A (not THE) key to marriage

Complementary skill sets.

The Fairy Queen can do many things: laugh at herself, bake a pie, host a party, remember important dates, and occasionally move 32 children from one place to another with ninja-like stealth.

What she cannot do is fix things. Breaking things? No problem. She's Olympic-level, medaling in all the categories (random, creative, how could you possibly? and I told you not to force it!).

When the FQ lived alone, her household fix-it solution was known as Call the Landlord. Now, 14 years into being a joint homeowner, it's clear that the only solution ever is Call Phrodaux. He will find/make/hammer/weld/cajole a fix into place.

For example...
We did not make it to the farm during the recent hideous cold snap. Nice neighbors down there kept us posted about the roads (terrible) and the temperatures (5 degrees, yikes). Check out the waterfall (essentially the same view as at the top of your screen right now).

When we finally did get down to our little house...

we found that things were mostly OK. No burst pipes, no flood. But also, no cold water in the kitchen. Easy to live with on a Friday night, but not for the whole weekend. So Saturday, bright and early, Phrodaux started down the curvy road to problem identification/resolution.

Here's the FQ-abridged version: Big chunk of ice in the well house pressure tank scraped a bunch of rusty goop off the side of the tank, which then began a journey through the pipes. Journey is the key word here, as this problem was on the move! Fix it here, it crops up over there. Water here, no water there, at one point water everywhere.

My job, as is often the case, is to stand by. Hand over some tools, turn a faucet on or off, listen for yelling. Toward the end of this interesting morning, I was doing the yelling, as Phrodaux did something somewhere else in the house and water shot out of the disassembled faucet. I tried to cap it with my hands, but it had already reached the ceiling.

Phrodaux, upon  witnessing this exciting scene, calmly said, "That's some pressure." Proving that another key to marriage is never to panic, followed shortly by the reminder that it's better to get all the messes out of the way before you start the clean up.

At any rate, it was all wrapped up by mid-afternoon, leaving plenty of time for a trip into town, a visit to the egg lady, and a tall grass ramble with the dogs (always fun, but even more so when you're properly attired):

PS: You know it's a good day when a) you have hot and cold running water in all faucets; b) Nubie doesn't look TOO nervous; and c) Mo gets tired.

 (Phrodaux: don't ask FQ about the gallon jar of brownish but drinkable water that we set aside for while the water was off, there was going to be a picture. See paragraph after the pie picture above)

the nice (non-porn) part of the tubes.

So, there are the trolls.

not the good/fun kind that want to make jelly from hobbits and get turned into stone when they are too dim to get inside when the sun comes out. (oh, come ON! it is not that unusual of a reference, it is a major motion picture, for jimminies sake, it is a reference to geek/pop/everyone culture)

they are the ones that say mean things for no reason other than to say mean things (I'm sorry about the sheet vinyl mocking... sorta, I'm funny, really, ask my mom, no don't, she thinks I'm more "odd" than funny)

Then there is the part of the web that shows us that sometimes people can be non-horrible (even when they are not trying to make jelly from our squishy bits)

exhibit (a)

 

(you should click the above, really, do it, not a trick, really)

See, wasn't that nice? even when the jerky pants guy yells at the nice piano. The guy dancing?

exhibit (b)

1-719-26-OATES

yah, we/I know it is not really the web, but someanabisch use your phone, it can make phone calls (really, trust me, it does things besides text and take pictures of your junk)

call this number, it will make any day better (different/better that is the same thing, right?)

use only in case of emergency, or boredom, or if you happen to read this and wonder what the !@#! am they talking about now, those odd, odd people.

exhibit (c)

then there is this.

exhibit (the best)

(I fully support the idea of large hairy men in tutus, well, conceptually, I like the idea of society accepting large hairy men in tutus, well, yes, me in a tutu, they can be slimming)

and finally...

exhibit (x)

those pants make your ass look GREAT!

(please, if you need confirmation, provide photographic evidence and 2 letters of recommendation, but you can really just trust us, your ass does look amazing.)

and... if you think you know a nice corner of the the tubes, please let us know in the comments. We will (may) include it in a future post.

 (and make a comment about how nice your ass looks, really it does look amazeballs, yes, I am ashamed about using amazeballs, not the part about your ass, really, just wow... wow)

there is only the now...and the after pix

you've seen those pictures on the web, you know you have, we all have.

