Dude, Again?

Dear mother nature,
I have been super patient with this rain thing. I've been downright positive about. Its good for my garden, my garden blooms so much better with rain versus a hose, but dude, stop. The dog park smells like a pig pen. My weeds are more prominent than my flowers. I am an avid weeder and now I have a solid field of weeds among my annuals. Heck, when I weed I take a chance of hurting the flowers cause the weeds are so rooted at this point.
You were so tricky yesterday, it was beautiful outside. Plans to garden, mow lawns etc popped into St. Louisans minds.... We had hope damn it, plans, thoughts of meats to grill. And poof, I take my dogs out this morning and find that its raining, again. Thanks, really, lift our hope and smash it down. Hamburgers now will become meatloaf and mothers will be getting drunk before noon having gone crazy with another day of the kids inside. If you're okay with that on your shoulders then fine, keep it up. If not, let the sun in, dang it, and just give us a few days without rain.
Most Sincerely,
Crafty and Crap

I too sometimes have too much time on my hands, much like whoever made the below brilliancy

Its doodoo baby...

Last night was a night of romance, me and the hubby ankle deep in dirty water. A pipe cover broke Monday night when Boo and I were investigating a leak with the washer... we took it off with the plans to replace it Tuesday after work... We thought it was just washer related. After work and a visit to get my lunesta represcribed (yay!) I went to Target to drop of my prescription and pick up some food. I handed Boo the frozen potato delights and asked him to take them to the basement freezer and bring up some soy meat of choice. He went downstairs and said, “oh crap” We then discovered that the pipe also was the main sewer pipe... so, we had a basement of shower water, toilet water and all that goes with it.
Lucky for us we have two levels in the basement. Oh and our floor drain was not flowing either... I was ready to run off to homedepot to get a new pipe plug cover. Boo, who has a case of hunger-anger problems wanted to eat first.. dude, we have poop in our basement. While he heated up his food I went to home depot cause dude, no. When I returned he had cleaned up all solids. I changed into clothes that were originally going to goodwill, white terrycloth shorts, two sizes too small that also showed through that I was wearing blue undies, tank top, pink wellies, yellow rubber gloves. If I wasn’t hot, I just don’t know what is.
We went to replace the cover and discovered the pipe was rusty and the seal was not great so we took a silicone mat from the “to trash” pile and wrapped it around the pipe plug. Luckily this did the job and we started our water scooping adventures. Which including waiting for water to run through our sump pump. We moved washers, driers, threw out tons of stuff all while cursing the dang drain that needed a router rooter visit. Once we got up all the water we scrubbed and threw bleach around like it was going out of business.
At one point I had brilliant idea. I looked over to Boo and said, “Wanna break something?” His response was, “Hell yeah!”… who’s response wouldn’t have been that…. I was pissed at the drain and its rustiness so I told him to go get the pick ax. We’ll break the drain and I’ll shove my hand in there and remove the clog. He got very very excited and broke a few holes… then as luck would have it the whole drain popped off. I knew then that I was up…. I had shoved a metal stick down there and pulled up some black gunk that swirled in the dirty water like the black ooze of X-files. Luckily it didn’t crawl in my skin and into my eyeballs. I shoved my hand 2.5 feet down and removing about 5 lbs of silt from who knows how many years. Unfortunately nothing was removing the clog enough for water to run clear. I was on my hands and knees and in good humor about it all… I know Boo wanted to kill me for saying things like “I’ll take this opportunity to move my tooks or clean this or that” I kept making it a positive…anyway back to the story, I’m on my hands and knees, hands in sludge and I look up to my dear, pissy husband and said, “wanna do me?” At that exact second the clog freed and the water drained..and we laughed.. oh and he said no, as if I was serious. Once the clog was free we brought in our hose from outside and hosed down the basement, this was after we cleaned it and bleached it, all for good measure. So yeah, not my plans for the evening. We had visits from cat and dog wanting to know whats up… Personally I blame the cat, she could have told us way earlier that her litterbox now had a moat complete with its own swamp monsters.

