Wet floor

It's raining again and I don't really want to walk Dogger in it. I walked her twice in the rain already today and I don't relish the prospect of doing it again. I feel like a bad dog mama. And damp I feel like a damp dog mama.

I went to the store and bought my cousins baby a card congratulating him on his coming high school graduation. Congrats Kiddo! Go forth and prosper! Don't knock up your girlfriend! I'm going to go with the idea that the genetic stupidity he was born with might not manifest in this generation. But I bought him a card anyway and I'll send him some cash. If I was really mean I would send him Oh The Places You'll Go! because he'll get twelve of them and I don't think he'll ever go anywhere.

I'm really feeling nasty today. Maybe I should take Dogger for another walk, let the rain wash the nasty away. No. I don't want to, Dogger is sound asleep, stretched out on her futon and while she would be happy to go out for a pee break if I suggested it I don't think she would be up for a walk. The dampness seems to be a problem for her joints. Oddly, last winter when it was cold and then snowy and icy, I walked Dogger religiously every night sore joints be damned. Now, its warm and nice and I can't come up with reasons to not walk fast enough.  I guess its not enough of a sacrifice.

I would walk her right now but eh I would have to put my bra back on and go find a jacket and  I'm right in the middle of a really good Law and Order rerun and I am so going to miss Jeremy Sisto. All this sound a fury over Lost phew. I am however heartened that 24 ended with a whimper and not many column inches. Ha.  I do hope that Kiefer Sutherland's next project is not a right-wing wet dream because I used to be a big fan of he and his limited emotional range. James Spader wishes he had aged so well.

Nasty, nasty, nasty!

I harvested some more raspberries this morning and I think that is not going to get old. Three or four a day is just fine, three or four I eat before the damn squirrels or their evil buddies in the raspberry eating business, the birds. I do have some very frustrating mesh over part of the plants left over from last year and it seems to be working well enough. It has tried its damnedest to keep me from my own berries it must be a real bummer to the smaller brained. Good.

Happy Monday

That's what I call a good weekend. I harvested green beans  and raspberries, my hydrangea is actually blooming and I have three of of the four drapes I ordered. And I didn't do a damn thing I didn't want to and that includes when I mowed the lawn - which was the first thing I did  Saturday after I slept 'till noon.

I took pictures of all these great and amazing things -  but not the lawn mowing because I didn't think about it at the time - but for some reason Blogger won't let me post pictures. Again . I may try later or I might let  my blood pressure fall a bit before I get back into the line for the nail-gun-to-the-head treatment. I have a headache now, no clue as to why that is...

Yay. Tried again, couldn't do it. Sucks.

I did learn some stuff. Did you know Wallyworld in its huge, monstrous, multi-national 21 century corporate being self can not do something even the most lowly fake Gap at the mall can do . You go to Fake Gap and you find a blouse you like but sadly, the fake Gap you're at doesn't have it. So sad! but that fake Gap can consult their computer and tell you that their location at Other Mall does have it in the size you want and they will call other location and have them hold it for you.

Wallyworld can't do that. Wallyworld can suggest that you look up the numbers of area stores and that you ask them if they have the shirt in your size. You call them. Not your helpful sales associate, no its your job to do their job.

After I left Wallyworld in a huff, I thought about coming home and digging through my phone book and looking up all the Wallyworlds in the greater Triangleplexian but I decided that I would as soon as do that, never.

See what happened what launched this whole thing was that on back on May 14, I ordered from Wally.Com four curtain panels for my living room. Four of the same kind of panels, I thought this was understood when I said: I want four of this kind of drapery  and then only high lighted one kind of drapery choice. One. It was called Buffalo Plaid, the kind that's pink. I did have some fears that they might on accident send me Buffalo Plaid, the kind that's blue

I ordered it and then waited. And waited. And waited. I kept getting emails telling me that my order had creeped a little closer to my store. Really, I do believe that they strap the "Site to Store" orders to the backs of  winos and tell them to be in X by three doses of methadone. I finally got my email and I was so excited I came thisclose to getting in the car and going to Wallyworld in the middle of the night to pick it up. I came to my senses when I imagined being the Wallyworld parking lot at 11pm on a Saturday night without some sort of police escort.

In most cases, Dogger is usually a pretty good escort but she was  all ready asleep and they won't let me bring her into the store. Bummer, so I didn't go but I did set an alarm and got up early Sunday morning to get my prize. In the pouring rain.

