[none]

I am going to try a new type of blogging. Random nature blogging...... Here goes....

I bought my house three years ago. Very funny business, owning a home. So many things that go wrong. There is the lawn of course. I have battled with my lawn just trying to get it to grow. I have dealt with crab grass in 2005 and grub worms in 2006. This year is THE YEAR. This year is my year. I will have a luxurious lawn. Mark my words. Even though I think that the green lawn is the most absurd pursuit of modern American man; And I have horrible allergies; and I promise never to mow my own lawn.... It will grow for me this year.

With that goal in mind my life has finally slowed down enough to get into the yard. My first task was to find someone to cut the grass. You should see my lawn. It is mostly filled in. Where it is not you will find bare patches. I stared and followed the bare patches and realized they are shaped like tracks. Tracks of the lawn mower or maybe the grass spreader. So, I probably should not use the spreader to reseed the lawn.

Saturday I began my lawn care duties. First, I cleaned out the garage which was bittersweet. About 45 cannas froze in my garage this winter killing all of them. I was hurt. I love those cannas and had planned to give some away to friends. I carefully dug them up last summer, placed them in peat moss, dusted them with powder to prevent fungus and stored them in the garage. I used the cannas to make a living privacy fence for my northside neighbor. I wanted to use the cannas to create a living fence for two more sides of neighbors this year. On the south side is the big rotweiller that barks whenever someone passes and the kids that keep losing their basketball in my yard but will not hop the fence and get it.
>

Isn’t that the silliest thing? They just leave the ball in my yard as if it no longer exists to them. Or it has disappeared. When I see them I say “hey did you lose a ball?” Junior says something like, “Let me check. ….” He finds some imaginary place in his garage to check for his basketball and returns to admit that it is his ball. Sometimes the ball is just sitting in the middle of my yard. Like they didn’t see it fly into my yard when they missed the basket hoop. ONCE the ball was there for days. I didn't let the grass get that long.

The neighbors to the west are a mixed bag. My back property borders two neighbors. On my side the previous owners had permitted mulberry trees to grow unchecked. The neighbors would trim the trees and throw the cuttings into my yard. Finally, I had someone cut the trees down but as you know the people that I hire tend to do a half ass job. So the trees keep making new branches. This winter I drilled holes into the bases of the trees and filled the hole with salt. Doesn’t that sound crazy? I found the idea on the Net as a way to kill mulberry trees. It did not work. I have living mulberry trees despite my poisoning attempts and dead Cannas despite my careful storage.

After cleaning the garage, I inspected the yard for flowers that needed replacement. My mums looks shabby.

There are ants all over my peonies. I don’t know where these ants have come from. So of course I looked it up on Yahoo! Search and ants on peonies are a good thing. Who knew that I like Haiku....

Thirsty ants cover
The succulent peony
Hungry for nectar

~Lucy Aegerter


Well anyway i need to find a dependable person to cut the lawn.An impossible task.

Thank goodness Linda to the North cut down her very ugly tree. Now there is more light in both our yards so we decided to buy 2 cubic yards of mulch together. If I can only get South Neighbor to cut his hideous tree that dangerously looms over my house threatening to slap it silly during all windstorms.

There’s the patches of dirt in the yard, the crabgrass, weeds and dog poo. Yuck. I see the little neighborhood girl walking her dog as she lets him do his business in my northern neighbors yard, I shout to her “do you have a pooper scooper for that dog?”

>

For more funny pictures, visit FunLOL.com!


At that point I decided discontinue yelling at children and finish up in the house and make a to do list for the next day.

Homeowner Chronicles

Homeowner Chronicles

What a morning I have had.

After I reviewed my lawn a few weeks back, I realized that it needed some clean-up and new mulch. A few years ago, it took about 15 bags of mulch to get it together.

I went around to different home stores, hardware stores and landscaping places to price out mulch.

Shopping at those types of stores used to be intimidating until I learned a few tricks. Sometimes I go after work with my heels and skirts. It is fun. Some contractor always wants to be helpful. Offers his services to me. Once while looking at toilet seats a guy told me that he could install a new toilet for me. Whatever….. I told him that I would rather he "Mow my lawn"

But going to those DIY stores in heels takes some energy. Especially after work. I have to pretend that my feet do not hurt and that I am on a mission. The determined career girl.

