Just stuff

Terrible picture of me but I think you can see why. Prolly feeling no pain as I recall the lunch that day lasted for 12 hours. This was in the wine cellar after lunch. I was at a lovely home outside of Graz Austria learning their customs.

The contact lens are not working out. I found an alternate way to put them in and will try this. Not a quitter but very discouraged. I think I would be more enthused if I could see better with them.

Zoey has discoved fish flies and is entranced. We don't have many this year but I am told down at the Park end of the Pointes they are scary plentiful.

The planting is finished except for fun finds. I will try for some decent pictures. Mr. Slav was chatting with Big Daddy, remarkable under the circumstances, and when he saw BD was going to take the overgrown fronds of the neighboring hedge down he brought his electric hedge trimmer and a step stool over and got the job done. I swear for the strangest neighbors ever, they are also the best.

I bought a hat for Curly, sent her Mummy a pink bouquet and Mummy got a pedicure and foot massage and still no Curly. Which is just as well because Punkin Head refused to name her Curly Doodle if she was born on the 4th.

Waiting for ribs and cole slaw. And Curly.

I should have taken pictures

Don't know what it is but Big Daddy loves it.

For some reason I have decided to change things up a bit. Last Saturday, which is also known as no makeup weekend, I went to breakfast with BD at 7:30 in the morning. It was a struggle as my IBS was threatening but we made it okay.

This morning I had a pedicure scheduled and then at a different salon a manicure, so we left the house at the crack of dawn to get to Eastern Market to shop for plants. We did save a bundle, I bought perennials of a decent size for 6 bucks each. We got a limelight hydrangea, Russian sage, foxglove, white daisies, dahlias and columbine. Oh yes, and fairy flowers. And a flat of Caladium for 25 dollars and 2 clematis and something called a bird of paradise. We could barely fit the radio flyer and the roller cart back in the car.

It was crowded by 8  that we had to leave. I also got Mt. Rainier cherries for 7 bucks for 2 pounds and blackberries for 1 buck a box.

Now we have to plant and mulch.

Oh and Punkin Head is wanted for an all expense paid interview for this new job. All is well.

We are all good now

I fixed the "Did It Work" post and you can now click on the link and go right to the album and the captions show up. I fear in the future some will grumble "I wish she never figured that Picasa out". Don't worry, it was dumb luck and I doubt I will be inundating the Internet with enough photos to choke anyone. That is not a bad way to post photos, I think when I started using Picasa the Internet was on the fritz here and I could not stay connected long enough to stay interested. Thank you Badger for the reminders.

I found out some curious information today regarding my quest for the movie, The Help. Big Daddy found some magazine and brought it home from Ning Hai. The magazine had an article on how often you should clean your nose. I have a weak stomach and cannot discuss the nose cleaning nor BD's fascination with the Chinese ability to perform miracle mucus discharge and phlegm feats, however I found an article on new shit happening in Shanghai and there it was, a description of the movie, The Help. This is when I checked the date of the magazine and discovered it was 2 months old. I also discovered we missed the stage play "Kiss Me Kate". I am thinking that might have been a Chinese sanctioned movie and actually sold here at retail, which would explain why no pirates have it. Bad news, we don't know of any retail DVD establishments in Shanghai. I might have to order this one from Amazon. And find a current magazine, I have never seen this one before.

As the fall brings a new crop of expats, we have at least one here at the Hotel, BD called for flowers Monday and when he went down to the lobby there was a laowai trying to steal our flowers. Offering huge sums of money for our Bird of Paradise flowers. The flower lady held firm to her refusal and Bd was the good guy and told him the arrangement on how to get flowers. I swear, there are days that the flowers are the only thing that make my life a happy one.

Strange Neighbors

You know after thinking about it, we really do have some strange neighbors. And some stranger ones that moved on. Most neighborhoods have one wacko. We've had so many I've lost count.

I live in an affluent community in a pretty nice neighborhood, not rich on my block but good incomes and homes. But a wacko magnet it is. Currently we have entertainment from the Vegans, the Flower Lady, the Musicians, the Cookie people, Grandma, the Newbies (who bought the Al Queda House), the Clampetts and the behind us people. This is on a short dead end street. And the recently departed, tear up the landscaping people, known as OHMYGOODNESS.

The spawn of the devil children seem to be made up of the Clampett ringleaders, the Vegans and the departed OHMYGOODNESS. When the OHMYGOODNESSES departed it took landscapers 2 days to put the $17,000.00 landscaping back in order and by the looks of it at quite a bit less cost- the plantings are not as lush as before. You might ask why that much money for landscaping on a street you claim is not rich. We asked the same question.

When we moved here for my son's schooling our new house had mature landscaping and we were busy people and paying for private school necessities. Well the middle bush in front of the porch died a few years in. I told my husband to paint it green and no one could tell from the street it was dead. He dug it up. Now we had a hole in the landscaping and there is nothing you can do with 40 year old shrubs that is going to look right. Then grandma started complaining about this fir tree on her side of our house. We know cause she talked real loud to everyone but us. Well it turns out the fir tree was on Grandma's property but the former owner of our house planted it. In a group effort we all got together and took down the tree. It truly was too big for the area and everyone was happy.

Now huge tree gone, hole in shrubs there and the place is looking crappy. My Punkin Head was now working for a landscaper and he and Big Daddy took out all the old stuff and picked nice but inexpensive border material and redid the front of the house, some modest planting-a new yard light from Costco-it looked okay. Next year we did the back yard which involved pulling up 20+hedge type trees, wrought iron fencing and cement type slabs. Well the garden games were on.

Now every ones' yards looked okay but ours. Now everyone was redoing their landscaping and yard lights. This was hilarious. The kicker was the OHMYGOODNESS house which had beautiful landscaping replaced in a ridiculous keep up with Joneses mentality. $17,000.00 dollars for landscaping on a small corner lot with a house worth under $200,000.00 with virtually no yard. I don't know who owns it now, I thought GMAC at one time. Whoever should just be grateful it has rained the last couple days on the new plantings and Big Daddy and GrrDog are watching out for them.

Only one neighborhood story per blog. Tomorrow the Plastic Flower Lady.