unacceptable

i think i mentioned more than a year ago that when i'm busy using my words for good (i.e. income generating wordsmithing), i often don't bother with the using-the-words-for-evil. and, i may have also mentioned that my life now consists of telling anyone who will listen stories about my pets (sigh - but they have been sleeping together on the same bed at night, so cute. they're sharing a bed and lizzie just growls herself to sleep. wanna see the photo? ugh. i'm doing it again.). boring.

here are some news briefs that are a tad too long for Facebook, but i would still like to remember them:

Redneck Underwater Yacht Club

Against my will, Dan signed me up for scuba class in August.

"It's only one weekend..."

False.

It was two full high-value summer weekends with faulty equipment, a man dressed as the Fruit of the Loom apple as our instructor (wetsuit: TMI), a trip out to sea in a boat that smelled of fish guts ("Sorry, guys, the dive boat is in the shop"), and, on par with the charm of North Carolina, a day trip to Fantasy Lake Scuba Park. I don't know whose fantasy it is to sink a bus, some trucks, and an airplane that reminded me of my 5th grade viewing of Hatchet into an old rock quarry and then go "tour" them underwater, but it's f*ed up. I'd rather risk my life with the sheels (half-shark, half-eel. they're real.) in the Atlantic than ever go back there. but, now i'm certified to scuba. sort of.

from hero to zero

i like to boast about my experience in airports - i used to know exactly how early to leave the house to be there on time (Stansted, Luton, Heathrow, AND Gatwick, b*tches!), where to park, where to get coffee, where to get cash, where to get booze, and knew how to pack as to never (ever) have my luggage pass the weight limit to the point where RyanAir tried to rip out my gold fillings to pay the excess baggage fee (they needed the money to tape up their windows). EB and i even stocked our carry on with Polish pottery and dreams of Yarek to the tune of 30 lbs. and were able to skirt our way past the Poland security system. the trip of legends.

so, after a year long hiatus from the friendly skies, i had to make a business trip to Madison, WI.

the result: i looked and felt like a complete douchebag.

1) almost panicked at check-in because i "forgot my passport." really?

2) my bag was 8 full pounds over the limit, so i had to shuffle all my goods around in front of the rapidly growing, and impatient, queue behind me so i could still smuggle two bottles of Italian wine to AT. everyone saw my undies.

3) i wore difficult shoes, a belt, and a watch. everyone saw my hideous blue and black polka-dot socks.

4) i was one of those people with a suitcase and 11 plastic bins (one for the items above), and one for each my jacket, my laptop, my camera, my purse, and my humiliation.

5) i had liquid in my carry on. EFF! with all of that baggage shuffle, i dropped my makeup bag in my wheelie bag and suddenly my eye makeup remover was being confiscated. luckily i'd been too cheap to visit Clinique, so it was only a minor blow.

i was off balance, to say the least. but i made it to madison. and, despite an annoying cancelled flight on the return, i also made it home a little more composed.

opposite land
earlier this summer, i wrote about my black thumb and my $500 salad. as a bit of an update, i am not sure it has so much to do with me, as it has to do with the fact that the land i occupy is in a vortex of some sort. after everything died, i sort of gave up. (i did get a bountiful harvest of tomatoes and my dreams of pesto definitely came true. otherwise, i stuck to flower pots and flipping my garden boxes the bird when i passed by.)

lo-and-behold - it's OCT-effing-TOBER and i've recently harvested three giant eggplants, a bowlful of okra, three salads worth of rocket (arugula), hot peppers, enough basil to make a pesto smoothie, and now my bell peppers, watermelon, cucumber, cabbage, and zucchini all have tiny fruit on them.

WTF?? we're about t-minus seven days from the first freeze of the year, and my garden is acting like Rip Van Winkle, "Oh, good morning, is it time for the summer harvest?"

no. it's not. now i just get to watch my 2-inch bell peppers and 6 ounce watermelon freeze on the vine.

stupid garden.

here's that picture of my pets.

the $500 salad

when the second-coming comes and goes (on october 21, of course) and we find ourselves living in a post-apocalyptic world (at least those of us who are planning on still being here based on our pious performance thus far.), please share the bounties of your home-garden harvest with me. please.

after putting in a three-part, 40-square-foot container garden with seven tomato plants, peas, broccoli, lettuce, carrots, radishes, cauliflower, squash, peppers, and herbs aplenty, i am sad and depressed to report that i am now the proud owner of THE $500 salad -- one bowl of delicious mixed-greens, a cup of peas, and a single (1) tomato.

my broccoli died. my cabbage was eaten by bugs, turtles, and bunnies. my cauliflower died. my peas died. the blossoms all fell off the squash and pepper plants before they could produce fruit. the tomatoes fell over (not dead yet!). the carrots, herbs and corn are stunted.

after the soils, seeds, plants, hoses, buckets, trowels, and sweat equity, the ROI on HH Gardening 2011 is piss poor. i'd have better luck finding edible calories through dumpster diving at this point.

on the flip side, all of my non-edible plants are going gangbusters. i've got oriental lilies, gladiola the size of a kindergartner, gardenia, hydrangea, azalea, wildflowers (poppies, bachelor buttons, daisies), dahlia, petunia, geranium, verbena, day lily, hosta, and sunflowers. the yard smells like the armpit of The Body Shop and looks fabulous.

so, here's the deal for all of you veggie green-thumbs - i'll bring the centerpiece to our post-apocalypse thanksgiving if you'll feed me.