On the weekends, I used to just get up and go to the DIY store. I didn’t enjoy that either. I had to know exactly what I wanted because it was difficult to find anyone to help me. I was one of many. On the other hand, I could take my time because my feet did not hurt.

Today, I like to go lawncare shopping wearing fun clothes and cleaned up (i.e. hair curled and maybe some makeup) and well rested. No more rolling out of the bed or going after work. Last week, I figured my new attitude was the reason why so many people kept smiling at me. Then I remembered that I was wearing my Thundercats t-shirt. I enjoyed myself so much that I think I will always wear a funny shirt.

I like going to the local hardware store where the sales people help me right away and I can get my tools sharpened. That was a new task for me. I have never gotten knives or tools sharpened before. I felt like a tourist going into the hardware store and asking him to sharpen my tools. Now I have to figure out how to get my lawnmower blades off to get them sharpened. Luckily for me I have neighbors that will help me with stuff like that.

Comparison shopping for mulch isn’t easy. I could have purchased the bags and loaded up my car then unloaded it at home. But the cost seemed too high. I looked into having it delivered. The costs ranged from $45 to $140 for one cubic yard. That seemed too high. A cubic yard is about 14 2-cubic feet bags of mulch. If I had bought that out right it would have cost me about $42 bucks. I figured that 2 cubic yards of bulk mulch was a better choice because I could split the cost with my neighbor Linda who needed to landscape her yard after cutting down her pine tree. Delivery was the problem. I priced delivery costs and had settled on $65 split between the two of us. When I went to the landscape office it was closed on the day that I had set aside to order the mulch. My neighbor was out of town for a week and I had to come up with a alternate plan.

Another friend got 2 yards of mulch (about 27 2-cubic feet bags) for $36 bucks from the City forestry department. I thought that was the ticket. I would do it his way. He agreed to help. I would arrive at about 7:30 am and he would dump the mulch in the driveway and I would transport it to the back of my house. He assured me that it would take just a few minutes to unload the mulch.

Do you have any idea what two cubic yards of mulch looks like? I didn’t. I figured that he would pull his trailer up and I could easily use the wheelbarrow to deliver ½ the mulch to my neighbor and ½ to me. Of course my friend lives on a larger lot and he was able to pull the trailer onto his lawn and dump the mulch out into his backyard. My lot is tiny and my driveway is narrow. We should have considered this but neither of us are engineers – indeed, we are educators..

I had no idea that it would take almost an hour to unload the freaking trailer of mulch. Or that doing so would be so tiring. We pulled the trailer into the driveway thinking that would shorten the wheelbarrow trip. It did but that still wasn’t what I had expected. He wanted to be helpful and I thought I would take advantage of his offer. I had asked a few neighbors to assist but they to leave because my friend didn’t arrive until after 8 am. When he arrived he admitted that he was able to get me more than 2 yards. It was more like three. I am thinking THANKS.

Linda’s father passed away this weekend and she was not able to help unload the mulch so I put it all in my yard and she will have to wheelbarrow her half out ALL BY HERSELF.

After we unloaded ¾ of the mulch I said “enough” and asked my friend to take the extra mulch back to his house. He was so agreeable and felt bad about the whole thing that he agreed to come back after it was cleaned out and load up the bed that had been sitting in my garage to take to my Great Aunt. I have been trying to deliver this bed to my Great Aunt for two months. She is in her 70’s and is sleeping on her old mother’s bed that is at least 50 years old. That was nice. I will pay him later this week. Since I am also his supervisor I told him he could take the day off.

All I have to do now is make amends with my roommate. Had I known we were going to be in the driveway so long I would have made afternoon arrangements for the mulch delivery. I probably woke the poor dear up a second time. I work out most mornings but this morning the tv was louder than usual. I was watching Underworld Evolution last night and had turned on the surround sound. Even turned down it was BOOMING. My poor2nd shift employee had to drag herself out of bed to ask me to turn it down. That was at 7 am. Maybe I will get her a Thundercats logo t-shirt to make her smile.

Cat People

I offered to give to a friend of mine some of my errant daylilies. I took out the pitchfork and started stabbing into the ground. A cat jumps from out of nowhere. I think nothing of it as I look for more daylilies that are growing unchecked in my lawn.

I stab, tilt and lift daylily after daylily for my frend. Just before my final stab, I see them. The newborn kittens that the cat had left.

Just so you know.

Kittens are only cute on tv and calendars. Kittens in real life are a hassle. They run all over your house, make a lot of noise and a lot of damage. Kittens in your yard are worse. They are feral unless you can catch them and put your scent on them. They live in your yard and then they go into heat and have their own babies.

My neighbor Linda and I were trying to stop this problem. She has had kittens living in her garage for a year now.

So I went to the Human society and got a cat trap.

Seriously. We set it out and waited. While we waited we discovered three more kittens behind her yard bringing the total to 6. After we caught the mom cat we gathered the kittens and took them to the society.

[none]

The other day a friend of mine – maybe not a good friend – told me that I was evil. Can you believe that? But perhaps it explains why so many crazy things happen to me.


Well anyway she called me evil because of a peculiar habit of mine. I like to imagine horrible things will happen to people that I dislike.


It all started in college. My anthropology instructor taught our class about a Native American tribe that he had studied. This tribe was worth study because of the very low rates of violence within its community. The research determined that the culture experienced their conflict in their dreams. So if David angered John by sleeping with his girlfriend, John would not beat him to a pulp he would simply take a nap. During the nap, he and David would find themselves in a life and death struggle. I found that the technique was very helpful for me in getting over my ex-boyfriend. The break-up was uneventful. No yelling or screaming. No calling our friends and telling horrible stories about each other. No drive-bys, harassing phone calls or stalking. None of that. Well none of that in reality.


In my dreams I kicked his ass. I shot at him. I suddenly knew martial arts and Kung-Fu’d his face. I cut off all of his hair (he had this fear of baldness). I may have beheaded him once. And this went on for years. It was strange actually.


I didn’t start having the dreams until about two years after we stopped seeing each other. A few years later, they were occurring less frequently and less violent. In think the change was due to the annoying habit of our mutual friends to inform me of his activities. Like the guy who told me that he hasn’t changed a bit and cheats on his wife. Or the gal who told me that he was still trying to get other people to do his work.


As the years went by, I would see him and he would try to talk to me. Tell me about his life and generally be a friend. In those dreams, I would still yell at him and slam doors in his face but I stopped trying to kill him. I stopped having dreams about him a few years ago. Then suddenly at the end of last year they came back. But this time he was apologizing to me. I told my friends about these new dreams and one person told me to accept his apology so that I could finally move on. I thought that I had moved on…. So the last time I dreamed of him, I did just that. Accepted the apology for being an absolute ass and told him goodbye.


Well since my dreams were such great places to exercise my complete rage, I decided to use my dreams to express my complete frustrations. I looked forward to going to bed and seeing supervisors there. I would do a great job that they would not acknowledge then i would drive my boss's car and crash it.


Of course, annoying group members found themselves in my dreams. Don’t you hate group work as an academic exercise? Seriously. I have been taking graduate classes off and on and one thing remains constant. Group work drives me nuts. I am not referring to the people that do not do anything. They don’t bother me. But the people who insist on looking at your notes to see what you have done, who want to meet all the time for updates or want all the group members to send to person (him/her) their information so that person can compile it. Those f()ckers drive me nuts. And in my dreams, I get them back by secretly damaging their computers, sending email viruses and becoming chummy with the instructor. I eat sloppy when we meet and spill food bits on their papers.



But guess what? Come on ….. My dreams…. My dreams are gone. They are freaking gone. Wanna know why?

Because of my “Lilly Monster medicine” I sleep but I do not dream. The funny thing is that we dream just before we are waking up not during our deep sleep phase. The medicine is designed to put me in the deep sleep phase whereas without it I sleep lightly all night long and have great tension releasing dreams.