I'm not a little pathetic.

So I got to the store and after a tour of the store thanks to the singularly not dedicated to customer service staff and when I finally tracked down my toy it was the wrong toy! It wasn't what I ordered at all! It was three of the I-don't-have-the-balls-to-order  choice and one of the kind I actually did order. They aren't anything alike! They have entirely different names! How did this happen? Why are they in my head? How did they know?

And thus started the whole Fake Gap envy and then I just ordered what I need online and will wait for too long to get it. And then possibly end up with Buffalo plaid the kind that's blue.

HAPPY    SUNDAY    !!!!!!

HAPPY    SATURDAY   !!!!!!

Friday Cat Blogging

Okay.

The computer hates me and I am okay with that. Now.

 I sent the computer to the corner and  turned it on and off about a half a dozen times and then I told it to spend some time thinking about how its behavior made me feel and it agreed after holding its breath and turning blue that it had behaved for most of the evening like a douche bag.

I decided that I just wasn't going to deal with its issues. I decided to wash my hair and watch  my TV  shows season finale's instead with my full attention instead of watching them out of one eye - which always makes me feel like I'm cheating on them. Community, totally put me on Team Annie, by the way, and I think she and Jeff are just sweet and the episode was just splendid and 30 Rock was fabulous and then I watched Bones on TIVO delay and thus far its quite nice.

So of course the computer finally decided to work properly very late and well, that's just fine because well, I really enjoyed my shows and now there is a feral cat sitting on my window sill with the sign that says Will Head Butt for Better Cat Food and I feel like a mean person for not doing something but what the hell does he want? I all ready have a bowl of cat food out there for him and he won't eat it! And I think that's something right there.

 Wally's World

I thought I was going to get my curtains. I didn't get my curtains. I thought one of the five or six emails I have received from Wally about my order had said : We have your drapes, come and get them" but instead it said :Your drapes have been shipped you can't have them yet. - which is odd because the email also said they were in Charlotte and even if the drapes had to walk to Raleigh on their own, they would be here by now...  Hmmm.

Unless Wally is saving money on gas by strapping individual  orders to the backs of drifters and pointing them in the right direction? Meth is cheaper than gasoline isn't it? Oh Gawd! They are walking from Charlotte!  It could very well explain the lag in delivery! It doesn't take two weeks to get anything delivered! I had an entire chaise rebuilt and reupholstered and it didn't take that long to get back to me.

They are going on and on about their vaunted "Roll Backs"...They sent the same email message to me a couple of days apart so I took for granted that email number two was the one saying they had arrived. No they have not. The good news is that I didn't trek all the way to Wallyworld to find that out. 

The bad news is that my drapes are at the mercy of a meth addicted drifter! who is probably being tortured by a psycho trucker right now! They are going to find his body and  the remains of my drapes somewhere in New Mexico next March.

On the other hand, I wasn't prepaired anyway. I  didn't have the receipt printed out and my instructions are very strict about having my printed receipt in hand as well as two forms of picture ID and my birth certificate and proof of citizenship (I am a brunette)  in order to take custody of my drapes - you know because there is such a black market for Wallyworld drapes. Whatever, I should have known that when Wally says you are going to wait for two weeks, that Wally means you are going to wait for two weeks. If you are too cheap to pay for S&H handling you  clearly don't really need whatever it is in a hurry anyway. Tsk.

*****

Speaking of walking, I thought that since Dogger hadn't had quality walk for the last few days that I would take advantage of the nice weather and take her for a longer walk. I had some bills to pay and since my Mail Man declared another holiday, I needed to mail them myself. So we walked to the post office. I had wanted to do this because I ride my bike there and always see all these cans and bottles and its harder to pick them up on my bike. So we walked and I picked up shiny things. I had worried that it might be too far for Dogger but she was fine, for my part I came home and fell asleep. The question of whether chaise was as comfortable as old chair has been answered. I slept like a rock.

Rain drops on roses

It finally stopped raining and my rain barrel is weeping, earlier, while it was still raining it was vomiting so progress has been made but I think I need a rain barrel for my rain barrel. I think during hurricane season it may be over matched.