p.s. the season isn't over yet, so maybe i'll get a $25 teaspoon of pesto out of it to bring along, too.

puppy roulette

no. i am not going to shoot my puppy, yet.

but i was happy to learn that my Wayne County Fuzz Hound is not as purebred as we thought he might be. that's what you get when you play puppy roulette with the local free puppy market. sometimes you score a beautiful, show-quality monster, and sometimes you're shot in the head with a Henry. (either way, you've got a puppy, so your carpet probably could use a good cleaning.)

as for Henry, with a mommy that looked part thick-skulled yellow lab, part smiley pit-bull, part lean german shepherd, and part Beverly Hillbilly, there was no telling who might have been desperate enough to sleep with her.

we thought our baby daddy was rottweiler, austrailian shepherd, lab mix.

oh, a match made in heaven.

after the second trip to the vet, we were told Henry would grow to a healthy 60 to 80 pounds. but he's not packing on the ounces as he should for such a big papa.

our third trip to the vet and we learned that Mr. Doggie XY might have been part beagle, too, making Henry top out at just 35-45 pounds with his stubby little legs.

after seeing the size of the poo increase with the size of the puppy, i'm all for a shrinking of my doggie expectations. i've already lowered them in terms of obedience, chewing, jumping, and running away. at least with a smaller dog, i can still get my hands firmly around his little neck when he's been bad. which is often.

dan's quite sad about our incredible shrinking pooch. i think he wanted a big, tough buddy to make him feel better about being a cat owner. now he's given up completely on Henry being his BFF and has decided that the cat -- the quiet, independent, potty-trained, non-demanding cat -- is his favorite anyway.

oh, Henry, let's go play in traffic...

tally of destruction

• 1 strand white Christmas lights
• my homework (literally)
• a cardboard box
• a plastic garden stake
• the cat's sanity

p.s. he's much bigger now! i need to take a photo, i guess.

learning curve

i don't believe that i had a real 'girl' friend until i was in my mid-20s. i wasn't a loner or anything; i just wasn't doing the friend thing right.

i could go all psycho-babbly about my mommy issues, the fact that my childhood "first best friend" was a pathological liar that i secretly hated, or that my grandmother was a manipulative narcissist. i didn't have a sister. i couldn't horse whisper my pony, Lucy. i was sailing on a huge fail boat with regards to female bonding.

not that i need it, per se, but i was curious about the different types of counseling:

• Couples / Marriage
• Children / Adolescents
• Anger Management
• Grief Therapy
• Depression and Anxiety
• Pre-Marital Counseling
• Life Coaching
• Sexual Counseling

notice: there's no one specializing in friendship. i can't find a decent textbook or an etiquette lesson on best-friend necklaces and appropriate listening skills. i just had to wing it, right into the rocky shoreline of friend break up.

some people are naturals. i am always so jealous of them! when i'm sitting in the back of the room (making inappropriate remarks to my person, usually), they are legitimately making connections. ugh. bitch. how can you be so gregarious when i'm so painfully cynical? why is my friend-o-meter set to "intolerant?"

but, this story has a happy ending. some time in the middle of "me" i figured girl friends out, with a lot of help from those who i, apparently, didn't push away enough. lucky me! yay!

in all the trials, i realized i just can't fake it. either you're my person, or you're not. if you're my person, i have to trust you. i have to take a risk. if you're not, well, nothing personal. i guess you're just not. i'm sure your people are out there, but it would be stupid for either of us to waste any time being awkward together. right?

overall, the scariest things, like trust, have been the most worth it.

i love my people -- my little trust tree. i just wanted to take a moment to thank you publicly for being so damn awesome. thank you for knowing that i have phone phobia and very little energy for hours of day to day chatting. thank you for knowing that i always want a big hug, but even after a serious hug intervention, still get a little rigid. thank you for not calling me "sweet" or "nice." thank you for listening and letting me listen. thank you for telling me that i need to step off the crazy train. thank you for not giving up on me, even though i am pretty sure i still suck at this more than most.

heart.

after

You might want to read the post "Before" first. What? There isn't one called "Before"? Right, that's because I never wrote it.

I've given up running. I'm not sure I even liked running in the first place. Totally boring and painful, right? After years of Mom preaching at me that it was going to ruin my knees, my back, and my ability to spend less than $60 on shoes, I am on a running hiatus.

The deck is stacked against me: My running friend moved two time zones away. My new scenery doesn't include 15th century churchyards or cobblestone lanes. Dan hates it. And it's going to get boiling hot in a few months.

But what comes "after?"

My dad tells me that I'll figure it out. "Keep moving forward. Just put one foot in front of the other." (P.S. Dad, Mom might not like that piece of advice, it's sort of undermining her parenting here. You should really be on the same page.)

I just don't have the desire to do anything right now. I keep thinking of a movie scene, maybe one in my head. I see a creaky old ship or a leaky raft, and it's stuck in the doldrums...The place with no wind, no current, a hot sun. Going nowhere fast.

It sounds so depressing.

I could play tennis, but then I would have to pay someone to teach me. I could go swimming, but I tend to sink and get earaches (yes, at the same time). Work out at home? Lonely. Work out at the gym? Opposite of lonely. Ride my bike? Get run off the road because the locals might think I'm a gay dude from the city or, worse, a tree-hugging Oregon liberal.

I am plain stuck. Life just happens that way sometimes. Or so they say. I'm sure the wind will pick up soon.

Until then, I am going to wonder why this song makes me sad: