Gourd-o-riffic

You know it's summer.

The weather channel is running a constant streamed message about the thunderstorm warning. The dragonflies are all over the place. The hydrangeas are wilting and begging for a daily dose of the good stuff. The creek is smelly. The flowers in the windowbox are agreeing with the hydrangeas and if you don't pay attention on a daily basis they look completely dead in the next 24 hours. But they're easily revived with a kettle full of cool water. The black raspberries are done and are now a memory. The blueberries are almost with them.

Summer is here too when the garden finally shows forth her fruits. Or veggies as the case may be.

Here, it is the zucchini and the summer squash that is coming out first. We actually lost a couple on the vine due to not paying close enough attention. Take your eyes off it for two days and it is either full of over ripe bodies or new bodies that you don't remember seeing. I had to pick two zucchinis and throw them off into the woods because they had gone south.

But every day we're pulling two or three beautiful veggies off their homes. And the cucumbers are almost ready now too. The green peppers look like they'll be next.

And then there are the tomatoes.

We have three different kinds growing this year, and all the plants are covered with gorgeous fat little green bodies waiting to burst into gorgeous ripe redness.

I love our garden. I love watering it, checking on it. I love seeing the changes, the progress. I'm a city girl at heart. I grew up in the projects. My mom always worked hard on flower gardens with the neighbors, and sometimes my sister and I would be out there helping. But I never felt like I belonged at that. It was a hobby for my mom, not something that I should really encroach upon.

And pretty soon it won't be summer anymore. Summer will be over and we'll pull the tomato frames down. We'll pull up the black sheeting which prevented weeds from choking off our plants this year. Pretty soon this will all be a precious memory. All the wonderfully grilled veggies with kabobs. All the bitching my daughter does when we make her eat healthy greens and yellows. I need to get a good zucchini bread recipe from someplace so I can make this all last a little while longer. Keep summer under my roof for an extra month or so, in order to keep that memory through the long New England Winter and bring me to the late spring of next year.

So I can do it all over again.

---

We rented "Zoolander" last night. A very funny but very stupid movie.

I enjoy Ben Stiller a lot, and have adored him since his ridiculous TV shows on MTV and FOX back in the day. True to his nature, he's great at creating bizarre characters, and his Derek Zoolander character was simply riotous. Story goes that he invented the character as a spoof for VH1 for one of their fashion programs. And he and Drake Sather developed it into a full movie.

I loved how they spoofed everything about male models. I adored the little biography movies they did for the Fashion Awards, and again, how Steve Kmetko can make fun of himself by being in all these movies. He's so handsome... and yes, I know he's gay. Don't worry. I can still think he's good on the eyes, I doubt he'd be offended.

Stiller plays Derek Zoolander, a really really really really good looking model. Owen Wilson plays Hansel... a young upshot model in the fashion world, and he unseats Zoolander as the male model of the year.

Zoolander is impacted by this loss and begins to wonder what the point is. He tries to go home to Coal Mining Country in Southern New Jersey (I laughed out loud and hard) and reconcile himself to his family. But that doesn't work out... and he goes back to New York to face the fashion music.

Meanwhile, an insidiously wicked plot to kill the prime minister of Malaysia is in the works, the result of his promise to raise minimum wage and end child labor in his country. Which will ruin the fashion industry for good. Mugatu -- wonderfully played by the amazing Will Ferrell -- needs the perfect patsy to do the dirty deed. Zoolander is stupid enough, and easily brainwashed and ready... A Time Magazine reporter figures it all out, and rushes to save the day, enlisting the help of Derek's arch enemy, Hansel.

There are some incredibly funny scenes in this movie -- the gasoline fight and the fun scenes of Zoolander and his buddies frolicking as if in a fashion commercial are a riot. David Duchovny as the "Deep Throat" leading the Time Magazine reporter to the clues was both funny and ironic... The computer scene in Balls' office where Hansel and Zoolander become primal. All told, I laughed at it. Mindless pure entertainment, not at its finest, but certainly ridiculous.

"Zoolander" isn't one of the best movies I've ever seen, nor the worst. I think the plot in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was more developed and thought out, and that's saying a lot.

I like Owen Wilson a lot. He has the craziest nose I've ever seen... and having him be a male model with that totally unique look and his new age fakeness was just hysterical. Owen Wilson was in a really weird movie that we rented this time last year called "The Minus Man," where he plays a very demented serial killer. I highly recommend that one. It is kind of weird and trippy, and worth the watch. Part of you wants to like him and hopes for his well being to be established and fine, and another part of you wants him dead.

Best part of that movie is he killed Sheryl Crow in the first 10 minutes, thank God. I can't stand her. She wasn't Sheryl Crow of course, she was a character that he kills... but if she was going to be in the whole movie I would have thrown up. I haven't seen many of his movies. Hell, I haven't even seen "Bottle Rocket" yet and Scott keeps urging me to. I've seen Minus Man, and Shanghai Noon, which I think was his first big ticket film... didn't see the Tennenbaums yet but I'm going to. What else... Didn't see "Behind Enemy Lines" because it looks too damn predictable.

And I guess that's it. If you've got any Owen Wilson recommendations, send 'em my way. That link up there goes to the Wilson Brothers Fan Site but directly to his specific page. If you're at all interested in design, fan sites... go to the root directory and look at the site. I think it's pretty advanced for a fan site. Most of them are tripod sites and lame at that.

---

Right now we're getting pounded by some storms. The weather channel made it sound as if we were going to be killed... but there has been little or no storm activity. Although half our cable channels are blanked out. A clear indication of something more horrible someplace else. We spent a good deal of time hanging drywall before the storms hit. We took down our kitchen and dining area lighting so we could do the drywall and now it is pitch dark in there, so we can't see for shit. We have maybe five more panels to hang. Then we can start the mudding and taping. Damn. This is a hell of a project. I'm so used to simple assed things like painting. Once in a while slapping spackle on a hole. Nothing this serious.

I'd like to gut our bathroom and tile it over. HA! What a crack induced fantasy that is, right?

Anyway. I hope Carrie gets to read this before her conference call. I'm rushing to get it online before the lightning fries my modem. Only for you, Carrie. Only for you...

Oddish

Geoff did the weirdest thing ever. We put in our garden the other day and there were some onions from last year that decided to do some growing for the spring. Doug pulled them out and they were no more than bulb-sized, with big green fronds sticking out the top.

Geoff said they looked like the Pokemon "Oddish." Which, Yes... they did. How funny of you to notice, thought I.

He adopted them. He walked around with them all day, he played with them. Rode them around in the back of his fisher price car, which he's too big for but that doesn't stop his ass from tryin'.

There is a small one, punier than all the other puny onions, and he called it "Baby Oddish," and decided it was her birthday. It being her birthday, and he being their pokemon master, he planned a big party. He wanted me to bake a cake. He made her a birthday present. He coddled her and held her.

It was "odd-ish." To say the least. So I being the one to always support my friends and family members in any outlandish or psychologically twisted scheme they put together, got right in on the party.

I didn't bake a cake, but I did get him a dish of strawberry ice cream and put gingersnaps in it and sang happy birthday to Baby Oddish. He really liked that. Jessica and Doug pretty much ignored us, Doug less so than Jessica... he was amused, but not as into it as I was.

Am I damaging my son by playing these ridiculously stupid games with him, where I get into the pretending just as much as he does? Is he too old for this? Is this something I should not exactly encourage. Hearken back to Geoff's Imaginary Friend days, where I was into it and supportive... but let him know that culpability for messes and mistakes was squarely on him, not on his "friend" Cory.

Now I've got a pile of dried onion bulbs with green limpy tops on my ghetto livingroom table. I have to throw them out, but I know he'll go apeshit. I'll have to do it when he isn't thinking of Baby Oddish. Too bad I loaned my digicam out to catering man, or I'd be posting a picture of Geoff hugging his friends. Too weird.

Geoff's obsession with pokemon is wearing thin on me. I mean, some of them are just fucked up, case in point, the one called a Jynx. It looks like RuPaul gained 200lbs and still acts like a Diva. It is just too weird for my liking. My favorite though, is Mr. Mime, I gotta scan him in for you. You'll shit your pants if you've never seen him before. Most pokemon are like animals, Ponyta, Growlithe, Arcanine, even Pikachu is a mouse... but Oddish, Jynx, Mr. Mime, Porygon, these are the ones that the creators pulled out of their opium flooded braincells when they needed just a couple more to get to 50 or lose their jobs and be forced to commit suicide! They suck. They are so uncool as far as pokemon go. If pokemon have any cool factor.

Snorlax does. Don't forget that.

Okay. I'm off. I've got more to write about but have to get dinner started, and a cup of tea. I'm sleepy. More later. My next installment of Life written by friends will concern my roommates from back in the day, Laurie and Bonnie. Until then, peace ...

More on Trains and Jakob Dylan

Yesterday's entry hit a nerve with some people, a funny nerve. I have received no less than five email and one phone call on the subject.

Taunia writes:

"Oh my head (pun intended!)