In the absence of dreams I have started expressing my anger out loud. I say things like, “I hope she breaks her arm so that I don’t have to deal with her next week.” Or, “I was hoping that he got food poisoning so he wouldn’t arrive at work.” Once I suggested that if there were a fund being collected to quickly get rid of press whores who claim to be leaders but are peddling their influence for media attention, then I had two dollars for it. At that point my friend called me “evil.”

Actually, I said that if there were a fund to assassinate the Reverends then I had two dollars for it. I am really getting annoyed with the whole Emperor of all Black people - no, I thought that before South Park
I want my dreams back. They were not all violent and they kept me from saying evil things.

Good Neighbors

I am going to try a new type of blogging. Random nature blogging...... Here goes....

I bought my house three years ago. Very funny business, owning a home. So many things that go wrong. I have battled with my lawn just trying to get it to grow. I have dealt with crab grass in 2005 and grub worms in 2006. This year is THE YEAR. This year is my year. I will have a luxurious lawn. Mark my words. Even though I think that the green lawn is the most absurd pursuit of modern culture. And I have horrible allergies. And I promise never to mow my own lawn.... Yet, It will grow for me this year.

With that goal in mind my life has finally slowed down enough to get into the yard. My first task was to find someone to cut the grass. You should see my lawn. It is mostly filled in. Where it is not you will find bare patches. I stared and followed the bare patches and realized they are shaped like tracks. Tracks of the lawn mower or maybe the grass spreader. So, I probably should not use the spreader to reseed the lawn.

Saturday I began my lawn care duties. First, I cleaned out the garage which was bittersweet. About 45 cannas froze in my garage this winter killing all of them. I was hurt. I love those cannas and had planned to give some away to friends. I carefully dug them up last summer, placed them in peat moss, dusted them with powder to prevent fungus and stored them in the garage. I used the cannas to make a living privacy fence for my northside neighbor. I wanted to use the cannas to create a living fence for two more sides of neighbors this year. On the south side is the big rotweiller that barks whenever someone passes and the kids that keep losing their basketball in my yard but will not hop the fence and get it.

Isn’t that the silliest thing? They just leave the ball in my yard as if it no longer exists to them. Or it has disappeared. When I see them I say “hey did you lose a ball?” Junior says something like, “Let me check. ….” He goes to some imaginary place in his garage to check for his basketball and returns to admit that it is his ball. Sometimes the ball is just sitting in the middle of my yard. Like they didn’t see it fly into my yard when they missed the basket hoop. ONCE the ball was there for days. I didn't let the grass get that long.

The neighbors to the west are a mixed bag. My back property borders two neighbors. On my side the previous owners had permitted mulberry trees to grow unchecked. The neighbors would trim the trees and throw the cuttings into my yard. Finally, I had someone cut the trees down but as you know the people that I hire tend to do a half ass job. So the trees keep making new branches. This winter I drilled holes into the bases of the trees and filled the hole with salt. Doesn’t that sound crazy? I found the idea on the Net as a way to kill mulberry trees. It did not work. I have living mulberry trees despite my poisoning attempts and dead Cannas despite my careful storage.

After cleaning the garage, I inspected the yard for flowers that needed replacement. My mums looks shabby. There are ants all over my peonies. I don’t know where these ants have come from. So of course I looked it up on Yahoo! Search and ants are peonies are a good thing. Who knew that I like Haiku....

Thirsty ants cover The succulent peony Hungry for nectar ~Lucy Aegerter

Well anyway i need to find a dependable person to cut the lawn. As you know that has been an impossible task for me. Last year, I thought I had an arrangement but the piled up newspapers made the young entrepenuer think that i had moved away. http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-aFmqok8jdKQKRIZLkIAQtkHo?p=347

Thank goodness northside Neighbor cut down her very ugly tree. Now there is more light in both our yards so we decided to buy 2 cubic yards of mulch together. If I can only get South Neighbor to cut his hideous tree that dangerously looms over my house threatening to slap it silly during all windstorms.

There’s the patches of dirt in the yard, the crabgrass, weeds and dog poo. Yuck. I see the little neighborhood girl walking her dog as she lets him do his business in my northern neighbors yard, I shout to her “do you have a pooper scooper for that dog?”