I'm so ashamed, we all are, but we keep looking.

here is where we come clean: "Hi, our names are Phrodaux and the Fairy Queen, and we never take 'before pictures.'" Free coffee in the back, and why is everyone smoking cheap cigarettes?

I feel better, but that might be the liquor talking.

We take on big projects, we do all the work ourselves (this might justify an intervention from those whom we have heard referred to as "the sane")

...and most of the way to the point where we say "done" we realize we have no "before pictures." The only comfort is that I rarely get to the magical and mythical point that hobbits and the elven folk call "done."

(bathroom... before)

all those shiny magazines and equally shiny websites that say "what an amazing job" or "what the F' did you just do, you sad, sad person"...They all have the underexposed and weirdly lit from some angle that is never to be reproduced "before" and the oh so well lit, and taken from an angle that highlights the amazing view of the sunset dropping over the mountains to the east (yes, I know, assume I'm being "funny") "after." All is well. I will never poop in a hole in the ground (or a lavender toilet) ever again.

(bathroom... after)

This room went from functioning 70's stylin' (there was at one point plasticy embossed pink/baby blue wallpaper and an overly routered/underly styled "bathroom" tissue holder ) to nothing but studs (boom, chicka wow-wow) then back to sheetrocked (and rolled... sorry, that one kinda sucked) then new walls, bead board, sink and toilet, the whole shebang. Wires, 'lectricity, indoors plumbing and everything. But no "before" so, you all have to take our word for it, that and those that came over during the 3 years it took to go from "after the carpet bombing look" and "we have to go where to pee?" to a bathroom that they fear going into as we might be funnin' them, but really is kinda nice, if I do say so myself.

 

(ok, it is not a before, but it is a mid. Note bad lighting and not the same angle)

(here is an after picture of the kitchen. Superman is there for scale, the Fairy Queen does not like bananas so I have none for scale)

should mention the garden, or the kitchen, or all the weird baby blue trim (that shedded new paint like water off an overly waxed ranchero) and window treatments that looked more like square dancing skirts likely worn by that large lady with a 5 o'clock shadow and an Adam's apple. (she was quite the dancer and she let me lead, but that is another story about a christmas season years past that at one point has a Truman Capote look alike with a chihuahua sitting on the bar drinking from a highball glass and a young geologist from Oklahoma disappearing into the night, never to be seen again).

[Fairy Queen sidebar: Phrodaux SWEARS this is a true story.]

Before-ish...you can see individual plants and expensive rocks.

Half the grass gone, art in place, but no steel fence.

(Voila, a garden, no more grass or english ivy, fancy rocks mostly engulfed by plants)

...sometimes we think we are the before (shut up, it isn't just me, it's EVERYONE!) and if you think you're an after then just shut up, you, and put the damn camera away, or not. Really, we are what we are, in 10 years when you look back you will think "It wasn't bad" except for the hair (spiky mullet? really?) and the neon shirt that is oddly coming back into style (but not for you, at some point you can't wear things ironically and those shoes? argh). Stand up, get the "before" picture taken, and realize that ten years from now you will be become the before picture for that guy that was the after way back then (despite his obvious bad taste in hair, clothing and footwear, but still has dancing the night away with that nice "lady" that made you feel pretty to look forward to).

...and the bathtub is still in the driveway (so technically, the bathroom is still pre-done).

You can't control the weather

...but you can sure wail, whine, kvetch and complain about it because really, for here, it's JUST NOT RIGHT.

Exhibit A: Where we live, winter is supposed to be temps in the 40s and rain. Yes, I know, people complain about the damp gray days, but it's what were used to, it's what we're prepared for.

Exhibit B: TV news weather reports. This is a mostly dry cold snap, so they can't use SNOWMAGEDDON or SNOWPOCALYPSE. Instead, it's ARCTIC INVASION. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Exhibit C: Recent temperatures at our house (not the farm, that's another story).

First this:

Then this!

(side note from Phrodaux, it was actually colder than this, it was below 10 deg F, but the frog lies, and there is no cake. THERE IS NO CAKE!)

That, my friends, is WRONG. Just plain wrong. We do not live in Alaska or Greenland or Siberia or Antarctica for a number of reasons. Not enough food carts, for one. Our dogs prefer it here, for two. And INSANE COLD is a pretty big factor.

