Usually I frequent our local nursery for my spring planting supplies both for the selection and the staff's friendliness and expertise, but I admit that, from time to time, I go to Home Depot or Lowe's for basic plants that I know will be cheaper there.
Like yesterday.
The weather was beautiful and I needed the occasional break from websiting, and also I'd carved a wide swath of destruction on our front planter on Sunday, ripping out some plants that had the audacity to grow beyond my clearly stated instructions. So, I thought I'd save some time and drive 2 miles to the Home Depot instead of the 5 or 6 to the nursery and just pick up some geraniums and daylilies.
I did find some other things I liked there and quickly filled my basket picked up a plant or two, but I couldn't find daylilies anywhere. When I asked about them, I was told that they had the daylilies hidden away because they didn't have color on them yet.
I laughed and said that as long as they had tags identifying them, I couldn't care less if they had blooms on them yet, and that this was the best time to plant daylilies.
They frowned and said that I couldn't have them. That I needed to check back in a few weeks when they would be blooming. That the daylilies don't tend to sell very well when they're not blooming because people think they're just grass.
And so instead they'd like me to buy them in the heat of the summer and plant them when they're least likely to survive the transplanting. (Ok, I know, they're daylilies and it's pretty hard to kill them, but still.)
This isn't a new lesson for me, but it was a nice reminder:
Home Depot: will sell any plant to anyone in any region even if said plant will die a miserable death in said region, as long as plant is blooming, even if said plant should be planted far earlier than when it is blooming, because they think their customers are idiots.
Your local nursery: will sell plants that will do well in your area, at the appropriate planting time. And will give you great advice to boot.
Yep, a whole post about plants in order to make an obvious point. Sorry, folks. It's all I got today.
Last night I finished reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It's listed as a young adult book, I found out after looking at the award seal on the front cover, but it didn't seem like a typical young adult novel. I suppose it's young adult in the same way that A Prayer for Owen Meany can be considered young adult, in that it deals with a young character but is a pretty sophisticated book.
At any rate, it's the best book I've read in a long while, and I read A LOT of books. The narrative style is a little odd in the first page or two and I worried I wouldn't connect with the characters given the viewed-from-afar point of view, but this definitely wasn't a problem.
It's set in Nazi Germany and revolves around Liesel Meminger, who grows from 11 to about 14 in the book. I should mention that I'm a sucker for coming of age books and also for books dealing with the Nazi era, so I was predisposed to like this book. I won't say too much more except that the book has a unique perspective: it's told from the point of view of Death, who's alternately puzzled, saddened, and inspired by humankind. Liesel and her friend Rudy are wonderful characters, and I was sad to say goodbye to them at the end of the book.
Check it out! Buy it! Read it!
And feel free to leave any book recommendations in the comments area.
We went to Boston this weekend for the big marathon and enjoyed some beautiful weather.
We actually flew into La Guardia and drove up since Frank had business in NYC. After a somewhat eventful landing in which the plane actually bounced back into the air after hitting the runway, and people were gasping and "oh my god"ing, we got on the road to Boston.
While on the drive I saw my brother, cleverly disguising himself as a suburban husband with glasses and a boring sedan.
This is the second time I've caught him in his web of lies. The first time was in Venice on a water taxiboat but he was looking at me so menacingly that I was afraid to take his picture/ blow his cover.
I'm onto you, Scott, and I'm everywhere. EVERYWHERE.
Since the weather was so great, we walked miles each day, stopping to take pictures once in a while.
One of the highlights of our trip was our insane cab driver Sunday night. Frank decided to save his legs for the race the next morning - and we didn't complain - so we took a cab to our restaurant. Our cab driver's voice was a mix of Sol Rosenberg (of Jerky Boys fame) and Woody Allen, but he was spitting venom like any good cabbie at some renegade cab drivers who were - illegally, he said - invading his turf. He was muttering at first and then yelling, much to Christopher's amusement, and decided to place an anonymous call to the dispatch of the other cab guy. His end of the conversation went something like this:
"What the hell is this cab number 12 doing all over downtown?"
"He's driving like a gd maniac! He's almost run me off the road 3 times already! This is a felony!"
"Yeah, it's chaos and anarchy down here! The whole system is breaking down!"
"I'm getting VERY agitated over here."
