (With a nod to a very clever MOS colleague named Cucuy who helped construct the thing.) 

Is this the world's coolest lighting fixture EVER, or what?!?!?  (That's a rhetorical question, by the way.  Only responses along the lines of, "Holy shit,YESSSSSSSSSSS!" and "OMG!  Its exponential awesomeness has blinded me to the banality of the common lightbulb forevermore.....!" and so on will be deemed acceptable.  See, I can practice censorship, too.  It's MY blog, beeeeyotches!  Now bow down and lick my boot!) 

But seriously......why this was deemed "too S&M" for their fanbase is beyond me. (The network is based in Tennessee, if that matters.)

For filming purposes, we were provided with a second chandelier that acted as a stunt double of sorts - still a perfectly lovely item, though in no way as groovy as the original.  (The only reason this Vivienne Westwood-eseque masterpiece is still hanging in the garage, and not in our groovy new room, is because I.G. and I know so little about this new-fangled invention called "electricity."  Which involves working with wires, and stuff.  It's like in the movies, when the bomb squad expert has to decide whether to cut the green wire or the blue wire.  Cutting the wrong wire will blow everything sky high.  Cutting the right wire will save the world - or at least a schoolbus filled with cherubic preschoolers being chaperoned by nuns on a field trip to a soup kitchen.  No pressure or anything.

Yeah, so...neither I.G. or I want to blow anything sky high.  Least of all ourselves.  We will enlist an electrician friend of ours to relocate this baby just as soon as we figure out where we want to put the censor-friendly one.) 

Anyway, I seem to recall hearing at the time that Kim was told by a certain HGTV authority figure that if she were willing to remove the buckles, the original lighting fixture could stay.  If that's true, I'm glad she scoffed at the idea. 

See, it's a chandelier made of belts.  Belts have buckles.  I know for a fact that people wear belts in the Midwest - it's a crucial component of that iconic "Old Man With Pants Hiked Up To His Armpits" look so revered in that particular region. 

So, let me see if I've got this straight:  a belt buckle is kinky if juxtaposed with a lightbulb, but morally acceptable when placed next to some guy's crotch? 

I have to stop trying to make sense of the conservative mindset.  It hurts my brain.

We did get a DVD copy of our episode - so there's that.  Not sure if it was due to time constraints, but another really awesome custom art piece also "flew" under the radar when compiling scenes that made the cut for our episode.  Let's just say that an Alfred Hitchcock-ian inspired installment featuring a murder of crows didn't get the airtime it deserved, either.  

Some of the coolest shit never made it to the screen. I will post pictures after our episode airs. 

Stay tuned.  (But as for when, specifically, I can't tell you.....)

How To Not Become Nearly Divorced At The Local Home Depot

Yesterday I witnessed the spectacle of a well-trained husband.  He was elderly.  There's definitely a generational correlation about this issue;  I just can't figure out why.  Maybe they were brought up better.  Or maybe, by that age, they've just given up.  Anyway......

My FIL and I were walking into the garden section of Home Depot as the elderly husband in question was exiting (or attempting to) with his wife.  His wife was suddenly glommed onto by the relentless tractor beam of begonia appreciation, and she could not fight the gravitational pull that was sucking her toward a certain sidewalk display along those lines.  She said to her hubby,"Aren't they beautiful?" 

Now, this first time, he either didn't hear her, or was pretending not to, so intent was he on getting out of there before the last remnants of their life savings were gutted and bled upon the sacrificial altar of conspicuous-consumption-fueled back patio obsession.  (The Big Orange Logo-d DIY Warehouse Of International Renown must surely hold workshops that teach you how to construct such an altar.  It would probably be practical if I too learned how to build one.  The Cost of Private School Education will likely be my first victim.)

Anyway.

So the wife says again to her husband, "Aren't these beautiful?"

She wasn't screeching, but her comment still somehow stops him in his tracks.  And he turns, and without stuttering or rolling his eyes (if anything, he widened them!), responds with, "Oh my!  Yes!  Yes, they ARE beautiful!"