I just read your journal entry and I was cracking up out loud in my office. I have just forwarded the link to my friend M who heard me laughing.

I fortunately never had any penis incidents whilst on the train, but I SO feel your pain. The worst that ever happened to me was being on the green line and having a man touch my hair (it was really long and curly at the time). At first I didn't realize he was doing it - then I realized he was PETTING it.

Yikes. Anyhow - your story takes the cake for best train story EVER."

EVER, mind you. EVER!

hee hee.

---

Anyway, today's entry has nothing to do with wankers and trains. There was something I had in mind to write about today but the sleep of last night and a nice hot shower combined to wash it from my body, so I will have to invent something else. I could keep on the theme of travel and write about the bus ride Doug and I took from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Ashland, Oregon in 1988. But there's so much to tell there that I'll save it for another day.

Instead I'll summarize yesterday's activities and today's plans. Then perhaps tonight I'll remember what I wanted to write about in the first place.

Yesterday I made a trip to the nursery (for plants, not chillen) and got morning glories and snap dragons and more pansies for the yard. My first swipe at garden plants wasn't nearly a big enough swipe and I found myself lacking in many places. The seeds I've sown in the yard didn't yield a sprout at all, so I bought plants.

I am never successful with seed planting, even if I start them in little containers and nurse them up. The closest success is this year I've got about a dozen sunflowers started in a little tray, and I'll wait another week or so and then move them into their homes to grow. So Geoff and I planted our flowers in the yard, and let me tell you boy plus dirt plus shovel equals FUN! This kid digs diggin'.

For dinner last night it was big assed lasagna, with sausages and tomato and basil sauce. I pushed one of the jars off the counter by accident and it did a 180 degree flip in mid air and landed opening down straight on the floor. That in and of itself wasn't bad. Cleaning up sauce I can live with doing that. When it hit the ground, the bottom of the jar, which was now apexed, shot straight off the jar. It was quite surreal. So there was broken glass all over, and I couldn't let the dog clean it up, which was my initial thought as I watched the jar fall off the counter. Sauce laced with bits of nasty glass would surely ruin his insides.

He was sorely dejected. Poor beast. The one time I drop something substantial enough to satisfy his never ending hunger, and I clean the whole thing up. There was no explaining to him. He wouldn't hear it and sulked away.

I then went to the college to work with the professor on her website. I was there until 7:30.

All told, it was a long, long day.

Today... Just showered, will finish garden plantings, and sort the baby food and diaper stuff that we collected at church to donate to the local pregancy care center and women's shelter. Then Geoff and I are going to his school to pick up all the artwork they had stored for a show, which I forgot to attend, and pay my balance and deposit for next fall. And today is chapel day, so we'll stick around for chape. Then we are having lunch with two old old friends from college down in Marblehead. Hopefully Geoff will be a good boy. I'll let him bring his pokemon.

---

My tenant has been playing this crappy Nikka Costa shit every damn day for the last week. Today she's played the same song 10 times. All you can hear is the bass line. I know it doesn't translate to print, but it goes:

"Bum Bum, BLA BLA BLAT. Bum Bum, BLA BLA BLAT. Badoom boom boom boom, bum bum ba da ba da, bum bum ba da ba da, bum bum ba da ba da, ba'da da da da. Bum Bum, BLA BLA BLAT. Bum Bum, BLA BLA BLAT...." and I can hear Nikka's voice ever so slightly shriekingly shrilling whining over the stupidest bass line in history. Gah. Talentless slob. She believes she's a diva. I bet VH1 will categorize her in a year or so with such other alleged Divas as Mariah and Celine. Meh! They all SUCK! She's the poster child for why "Clear Channel Communications" is evil... buying all the radio stations in the nation and marketing only bands that will agree to their terms. She's gotta have their feedback strapped on somewhere. She's talentless, annoying, shrieky and downright horrid. Enough that I'd vomit if I was forced to see her perform.

Watch her be the opening act next time I go see barenaked ladies. Ugh.

We on the other hand have been listening to The Wallflowers a lot lately. We've got their second album "Breach" and it's really good. Aside from the two hits they had off it, "Sleepwalker" and "Letters from the Wasteland," there are a few songs on that album that I just adore. "Some Flowers Just Bloom Dead," is an amazing song, and "I've Been Delivered" has these gems in the lyrics:

"I could break free from the wood of a coffin if I need, but nothin's hard as getting free from places I've already been ... I have drawn blood from the neckline when vampires were in fashion.
You know I'd even learn to cut my throat
If I thought I could fit in 'Cause I, I once heard that you gotta learn how to blend in to this mess
Where nothin's hard
nothin's precious and
nothin's smooth or flawless...
And I just wave back like a little boy up on a pony in a show
'cause I can't fix something this complex
any more than I can build a rose"

He may not be his dad, but Jakob Dylan has an amazing eye for imagery and storytelling. I'd love to see them live. A couple summers ago they toured with Counting Crows and we didn't go. I'm still kicking myself.

