Pottering around the house



Another weekend, another trip to Poverty Barn. I can’t help it. I cannot stay away from that place. On first glance, it is a store full of garbage. Really trashy stuff, Stuff that Marshals wouldn’t even carry, stuff that T.J Maxx turned their nose up at. Real end of the line, bottom of the retail barrel merchandise.


But

On the bottom of that barrel, at the back, behind that plastic planter in the likeness of some out of favor Mexican futbol star, is the thing you came for. The perfect chochkie for the hall table or guest bath. And its $3. And it’s going home with you.

I spend way too much time in there. I try to go in with an idea what I want, otherwise I just wander around trying to find something I want to want, which even at Poverty Barn can get expensive. There are only so many hand painted Spaghetti bowls, plastic pitchers, and silkesque plants that one woman can use.

And for me, a home filled entirely with silkesque plants probably isn’t good for the chi of the home; even if they are only $5 including a hand painted paper maichea pot. Homes with good chi are a bit picky about what you put in them. Too many plastic plants makes the house depressed which gives it dry skin that translates to a heavy coating of dust on your cheap silkesque plants (there are no more cheap plastic plants. Even the most awful, colors not found in nature, poppyroseytulipy outrages, are silkesque. )

In my house I solve the dust problem by wrapping the cat up in a Pledge ™ drenched dust cloth and letting him run around trying to get it off. If he’s in enough of lather, he will even do the floors.

The stated mission of this week’s trip to the Barn was to find a pig themed gift-bribe for the Mouth that Roars. I didn’t have time before her lunch last week and I haven’t bribed her in a while. So this week we’re having the Cake and Ice cream portion of her Birthday and I figured that gifting – bribing her with a pig thing her would still be okay. Poverty Barn always has interesting ceramics and they are always on sale. I had a significant number of pigs to choose from in several different poses and colors. I ended up with an orange and red pig in a blue swimsuit and goggles; if you’re in the market for a ceramic pig, good taste has all ready become a non-issue for you.

I also wanted to look for fertilizer stakes for my potato plants. It has rained all the dirty goodness out of the soil and I think the plants are looking a bit peaked. Brosky and Alphagal don’t know it yet, but they will be plant sitting my garden. I can just pick up the bins and take them over to their house. There was method to my container garden madness. The down side, they do have beasties in their neighborhood that my more um, urban if not more urbane, location protects me from. Rabbits for the most part aren’t big into playing keep away from city busses and Pit bulls.


Oh, and I read the Harry Potter. 870 pages. In less then two days. It wasn’t as stress inducing as the previous books. I had a number of anxiety dreams while reading the others. I liked it a lot though. I’m glad the kids are getting older and vaguely closer to making me feel less like a pervy adult reading a kids book. By the next book Harry et al will be adults. My question, will the young readers these books are officially aimed at, still be under their spell if the characters themselves stop being young readers? I mean eventually by book 7, these kids will be looking down their twenties.

Despite my heavy reading assignment this weekend I still managed to bend the blade on my lawn mower and create Do It Your Self Crop Circles in my yard. Very attractive.

I was waiting for The Book to arrive and I thought as long as I was just sitting around and as it wasn’t raining, I could mow the lawn. It really needed it as it has been raining almost nonstop for weeks and I was really busy having fun last weekend while it was briefly not raining. So this week it was going to get mowed.

Do you know why so many people mow lawns in strait lines? It’s because if they tried to be clever and mow in circles, they would end up with lots and lots of narrow patches that they would have to then go back and mow again which defeats the whole Do It Once. Do it Right principle that many professional lawn mowers live by. There is also a saying about not mowing over tree roots, but I had forgotten what it said. I’m sure it goes something like “Don’t Mow Over Tree Roots, Dumbass, You’ll Wreak The Blade and Damage The Tree. Do You Want It To Die And Fall On Your House In The Next Hurricane, Currently Scheduled For Sooner Rather Then Later? Did You Learn Nothing From The Tree Carnage Last Winter? Half Those Trees Would Still Be Standing If Some Dumbass Hadn’t Mowed Over Their Roots. Don’t Mow Over Tree Roots. Dumbass”.

Or Something like that.