And she seemed appeased.  It didn't appear that she needed to be appeased with an actual purchase, either. 

And that was that.  No arguments ensued about budget, or how many begonias they already have on their patio, or why buying some power tools would be a wiser purchase. 

I was awestruck.  Did that shit just happen?

They should write a book or something.  I'd buy it.

Non-Operational Car = Non-Operational Brain? A Theory.

I.G.'s truck is in the shop.  Again.  And by "again," I mean in the "fourth time in three months" sense of the word.  We're being bilked by shifty-eyed con men, and they're not even smooth-talking shifty-eyed con men.  They leave his truck parked out on the curb in front of their shop for a week at a time, undisturbed.  In plain view.  On a major thoroughfare.  This time around, the vehicle has been almost wholly encased by a massive cobweb, and a small band of drifters seem to have taken up residence in the truck bed, yet, when I.G. calls them up to ferret out how the "repairs" are going, the "mechanics" insist they're working on it. 

How?  Telekinetically? 

I've lost track of the number of times it has been recommended to us that we just buy a new car already.  While I appreciate the well-meaning attempts to guide me through the linear thought process (old car = non-operational; new car = operational; operational car = shimmering, sparkling, rainbow-straddling unicorns enjoying happy fun time...YAY!  Ergo, replace old car with new car!  Problem solved!), it's not like I was unable to take that leap on my own.  It's just that it's easier to take such a leap with the accompanying income to acquire and insure said new car.

Alas, our ownership of a non-operational auto coincides with our ownership of one moderately-operational house.  Yup.  The fixer house needed more fixin'.  That is a whole other, separate anecdote - a story so far-reaching and convoluted, it requires its own zip code.  Sure, I could bore you with details of an old, also non-operational A/C system, and us living in a locale in which the sun squeezes out tangible streams of magma in lieu of rays during the summer months, but....... that's another senseless blurb for another senseless day.  Even though I'm not going anywhere, and have all the time in the world to tell you about it (from the confines of my now well-air-conditioned domicile).

Since at the moment I'm a home-based freelancer, and one placed in charge of a toddler with no firm social or academic obligations, it makes more sense for I.G. to have the one remaining operational vehicle.  For now - until I land more freelance clients, or an actual, real job - we're trying to suck it up and adjust to life as a one-auto household. 

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd the cabin fever has been ratcheted up a few notches around here. 

The thing is, I have a pretty high tolerance for social isolation.  Up until recently, I've not been the least bit concerned just because my coiffure is a tad Unibomber-y, and it hadn't felt that unusual that the only other human companionship I enjoy during the day is provided by a person who believes that canned ravioli is the height of both human culinary achievement and avant garde fashion.  And yet......sometimes when Z. starts rapidly swinging her head back and forth in order to see how many times she can smack herself in the face with her own braids, instead of pointing out to her that that's NOT sane behavior, I just laugh, because it's the funniest thing I've seen all day.  (OK, it's the only thing I've seen all day.)  And maybe it's a bit feral-Jodie-Foster-ish that wee Z. and I communicate almost solely via Boosh crimps.  Maybe outsiders would even find it a bit creepy that, when I ask Z. what she wants for lunch, and she says, "Future sailors, cyborg sea-dog, tell me what you dream of..............," I know that she really means, "Hot dogs," but......

Wait....where was I going with that?  Did I have a point?  Could I even make a point if I wanted to?

You see?  The part of my brain that used to facilitate linear thought process is suddenly looking a lot like I.G.'s truck, sitting on the side of the road, untouched, and with grim future prospects. 

Yikes.  I should get out of the house more.  Oh........ that's right.  I can't.  So, if my rants here continue to deteriorate and are soon lacking not only cohesion, but also discernible, identifiable, real words....

Phferrerminix!  Aspuhl nadot wesleyhead.  Juop quor?

(Crap.  Too late.)

And Now, Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming.......