The Fairy Queen is already a person who is always cold, something like 7 months of the year. And now, it takes a solid 5 minutes to gear up for a trip to the backyard with the dogs: t-shirt, sweater, sweat shirt, hoody, big coat, scarf, hat, double gloves. It might as well be a haz mat suit. Even Mo has figured out that a quick out and in is the way to go.

Phrodaux, of course, has been ingenious. To keep the various fountains going (a source of fresh water for the poor parched birds), he has rigged up contraptions that suspend Mexican candles (they burn forever) in the water. It's not a lot of heat, but it keeps a tiny bit of water from turning to ice.

 Every time I checked on this fountain, there was a bird sitting on it:

The garden, of course, looks bedraggled and strung out and sad, with a few noteworthy exceptions. Want a plant that can stand anything? Dry shade, drought, 9 degrees? Plant some epidmediums, people. We know lots of nice nurseries that will sell them to you.

Well lovelies, it's true what they say, you can't change the weather. So stay in, stay warm. If you have the time (and the ingredients on hand, by no means leave the house for provisions!), make soup... 

 

...and cookies. 

 

You'll feel better. And warmer. Trust me.

Sometimes you make the recipe...

...and sometimes the recipe makes you kick and scream and curse.

Don't get me wrong, the Fairy Queen loves to cook. An afternoon making lovely things from scratch sounds perfect. IF, that is, the lovely things turn out somewhere in the vicinity of lovely. Several hours of attention and care and ingredients that turn into nasty swill, however, turn the FQ into a cursing sailor.

Take a recent Sunday, for example. After a wonderful morning of provisioning:

• Farmer's market for mushrooms, tomatoes (!), cider, pears, and local sweet potatoes
• Spice store for pomegranete molasses and korean chili threads (future kimchi)
• Urban homestead store for a new canning pot rack - check back for the ranty post on this topic
• lunch at the most sublime dive bar ever

...we returned home for dog play and cooking. On the docket were granola, ricotta, and yogurt. The first two were to come from a new DIY book Phrodaux found at the library. I've been reading it and loving the tone, the author's sidebar stories, the whole vibe of the thing.

But #$&*(#$&*(#$&(*#$&*(.

These recipes do not work.

Granola: Instead of golden, toasty, and ready to be broken into chunks, mine was DARK brown, burned smelling, and ultimately just a big pan of oats with a few minor distractions.

Ricotta: This was the tantrum inducer. After a really long time on low heat, we finally reached 175 degrees. Then, per the instructions, it was time to turn the heat up and watch the pan as it "looked ready to erupt" but "should not boil."

Hmm. It almost immediately boiled. And definitely started to erupt, 18 inch high spurts of hot lemony milk, a geyser in my kitchen. Every time, I screeched. At some point I reached in to adjust the thermometer just as a major eruption shot into the air but encountered my arm instead. While flinging my arm away (fire hot!) I also managed to fling the thermometer into the air and across the kitchen.

So, let us recap: lousy recipe + milk burns + broken glass = fairy queen tantrum (and no yogurt, as it too requires a thermometer and mine looked like this:

Don't zoom in! The debris is unnecessarily filthy, as I'd swept it up with the rest of the dog/kitchen dirt before deciding to photograph it. Really, trust me. Don't zoom.

For my efforts, I got about a cup of this. Big whooping deal. Ricotta is not that special and not that expensive. I'm buying mine next time.

After the FQ meltdown, Phrodaux took over: soothing words, icy cocktail, homemade pizza, assurances that we really could buy ricotta next time. And vows that if I followed through on my threat (Burn this book! Pay the library!), he would still stand by me.  Ah, love.

sports

ok.

Phrodaux has a confession to make to the tubes.
I don't understand sports, maybe women's roller derby a bit, but that is about it.

My dad apparently played football in high school and in college, and played with a guy who went on to be semi famous (I'm not saying Grizzly Adams, but I'm not saying it wasn't).

(this is a creative commons image)

But we never watched or engaged in "sports".
{Fairy Queen sidebar: Oh, Phrodaux, you lie. What about swim team, diving team, water polo? What about how we are fairly certain that my 10th grade self saw your 12th grade self IN A SPEEDO when our teams competed in water polo, 16 years before we actually met????}

Football.

I really really don't understand football.