Baby Birds...

Are noisy sons of bitches. I apparently have a cardinal nest in my tree.. A little girl tried to fly out this morning and didn't appear to be quite ready. She hops around my yard with her dad following her and then goes into the neighbors yard thanks to simon, the I wanna be your friend dog. I figure I can pick her up and put her back in the tree.. I get out the gardening gloves, chase her a little and pick her up. Well she screamed her little head off and then both parents started flying near me which was a little too alford hitchcock for me. I put her back in the tree which was not to her liking and she flies off to the other neighbors tree... Guess it take the crap being scared out of you to be ready to fly. Sorta like life. I'm intrigued by bird mating habits.. seems like they pair off after I saw the pigeons making their nest together and attack of the killer cardinal parents. Kinda cool..much less skanky than the ever mating rabbits.

1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and get them sit ups right

I've been trying to work out more since a) i've gained weight, b) kara is an inspiring rockstar. I've been counting calories too via the dailyplate.com. You can also keep track of your "exercise for the day" which allows you more caloric intake. I've gotta say if you are counting these items as your "exercise" that which you are making yourself healthier, fitter, and get more calories for eating if you so cose for we may want to talk this cause you burn calories living too but you don't get to count that as "extra calories"... Sure some do burn calories and such but to count it as your "workout" for the day leaves something to be desired. Damn, I just sheared sheep all day, how many calories did I burn, let me look it up. And yet, they don't have crunches or running for slow folks. Why choose 5.2 miles/hr and 6 miles and hour... not 4 miles an hour or 5.5....
Anyway my entertainment of workout activities include:
19th century dance
Accordian Playing
Arts and Crafts
Receiving Manicure
Changing linens
Sheep Sheering
Bathing / Brushing teeth - please, someone brush their teeth for an hour it'll burn 127 calories in that hour which is also how much you burn per hour if you were to change an lighbulb for an hour.
If you clean your church it burns 190 calories per hour. I wonder if its the same for a synagogue. Yes, praying was also listed.
Talking in a recliningg position will burn less calories than sitting or standing and talking.
Family reunion burns 95 calories per hour but then you gain calories by all the drinking it requires.
Doing the high jump burns 380 calorie an hour... it also requires you do um, do the high jump for an hour which would be a lot of repeating it...Unless we are just going to count the one jump which might take 30 seconds if you are lucky.
Hoeing burns 317 calories an hour but Ho-ing burns 63 calories to 101 calories depending on vigorousness and whether its sex or sexual activity.
Smoking, quietly I might add, burns 63 calories an hour... but um, yeah, if thats your workout you are in a heap of trouble with a side of cancer.
Again, i repeat, no crunches or slow running paces....on the workout list... we wouldn't want to junk it up with worthless stuff would we. :P

Effing poopholes...

Winners, I come from straight-up winners. The dynamics of my family is weird. On the one hand mom is my grandmother's caretaker from the second she wakes up til she goes to bed. My grandmother still lives at her home with a helper. My mom's difficult and bossy, ahem, unlike anyone else i know. She is also completely reliant on her mother. Before she had her stroke they called each other multiple times a day etc. So when it comes to my grandmother perhaps there is sometimes too much attention or too high of expectations. So my mom drags her to her home when perhaps she should stay at her own home, same with synagogue for high holidays. I am not returning to PA this year for Rosh Hashanah for that reason. I want to go to synagogue and pray, not deal with mood swings, bathroom issues, and travel. Unlike my mother the holidays aren't just about ritual, i'm there with a purpose. My mother's an aethist jew... its about the traditions for her and when we repent at Yom Kippur she turns around and does that which we repented for before we leave the synagogue because the content means nothing to her. It does to me and so I stopped returning to PA for YK because I needed that day of self reflection and repentance.
Anyway, I also have swell males in my house, self centered ones. So, my mother brings grandmother to her house for mother's day, grandmother falls while trying to get up the stairs and can't get up. Neither male that was there would help get her up. They just hid in their fucking rooms pretending that it wasn't happening and then said no to my mom when she asked for help. The situation is uncomfortable and I understand that. She cries and screams and such but fuck, be decent human beings, suck up your discomfort and help a fucking fallen 80 something year old up. My mother had to go to the neighbor for help. I don't think my mom should be bringing her to her house but she did and she fell, so they should have helped. Ask me why I'm 900 miles away. So that i can be my own sort of evil. I'm not there to help but at the same time but I'm also not becoming the crazy evil that is my family. And yet, while my mother stopped believing in G-d when her father died, my belief isn't shaken when I ask why he hasn't taken my grandmother to where she'd be comfortable and at peace.

