Nebulous Mooch

We finally got around to cutting the grass. Yeah, that was last week really, but I’m only getting around to announcing this exciting news today.

We went to my favorite store, Home Depot, and stood in front of the lawn mowers for forever discussing which kind of mower to get. We were considering getting the cheapest gas one when my husband spied the manual push mowers. “Maybe we should get that,” he suggested.

I didn’t tell him this, but I was thinking the same thing. I actually researched these mowers online to find out if they really work. I research a lot of things online. Like yesterday I found out all about the angler fish, because this knowledge will really help me move ahead in life.

Frankly, we need all the exercise we can get. When you sit around writing on the interwebs all day, you need to get up off your squishy behind and push a lawn mower designed in the 1800s. So we got an old school push mower against the advice of the Home Depot employee who was hovering over us the entire time.

The best thing about having a manual lawn mower is watching those little blades spin. There’s something so satisfying about it. The worse thing is that it stops abruptly nearly impaling you through the chest with the handle every time even the smallest little stick gets stuck in it.

I’m sure my husband is loving the new purchase because anytime I notice that he is cutting the grass I get all jealous and have to do it too. He’s hardly doing any mowing at all. Yard work is fun, even in Florida heat.

Note: Here a joke courtesy of my father …
How do you say cut the grass in French?
Mow the lawn.

Note 2: That picture up there is an affiliate link in case you want to buy a manual mower of your own.

Did you know that I used to have a radio show? It was wonderful, of course. Isn’t everything I do just wonderful? Don’t answer that.

I was a college student with a plan. The plan was mainly to “borrow” CD’s from the radio station, copy them onto cassette tapes, and then return them. I’ll probably get arrested for admitting that, but I’m hoping the statute of limitations has run out. I mean I was in college like one thousand years ago. The only remaining evidence of my crime is this confession, and I’m sure there are plenty of people who did a lot worse in college. Are those enough justifications for you?

The show radio was called Juice Up with Lovelyn and Kate. I was Lovelyn and Kate was not Lovelyn. Every good radio show has to have a theme of some sort. Our theme was that we talked as little as possible on air. Do you want to know the name of the song we just played? Well, too bad because we’re going to play ten songs and maybe only mention one of them by name.

We also probably confused the audience because we played a variety of music. We weren’t an indie rock show, jazz show, or classic hip hop show. We were an everything we like show. Everyone from John Coltrane to Biz Markie to Liz Phair to Al Green were featured. No wonder Juice Up didn’t last long.

I mention all of this because the other day my husband told me that someone causally offered him a job as a radio DJ at one of his gigs. When I heard this I was incredibly jealous. “How come they didn’t offer me that job?” I asked, “I have experience. No one ever offers me radio jobs.”

“Maybe because you weren’t there,” my husband replied.

So all of this has got me thinking. Now that I have some space to record and a fancy USB microphone (here fancy means something cheap from Best Buy) maybe I’ll start a podcast.

You’re probably thinking that my podcast will eventually disappear into the ether just like the weekly Nebulous Mooch videos, but there was a reason for that. My laptop is too slow to edit videos … and my camera broke … and I didn’t really have any place to record them … and I started thinking that if I’m going to be putting my face online a lot I better start wearing makeup which I haven’t gotten around to purchasing because what do I really know about makeup (there should be some kind of punctuation there, but I’m not worrying about that. This is jazz, baby.) … and the dog that I don’t have yet ate my hard drive … and I’m full of excuses. Videos will be returning shortly though and they’ll maybe even be a podcast.

I witnessed a murder today. I’ve been keeping it to myself for the past five minutes because I was afraid for my own life. You know how it is. You go to the authorities to report a crime. The person who committed the crime finds out and next thing you know you wake up with a horse’s head in your bed and find out that someone’s boiled your bunny rabbit … or something like that.

It happened in the backyard. I went out to think because thinking is improved when you get some fresh air to your brain. That’s a very well known fact. Don’t question it. Anyway … I was trying really hard to think when a herd of birds came stampeding into the yard and landed in the tree. They promptly started yelling at each other which ruined any chance I had at getting some good thinking in. I don’t speak bird so I’m not sure what the argument was about, but I’m pretty sure they were just trying to distract me from the events that were about to unfold.