I guess if were really to rain hard for a long period as it is want to do during a hurricane, I might open the spigot at the bottom and let it run out. If was over matched by four inches of rain over a couple of days I think that twice that in a hours might prove its undoing. I will have to investigate this.

Speaking of the rain. I'm not sure I mentioned it : It rained for two days. It stopped. Since it was pouring for days I didn't have chance to do my daily flower deadheading. I do it twice a day because its addictive. Anyway, I was not able to do it and when  I finally was able to go outside to check the flowers I was appalled! they looked awful and it wasn't just because they had been rained on for hours. They were all half dead from being old! I never let a bloom get old. It starts to sag or get limp or gawd forbid , fade and it is out-of-there in a hurry.

They looked awful. A mass of limp, faded, wilted socks. They were  really pissed at me. I popped out there for a quick look see and I ended up spending forty-five minutes removing blooms and tying up  limp stems. Everywhere I went were more dead blooms! I felt like a bad plant person, I mean I walked Dogger in the driving rain and yet I was too precious to go out and tend to my other living things? Am I a specisist? If you don't have a heartbeat when the going gets rough you're on your own? A little rain gets in the way of providing care? No wonder my hydrangea spent last summer on strike!

Bad, bad Diana. On the upside the Experimental Garden looks good. The pepper looks a little taller than it was and the tomato absolutely looks better. I hope this is not their way of saying that what they would like me to water them even more than I do now - I already water them a lot and I don't want to hear that they need to be watered more. If I was really on the ball, I would use this heavy rain as a cue to go ahead and dig its new home while the soil is soft and wet and easy to till.

My excuse now is that the plant is completely sodden and too heavy for me to move and the soil is so wet that it might not come out of the pot neatly and it might cause it trauma so I'll wait until um, later. What is not traumatized? My raspberry plants! They gave me three ripe berries today! Nummy! and many, many more to come. Yay!

Garden 2010 Update 8: The Return of Photoblogging!

Sometimes I appreciate my cat more than others. My cat needed to go so he used his box upstairs while I remained warm and dry. My dog needed to go so we walked around the block in the pouring rain and I became cold and wet. Anyway, thanks to the rain my rain barrel is full again as of yesterday and I am relieved of my twice daily watering duties until the ground dries out.

Speaking of my watering duties...

All in all doing well. I am going to have to spray it sooner than I had thought I was going to and that doesn't make me hugely happy but so far the damage is minimal and localized and may have been the calling card of some transient evil doer.

The first is the aptly named 4th of July variety of tomato as its supposed to produce by July 4th. the second shot is just representative tomato growing and developing. All the tomatoes are about the same height and weight except for the Experimental Garden tomato, its about half the height and weight of the others. This is totally against my original theory that  despite the limits of the container  that all the sunlight would make the plant healthier and stronger than the same plants in the garden with less sunlight.

You can't really tell but both plants are scraggly and small.

Speaking of the not scraggly and small other plants...

True, they aren't as butch as the tomatoes but peppers do things on their own maddening schedule. I am pleased that the smallest plant is growing and I really thought that it would have not made it this long. The other, other plants on the other hand are on a very pleasing schedule.

some of those green things are green beans

Yay for the green beans! And here, a family picture. Soon to be covered with beans!

Speaking of happy, growing, productive things. My raspberry plants are going gangbusters!

There was even a ripe-ish one over the weekend but a bird got it before I did. Bastard bird.

My other little friends, my flowers are doing well too. The flowers I bought are flowering along and growing and getting taller. My little seeds are also growing and getting stronger but they are really flowering yet.

The tall greens are baby plants. I'm not sure what kind of flower they are going to turn into but they are pretty even without blooms. Speaking of blooms, my hydrangea didn't bother blooming at all last summer but this year it has had a change of heart.

Okay. Speaking of old things that are new again...

Introducing my new old chaise!!

Duty

I spent part of Saturday in Pittsboro . I was just about to get real mad at the party for making me drive forty-five minutes to a wretched little town in the middle of nowhere without even a Bojangles to feed myself at when lo and behold, they provided a  free lunch for my troubles. I forgave them for their trespasses.

If it wasn't for that though, I would have been very annoyed.  It was a thoroughly unimpressive little town and I know that for a fact because their hateful traffic circle hexed my GPS unit and made me tour the damned place. The Democrats love send delegates to these terrible little places and over the years I have found that Sanford and Lillington are also unimpressive. Why can't everyone just come to Raleigh? Everyone wants to come to Raleigh. Its almost civilization and if you live in one of the awful little towns that surround it its practicly metropolitan in comparison.