If I were forced to sum up our Myles of Style experience with only one word, it would be:  ohmygoditwasthemostsuperextrafabulousawesomeginormousmegaultragroovyfunfantasticbrilliantexcellentadventureever!  (Because you know I hate brevity.  Screw brevity.  Brevity is for people who have other stuff going on.  It's also for people who don't know their way around a thesaurus.  Out of curiosity, is the plural of "thesaurus" supposed to be "thesauruses," or "thesauri"?  The fine folk at dictionary.com are being very circumspect on the subject.  Damn those non-committal "I go both ways" word hustlers who play fast and loose with the plural form.......)

Anyway....holy crap!  Last week was a massive heap o' fun!  Everyone involved was groovy, and our new rock n' roll room is THE BOMB. I'm not allowed to post pics until the episode airs, which is probably gonna be mid-June-ish.  Although I am allowed to share the anecdote - and accompanying photo - of the kick-a** custom chandelier that was deemed "too S&M" by HGTV and subsequently banished from our living/dining room till after filming wrapped.  We were provided with a replacement chandelier, which is still pretty freakin' fab, but........ just as soon as we invite I.G.'s ex-contractor friend over to go MacGyver on the bondage beacon and actually hook it up, it shall be liberated from the dark recesses of our garage and - more importantly - from the tyranny of coy conservatism!  I'll snap a photo of it tomorrow and do the show and tell thing then.  Honestly, I'm not sure what all the fuss was about.  Given that it's made entirely of recycled vibrators and love beads, it's surprisingly classy.  (Kidding.  Way kidding.)

And wee Z. returns tomorrow from Grandma camp.  Sure, I should have taken her absence as not only a developmentally important milestone for both of us, but also as an opportunity to do things that the otherwise 24/7 nature of toddler wrangling does not permit - like get a manicure, and finish some sentences, and maybe binge drink or something.  Instead, we didn't have the first clue as to what to do with ourselves during our down time, and the most irrelevant items or events would trigger a tsunami of nostalgic caterwauling on my part.   "Hey, I was just watching CNN's coverage of Obama's attendance at the G-20 summit!  All that talk of global economic meltdown reminds me of the time Z. put a carton of Peeps in the microwave to see what would happen......"

Sad.  I used to be interesting.  Sort of.  Well......not really.  So it's good that she's coming back.  I can drop this whole pretense that I was ever anything but a homebody dork.

It's L.A. - Where Even A Living Room Can Vie For Its Fifteen Minutes of Fame.....

As I inexplicably like to chronicle here on an ongoing basis, it's pretty much second nature for me to find new and ever more elaborate ways to embarrass myself. 

Last week was chock full of such opportunities, and I'm not simply referring to the Manilow Incident.  I also had a chance to plead with and humiliate myself for HGTV in an attempt to be selected for one of their room makeover shows.  Since we live in L.A., where a lot of HGTV's programs are filmed, I submitted my first and thus far only application to a certain show that revolves around one designer I happen to truly dig.  

Not to say I'm a special-needs, design-impaired half-wit or anything.  I do consider myself to be a person with a fairly keen and unique sense of style.  And several friends and family members, upon hearing of my desire to parlay my HGTV geek love into a firsthand experience, have commented to me, "But decking the place out in your own style is the fun part of home ownership!"  Yeah, well....we've spent the past few months warding off interior-dwelling ants and spiders, and patching up the leaking roof, and scrubbing this place from floor to ceiling, and sprucing up the home office, and laundry nook, and Z's room, and....the backyard is still kicking our asses.   After all that, and freelancing, and raising a toddler, and trying not to let the dirty laundry pile up to the ceiling, I've shot my wad already.  I'm tired.  And I.G., beyond being tired too, is...well....a dude.  Picking out a decorative accent color that "pops" isn't high on his list of priorities.  We could use a little help.  

A few months passed since I submitted an application to the HGTV show in question. I'd given up on our living/family room ever landing its fifteen minutes of fame, and decided to just slap a throw rug down on the floor and call it a day.  So when we finally got a call from one of the show's segment producers, we were psyched out of our minds.  She said she'd like to come visit us, get a look at the potential makeover space in question, and maybe shoot some casual footage of us and our family/living room.  Just a casual, low-key, no-big-deal kind of thing. 

