the next generation

Remember going on field trips when you and your friends scored the last couple of rows on the bus and the teachers had the eagle eye on you, watching for spitballs and arms hanging out the window?

My mom teaches elementary school, and came home from a field trip yesterday with a story about how she had to sit in the back of the bus and intervene on a conversation between kids who were telling each other about how one likes the way another’s butt smelled. The conversation was being conducted in chat rooms via Nintendo DS.

How can that much have changed since my day?

ETA Not that we weren’t referring to each other’s butts, but we did it the old fashioned way. You know, by talking.

yews are the devil’s evergreens

When we moved into our house, there were four gigantic yews planted along the front porch.  I’m sure that at one time, they were beautiful and lush.  By the time we got around to pruning them down to where they weren’t blocking out the sun, we couldn’t get all the clipped pieces out, and had to cut it down to where the limbs were all spindly.  By the time we got new growth, the things were as big as before and the dead pieces that weren’t rescued were a lovely shade of diarrhea, still stuck deep within the branches, never to be liberated again.

So we cut them down.  Like two years ago.  And then just dug out the root balls about three weeks ago.  I never said we were speedy.

Yesterday, I bought some lovely little bushes to fill in the dead space that is our lawn.  I apologize in advance to my neighbors and to anyone who drove down our street today.  Those frakking yews had roots the size of Greenland, and I spent a good part of my afternoon hacking at them with an ax, my ass up in the air, jiggling with every whack.  Sorry, no pictures.

Still, two of the four bushes are planted, another hole dug, one to go.  I weeded the jungle around our tree and put down mulch.  We took our one allowed trip to the dump (although we have probably two to make next weekend).  I painted the requisite concrete planter that came with the house so I can put it on the porch with my favorite Lemon Zest petunias in it.  I made dinner, put in a load of laundry, and will most likely have a shower sometime in the next two hours.  I quit.  It’s almost 8 o’clock, and if there ever was a day that I deserved a beer, that day has come.

Now I just have to decide if I should watch Friday’s BSG or read the next Narnia book whilst drinking this hoppy German goodness.  Not the worst choice to have to make on a lovely Sunday evening.

impossible

Whaaaat?  Patsy Stone Patsy is 62 frickin years old? Well, happy birthday, Joanna Lumley, and thanks for giving me an excuse to post my favorite Ab Fab clip of all time.

ode to east nashville i.e. the happy ending

Yesterday, our dog went missing.

the neighborhood crone

We get a lot of traffic on our street. When people are just passing through, they generally take the three blocks with no stop signs as an invitation to test their acceleration skills. The exception to this, not including the people who live here, are the drivers creep along the road looking suspicious.

We’ve had someone kicking in our door in the middle of the night. On a day we were leaving for vacation, I came home early to pack and was out in the backyard talking to my neighbor while a young man walked down the alley casing every back door on the block. My car has been broken into so many times I’ve forgotten when I lost count.

I spend a lot of time lounging in our porch swing, and when people go slinking by in a car I don’t recognize, I do the glare. I look at license plates and makes and models. I’m also not very good about introducing myself to new neighbors, so I’m now realizing that when they have friends over and are filling them in on the people in the neighborhood, I’m probably being described as the weird one who sits on the front porch and gives dirty looks to strangers. Awesome.

nothing new to report

With the exception of lots of squealing over Jim’s one knee freakout Thursday, there hasn’t been much going on around here. I figure I’ve overstayed my tv blogging welcome what with all the Buffy and Angel stuff, so I’ve let off about the Office and BSG. Lost does come back next week, though, so that new rule may be out the window in 5 days.

We decided (we being Ivy, Lesley, Muffy, and I, among others) to go against our better judgement and have this yard sale. Most of today was wasted washing clothes that will be priced and hopefully hocked next weekend. This morning I took Neurottie (formerly known as Muttweiler #2) to the vet for her annual, and strangely enough, no worms, no nothing but good health. Considering how much cat poop she eats, the no worms thing was rather surprising. As a treat for not devouring any of the vet techs, I took her to get a new collar after her appointment (she loves new stuff - she’s a primper), but the automatic doors at Petco freaked her out so much that she slept for about 10 hours upon returning home. Hence the new name.

Tomorrow, we venture into the attic. We’ve got 2, maybe 3 tvs to haul down, not to mention anything else we’re willing to part with. Another exciting weekend at our house.

deadliest catch time!