Here’s what I saw from my vantage point which was about two feet away from the scene of the crime. A Monarch butterfly floated gracefully into the yard and landed on a blade of grass. From what I could tell this butterfly was minding his own business. His only crime was flaunting a pair of very nice wings. A wasp, who as obviously jealous, promptly attacked him. I was horrified as the butterfly struggled to survive, but I did nothing. Yes, I just became one of those people. You know those people who witness a terrible crime, but don’t bother to call the police or do anything to intervene. In my defense, I wasn’t in the yard alone. There were those yelling birds and plenty of bees who went on gathering up nectar like nothing was happening.

When it was all over the dead butterfly lay in the grass and the wasp flew off to commit yet another crime. I took some pictures of the dead butterfly because isn’t the what you’re suppose to do? Later, I’ll make a chalk outline around the body for evidence before burying it next to the three baby squirrels I buried a few weeks ago.

Note: Every picture I took of that stinkin’ dead butterfly was out of focus. I think it’s because my hands were still shaking from the horror of what I had just witnessed.

Now that we have a house I can’t believe the amount of trips to Home Depot we’re making. Previously, I could count the number of times I’d been to that store on my fingers. I think I exceeded that amount in just one month.

I find Home Depot to be almost as embarrassing as Joann Fabrics. The problem with Home Depot is that the employees I’ve encountered are just way too helpful. If you ask them where an item is located in the store not only do they escort you to the appropriate aisle, but they explain each choice to you and stand there while you try to make a decision. Give me some breathing room. I can’t decide on anything with you standing over me like that.

I would like to wallow in my confusion alone. I like the stress of wondering whether the item I’m about to purchase really will work for me. It makes life more of an adventure. I’m pretty sure you don’t get a commission so why is all this hovering necessary?

I wonder if this happens to other people or is it that obvious that I have no idea what I’m doing. Maybe it’s the fact that I don’t know what anything I’m looking for is actually called. I have to give a description of what the object does instead of just saying a name. It’s almost like I don’t speak English. Actually I speak English, I just don’t speak Home Depot.

Maybe the glazed look I get in my eyes when I start looking at my various choices tips them off. I swear my husband and I spent twenty minutes in the lawn mower aisle the other day trying to make a decision. We should discuss our options before we head out to the store.

Eventually, I’ll get good at this Home Depot thing. Maybe then they’ll give me an honorary degree in DIY and a bright orange smock of my very own.

Note: I used to be so ignorance about home repair that I thought DIY was actually DYI. I’m not sure what I thought it stood for.

Photo by Neubie

We haven’t gotten around to getting a lawnmower yet and the backyard is starting to look a bit like the Amazon Rainforest– if all the plants in the rainforest were no more than five inches tall of course.

I’m sure the Amazon rainforest has a lot of edible things growing in it. I’m sure there are a ton of plants that will kill you in a few seconds growing there too. The secret is knowing what will kill you from what will taste great with a little salt and pepper.

Sometimes I sit on the back step and wonder the same thing about the plants growing in the yard. The fluffy leafy little plants that grow around the roots of the jacaranda tree look edible to me. The other day I picked a tiny bit of leaf and popped in my mouth.

“What are you doing?” my husband exclaimed, “That could kill you.”

“Maybe,” I said, “Maybe not.” Normally I’m the overly cautious one. I guess I was having an off day.

It didn’t kill me, but it also didn’t taste very good. I don’t think I’ll be doing that again, not until I know what I’m eating at least.

Have you ever gone somewhere and really wished you had a hanger? I do all the time. I need to keep the hoodie I got at Kmart looking nice. That’s why I was so happy to find this nifty inflatable one. It’s perfect for the woman on the go.

Just fold it up and put it in your purse.

It’s easy to blow up.

I probably shouldn’t have hung it on the light like that, but I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.

We just moved into our house last week. Actually, I like to refer to it as our echo chamber because we have so few things that every noise we make bounces off the empty walls like a tennis ball. That’s good because now I have all the room I could possibly want to polish up my moves for the next So You Think You Can Dance audition. Tweet Boogie is still my favorite dancing instructor. Hopefully, I’ll have my respectful slow grind together soon.

The downside to not having any furniture is that there isn’t anywhere for anybody to sit. We’ve picked up a few odds and ends that my parents were kind enough to give us: a sofa, a bookcase, a green thing. That’s pretty much it though.

We’re in no hurry to get furniture because we’re not really sure about what to do with the space yet. I haven’t lived in a place with this much room in a long, long time. 1067 square feet may be small potatoes to you, but when you’re coming from a 331 square foot cottage this is a mansion. I’m taking time to enjoy it before we clutter it all up.

There’s still a pile of boxes to unpack in the kitchen. I just haven’t had the time to get to them yet, and even if I did I don’t have anywhere to put the stuff they contain. I’m hoping that if I ignore them long enough they’ll unpack themselves. Perhaps a small unpacking elf will show up in the middle of the night and clear them out for me. Or maybe the neighbor’s cat will make himself useful and come in here and unpack some boxes. That would be more helpful than pooping in our front yard and strolling up and down the street like he owns the neighborhood.

Photo by dno1967b

Sometimes I wish I could see into the future. I’m not talking about decades or years, just seeing a week into the future would serve me well. I don’t care about knowing who will be president in 2033 or if humans will ever grow wings and take to the skies. I’m more interested in knowing how many pounds I’ll pack on as a result of my latest junk food binge or how driving a few minutes out of my way to avoid making a left turn across a busy street might affect my life.

I was a worried child. The slightest thing made me feel upset and afraid. I cried at night for weeks after seeing Nostradamus – The Man Who Saw Tomorrow. If you haven’t watched, it you should. I’m sure it would make you cry too. If Nostradamus was right World War III would happen in my lifetime. I was doomed. The only way to know the truth was to look into a crystal ball like the psychics on television.

A snow globe was the closest thing we had to a crystal ball. I’d wave my hands over the top of it before shaking it up and peering inside. The future was never very interesting just a lot of white plastic shavings falling over the same scene of a snowman and Christmas tree over and over again. Still I persisted.

I was convinced that I just wasn’t doing it right, and if I concentrated hard enough I would be able to see the future in the snowy wintery scene. Needless to say, that didn’t happen so I moved on to collecting the bits of broken glass that remained scattered across the lawn from a car accident in our front yard. I’d put the glass in a small red sack with Cesar’s Palace written across the front and pretend they were diamonds. If I was going to die in a few years in a World War III explosion I might as make sure I make sure I make my fortune from diamonds first.

Picture by seanmcgrath

Once I went to the science museum with a group to do some volunteer work. We weren’t told what the volunteer work would be and when we got there we were surprised to learn that it was weeding the butterfly garden. In a white shirt and light blue shorts, I wasn’t appropriately dressed for the job. Neither were several of my friends, so we decided to talk to the volunteer coordinator to see if there was something else we could do.

Let’s just say that the volunteer coordinator wasn’t very understanding. She told us off for not wearing the right clothes and said that we had to help the others weed the butterfly garden. If I were alone I would’ve listened to her lecture, weeded the butterfly garden, and done my best not to mess up my outfit.

I wasn’t alone though and one of the people I was with is not someone who minces words. She proceeded to have an argument with the volunteer coordinator about how to treat volunteers. I was mortified. I just wanted to sink into a hole. Have you ever wished that someone would just stab you in the ears with icepicks so you didn’t have to hear what was going on? No … that’s because you weren’t there for that argument.

I will do anything to avoid conflict. I just can’t deal with anger. I naturally want to keep the peace with everyone. Maybe I’m just a coward. I haven’t quite figured it out yet.

If I go to a restaurant and they get my order wrong. I might say something while trying to gauge my server’s reaction, but their reaction will determine whether or not I back down.

Me: I ordered the pasta not a chicken sandwich.

Waitress: (Scowling) Are you sure?

Me: It’s fine though. I didn’t realize I really wanted a chicken sandwich until just now. Thank you.

That’s a problem that I’m working on because in some instances you get more than a chicken sandwich and you get way more people angry at you than just your waitress who you’ll probably never see again.

Photo by Wesley Fryer.