Category Archives: house

house

Dancing In The Dark

I had spent probably an hour or so fiddling with the new LSM site, saving to the server every few minutes.

Thank goodness for my particular choice of workflow, because shortly before 9pm, the power went out. I had been listening to some Oakenfold (generally my soundtrack of choice while doing webstuff), and suddenly I heard a popping noise outside as my monitor winked out. Then silence. And frustration, until it occurred to me that I’d been saving every two minutes. 🙂

I got up from my desk, walked over to the cabinet o’ candles, and pulled out a couple. Lit one for the basement, one for the living room, and one for the dining room. It wasn’t actually dark yet, but I like to be prepared.

Anyway, it was too dim to really do anything indoors, even with the candles lit, so I went outside to see if the neighbors’ power was out, too. (Yes, I left the candles lit like an irresponsible Diana.) Sure enough, the neighbor lady was outside, and so was the one a couple doors down from her. Our whole end of the street was out.

Went back inside and located the old-school phone that doesn’t need plugged into a power outlet. Not the cell, although that would have worked, too. Anywho, I dug out the electric bill and called the 24-hour Emergency / Outage number I found listed there. I was expecting some surly switchboard operator, but it ended up being one of those automated voice recognition systems. At first, I thought it would be voicemail hell, but once I figured out that it was that voice recognition shit, it wasn’t bad. Just weird.

Once our power outage was reported to the nice computer, I grabbed a book and sat out on the front step to read for a while. After about 20 minutes, though, even the light outside wasn’t sufficient for reading. So, I went inside, blew out the rest of the candles (I’d extinguished the one downstairs before I went out to read), put on socks and shoes, grabbed my keys and my cellphone (it has a built-in flashlight) and went for a walk. Hell, nothing better to do, right? And maybe by the time I got back, my power would be back on. Right?

Wrong-o. Got back half an hour later, and still no lights. Not even any streetlights. Went back inside, re-lit the candles, and got out the Palm IIIc to write this entry. Thank goodness for backlit screens.

So, here I sit, at… *checks watch in glow of Palm screen* …10:45pm, covered in a thin film of perspiration thanks to the impotent and powerless box fan—

Holy shit. The power just came back on. I’ll be goddamned.

Two hours without power. Could have been worse.

Now to go upload this entry, and see whether my computer’s fried…

gardening

Gardening Update

Well, it’s been over a month since I planted my first batch of garden goodness from Michigan Bulb. I wouldn’t have bought any more this year, but Scott ended up getting the Fall catalog in the mail, replete (resplendent?) in its fantastic coupon-bearing glory.

So, before the new arrivals arrive, I thought this would be a good time to recap on this season’s gardening progress. Read on for photos and descriptions of my cute baby plants and not-so-cute weed gardens.
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gardening

Gardening Update

Today, when my co-worker Scott came back from lunch, he brought with him my Moonbeam Coreopsis plants which had arrived from Michigan Bulb today. I had been hoping to plant those today, but the rain had other plans.

Yesterday afternoon, it occured to me that I hadn’t planted the bare-root Lilies of the Valley and Delphiniums that I’d picked up from Scott’s house the week before. When I went to check them out, to see how they were faring in their little plastic bags, I discovered the Lilies of the Valley growing absolutely apeshit *inside* the sealed bag. It’s like going under the kitchen counter to that sack of potatoes you forgot about, and discovering a freaking garden growing in your kitchen: kind of fascinating, but kind of weird and gross. Except these were *supposed* to be growing, so it wasn’t as gross as it was weird.

Anyway, after I put the laundry in the dryer last night, I went outside and prepared the dirt in front of the house—basically, I turned over the soil and removed the skeletal remains of last year’s gardening debacle—and planted my six Lilies of the Valley.