We loooooove Deadliest Catch. I notice that whiny ass Blake isn’t at the pre-season betting table this year. Thank jeebus.

Have y’all seen this awesome new Discovery channel commercial?

In sort of related news, I was going through posts from last season to find commenters to link to on MCB and found this comment from Short & Fat:

This post…she make-a no sense to me.

I hate feeling left out. High school all over again.

I responded with this:

I feel the same way when people about Lost and Battlestar Galactica.

What a difference a year makes. So say we all.

thorns

As was just mentioned on Twitter, I am officially one episode away from being Whedonless. This morning was the only morning this week I stood even a chance to get to the emission testing center early enough to get in before seven, so all night I fretted about sleeping through my alarm. Considering that my tags are waaaay expired, and that I’m really tired of watching the rearview for cops, I fitfully dozed all night, got up, and was on Craighead by six thirty, got my test and my tags taken care of, and am now a free woman. Long story to tell you how friggin tired I am now.

I finished Buffy last week. I’ve got one Angel left. I’ve watched Firefly. Whedon’s new show isn’t out yet. Past the episode I’m about to watch, I’ve got nothing left in my Netflix arsenal. Well, I’ve got CSI, but that’s a different story.

So, tired or not, I’ve made a drink, got the headphones on, and am going to watch these guys save the world. Again. And then I’m going to pout.

ETA my exclamations in the last fifteen minutes went something like this: No, Lorne!  Yay, Gunn is back!  Whoa, NOT WESLEY!  I love Illyria!  I love Connor!  Jayne, the man they call Jayne is no match for Angel!

And then a boo.  It’s all over.

to sell or not to sell

Our house is busting at the seams with crap.  Too much stuff, too little space.  Our two free standing closets (the only closets in the house) are full, and that’s even with the heavy winter stuff up in the attic.

I’ve been bandying about the idea of having a yard sale, as we have some furniture, three televisions, hundreds of books, and some decor stuff that likely would sell.  Not to mention clothes, clothes, and more clothes.  I’d love to have someone else haul it off (and us make a little money on it), but the thought of having to price everything, get up, deal with all the people….ugh.

Here’s the question: should we have a yard sale or just go ahead and take everything to Goodwill?

Here’s another: Do any of you have stuff you want to get rid of but don’t want to deal with a sale yourself?

On any given Saturday there are tons of sales in East Nashville.  I’ve been keeping an eye out to see if there’s going to be a neighborhood wide sale in Lockeland Springs, but haven’t come across anything.  It’d be more worth it if we could advertise that there are multiple households in on it.

If we do go with the the sale option, I will have a definite, posted end time, and anything not sold will be donated.  Nothing goes back in the house.  What would you do?

teto

I have dozens of pictures of the subject for this post, but I think the ones I’m looking for predate my digital camera, which means that they’re on a disc somewhere and in my house, ’somewhere’ can be loosely translated to ‘never to be found again’. It also means that I had to do a photo shoot so you guys would know who I was talking about.

So this is Teto.

And this is my dog being jealous of a stuffed otter.

Sometime in the early nineties, Teto was freed from his retail prison by being stuffed down Dale’s pants and smuggled out into the world. Teto was somewhat of a celebrity at FHS, because his keeper, Tara (who started a blog herself but never posts, shame shame we know your name), carried him with her everywhere - class, doctor’s office, Waffle House, etc. Even now, when I run into to someone from school and we get into the requisite “who do you still talk to” conversation, I mention Tara, and they say “who?” and I say “the girl with the otter” and they say “oh, right” because who could forget an otter with piercings.

We do kind of a Flat Stanley thing with Teto, taking pictures of him in strange places and situations. My favorite one is from Pride ‘06, where he’s hanging out of a disposable trash can that says “Got Lube?”, but alas, I can’t find it. Anyway, I got the urge to make a BSG lolteto, but nobody that knows Teto watches BSG so they wouldn’t get it. You guys watch BSG, but don’t know about Teto. I think it’s easier to explain Teto to you than BSG to them, so there you go.

So, having explained who he is, now I can release my lolteto unto the world, even though after all that build up it’s not going to be all that and a bag of chips. Maybe all that and a pickle, but even that’s pushing it a little.

I think that’s hilarious. But then, I’m pretty dorky.

Battlestar Galactica tonight!  Wheee!