A game goes on for something like an hour, but that hour can last for....ev....er.

especially when you are waiting for your non-football related show to start that is coming on in 2 mins when the freaking game is over that started sometime in the early paleolithic era. Who knew what sorta high jinx would ensue in a show called "hello down there" in that time when the sports thing was spose to end and when their oxygen was going to run out.

Downloaded 10/9/13 from http://mubi.com/films/hello-down-there

football. a game where only a few times in a match (game, festival, event, gathering, fet, or #$@$, argh) does the ball come in contact with a foot. By this logic, softball in my high school PE class should have been called "testicle ball" or to be honest, really softball still kinda works.... (shut up)

Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you...and wear something asex-ahay.

ok.

Yes, you are reading this, if you were not, then that would be kinda meta, or not meta, what is the opposite of meta (atem?)

Yes, we read blogs (see above).

Used to be, back in the the early dark days of the web (mosaic anyone?) back in the days when statements like  "no one has figured out how to make money on the web" were published in dead tree magazines with names like "Yahoo!" there were things called "websites" and those websites were written by things called "people" and those things called "people" also were interested in other websites written by other things called "peoples".

Then they would put links to those other websites on their websites as they figgered that if they found those pages interesting and you were looking at their pages then you might find those other "peoples" websites interesting.

Again this was in the dark days before "people" would put ads on their pages and would somehow make money from putting pictures of hamsters dancing on a webpage.

if you are not old (or wise), click here

so.

Given that we don't currently make money on our website, or really have any plans to have schemes to make  money on our blog, we just want to know: What do you find interesting on this silly little thing we call "the web" (aka, the tubes)?

Oh, and to mention the yahoo article. Ebert was saying that there was no way to make money on the web, and he was overheard by a guy whose wife figured it out. Oddly enough the answer was porn. Most of the questions to life can be answered with porn, or cheese, or porn and cheese. Plate of shrimp (movie ref... blah, blah, blah)

This would be the time that you would go to comments and tell us about the websites  you like, that we might like, or that that guy you met on the bus that one time that had a squirrel in his pants might like. Or you could go to comments and say "quit being such a bossy pants, we don't like the web, and would rather stay home and look at pictures of weird manly women from the turn of the century and maybe some pictures of hamsters and while we eat turnips, you bastards).

Puppy speed

Puppies seem to come with two speeds, ON and off. Mo's ON is ON ON ON ON ON. He will happily relocate garden hoses,

oak leaves,

furniture,

and dirt.

Only rarely, and with much resistance, does he rest.

Unfortunately, his zest for new adventures outstrips his survival instinct. In the first few weeks he was with us, we found him chewing a piece of glass, nibbling walnuts (the squirrels were working the tree out back), sampling weird mushrooms that sprang up in the yard when it rained, and - here's the best one - eating a pill Nubie left in his bowl.

So...two nights before the "meet the puppy" visit with our regular vet, there we were with the vet on call, presenting a puppy who may have eaten one of three different meds, all of which are prescribed to a ~16 pound dog, not a 6 pounds and change puppy. By the way, have you ever tried to weigh a rambunctious puppy on a plate on a kitchen scale? Because really, this is the definition of good times.

But I digress. According to the super nice on-call vet, 2 of the 3 meds would be no big deal. But on the off chance it was #3, the blood pressure lowering thing, that would be pretty bad for Mr. Mo. So: vomiting induced, subcutaneous fluids administered, slightly chastened puppy sent home with us, with warnings to watch out for fainting and seizures, and to be prepared for serious sleepiness and possibly upset stomach. We were told to stop and get some tummy settling meds, as he was likely not going to be interested in food for a while.

Well.

Sleepiness lasted for two very cute hours.

Maniacal puppy runs re-commenced right around human bed time.

Stomach? It did not seem to be upset so much as persistently empty. This is AFTER lunch, the hopping lunge at the food bowl.

We might be too old for this. And Nubie is STILL not sure this is a good idea.

The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation...eww.

ok, here we go. Fairy Queen is hollering/bellowing/yelling and trying to get the little white dogs to run in here and bite me, anything to get me to stop...

{FQ sidebar: She neither hollers nor bellows. She suggests, gently and firmly. And in the case of this particular post, she was spectacularly wrong.}

...and yet, I post.

there is a song from my youth, well not quite youth, but not quite growed up, more like a grup.