"Who am I? I'm an interested observer, that's who I am."
After he hung up, he saw Evil Cab #12 again and lurched across several lanes and threatened to RAM the other cab.It was pretty close. He rolled down all the windows and shook his little fist at the other cab driver and yelled, "You'll get yours!!! Did your mother raise you to be a thief, ya crook? You'll get yours!"
And then continued to drive dangerously for several blocks in his attempt to block Cab #12 from pulling to the curb to pick up fares, muttering all the while.
Christopher had a FANTASTIC time. He laughed about it for a long time afterwards.
We got home at about 12:45 last night, so Christopher was pretty much a zombie. We flew from Boston to Houston, waited 1.5 hours, then flew to Austin. Here's C in the Houston airport:
And here he is on our plane, before take-off:
He was somewhat less than pleased to be awakened upon landing, and as we exited the plane he kept climbing into seats to try to sleep. The flight attendants kept saying "awwww, someone's tired" and smiling at him sympathetically, but his response was to glower at them. He's pretty good at it.
The evening wasn't finished, though, until my luggage came off the belt. Open. The zipper had busted and stuff was just starting to fall out when I grabbed it. I had to get some packing tape from the nice lady at Continental to wrap it up in order to get home, while Christopher moaned in a chair.
All in all, despite the anecdotes above, we had a really, really good time.
Oh, and Frank did great in the race! 3 hours, 12 minutes. I'm sure he'll write his own version of events here.
From the file marked "who the heck named this product?"
You might not know this about me, but I tend to geek out on political stuff. So, as the latest apocalyptic primary is today, in Pennsylvania, I've had the TV on MSNBC while I worked all morning just to hear the megalomaniacs pundits predict the results.
This commercial keeps playing and makes me laugh every time:
Seriously? AcipHex?
There are some hilarious lines in there, but none as good as this one from the Aciphex website itself: "ACIPHEX is approved for adults only."
Hmm...that takes the story in a whole 'nother direction entirely, now, folks.
So....if you're experiencing serious, recurrent heartburn, who knows? Maybe some AcipHex will help!
Well, tonight marks the first time I was set up for a joke by our son.
At bedtime, he rolled over next to me and, while playing with my hair, in a sweet voice asked me to sing him Rock-a-Bye Baby.
Awwwww, I thought, what a sweetheart!!
So I started singing the song to him and noticed he was rocking slightly with the words. He looked peaceful, with a smile that could only - at the time - be described as serene.
All was right with the world. I was comforted that my son still needed to be sung to once in a while. He wasn't really growing up as fast as I'd feared. I heard a choir of angels singing along with me. It was a beautiful moment.
When I got to When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall...
The little punk dear rolled himself abruptly off the bed and screamed aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
And then laughed for several minutes. At his mom.
At his mom who loved him.
At his mom who loved him and appreciated a good joke, even if she was unwittingly set up by a 6 year-old who knew her weakness for cute little darlings who play with her hair.
That thing looks like a scary tarantula with claws at the end of its many hairy legs. I think if you look closely, you'll see a baby kitten trapped inside.
The assignment: make a bug, with all buggy parts identifiable.
The result:
And finally, a portrait of the artist:
Though I do think that picture screams for this:
This project was really fun, and the fun was only somewhat diminished by the fact that we totally forgot about the project (despite Outlook reminders for both "parents") until Christopher remembered on Monday morning , about 7 minutes before it was due. We had to apologize to the teacher and promise to turn it in the next day. In the end, she said it was no big deal and that the due date was just approximate, but at the time Christopher seemed disappointed that he'd be turning it in late.
As evidence, this statement: "I guess I'll just have to turn it in late. When I get to school there will probably be 18 little bugs there. But not mine."
Fantastic. I'm new at this, but I'm guessing it's not good when the parents are the cause of their child's work being turned in late. He should be allowed that honor himself.
It all worked out in the end, and Christopher constructed quite a lovely queen ant. Hooray for happy endings!
This proud parenting moment was brought to you courtesy of running/biking, parties, errands and early-onset Alzheimer's.
subtitle: and thank goodness I'm not crazy. Lately when I've been outside on our deck I've heard little peeppeep noises but couldn't for the life of me figure out where they were coming from. We have a super cool birdhouse our friends Steve & Squisha got us a couple of years ago, but aside from an old wasp nest, its three townhomes are empty this Spring.
