gainful employment

I got a job. I got the job. I am employed. When they asked me when I could start, I gave myself one more week off. Ahhh. Springtime. I start the 24th.

I am scouring nurseries, finding the clearance rooms. At 7Dees, they used to sell wire hanging baskets that were really wire, not kitchy little wannabe cast iron numbers with scrolling and ivy and shit that are already lined with coconut matting that sheds like Sid and never looks like anything but coconut matting. I just want wire baskets I can line with moss and plant flowers. I found them finally in the 40% off shed out back for a buck apiece and the moss was out there too. I got two leyland cypress for a visual barrier between us and the homeless shelter next door.

The dog house is gone. A big thank you to craigslist and the tasteless bastard who bought it. My husband kept the money. a. wondered if I'd split it with Sid, but I never saw a dime of it. That's okay. I'm certain he is the one who paid for it. Fair is fair.

It is time for Wordstock in Portland. A 3 day or maybe 2 day extravaganza all about words. Whoopee. I'm excited because Chuck Barris will be here. I don't know if he writes, but I just want to know where all the lost Gong Show tapes are. If I could get them, I would. I spent the better part of the (I'm guessing here) 70's? Watching that show: Gene Gene the Dancing Maching, the fish out of water, the singing chinese lady, the birth reality TV. I loved that show. And if you haven't seen Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, you should. Maybe he was a CIA assassin. How would I know?

Now that the deck is done, Sid can get a better look up into the tree next door and can finally make eye contact with the squirrel that has been fucking with him. I don't know if Sid has poor depth perception, but he seems to think the squirrel (and birds and low flying planes) are within his sphere of influence. He launches into the corner of the yard as if... as if this time it will be different. Sid and I have alot in common. He seems to like the deck. I think he was as glad as I was to see the plastic doggie condo go. He much prefers my furniture.




So, I have one week to finish the back yard. This involves scraping, primering, and painting a wall of the house, putting the big trellis back up, re-winding the climber rose into it, potting the plants, hanging the baskets, installing paving stones, finishing the edges of the deck, making a flowerbed off to one side with the dirt that comes out of the paving stones spot, which will be a buttload of dirt, painting the blue chairs white. Off white. Not quite white. Creme. Cream. And there is some kind of industrial strength paint called hammerite that covers rust -- no questions asked -- and it only comes in white white, and I want to tint it, and I guess it is some kind of industrial sin to do this. But I don't want gloss white chairs. That wouldn't do.

I can only do this project if it stops raining, so the good news is, I may get to lay on my ass for a week.