So, going back a little further: last Friday, as I was getting ready to leave for work, I took a look at the baby plants I’d just gotten the day before. And, to my dismay (but not my surprise, exactly), I found that the cat had knocked my Morning Glories onto the floor. They looked pretty sad. Wilty. Of course, I was running late to work, so all I could do was beat the cat and scoop as much soil as I could back into the pot around the limp leaves. I emailed Aaron once I got to work, and he was a sport and vacuumed up the soil.

Over the weekend, I put all my baby plants outside in the sunshine, still in their happy little plastic containers, and watered them. The healthy plants became even healthier. One Morning Glory perked right back up, but the other one is pretty much dead now. Ah, well. I guess that’s why I got two.

So, next on the agenda:

  1. Install decorative white wire fence border from Big Lots around the Lilies of the Valley.
  2. Pack topsoil around mailbox, since some nice person decided to hit it with their car and knock it loose while we weren’t home.
  3. Plant Delphiniums, Coreopsis, and Lavender around mailbox.
  4. Plant the Morning Glory underneath the little tree by the street.
  5. Plant Sheryl’s miniature daffodil bulbs under the small maple tree in the front yard.
  6. Figure out where to plant Snapdragons and Calamint.

If all this stuff lives to see another spring, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

gardening

Free Plants Rock.

This morning at work, I was getting my water bottle out of the break room freezer when I saw a table full of plants. Full. Of little baby plants. I wandered over to where half a dozen people were gathered around, and discovered that a woman from another department was giving away extra runners and sprouts from her garden. She had everything labeled, some with care instructions, and they all looked healthy, if a touch small.

I ended up with four pairs of plants: Snapdragons, Lavender, Morning Glory (Heavenly Blue), and Calamint. I looked them all up in the plant encyclopedia that Aaron got me, so I’ll know how not to kill them. Add those to the miniature daffodils that Sheryl got me for my birthday, and the plants I bought from Michigan Bulb with Scott ($20 off a $40 order, so we each got $20 of plants for $10—I got Lilies of the Valley, Delphiniums, and Coreopsis), and I’ve got a pretty decent showing of flowery goodness.

My plan is to plant the daffodils and the full-sun-to-partial-shade plants under the small tree in our front yard. The must-have-full-sun plants will go around the mailbox. The shady front of the house is reserved for the Lilies of the Valley, which will apparently grow most anywhere, in varying degrees of sunlight and surviving varying degrees of watering neglect. Now that’s my kind of plant.

I don’t have a good track record with outdoor plants, so I’ll keep you posted on how they do. Once I get them planted (hopefully this weekend), maybe I’ll take some pictures… although they won’t be much to look at yet.

Maybe I won’t kill all my plants this year. Maybe things will bloom and grow and things will be keen.

*crosses fingers*

P.S. – The rose I thought I’d killed by not covering it over the winter seems to be springing back. I wonder if it’ll bloom this year.

house

Neighbors

Our next-door neighbor just freaked my shit out. I could have sworn I heard someone call a hello through the open door upstairs, and then I heard the chain-link fence rattling. Was someone in our back yard?

I went upstairs to the living room, closed the front door, and started peering out all the windows to try to see what I’d heard. Finally, looking out our upstairs bedroom window, I saw movement: branches of the overgrown bush that’s beginning to encroach onto our property from our neighbors’. I figured it had to be the neighbors doing some yardwork, but I had to be sure.

I put on socks and sandals (I know, I know) and headed out the back door. Sure enough, once I got into the middle of the yard, I could see him out there in his own side yard, with a tree pruner plunged into the middle of this straggly bush, cutting away. Of course, he saw me, so I had to say hello and make small talk: stupid shit like, “Decided to chop down that bush, huh? I heard noises out here and wondered what was going on…” and so forth.

Keep in mind, we’ve never introduced ourselves to our neighbors in the year-plus that we’ve lived here, so he was understandably perplexed to see me. He also wasn’t in the mood to talk—he was in the mood to kick the shit out of that bush. So, I wished him good luck and went back inside.

Nobody scoping out our backyard in broad daylight. Just the neighbor getting rid of the bush Aaron had been complaining about a couple weeks back. 🙂