Weed Whacker

I went out for dinner at the excellent pizza place whose name I forget cause I got too much other excellent stuff taking up room in my superior type brain. A friend of Super Agent Fred's was there and, after hearing my whining about how beat up I had gotten weeding the yard that afternoon, he announced gardening was both soothing and relaxing.

Schmuck.

I'm sure a good axe murder spree is soothing, but the only people who think gardening is relaxing are those who do not indulge in it. I spent hours whacking away at a small-ish mountain of weeds, invasive blackberry canes as big around as my thumb and a passion flower vine that is determined to take over the whole side of the canyon we live in. I got scratches all over, thorns stuck in both hands (through a pair of heavy duty gloves) and sprained my back. Yeah, it was plenty relaxing.

Weeds.

More weeds.

Lotsa Weeds.

Throughout, I had my iTunes playing on the computer up here with the windows open so I could hear it. I realize my neighbors also got an earful, but since I never usually do that, I figured they could suck it up. The shuffle spit out Donna Summer (Bad Girls,) Erasure (Victim of Love,) Madonna (Vogue,) and Dusty Springfield (who knows what? I have lots.) I could just hear them "So he's not just a queen, he's an OLD queen...."

Things not actually weeds up in the yard:

Mexican Sage, rolling off into the distance.

Purple echiveria and an old, old, old red fuschia

Coreopsis

Some itty bitty blue flower, the name of which I have long since forgotten, if I ever knew it.

HurriCan't

I was delighted with this pulpy charmer which our beloved Infomaniac used to respond to my comment that, in turn, responded to her very sensitive post about possible East Coast victims of Hurricane Irene (is this all too internal, too blogger-centric, too meta, too tootoo for you? Tough. Do try to keep up.)

My considerably less sensitive comment to her post said "Pooh. As an old Gulf Coast boy, I still say if it's to the right (starboard) of Florida, it's not a real hurricane." Yeah, that's right, I said it and I'm sticking by it, especially since Irene turned to to be such a wimpy little blow, not much more than a lot of rain and a chance for New York transit official to turn of the subway. (And what's with that? I didn't even know they could turn it off.)

I understand the anxiety of staring down the barrel of an oncoming hurricane, the tragedy of rushing down to the grocery to stock up on supplies only to discover your piggish neighbors have already scored all the beer and cheap scotch. But my substantial experience with them makes me confident that if, on Thursday, the storm trackers are warning you that the hurricane will come ashore in your neighborhood on Sunday, you can feel confident about sleeping in late that morning and then watching the Weather Channel to see where it actually wanders in.

Understand me, I am not exaggerating (for once) my hurricane experiences. My parents' home was located on a lovely, leafy peninsula that stuck out into Galveston Bay. In the thirty years they lived there, it was flooded seven or eight times and threatened pretty much annually. Eventually, the city condemned the whole fucking neighborhood for being too disaster prone and turned it into a nature preserve, complete with alligators. To this day, the nasty mucky smell of a mud flat at low tide is a nostalgic, Proustian experience for me.

So a Category 3 (Category 3? As in Category "What's the big deal, why are you being such a little Girl" 3?) storm comes along and I'm not impressed? It's nurture, not nature.

What Fresh Hell is This?

Today is Dorothy Parker's birthday. In her honor, I plan to do no housework, knock back some vicodan and recite my favorite Parker ode:

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,

a medley of extemporanea;

and love is a thing that can never go wrong.

And I am Marie of Romania.

This is not Miss Parker. It is a glorious cycle of something or the other.

Crexcent City Craziness

Our dear friends Kevin and Steve arrive today for a visit from New Orleans. The nominal reason is a wedding of Steve's nephew, I think they really are just trying to escape the miserable heat I hear is suffocating the South. Right on I say, I just don't understand why they waited so long.

We've been friends for quite a while, I believe we met shortly after time was invented. Steve is a landscape architect, Kevin makes Sak's pretty. Drugs and drag have been involved, yes, it's true.

Cow Queen, getting all belovelified for some long gone Southern Decadence bacchanal.

It's possible I am the only friend they have who does not pronounce his name "Kebbin." That's because I am a Lady, I do Lady things. Certainly, I am the only one who calls Steve "Cow Queen." The cause of the nickname is lost to the mists of time. I simply appreciate that he puts up with it, the old darling.

They've visited out here often enough over the years, that I have no plans for things to entertain them. I suppose we will just hang out, savoring the fog and cool temps. Could anything be sweeter?

Back in the Saddle

OK, I'm just going to dive in and pretend like I haven't been ignoring my blog for two weeks because no one is interested in to listening bloggers explain how they are just too darn busy to keep up. Life too much for you? What are you, a combination astronaut/brain surgeon? If you're that important why do you have a blog? Obviously, I'm just a lazy pig.

My dear friend Rich from New Orleans (aka Magda) was in town the last week of July which was terribly amusing and good for me. We did pretty much nothing and it was fabulous to be reminded how solid friends we are, and why. We found the perfect little table for my front hall in a consignment store for $180 and when they wouldn't come down to $150, I walked out. Magda patiently encouraged me to rethink the situation and the values inherent in it. Actually, what he said was "Queen. Are you going to pass up that table for thirty bucks? Shut up and get back in there." I am immensely glad I did so and publicly thank Magda for his sensible advice.

I spent the entire day yesterday watching a Hoarders marathon on some cable channel's whose motto should be "We Waste Your Time for You." I'd never been able to stick out more than the first 60 seconds of these monuments to civilization because I always thought I was too delicate to watch more than that much of the filth festivals. Turns out I'm tougher than I thought; how comforting.

Hoarders is an excuseless revel in the fortunes of troubled individuals who cannot bring themselves to let go of a single piece of the flotsam and jetsam in their lives. These sad, sad creatures (or, as I like to think of them, "freakydirtycreepylosers") exist in a bubble of denial. Look, if moving through your home requires you to climb over a moraine of empty gatorade bottles and old pizza boxes and if you cannot access your toilet for the vast collection of stuffed poodles you have dragged home from the thrift stores, do you really think all systems are go in your sweet little life? These shows are just the latest in a series of entertainment monuments (Design Star is another) that cause me to shriek at the television. This alarms Saki and makes me wonder if maybe the participants are any worse off than I am, carrying on a one-way conversation with household appliances.

I am also finishing up a 10 volume series of science fiction novels by Lois McMaster Bujold that center on a terribly amusing character named Miles Vorkosigan. If you like sci fi, you should give them a try. The conceit of a one character in this many settings allowed Bujold to study fantasy writing through the lens of different genres like hard-boiled detective noir, and regency romance, and whodunits. Thumbs up.

Also, houseboy booty: