Untamed World!

I am taking Mondays off this summer - HUZZAH for banking vacation days for 10 years - now I can indulge in my favorite Sunday afternoon behavior without the specter of Monday morning looming over me and killing the buzz.

And it's a good thing I was up late last night because at roughly 1AM, as I was lounging in the living room, polishing off the last of the Gnarly Head Old Vine Zinfandel, and watching some English costume drama or other (let's hear it for Matthew McFadyen and his big, warm eyes - hummuna) I had to rush outside to collect my (indoor) cats from the driveway. Seems one of the neighborhood cats, that little tiger cat from across the street, whose owners are about as feral as their frigging pets (their dog shits in our yard at will and will have it kicked out of him next time I catch him at it - and the human female breeds as indiscriminately as her cats - she's up to five moronic children with four different tattooed fuckwit fathers. Ugh.)...this little tiger cat had come by looking for trouble, got too close to the house, and caused my gentle little 5 pound buttercups to FLING themselves against the window screen with enough force to knock it completely out of the window, and land, in a snarling, screaming, howling, puffed up, angry and frightened jumble at the foot of the driveway.

When I arrived, the feral little bastard (whom I suspect had been littered under our porch two summers ago) had scarpered, and it was just my two little angels (ha!), sitting there, growling and snarling, and about three times their normal size. Luckily they allowed me to grab them, fling one under each arm, and get them back in the house - whereupon they made a run straight for the screenless front window, which I had not closed in my rush to turn the alarm off and run outside to prevent them from barreling off into the wilds of Waltham, never to be seen again. Luckily the ruckus had woken SPOUSE up and he was blocking their exit. Next time, I'm letting them spend the night outside in the rain, see how they like that, the ungrateful little shits.

But I'm going to have to say something to those fucking hillbillies and their wandering zoo.

Hammered on a Saturday evening

The most underrated band in the history of music

The band that rhymed "Bring on the blood and the bandages" with "I'll make the tea and the sandwiches."

Oh hell yeah.

Anyone else going to be at TT the Bear's on August 16th? I haven't been to TT's in YEARS...but it's where I was just about every weekend in my 20's, seeing bands like Bim Skala Bim and Scruffy the Cat. I wonder if the insulation is still showing... Come on now, rock again.

...hangs out in the back yard...eats a lot of berries...

...drinks a lot of wine...reads a lot of books...

This is my Sunday perch. The wine is a very crisp, citrussy Pinot Grigio. Don't normally like white wine, but if it's not chardonnay (bleugh) and is crisp and cold enough, it can be a nice palate cleanser on a hot day, especially if you've had a lot of beer the night before and you're too bloaty and farty for more hops. The novella (On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan) took me about a half the afternoon last Sunday, from start to finish. A well-written, engaging, quick novel also works as a palate cleanser between all the science and politics. But I have to stop feeling like I'm wasting my time when I read fiction. You CAN learn something from it, after all, even if it's just a little bit about how a good author thinks.

I think I'd like to be friends with Ian McEwan.



This picture was taken in the late afternoon, when the sun was behind a huge oak tree. Mostly that spot gets full sun. I must be careful or I will burst into flame. You can see some of my potted vegetables in the back there, and those pipey looking things are the base of a hammock we got as a wedding present, and is SPOUSE'S Sunday perch, where he drinks beer and listens to baseball on the radio.

We are living the motherfucking dream.

I shall plant things and they shall grow like motherfuckers..

HUZZAH for long weekends! Took the day off today, stretching the holiday weekend into a nice little 4-day vacation.

I've been doing some gardening. I've put in a bunch of perennials around the place, and made some pretty borders and an herb garden. Spent a lot of cash, and broke a lot of sweat. There is always more to do though. In a short time, once my workout is done and I'm ready to be seen outside the warren, I shall go and buy yet more plants. And then I shall put them in various places around the grounds, and then I shall water them, set a chair outside, open a book and a bottle of wine...and sit down... to enjoy...my...holidayyyyyy.


Here are some pictures I took last weekend. First, the front yard.


Azaleas burst into bloom in spring and then spend the rest of the summer looking green and sullen. But right now, thanks to a cold spring, these beauties seemed to bloom late, and the blossoms are taking their time about withering. My camera phone doesn't do the plant justice. It's a frigging fireball.

These are some hostas I put in last year. They're getting pretty big and beginning to crowd each other a bit. In the fall I'll dig one or two of them up and put it someplace else. Hostas are great - a perennial that loves shade, and the acidic New England soil, and they basically mean you'll never have to garden that patch of ground again, once they take. Which is why , last weekend, I put some in the back yard, under a HUGE azalea that has already lost its spring bloom.

Here they are, complete with the weeds and shit behind them that I'm hoping they grow to cover up, because it's almost impossible to get back there and pull all that stuff out. I can't be bothered, anyway.

Below is a portion of my herb garden. As you can see, it was time to put the rabbit outside. Here he is, happily lording it over the lavendar, lemon thyme, oregano and chives. How much of these herbs will I actually use? Precious little, to be honest. But they're pretty and they smell nice.

Which is why this year instead of loading up the herb garden with herbs I won't use, I put in these lupins. In front of them are last year's rosemary and a bunch of basil plants I put in last week. I DO use basil. TONS of basil. So there it is. I've also got some tomato plants in pots, so I'll be rocking the insalata caprese - nom, nom.



The previous owners of the house planted these irises next to the garage. They're stunning - but the camera made them look brighter than they are. Their color is actually such a dark purple, they're almost black. The only down side to these is that they smell like licorice. Minging.

Another shot of the irises. Got good life out of them this year. Last year they bloomed and then it rained really hard for four days straight, battering the poor bastards into the ground. Boo.

Over.

Fuck.

I knew it when the game went into overtime.

Fuck.

...likes to party on his birthday.

Here's the story: A certain gentleman of Waltham will be spending his next birthday behind bars, as a result of a road rage incident in which he decided to follow SPOUSE around the city one night last week - making incomprehensible but very threatening noises, eventually using his own car to ram the back of SPOUSE'S car before slinking away to try and avoid arrest by hiding in plain sight in a parking lot on Newton Street. Now, SPOUSE will fully admit he likes to drive like it's a video game, so at first I thought "yeah, what'd you do to set THIS in motion?" but by the time of the actual ramming, and he called the police, his was the THIRD call to 911 that night about the same guy. He'd been making the rounds of Waltham/Watertown, weaving around so obviously that several other calls had come in already before SPOUSE even had the misfortune to make his acquaintance.

Seems our little friend had lost his license at this time last year (turns out it was right around his birthday, again) and when found last week he'd been drinking, driving around without a license or insurance, cocaine in his car and no doubt in his system, and evidently very little gray matter operating in the brain case.

Oh sweetie - when you were little and went to school, did you ride in the big bus, or the little bus?

Exciting, suburban life, innit?

But that's all I have for today. Tomorrow I'll either be elated or gutted, depending on how the Bruins perform in Game 7 tonight against the inferior, but surprisingly quick and agile Hurricanes. I do believe the Bruins are the better team, but Carolina has impressed me with their speed and puck handling, at least in games 2, 3, and 4 of the series. I'm more nervous than I'd like to admit.

EEEEEP!!!!!

RIP

Dominic DiMaggio - 1917-2009