Yeah, maybe not for her.

Fortunately my mom was in town, and could tend to Z. while we cleaned, and scrubbed, and de-cluttered, and de-weeded, and planted rose bushes and flowers in the front yard, and tried to bring the rest of our house up to snuff.  If you've ever watched the show, well.......it's not like the houses featured are in dire straits to begin with.  Not that a mere bottle of bleach could deliver us that far upmarket, but we wanted to at least make an effort.

 I just assumed the interview would mostly revolve around any makeover potential inherent in our bland-but-promising family/living room, and that we - the homeowners - would be an afterthought.  I.G. and I are presentable folk.  We're not drooling, unkempt backwoods first cousins whose offspring are three-headed, six-limbed Deliverance babies.  We even speak in complete sentences most of the time.  So we figured that this producer would have to take us into consideration, but mostly as a sort of perfunctory measure. 

We were surprised to find that the producer wanted to focus on us - for what felt like an interminable amount of time - with her video camera rolling all the while.  That's bad news for me.  I tend to not excel in spontaneity-based mediums.  I prefer writing to speaking because it provides an opportunity to deliberate, to swap out a bad word for a good word, and a good word for a better one, and to self-edit, at least as much as is subjectively possible.  

She asked us a lot of questions - innocuous questions about ourselves, and then about our family/living room: what we liked about it, what we didn't like, about the current furnishings and what our "style" was. Defining our style proved tricky.  When we were living in our 700 square foot apartment, our style was generally determined by the answer to the question, "Well, what's on sale at IKEA?"  ("What can withstand cat scratches and baby sick?" would also occasionally influence our aesthetic, along with a sporadic infusion of, "Look what I just bought for $10 at the garage sale being held by the creepy guy down the street!  It smells like Spam and moth balls, but hey - ten bucks!") Anyway.....I've since determined that "Noresund" and "Mongstad" are names that some cube-dwelling clerical monkey at IKEA must have made up in exchange for his weekly allotment of Swedish krona.  But no...."Mongstad" meets "ceramic Elvis ashtray" is not a formal "style" onto itself.........at least not as recognized in official interior design circles.

Anyway, with the on-camera interview underway, our initial responses to the producer's questions about our lifestyle and aesthetic preferences were often met with polite silence - so stupidly, my little hamster brain quickly jumped to the conclusion, "OK, we haven't provided a satisfactory response.  Maybe if we keep talking, we might accidentally stumble across one."

If only.  If only clueless and desperate rambling reliably resulted in saying the right thing.  Or, if it ever has, 'twas not without burying the right thing beneath a verbal sludge of wrong, wrong, wrong things.

Like, when asked what sort of style we'd really like to see in our living room, we were quick to say, "Rock n' ROLLLLLLLL!"  (Never mind my drunken alter ego, who is prone to wailing along to the lyrics of "Can't Smile Without You" or "Fernando"....I might dabble in soft rock in weaker moments, but that doesn't mean I want my living room awash in tasteful beige curtains and subtle floral arrangements.)  I even wielded the universal hardcore sign of the horns to emphasize precisely how rock n' roll we are.  I forget that in some circles, the sign of the horns is considered a Satanic gesture, or that in certain Mediterranean countries, it's at least considered a vaguely distasteful reference to marital discord.  I'm not sure it has ever been successfully employed to woo a renowned interior designer before.

Or, when asked by the producer how we felt whenever we walked into the living room in its present state, I.G. blurted out, "Happy!  Really happy!"  I know what he meant.  In a time of economic crisis, when people are losing their homes left and right, and after we scrimped and saved and sacrificed in order to buy our own home, we're just freakin' glad to have a living room, period.  It's a luxury to be devoting any time to complaining about its lack of aesthetic cohesion.  Only, for purposes of landing a coveted spot on a home makeover show, we should have probably leaned toward a slightly more despair-based reaction.  You know, maybe wringing our hands and sighing wretchedly while insisting that the only dramatic splash of color or accessory used thus far to infuse a jolt of "je ne sais quoi" into this otherwise morbidly bland living space is the blood splatter that we leave in our wake after repeatedly slashing our wrists, so agonized are we over its lifeless and uninspired design scheme......

Upon conclusion of the interview, the producer informed us that she would show our footage to her producer, and if he or she liked it, they would show it to the designer, and if she liked it, they would run it by the network, and if they liked it, we would be selected to appear on the show.  Well, what are the chances that a Satanic hand gesture, and saying all the wrong things, and shrieking those wrong things into the camera in an attempt to comply with the producer's recommendation to be "animated," will successfully clear so many hurdles?  I was like Jerry Lewis, circa his Nutty Professor days, attempting to channel Ozzy Osbourne, circa his heavily medicated MTV reality show days.  It wasn't pretty.

Ah, well.  At least we tried.

Pride Comes Before A Fall...and a Honking, Giant-A** Plumber's Bill

2009 is off to a "meh" start.  It wasn't champagne flowing freely at Chez PunkKittyDiddy....it was phlegm, as an intermediate-level flu type thing continued to wage war against my person.  Which on its own would have been a manageable - if not entirely enjoyable - little off-ramp from the road that has been laid down thus far leading into 2009.  Only........

To be filed under that whole "pride before a fall" category comes the ongoing saga of the Battle of the Backyard.  I was sick of convalescing on the couch yesterday, so I figured I'd go pull some weeds.  The sun and fresh air were bound to do me some good.  Only what I'd intended to be a short little restful hour of dandelion uprooting and mild lung hacking-upping instead turned into a grueling four hour session of wielding a pick-axe against the thick mat of weed root that continues to carpet the yard.  I can't really explain why this stoooopid uncooperative run-down yard continues to obsess me to the point that I can't leave it alone, even when weakened by mucus-filled lungs and a low-grade fever.  I'm like a pioneer attempting to tame an expanse of rugged land and transform it into a sustainable homestead.....only I'm a latte-sipping pioneer, and I won't really live or die based upon my log-cabin-building prowess, because if the weed-pulling doesn't work out so well, I can just go back in the house and pretend the yard doesn't exist....yeah, that whole pioneer analogy was a crappy one.  Never mind.  Anyway, the point being, yesterday I finally felt like I had WON one.  I filled the green yard-waste bin to the brim, and it was the first time that I emerged from the backyard thinking I'd actually triumphed over its whole weed-infested, unwieldy belligerence.  When I finally finished as the sun was setting, I looked over my shoulder as I went back in the house and thought, "Screw YOU, backyard, and the f-ing tsunami of crabgrass and horseweed you rode in on!"

You should never taunt Mother Nature, it turns out. 

So, funny enough, there's a totally plausible reason as to why this yard was left to fester and rot by its previous owners.  Heh heh.  Today I.G. and his pal J. (who used to be a contractor) decided to tackle the backyard's corroded sprinkler system and replace the original rotted metal piping with PVC.  Of the two sprinkler valves, the first valve had already been fiddled with (long before we arrived on the scene) - and the attached pipes had sheared off as a result.  Snapped like twigs, by the look of it.  So I.G. and J. go to fix the second valve - and it springs a serious leak.  Now, I don't know enough about plumbing to explain why sprinkler piping should NOT run directly off the water main, but apparently it shouldn't, only ours does...which I.G. and J. discovered.   So this leak can't be isolated.  Somehow this now involves re-doing the piping from the street to the main water whats-it at the front of the house, which somehow involves jackhammering up the driveway, and........uh, what?  Jackhammering up the driveway?  Wait....how did this go from a casual, non-urgent, little cosmetic backyard project (fueled by my idiotic longing for a green grassy backyard) into a crucial, non-negotiable project that will potentially involve thousands upon thousands of dollars, and a professional plumber?  My suggestions that we either (a) ignore the leak and hope it stops of its own accord, or (b) find something like industrial grade chewing gum to plug up the leak and hope the pipes don't burst, were both dismissed as "denial-based."