Eventually I decided I must be hearing things, especially since Christopher couldn't hear the peeps any of the hundred times I said "Wait. do you hear that?"
But I was vindicated today when I decided to take down this plant & give it some much needed attention:
and as I started to deadhead it, I saw this:
You can't really tell from the picture but there are at least 3 baby birds in there. And while Christopher and I were peering at them they flattened out and pretended to be dead. (At least, that's what I told Christopher. ) I could see at least one eye looking at me.
Also, the mom AND dad were waiting impatiently nearby with tidbits in their mouths, lending weight to the birds are alive theory. The alternative is too tragic to ponder much.
So anyway, I love baby birds, I love that our plants are hospitable to wildlife, and I love Spring.
If you haven't had to travel in the last few days and don't watch the news much, you might not be aware that American Airlines sucks is having a few problems.
The FAA isn't wonderful, either, but American is scapegoating the FAA for not keeping their planes maintained according to code. This sort of logic reminds me of when Christopher gets in trouble and then says, "But I didn't think you were watching!!!" as a reason why I shouldn't be mad. Ah, yes, carry on, then!
So the gist of the story, officially at least, is that there are some bundles of wires in the MD80 planes that AA flies, and they haven't been properly bundles/insulated. Though this could lead to sparks and fire, American insists it isn't a safety issue. They've canceled almost 2000 flights over the past few days and affected about 250,000 people. But again, it's not a safety issue, people!(I personally think they're adding lasers to the planes. I'm only half-kidding.)
Frank's flying home from France today after begin gone a week, and luckily his flight is one of the few that's getting to Austin today (knocking on wood now). Unfortunately, my flight to DFW tomorrow morning has been canceled, so I won't be able to go to Washington DC to visit Aly for the weekend.
Though I'm relieved that the airline is trying to fix the problem, and I'd rather they cancel my flight than find out there's a problem mid-air, I'm really ticked off that the airline didn't comply with the FAA rules until they were forced to.
So, on behalf of me, Aly, and the boys in my family who're crushed not to be having a Boys' Weekend: THANKS, AMERICAN!
This weekend we went to Dallas (except Frank, who's in France, the poor dear) to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday.
Why did we go to Dallas, you ask, since the parents live in the Austin area?
Why, because he wanted to run a half-marathon near Uncle Scott's house, of course. How else would our family think of celebrating a milestone but with a long run?
It was a great weekend. Dad got a personal best at the race with a time of 1 hour, 54 minutes and change. Nice!
Happy Birthday, Dad!
One of the funniest things that happened was when my parents dog Jake jumped onto my dad's chest:
....because he was scared of the noise made by this:
I love that I just happened upon this picture in Christopher's backpack. They've been studying Texas at school for a couple of weeks, and he's been spouting off facts ever since they started: state tree (pecan, or buh-con as Christopher puts it), state bird (mockingbird) and so on.
Apparently, outlaws are now part of the curriculum as well.
Update: this weekend while in France, Frank made us proud by using this picture to reinforce stereotypes. Check it out.
On Saturday, while I was running a debate tournament, Christopher played his first game. To make me feel better for missing the game, Frank sent me a series of emails with his play-by-play commentary:
The boys in the huddle as the game starts
Well, at least C (light blue shorts, only kid with a face) isn't the only kid walking. In fact, hey, is that other kid skipping?
Frank and Christopher were both surprised when they learned there were cheerleaders.
Later Christopher told the rest of the family that he thinks his team won because "we had cheerleaders and the other team didn't".
Sounds as reasonable as any other explanation.
10:11 am: First Play of the Game Coast to coast touchdown
Wrong team
=) 10:14 am: Second play of game
Our quarterback drops back deer in highlights
Throws a quail
R (only kid on our team who knows how to play) catches it throws a spin move and then takes it to the house
6 to 6
Go vikings! 10:46 am: First play coast to coast
Touchdown colts
Missed extra point
12 to 6 colts
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4th down for the vikings
End around run to the house
Missed extra point 10:47 am: Rare defensive stand by the vikings
20 to 12 vikings
10:52 am:4th down for vikings. Looking ugly. Need an run to the side. Three staright right up the middle hasn't worked.
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End around run (I should be calling plays) ... Touchdown vikings