...and let me tell ya somethin we're a helluva crew ....

I don’t normally share too much work stuff here but a week or two back we planted our green roof and its turning out so awesome. We are using a few different systems and trying the practice what you preach route, crazy right? We will later have a rain garden which also will hopefulyl be awesome. Yesterday and today coworker C and I got plants for some really nice pottery the bosses got for the roof. We are planting a salsa garden, ya know, tomato, jalapenos, onions, spices. Shall be cool. I thought I’d just share some of the coolness with yal. Enjoy!

I got a ho named Real de Real

Okay i don't even have a hoe for my garden, I got some rake like things, lots of shovels and more gardening gloves than any one person should own. Things of moving along in the STL South City Gardener's Playa Club and I'm one happy gardener. Hopefully my pretties will produce an assload of goodies for me to feed my home and other's this season. My big excitement is my potatos, i've never done them before. Finger crossed it not just a lot greenery and will actually grow potatoes beneath the soil too.

Young me Now me

So my grandmother's helper has a scar on her arm, my grandmother sees in and say, "oh my how did you get that?" The helper tells her she was in a car accident. My grandmother respond "Oh my, did you die?" My mother thought was funny. I thought it was sad.
I think the below is funny, and decided to do it after see it on another site. I am framing it as part of a mother's day gift to my mom. Think she'll be amused? Or think its sad that I've grown up and therefore she's older...its a 50%/50% chance. Oh hell, we know my mom's glass, its 25/75 deal but i'm doing it anyway.

Holla if ya hear me though, come and feel me flow

There are two flows to movies. The first time you see the movie and don't know whats going to happen and the second time you see it and know the story and what happens next. You lack that anticipation of whats going to happen next, you already know it. I love the first flow. The original X-men movie had fantastic flow, the second time I saw the flow wasn't as good. The main story came too quickly for me. I loved the back story, discovering characters and recollecting how they related to previously watched cartoon. There first time I saw The Incredibles it flowed well while later it felt like a hour of background and 15-30 minutes of action.
No spoilers here but I saw Wolverine this evening. The flow for me was good again, lots of development and then lots of "current" action story too. My two favorite hotties were in the movie but apparently hand downs Wolverine Hugh is my fav. Hugh is hot but only in Xmen do i lose my common sense (I am grossed out when veins pop out though) I love Wolverine also so the merging of the two is perfection. Ryan Reynolds, who plays the same role in every movie (wise ass) didn't even even compare, I'll keep the Blade III Reynolds.
I didn't know the story at all, so as with Watchmen, I was pleased. There is no thinking this isn't how the comic went. My only issue was Gambit not being ass cool as he could be. I needed some more Mon Cher action, apparently we don't have much of an accent yet in the earlier 80's or late 70's.
Superhero type movies get mixed reviews. I think it depends on the watcher, not the movie sometimes. It depends on their expectation and what previous knowledge of the story they have stored in their mind. I have enough that I appreciated a yellow spandex joke but not enough that I am noticing the movie to comic book similiarity ratio. I enjoyed it but am not holding my breath til dvd option. I'd rather keep it elevated in my mind with the good first time viewing flow.