I know Mother Nature didn't install the original plumbing system or anything, but I can't help thinking that maybe she holds a grudge, and got some of those hoodlum weeds out back to squeeze the rusted, corroded sprinkler pipes until they cried uncle.  It's like going up against the mafia with nothing but your principles, only to learn that principles are cute in theory - but largely ineffective against hired thugs and fathomless reserves of blood money.

I'm sure our backyard is feeling pretty smug about its chances right about now.  But someday......someday......................after I've sold a kidney, and the new sprinkler piping is in place, we're gonna kick its freakin' (crabgr)ass but good. 

Stay tuned............

How to Offend One's Mother-in-Law: An Inadvertent Primer

I have become a sloth blogger.  It may have something to do with my ongoing attempts to build a freelance career.  Or more specifically, attempting to build a freelance career and work from home while tending to a toddler simultaneously.  Maybe it's the freelance work while tending to a toddler and attempting to repair a fixer house simultaneously.  Could be the freelance work while tending to a toddler while attempting to repair a fixer house while attempting to entertain an MIL (and having failed at the latter) is what nearly did me in.

I can't be sure.

However, the freelance work has momentarily waned a bit, sadly, because it's mid-season hiatus for many TV shows.  Well, that's bad because less work = less income...and I love my work (finally)....and less income around the holidays isn't the most perfectly timed phenomenon............but such is the fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants life of a hired hack.  Upside is that at least I can take a breath and reflect upon the joyful nature of the holidays........ahhhhh, here come those warm and fuzzy post-Thanksgiving recollections now...........it's all coming back to me............wait, that's not good.

Evidently I am the Howard Stern of holiday hostesses.  I did try to do all the right things while I.G.'s mum was visiting.  I took her shopping and insisted that she not lift a finger while here on vacation.  I even trotted out a full, mostly homemade Thanksgiving spread that, if I do say so, would have made Martha Stewart herself weep into her hand-stitched hankie woven from the excreted threads of those silkworms she raises in her backyard.  Yet MIL still ran screaming into the night and cut her trip short by a whole week.  While she was insisting that there wasn't anything in particular wrong beyond homesickness, it's hard not to take the departure personally.  Plus, she did drop little clues along the way.  Lots of little clues.  Like Columbo, I've assembled the cold hard facts, stared at them, ruminated, and have tried to come up with a motive.  (These are only the things I did wrong during two weeks.....imagine if she'd stayed for the full three!)  I offer up Exhibits A through Whatever, based upon MIL's own admissions:

• The house was too cold.  [Editor's note:  Of course, after turning the heater on:]
• The house was too hot.  [And:]
• The heater was too loud.
• A chicken I'd roasted for dinner one night was underdone [Editor's note: barely], which subsequently forced her to ponder aloud, repeatedly:
• Why aren't Yanks more concerned about salmonella poisoning, anyway? 
• [Over the span of several subsequent days, she had no choice but to repeatedly school me in the dangers of undercooked-chicken-facilitated salmonella, which only served to prove:]  I am a terrible listener and/or unrepentant chicken undercooker.
• The breadcubes I cut up for use in my homemade sausage and apricot stuffing on Thanksgiving were too coarsely chopped.
• Z. wasn't affectionate enough toward her [Editor's note: Surely not related to the fact that MIL winced whenever Z. headed in her general direction.....perhaps fueled by MIL's belated realization that:]
• Toddlers are nuclear-powered.  [Editor's note:  She raised two of her own.....forewarned does not equal forearmed here?].  Also:
• I type too loudly [Editor's note: ............. from the other room]; and:
• I spend too much time on the computer "fuffing about." [Editor's note:  No alternate suggestions were made as to how else I might earn a living working from home.....]
• I wouldn't allow her to help with household chores.  [Editor's note:  I thought it was the right thing to do, insisting that she relax and enjoy her trip.  However, after she began protesting rather vehemently that she goes "bonkers" if not given a task to do, I complied, and let her take over dishwashing duty, and delightedly accepted her assistance with yardwork one day.  Doh!  So I didn't really see the next one coming:]
• Her claim of utter exhaustion.  [Editor's note:  Which she felt was only exacerbated by the following:]
• All of our talk [Editor's note:  Just talk!  We merely subjected her to the grueling task of listening!  We didn't put a trowel and mortar in her hands!  Honest!] about the work YET to be done with our new fixer house here......[Editor's note:  Yes, just hearing about it made her tired!  Er....OK, maybe that was more a figure of speech........but speaking of DIY fixer house projects:]
• When examining the rooms we had laboriously painted thus far in extra fancy colors, she could only query as to what was wrong with white? [Editor's note:  Nothing, if you have gone away for a spell in order to have a nice "rest" in an institution specifically designated for that sort of thing......which I think I'm about ready for.  Or I could just re-paint our walls white, put on a sweater that I've knit from silkworm excrement, tie the sweater arms behind me, and bang my head on my own wall, in the comfort of my own house.....]