Anyway. We have got to go. Geoff raided the fridge and ate tonight's dessert. Hurrah.

Taxes. The day is come

Doug just went to the post office to drop off our envelopes filled with our taxes. Seeing as we live in Massachusetts(*), I don't think the post office is open today, so he'll swear like a sailor and perhaps hurl a brickie-mart through the window, and come home angry.

Or, perhaps just because today is tax day, they'll have someone on duty to postmark everything for the taxes. Perhaps, but I think I'd be dreaming.

(*) Living in Massachusetts means today is "Patriot's Day," and every state office is closed. The Boston Marathon also runs today, which means the news for the past week and for the next couple days is all about The BM. Seeing as I'm not interested in it, the TV is off. The news... web based and non-Boston sources. It is a "hack" holiday, as they call it. And one of the things I miss most about not working for the state.

Doug finished our taxes yesterday morning, we ended up owing a lot less than we thought we would have in his initial estimations. Which is good. We had saved aside about $3000, and it turns out we owe less than $2000.

Hurrah.

Some cushion in the bank account.

And if unemployment will finally get around to sending me the two checks that I've been waiting for (**) (well, in all fairness, one of them is for the card I mailed in on Friday, so I'll cut them some slack)... we'll have enough to make it through May. I will by then, hopefully, have been paid for two websites, and life will be good, because then we'll have enough to make it all the way through July.

(**) I called unemployment last week just to inquire why I haven't gotten a check yet, and was sent through one of those infuriating voicemail systems that tells you nothing but thinks it has let you know what you need to know. And then it hangs up on you without giving you an option to register further queries. The system told me my "claim is being researched," which is total bullshit because there is NOTHING to research on me. I've now gone without a paycheck for 4 weeks, DET assholes. Send me some unemployment money! I want to be on the dole for a change!!! I tried calling back to get a person, but the only people who answer are the really nice people who initially take your call and get your claim set up. Then, you're screwed. The really nice initial talking people don't take follow up claims questions. They transfer you to the ... soul-devoid auto-liar. So I'm pissed at them right now. Ooooooooo. Barnacles!

After the taxes were done, Doug needed some outdoor activity so he attacked the yard with a vengeance. He's much better at yardwork than I am, and the outdoor area of our home looks much nicer. We have to get plants to start the garden. Today Geoff "planted" squash seeds all over the yard, I'm not even sure where he put them. Some are near the bulkhead to the basement. Some are near where he dug a pirate hole this past winter.

Regardless, I anticipate a ton of summer squash plants to be springing up all over. Geoff loves gardening, so this year we'll have a good garden. It is a task he likes doing, involves dirt and digging, and he likes to see the results when the flowers or veggies grow up. Then, he likes to pick them. Sometimes when I don't want them picked. But we'll see if this summer he understands better about when to pick and not to pick.

Everyone is home for school vacation week, which meant I didn't get to watch any of the crap TV I enjoy watching to make myself feel better about my own life (ie, Jerry Springer...) but I did watch a ton of Nickelodeon and Disney TV. Jessica is wandering around the house, bored out of her mind. I might take her bowling.

Doug got home and reported that the post office was indeed open, which is good, and he went to the butcher shop by the post office and got some grillables... steak tips, boneless pork tenderloins, chicken... and marinades for them. The butcher shop also has "the cheapest beer in town," and they aren't lying. Prices average about two bucks less a 12-pack than where I normally buy beer, so he bought some more for the larder. We're well stocked now. If only our vegetable garden was actually in full production. We'd never have to leave the house again!

There is a HUGE frigging cardinal in our yard this year. Holy cow. He scared the crap out of me this morning. I was looking out the window and he landed on the roof of the bulkhead. Everything was green green green all around and suddenly WHAM! big frigging red as sin bird right in my face.

I guess I'm easily startled.

I just saw him again in the apple tree, with his female... they are picking bugs out of the tree or something. Last year, we had red wing black birds and orioles in the tree. I hope they come back. They were delightful to sit and watch. Geoff has binoculars now, which Grandma Bonnie sent him for Christmas, so he's been walking around out there with them, checking out the wild world of springtime at the Way Out Inn.

Not much else to report really, there's not a lot going on. No good stories to tell. So I'll stop boring you and get back to laundry folding. Ciao.