In the late 80's, early 90's from a band called Toto, which had little to nothing to do with the hero of a small movie that didn't quite win the oscar that year of 1939 (blatent plug to get you to get off of the Friendster and look to other parts of the tubes, because it is not a truck).

watch this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTQbiNvZqaY

 

(his other hand is someplace down in "Africa"

Don't hate me because I am beautiful, or because I asked you to watch that oh-so-white band sing about "Africa" and what the hell, the black librarian and what the f!@# was with the black hand and the spear? and those glasses. pla-la-la-lease. It would be like germans singing something about how the "the bris, the bris it went amiss", or "I wish, I wish, for a gefilte fish" (ok, I may be off the rails here a bit, go look up "the dark backward" it has nothing to do with anything here, but it was a weird movie, a guy with a third arm).

ok, stay with me (this may be a bit late, but for those still here the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys) 

Our friend, Sarah, who may be one of the bravest people we know, is now (down) in Africa. Not the Africa that the oh so earnest guy above is touching himself about, but the Africa with real people who have gone through really, really, really horrible things that they all have to live with, and have to figure out how to live with each other knowing what they all have done.

oh, sorry, heavy. yes. we are talking specifically about Rwanda. 

She is there, talking and getting to know people who have both done monstrous and unforgivable things and have had monstrous and unforgivable things done to them. Yet, despite the fact that monstrous and unforgivable things have been done, they are figuring out how to do something even harder, and in Phrodaux's small head, impossible.

They forgive.

yes, you don't want to do what I usually tell you to do and "go look it up", really, don't. Just take my word. 

But, if I can ask one thing, and one thing only of those who will take advice from some random whacko who writes about chupa cobbler and giant salamaders and what may or may not be sheet vinyl, can I ask one simple thing, really, it is a simple thing that you can do, won't cost a thing, really.

forgive.

(It's gonna take a lot to take me away from you...)

and if you are interested...check in with Farmer Sarah herself.

Accidentally onstage

Sometimes the absolute best things in a person's life are completely accidental. Take meeting Phrodaux, for example, or becoming a dog mom, or finding the farm.

Or being in a play. Yes, I know that doesn't fit and it isn't recent but it's the story the Fairy Queen wants to tell today. So settle in, or go check your email or your stock portfolio or your facebook friends, whatever, I'm still telling.

In 6th grade, the FQ was a lone smartypants good girl in a classroom full of delinquents and weirdos. The school loaded up the new teacher out of carelessness or hazing, or both. But my formidable mother, The Empress, bullied the school into swirling me into that mix. She was convinced that Ms. N - young, creative, idealistic - would be good for me. The school obeyed The Empress; you just have to. So there the Fairy Queen was, hanging onto Ms. N's every semi-rebellious word while trying not to make eye contact with her classmates.

As the holidays approached, Ms. N offered to take on the Christmas pageant (this was the late 70s, people...yes, we still called them that). Little did the school know that Ms. N had higher ambitious than first graders dressed as snowflakes. No, Ms. N was going to put on a play.

She bugged me to audition (auditions! for an elementary school play!) but I refused. The very last thing on earth I wanted to do was stand up in front of a room full of people  (grown ups!) and make speeches that weren't even my words. Ms. N relented at last and, in honor of my neurotic powers of observation and twitchy attention to detail, made me stage manager. That meant I organized the scripts, the props, the rehearsal schedules. I was timekeeper, errand runner, second in command. I shadowed Ms. N's every step and memorized every single second of that corny play.

When the girl playing Mrs. Agnes Nelson said she could come to the dress rehearsal but none of the three performances, Ms. N and I snorted in unison. What a lack of professionalism! But then Ms. N turned to me and said lightly, "You do it. You know the part."

"I know all the parts."

"Yes, sweetie, but this is the one we need. Besides, I think Mrs. Nelson's skirt will fit you perfectly."

And just like that, I was in a play. At first glance it wasn't very Christmasy. A group of people on a small plane crash land in the boonies. While awaiting rescue, they share Christmas memories because, of course, they are all trying to get home for Christmas. Mrs. Agnes Nelson wore a long dark skirt, a high-necked white blouse, and a very fine purple pillbox hat. I loved those clothes so much I wanted to take them home and sleep in them.