I could go on, but it's contributing to my feelings of personal failure by the second. (I'm in little danger venting here.  Firstly, I'm not sure MIL could think any less of me than she already does, and besides, computers are her mortal enemy.) But really, how do those do-it-all women actually do it all?  I can barely do a portion of it all.  And half-assedly at that.  Eh, screw it - I'm not gonna lose any sleep over such an unfathomable mystery.  (Mostly because I'm too busy losing sleep over the writing career, and toddler, and fixer house.......)

Xtreme Gardening

Now that we actually have a yard, I thought I would try my hand at gardening.  It seems like such a genteel and relaxing pastime.  I pictured myself lovingly patting pretty flowers and nice-smelling herbs into the ground as butterflies floated around my head and birds twittered and wee Z. frolicked in sunbeams...... 

But, it turns out that - if essentially starting from scratch - before one can "garden," one must engage in "yardwork."  At least that's what you have to do if said yard was neglected for decades, which our new yard was - not unlike the rest of the house........

At this juncture, we can't really afford a gardener, and besides.......we're strong, hardy, industrious people.  We live near a Home Depot.  And I have a general idea of what to do with certain garden tools (or so I thought).  How hard could it be to transform a motley assortment of weeds and dirt into a luscious green expanse of tea-party-worthy lawn?

Frankly, I can handle the dandelions and tufts of crab grass and that creeping ground-dwelling ivy stuff (not the cute kind that festoons English cottages, alas).  But there's this other raving a**hole of a plant that has overrun the whole yard....a pestilent menace I refer to as the Alien Face-Hugger.  I don't know its proper, technical name - the last owner went along and hacked 'em all off at ground level, so I can't really identify this menace via the usual gardening database websites.  The dried remnants look a little bamboo-y - yet not - and its roots are stalwart, fathomless soil-suckers determined to remain in the earth for all eternity.........despite my best efforts.  The Giger-inspired nickname I have christened them with is especially fitting, because these bastards decimated two out of four of my new stainless steel gardening tools - just chewed 'em up and spit 'em out like that squadron of space Marines in Aliens.  After barely a day, my hand trowel snapped in half.  The 36 inch dandelion digger spear was bent into a 90 degree angle after a few hours of having a go at 'em.  I've since purchased a small pick-axe.  It's almost up to the challenge...though the efforts are still slow going....... 

My body hasn't fared much better.  The resultant callouses on my hands are actually larger in size than my hands themselves.  And every muscle and fiber of my being is refusing to speak to me till I toss some prescription-strength Motrin down my gob.

Admittedly, I'm feeling slightly less cocky about my ability to revive a dead lawn now.  Maybe this is one of those projects that I should put off for a while....at least until I'm a steroid-abusing, no-neck, iron-pumping gladiator.  In another life.  And yet.....

No!  I shall not be defeated by an inanimate, small-ish expanse of mere yard.  I have opposable thumbs and a semi-working brain, for pete's sakes.  And a Home Depot credit card.

It's on, suckas!