Sounds and Smells of Saturday.

This week the neighbors around the corner got their roof done. For three days, we took guesses how long it would be until the huge palettes of shingles would slide off the roof and kill someone. As far as I know, they never did. It could be the roofers used some of the extra flashing cement they bragged about having to tack the palettes down.

I really did consider yelling over to the roofers that they might like to come over here if that extra flashing cement was really burning a hole in their truck. But I did not.

I did discover a ridiculous amount of pokeweed growing behind my shed, however (THREE!), and I listened to the cacophony known as the neighbor's kid as I was pulling the pokeweed (not an easy thing to do considering poke has the defense mechanism of falling apart if you tug on it once it grows higher than three inches).

For an hour, he kept telling someone that something was, "RIGHT THERE!" like his ass was chained to the ground and he couldn't go fetch it himself. I later presumed that he meant his soccer ball, because a little while later, he asked someone to get his soccer ball fifty-three times.

The child was then allowed near the lawn mower. My dog, who is terrified of everything from the electric cake mixer to the Shop-Vac, paid no mind to this. This doesn't surprise me.

"I'm on the roof!" he screamed roughly twenty times before someone (other than me and everyone else in the Tri-State area) noticed him.

"I like it here!" he argued when anyone would tell him to get down.

"I can see the church from here!" he screamed as I thought to myself that might be where he'll be buried out of when he smashes his fool melon head on the ground.

"I'm falling!" he screamed twice when I guess no one was paying any attention to his antics anymore.

He then sounded as if he was being murdered, and kept saying, "Let go of me!" so all I can hope is that the creature from the blackest lagoon of rain gutter build-up ate the damn noisy fool.

I do believe this is the child that yelled, "Ma!" non-stop for four years. I'm not kidding.

I will say this: I enjoyed killin' stuff growing out of the ground while that kid was screaming. I pretended it was his vocal cords. Are vocal cords actual cords? I'm thinking no. Then again, my eyes are not water fountains, yet try telling that to the mosquito that landed in my eye.

I think the moral of this story is that if there are small noisy humans around, lock up your ladders. If not, respond to the stupid kid on the roof within the first ten times they make a noise, preferably by removing the ladder and saying goodbye. It works faster than, "Getta down-a here!" If you are the kid on the roof and you like it there, keep your mouth shut, and you can stay forever!

Happy weekend, everybody.

Handy gardening tip: vinegar, salt, and dishwashing liquid makes a better vegetation killer than Round-Up. So what if the back of my shed smells like (I say) salad dressing or (Nan says) douche? It's environmentally friendly to whatever it's not killing! And it kills. It kills well. Boiling water also works, but for stuff that is above your head, it's probably not wise to fling boiling water around.

I've worked it out to a tablespoon of salt and a half-teaspoon of dishwashing liquid per cup of vinegar, like 2 cups of vinegar, 2 tablespoons of sait, 1 teaspoon of dish liquid. I only used half of that, because that's all I have in the house until next month.

Homemade weedkiller impresses me. Next spring no unwanted things will grow in my cracks. That's a nice thought.

Now if only I could find something that makes Waffles the dog not poop in our driveway. Aside from a cannon aimed at his owners, who deliberately walk him to our house. I have video.

Sounds and Smells of Saturday.

Press Any Key To Continue, But Only If You Use The Correct OS.

Ah, the '90s. Back on this date...or around this date...in 1990, I got my first PC. It had a clock speed of 3 and no hard drive. I had to buy an extra serial card port in order to use the mouse and the modem. I loved that damn computer.

It came with DR-DOS. Prodigy couldn't run off a disk formatted in DR-DOS. MS-DOS was $80 to buy. Luckily, my neighbor let me bum a copy.

Man, did I learn a lot about PCs right off the bat.

It's odd that I can recall the date I fired up my Kaypro 8086, and my first Prodigy account number (BSSR04), and the second (RPWS67, and that was because I didn't know the 0 was a zero!), but I can't remember if I was supposed to get out of this chair and go do something.

Press Any Key To Continue, But Only If You Use The Correct OS.

But Has It Also Been Seven Hours?

Fifteen days since my last post? Shameful. I didn't mean to take my love away. I have, like a good little woman of olden days who thinks herself into a tizzy, been doing crafts. You see, my blanket came apart...it's one of those velour thermal blankets, and it's black, and I've spent a great deal of time in bed with that blanket, so I couldn't just toss it. No homeless people would appreciate the flaking black fuzz so it's not like I can go down to the subway station and say, "Aww, here, it'll keep you warm! Like it kept me warm all those nights!" No one wants to hear that.

No, I am making things out of my late blanket, and many of those things are cat-shaped. YOU KNEW THAT WAS COMING! What else is there to do with a roughly 5'x4' section of black velour? I also made a printer cover, but the cat climbs up on the printer, so that also counts as a cat project.

Other than that, much of my time has been taken up thrashing about trying to escape the flicker of the TV, keeping painstaking record of every annoying ache in my body for future archaeologists, and being unpleasant to mosquitoes. I cannot read my records, so I can't tell you how I've been. I just don't remember.

But I've missed you. I want to make it up to you. I know this doesn't really cover it, but here's a video that made me consider laughing. Instead, I just had a few cups of coffee and ran back and forth to my monitor in the hopes David Bowie was walking past. He wasn't, but a flower grew in the yard where none had been the day before. It was yellow, and closed itself at night, which means it's dangerous to walk the street when the lights are out.

(Someday, I will watch all of Twin Peaks.)

But Has It Also Been Seven Hours?

I don't really sit around analyzing myself.

I read an article called Caring For Your Introvert, and it spoke to me, man. And not at great length until I fell down, either.

I am an introvert! I would go out into the streets and shout this, but really, no one needs that.

I don't really sit around analyzing myself.

Me, I'm Just A Lawnmower, You Can Tell By The Way I Walk.

No, I've not been hanging out in Peter Gabriel's wardrobe, but look, say hello to my leetle friend!



And I do mean little. This mower fits between all the various hedge arrangements the Knights of Ni decreed we plant and it's only 35 pounds, which means I am not completely dead the day after I mow, and I found it on OMyGarden.com, which is technically an eBay store so I get to pay it off in my magical eBay ways. I also realize I've said the word the Knights of Ni cannot hear several times already, but that's too bad, I cut my lawn with a Pup now. Better than a herring, that thing.

There's also a cute little basket that catches the clippings so I can fill in the excavations by our fearless lawn raider. Not that I recommend filling in puppy holes with only rocks and leaves, because the snake loves it. Have I mentioned we have a garden snake? My fluffy little cat carried it over to me in his mouth the other night, like, "Human, please dispose of this." I was unable to dispose of the snake and I learned that snakes move away from anything capable of picking them up very quickly. Unlike baby field mice.

When my little slinky cat carried a mouse to me the other night like, "Hey, I found this, can you put some butter on it for me?" I was able to carry the mouse to someplace safer. I have been told no such place exists, but I read too many Serendipity books as a kid. Plus, dude, I only let my cats play with fake mice and sticks!

Me, I'm Just A Lawnmower, You Can Tell By The Way I Walk.