I became Mrs. Agnes Nelson, who, it turned out, was a retired teacher. Who, incidentally, gave the play's most dramatic speech, about all the students she'd known and taught and loved. All that time backstage, accidentally memorizing the whole damn play, and I never thought to put the pieces together. Until I put on Mrs. Agnes Nelson's natty pillbox hat, I had no idea what the play was actually about.

I did it. I played her three times. It's been something like 35 years but I still remember the long, straight, modest skirt, the scratchy stiff-collared blouse, and that hat. How I wish I had that hat. I was Mrs. Agnes Nelson as I stood before the audience I could not see and spoke of my students, three decades of them, and how I almost thought I could seem them, right out there.

I don't know what happened to Ms. N. I just know that after 15 years of jobs, the Fairy Queen found her calling. She's a teacher. And on crazy hat day she wears this:

Thanks, Ms. N, and thanks, Mrs. Agnes Nelson. I can see you both, right out there.

the forbin project

...so, things didn't work out so well for Forbin (go look it up), well, sorta, it kinda did in a way, but I digress (hard to believe from Phrodaux, but hey look a duck, look at that...a duck)

Downloaded 10/9/13 from http://static.cinemagia.ro/img/db/movie/02/30/49/colossus-the-forbin-project-180531l.jpg

This is one for the nerds, wanna be nerds, the technophiles and the technophobic.

Home automation.

I've always wanted home automation, really, I read about it in the 70's, and really wanted it.

I still don't know why.

I read about it, and look at all the products and DIY hacked together versions, have purchased books and the occasional x10 module.

I still turn my lights off with a switch on the wall (well mostly, there is the occasional remote control... and from the FQ too many)

I read about the ability to turn the lights and/or stereo on at home when one is in Fiji, but A) Why do I want the lights and stereo on when I am not at home to enjoy said lights and stereo, and 2) Why would I be in Fiji worrying if my lights and stereo were on or off? If I was in Fiji, I think the last thing I would be worrying about are my lights and stereo. I would most likely be thinking about my sheep and horses and global warming and if I were breeding horses and sheep, what would the cat think. 

The other thing I read about, besides breeding horses and sheepeses, is that I can set my thermostat to be more "active." It would be warm when I want it to be warm, cool when I want it to be cool, but to be honest, instead of spending oodles of cash on a new thermostat that was designed by one of the apple guys, I have a 20yr old thermostat that came with the house that pretty much does that. I can set the time and temp and day and it just does it. Doesn't need to learn (cause lernin' is for chumps), just says at x o'clock make warm, at x o'clock stop. done. And to tell the honest truth, for the most part I don't really notice if I am warm or cold until someone (like said Fairy Queen) says "It is freaking cold in here, you should put on some pants," but to be honest again, I do like not wearing pants.

What I want is home automation, but really we really don't know what that is yet...


Then the bad people came.

They came and took our big boy Odin's pain meds the day before he no longer was in need of worldly things like pain meds or netflix. There is a special place for those that steal doggy's pain meds, that from someone who doesn't believe, but for this case is willing to make an exception. A....special....place.

Downloaded 10/9/13 from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Hell_Is_Real.jpg

(ok, maybe a more special place, this looks kinda nice)

Now we have automation. We have a "security system".

Security. Something that yells and tells me that something is open or moving when something shouldn't be open or moving.

eww.

for as much as I want to be able to turn on a reading light from Fiji, and know that the living room is 68 degrees, I don't really want the "need".

I never locked a door throughout college. Occasionally I would come home to a party where people would ask me if I was invited. Nothing was ever taken, or at least nothing that we noticed or cared about. Given that we mostly lived on government cheese and mystery canned goods that couldn't be given to the poor as it didn't have labels (is it cat food or is it tuna night was a highlight) and beer came in stubby bottles with the label "BEER" in black letters on white background and cost less than distilled water, there really wasn't much to take.

Downloaded 10/9/13 from http://www.lootcorp.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/generic-beer.jpg

(mmm... beer. It was $4 a case, really)

I kinda liked it.

home.

a place where people felt welcome to sit, have a beer, watch some tv. sing a song they didn't know the words to, and not be really sure who lived there, but felt welcome...

...and have a snack, snacks are important, snacks make people feel safe and at home, even if they don't know who's it is, or if it came in a box labelled "CHEESE" in black block letters on a white background.

Downloaded 10/9/13 from http://helpamotherout.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/governmentsurpluscheesebox-7574152.jpg?w=300

(mmm... cheese)

all in all, I'm not sure we're better off...

...but at least now I feel confident that the couch is well lit and at a comfortable temperature on the off chance that I end up in Fiji.

There be monsters here.

so.

we may have mentioned the "place in the country" or otherwise known as "the farm". When people ask what we are doing some random weekend, and we say we are going to our "farm" they often ask "oh, what do you grow".

Our "oh so comedic" answer has been "salamanders". Because, you know, comedy geniuseses... genuii... smarty pants.

There is no market for salamanders as far as we know, or to be honest, as far as we want to know.

Then we found "the beast".

yah, I know, the picture sucks. I had to use my cell phone, no flash. This involved some green beret maneuverings (well, less green beret, and more fuchsia beret with some squealing like a little girl) and holding a flashlight in my mouth while my nethers were in rather cold water... so there was shrinkage...normally the ruler... oh shut up.

This, we believe, is a pacific giant salamander. This is what the movie "Pacific Rim" was really about. Full disclosure. I have not yet seen "Pacific Rim," nor have I any insight as to the validity of any facts contained in this blog. Most can be considered on the left side of valid, so when we say "linoleum" it might actually be sheet vinyl, or it might be that weird process meat food that has peppercorns and cross sections of olives. (Does anyone actually use that as "food", and why am I using so many "" in this post"?")

GIANT FREAKING SALAMANDERS?!!???!

apparently the California giant Salamander, while slightly smaller than the pacific, actually BARKS!! not in a barking spider way that grandpas everywhere are fond of blaming, but in a "why the !#$! does the neighbour's dog/salamander not shut the @#$! up it is !@#$ o'clock in the morning/night!!!" way.

oh, and I think the little bastard stole our inner tubes.

bastard.

Meet Helga the Mighty

Sometimes you don't know what you need until you fall right into it. We knew we wanted a getaway place, but until we lucked into the farm, we didn't know how much we needed it.

And until the first time I spent three hours mowing the meadow, I didn't know how much mowing was my happy peaceful zen place.

A month after the farm became ours (in that super grass growing month, our amazing neighbor Farmer Joe mowed the meadow), we found a riding lawn mower on Craig's List, wrestled it into Phrodaux's ancient truck, and trundled it on down to the farm. Despite the cracked seat, the temperamental starter, and the self-destructing belts, the mower and I had some lovely times. 

Over the next three years, the mower caught just a little bit on fire only two times. Once from the cracked gas tank (the mower store said that serial number didn't exist) and once because the free-floating battery was rubbing up against something. Mice made nests inside the screen above the engine a couple of times. The seat cracked more. The mower belt broke, go team. But I loved my mower, loved the noisy calm, the smell of camomile, the satisfaction of turning my unwieldy meadow into something like a lawn.

But this spring, it became clear: $300 on Craig's List does not get you four seasons of mowing. Three, sort of. But not four. Little mower started mowing for 30 seconds at a time; then it was disengage blade, mower in neutral, reach down to pull long grass out of the blade. Problem 1: This made mowing take forever. Problem 2: At some point the Fairy Queen would forget a step and become the Pirate Hook Queen. Problem 3: That mower weighs a lot more than I do and I am DONE with pushing it back to its designated shed (so glad no one filmed those moments).

And so...after a little bit of shopping (we tried the John Deere store, really we did, but they were smarmy and then Farmer Joe said think about something else), we found Helga the Mighty. Here she is:

She starts in an instant. No cursing dance required. She cuts the grass! Without a lot of kerfuffle over cleaning out the blades every ten seconds. Her seat is smooth and lovely.

She even has a cup holder, but the farm is not a golf course so my water bounces right out. Whatever. I put in my squishy ear plugs, put on my farm girl hat, and activate my internal sound track. It takes about an hour instead of 3, but it's all good. Helga, Fairy Queen, meadow, done.

BTW: Follow Adam Savage's advice. Buy a cheap tool, figure out how you are going to use it, then decide if you need a fancy one. Yes, I needed a fancy one. But it has a fabricated steel deck that rocks cannot penetrate! With a lifetime warranty! And our newish friend, Electric Hipster (really truly honest to goodness he chose that name!), gave her the perfect name.

Hey, Helga. If it's dry this weekend...want to mow?