For more funny pictures, visit FunLOL.com!
Online Casino Games

At that point I decided to finish up in the house and make a to do list for the next day.

Entry for May 16, 2007

The other day a friend of mine – maybe not a good friend – told me that I was evil. Can you believe that? But perhaps it explains why so many crazy things happen to me.

Well anyway she called me evil because of a peculiar habit of mine. I like to imagine horrible things will happen to people that I dislike.

It all started in college. My anthropology instructor taught our class about a Native American tribe that he had studied. This tribe was worth study because of the very low rates of violence within its community. The research determined that the culture experienced their conflict in their dreams. So if David angered John by sleeping with his girlfriend, John would not beat him to a pulp he would simply take a nap. During the nap, he and David would find themselves in a life and death struggle. I found that the technique was very helpful for me in getting over my ex-boyfriend. The break-up was uneventful. No yelling or screaming. No calling our friends and telling horrible stories about each other. No drive-bys, harassing phone calls or stalking. None of that. Well none of that in reality.

In my dreams I kicked his ass. I shot at him. I suddenly knew martial arts and Kung-Fu’d his face. I cut off all of his hair (he had this fear of baldness). I may have beheaded him once. And this went on for years. It was strange actually.

I didn’t start having the dreams until about two years after we stopped seeing each other. A few years later, they were occurring less frequently and less violent. In think the change was due to the annoying habit of our mutual friends to inform me of his activities. Like the guy who told me that he hasn’t changed a bit and cheats on his wife. Or the gal who told me that he was still trying to get other people to do his work.

As the years went by, I would see him and he would try to talk to me. Tell me about his life and generally be a friend. In those dreams, I would still yell at him and slam doors in his face but I stopped trying to kill him. I stopped having dreams about him a few years ago. Then suddenly at the end of last year they came back. But this time he was apologizing to me. I told my friends about these new dreams and one person told me to accept his apology so that I could finally move on. I thought that I had moved on…. So the last time I dreamed of him, I did just that. Accepted the apology for being an absolute ass and told him goodbye.

Well since my dreams were such great places to exercise my complete rage, I decided to use my dreams to express my complete frustrations. I looked forward to going to bed and seeing supervisors there. I would do a great job that they would not acknowledge then i would drive my boss's car and crash it.

Of course, annoying group members found themselves in my dreams. Don’t you hate group work as an academic exercise? Seriously. I have been taking graduate classes off and on and one thing remains constant. Group work drives me nuts. I am not referring to the people that do not do anything. They don’t bother me. But the people who insist on looking at your notes to see what you have done, who want to meet all the time for updates or want all the group members to send to person (him/her) their information so that person can compile it. Those f()ckers drive me nuts. And in my dreams, I get them back by secretly damaging their computers, sending email viruses and becoming chummy with the instructor. I eat sloppy when we meet and spill food bits on their papers.

But guess what? Come on ….. My dreams…. My dreams are gone. They are freaking gone. Wanna know why?

Because of my “Lilly Monster medicine” I sleep but I do not dream. The funny thing is that we dream just before we are waking up not during our deep sleep phase. The medicine is designed to put me in the deep sleep phase whereas without it I sleep lightly all night long and have great tension releasing dreams.

In the absence of dreams I have started expressing my anger out loud. I say things like, “I hope she breaks her arm so that I don’t have to deal with her next week.” Or, “I was hoping that he got food poisoning so he wouldn’t arrive at work.” Once I suggested that if there were a fund being collected to quickly get rid of press whores who claim to be leaders but are peddling their influence for media attention, then I had two dollars for it. At that point my friend called me “evil.”

i want my dreams back. They were not all violent and they kept me from saying evil things. The picture up top is of my dream closet full of shoes.

View this clip to hear what the "leaders" that I want taken out

Entry for May 09, 2007

I wanted to be a hybrid. but I don't think they make sportscar hybrids.

I'm a Mazda RX-8!