 There was one store  that I saw on my tour that I wanted to go back to but once again, the demonic and completely unnecessary traffic circle thwarted me. The traffic circle willfully confused my GPS so I know it was an evil thing. GPS units, along with puppies are signs that Gawd loves us. No decent thing would hurt puppies or confuse a GPS unit and I would be willing to bet that that traffic circle also does nasty things to puppies.

Once I actually found the convention, I learned that there is a reason that at most conventions there is a section marked "visitors" or "guests" or "big losers with nothing else to do on a Saturday" because we were going along quite well, minimum of un-agenda-ed speakers and everyone who spoke kept it mostly on topic and on time. Good. There was one tantrum but the thrower spoke very rapidly while he was having his  little fit and thus did not waste much time. What is a convention without a little drama?

But then we had to vote on something, actually three somethings and then it ground to a halt. None of the actual delegates had any problems, we all had been there before and we know the rules : 1) Don't ask questions,2) don't leave you seat unless you want to be damned in absentia to the hated resolutions committee and 3) do not under any circumstances stop the proceedings!

A visiter didn't like how we voted.  There was an issue of  should we be standing or sitting? raised hands? ballots?  and dear gawd  the spector of weighted votes! We had a problem because it wasn't made clear who could vote because they didn't separate the can't vote audience from the can vote delegates and then some asshole audience member had to start about how they do it at their conventions and that sent everyone into an uproar. Out of Order! He knew he was out of order and could not speak and yet he did! We go through the most ridiculous contortions to obey Roberts Rules of Order and then this asshole went all OOO! and then some other visitor went off and it got very hot in the lunchroom.

And then I decided that this was bullshit and I went home. I voted and I left. Gawd. The state convention is in Fayetteville which is a real city but I'll have to think if its a real city I want to be in in July. There will be freebies though,,,And when I got home I went to Artsplosure and only bought one thing.

HAPPY    SUNDAY   !!!!!!!!

HAPPY    SATURDAY  !!!!!!

Friday Cat Portrait Blogging

by George Zupp

I wear my sunglasses at night

I was beginning to think I really didn't want sunglasses.I would go to the store and not buy them. Over and over and over. Maybe it was a sign. I mean I only really need them to slow the progression of my decline in vision! I could learn to live with the burning and tearing! I could tough it out. Some people look better when they are squinting.

 I had not thought about was the frames and how they would take to clip on sunglasses.Yes, I thought about the frames quite a bit but  I failed to take their appropriateness for clip on sunglasses into account. I mean who does that? They were cool and I wanted them. I don't want to put thought into things. I wanted NEW and I got it.

Cool things should just have nice things. Cool things are cool because everything wants to hang out with them  and sunglasses are cool all ready so they would hang out with my new frames just because, right? And no I can't have traditional sunglasses like everyone else because I would have to get prescription sunglasses that cost a fortune and I would lose in the parking lot  of the frame store. Every ten days. I don't make enough money for that.

Anyway. I kept saying I need new sunglasses and I kept going to Wallyworld with the express intent to buy new sunglasses... and I bought cat food and shorts and  flour and mailing envelopes and all make and model of things and I would go home and dig through my thirteen plastic bags and I would not have sunglasses. Again.

I was annoyed and I realized that when I went to Wallyworld for the sunglasses I always went at night when I don't need sunglasses! and so of course I never thought to look at sunglasses while I was there! Okay! New Plan : Only Go To Wallyworld During The Day When There Is Sun...And I  would go home and dig through my plastic bagss full of asprin and pizza and slug bait and find no sunglasses again. Fine.

So I decided that maybe it was because I just hate Wallyworld! Maybe its just a block and I really don't want to spend more money and time at that hateful place.I hate standing in line for a half hour  so that I could buy a pen!  I hate the rude staff, I hate everything about it. I'm there three times a week but I hate every minute of it. Maybe its just a power thing on my part. I can control one aspect of my relationship with them by not buying things like, say, sunglasses from them. I get it!

 I tried Target. I love Target! I don't mind spending money there at all. Did you know that Target doesn't sell clip on shades?


Wallyworld sells clip on sunglasses that for my plastic frames.