You're sporty, yet practical, and you have a style of your own. You like to have fun, and you like to bring friends along for the ride, but when it comes time for everyday chores, you're willing to do your part.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Anything Good for you Isn't Cheap

This was my lunch today. I am devasted. These things will kill me and spread my butt for just a couple of dollars.

I have to start making better decisions with my money and my food. I shared my results with my co-worker and she is in denial.

Chipotle Nutrition Facts Serving Size: 1 Burrito Amount Per Serving Calories 1232 Calories from Fat 489 % DV* Total Fat 54g Saturated Fat 15.5g Cholesterol 106mg Sodium 3288mg Total Carbohydrate 129g Dietary Fiber 14.5g Sugars 4g Protein 56g Vitamin A 105% Vitamin C 19% Calcium 32% Iron 28%

Chipotle Nutrition Results provided by:
Chipotle Fan.com

As I was informed as a child: Nothing cheap is good for you.

Just think about it. Kool-Aid is cheap (10 for a $1) but juice is expensive one for $3.00. Fruit is more expesive than candy bars. Bottle water more expensive than Faygo. It goes on.....

More Playground Reflections

I had a new blog written last week. Unfortunately by the time I finished the blog the VTech shootings occurred. The topic of my blog would have seemed irresponsible had I posted it.

I think of blog posts all of the time. But I usually take a few days to write one. Sometimes, I move onto a new topic before it is finished. Or I decide to wait because I become busy with something else.

I have been thinking about this topic for some time. I hope that you like it.

I work in an office. Over the past few months I have been observing with childlike delight the indignation office workers experience they apply some childhood “playground rule” to the office.


1. Listen to and obey the supervisors.

That is a classic playground rule. Unfortunately, in the real world sometimes our supervisors are more like playground bullies or socially inept smart kid. Our bosses are not the kind playground lady or our protective parents. It is hard to take someone seriously that leaves work for two hours to reapply a broken “Lee Press On” nail. Or obey someone who never seems to get things done but is a really great guy.

2. Use the playground equipment safely, following all rules.

I wish that I could affix a sign that read this…. "Dont walk away from a paper jam"On the office copier. It is completely frustrating to go to the copier free of hesitation and in a good mood only to realize tht some butthole has left the copier with a jam or an error message and has not bothered to notify the program head or contact the service department.

It is like some stupid childhood game where you put the broken toy back in the bin, farted just before you left the room (so no one knows that it was you) or everyone scatters when something gets broken.

3. No chasing, kicking, fighting, play fighting, pushing, shoving, wrestling, spitting

Ahhh. We can’t do any of these things so we do other stuff like.. linking people’s paperclips together, leaving food to rot in the refrigerator, taking their office supplies, damaging the copier, putting colored paper in the printer, withholding mail or faxes, unplugging coffee makers, printers, and fax machines, hoarding napkins, yelling “Hello or Good Morning” halfway down the hall to people you don’t like or don’t like you just to unnerve them and publicly or loudly harassing people for going out to lunch and not inviting you.

Then there is my personal favorite: Telling the Black office members- like me - that I have been working too long for the White man because I will NOT eat in public with you and I refuse to eat at the nasty soul food restaurant that your friend owns. I am sure you can think of more aggressive childlike behaviors that we as adult office workers express.

4. No profanity, name-calling, or teasing

I find this to be difficult from time to time. I can say “Oh Pooh Bear, ”"Dagnabit" or “Mother of God” so many times before I just want to play some gangster rap on the internet radio station.

Doesn’t everyone in an office have a nickname? “Queen of the Damned” was really funny for awhile. “The Minions”, “The Yes Mayamer”, “The Figurehead” “The Secretary who doesn’t want to be called a secretary”, simply “Unhappy”, “The Counselor.” "The King of Coverup"." The “On her/his Way Out” guy/gal is the person that we avoid.

5. No throwing ice, iceballs, snow, snowballs, rocks, stones, or anything that could hurt someone.

Just thinking about this one is making me have giggling fits. Papercuts hurt. So does leaning over, stooping down or lifting the copier or printer to find the dawgone paper jam.

Throwing reports at people the day before you need them even though you knew about your meeting two months ago is like throwing an iceball.

The playground I understood, office space - I endure.

I will do some more rules later.