We had a glorious weekend

Dinner at Elizabeth's on the Park.

We do clean up when it is necessary. Golly gee I am a short fat thing.

The weekend was fabulous. Now that things are calmer we are going back to traditions. Magazines and wine in the "Parlor", snacks and animals snuggled in for Friday late afternoon. I stopped and bought some flowers from Trader Joes and a couple of orchids for the bedrooms. And TJ's had no Fiji water. Heavens, what is the world coming to?

Sammy Dog is excited to sit on the chair on the porch and watch the world go by. Zoey cat discovered a window sill she can sit at when the window is open and she is in ecstasy.

The yard is 90% ready for planting and it is in the 70's, that teaser time. If you plant now, it will all die in 2 weeks. Damn. Maybe next week we can get the boston ferns for the outside. And if Big Daddy puts the pots out we can plant the lettuce and onion sets.

Punkin Head has exciting news but I cannot breathe a word in case it does not work out. I sent some presents to my girls. And one for PH. And now doing the flowers for Mother's Day. I think I want a camera for Mother's Day. I remember one year I got a camera for Mother's Day and I was pissed. It was not really a camera for me, BD wanted a camera and used it for an excuse. And I never did get to use the camera. But with Curly coming, I think I want better photos of what is sure to be the most beautiful baby ever.

The Hidden Garden

I have 2, this is the first one where my pepper plants are residing. They are the only food I grow except herbs and horseradish. The horseradish is in the second hidden garden. Big Daddy is mulching and the rains are making my garden grow. It has been unseasonably cold-this morning when I left for work it was 57 degrees. Jacket weather.

I am having the worst case of Rosacea ever, it has been a month since my medical scare. That is me, I am your woman in a crisis-but a month later I am something frightful.

OOps, just noticed those weeds in the grass.

The kids are on a camping vacation and now headed to Mt. Ranier, on their way back home. Punkin Head said they are trying to get great pictures.

I have been training a new person the past couple weeks. She is bright, inquisitive and a charmer-I think she will do great. She has never done this work before so some of the particulars will be harder to learn, like reading blueprints and such, but she will be working the off shifts where that is not quite as important. I am calling her trained as of today--I am not being paid to train her so I think she is just fine. And can call the boss if she has questions.

The neighbors are all fine, The Slavs are proudly showing off the vineyard, the tat lady next door is growing some beautiful yellow lilys I can see from my family room, the orange cat from corner survived-I saw him this morning licking his paws. Big Daddy thinks the Flower Lady came home from rehab, but I have not seen her.

More to report this weekend, it seems I can only manage a couple of posts a week right now, work is just too busy.

On my last nerve

I will just keep posting random as the garden grows pictures.

It is like Spring here right now, chilly mornings and cool days. Maybe just a bit of heat in the afternoon and it cools right back down.

I had my doctor visit for the results today and all is okay. If anything else happens I am to get in their right quick, but for now it is probably a weird cyst that burst---and I gotta say I am the Queen of weird cysts and their bursting.

I am up writing this at this time of night because the crazy ass bitch on nights lost her shit and woke me up, she has no capacity for problems and it seems tonight she is inundated with them. She also is stupid and cannot remember that I do not cover nights. I asked her if she called my boss and she said told me no, she was gonna try that next if I did not answer, for the third time she called me. So, I called the boss, checked the emails, sent the emails and returned the calls. And wrote down an hour of O/T for this nonsense. And my boss asked me if I thought he should go into the plant. Remember those old Excedrin commercials?

Punkin Head is headed to Yellowstone, happy camping.

I am so not happy about the garden

For the last few years we have had gardening problems. Too much rain, too many hours at work, people on crutches, and the painting of the house and garage.

Well, this year I thought we had a shot. Yea, right. Don't even know if I will have a house in a few months.

Today is Black Friday for GM dealerships and every bar in Detroit is probably full of very depressed people out for a last hooray. Is there any one left in Detroit with a job? Oh yea, Ron Gettlefinger. Good luck buddy.

Had to cancel the toe lady, the lawn guys, and maybe the television is next. It is a weekend for review, this really sucks.

Hope I can keep GrrDog and my mind.

Don't Ya Love Joe Biden and of course NY banks

Good ole Joe, it is guaranteed that whatever comes out of his mouth will "shock and awe". Wonder what all the people on the train said to him. Guess we know Obama told him to get his ass on the train and smile, dammit, smile.

Then Chrysler retirees cannot cash their checks cuz some bank stopped payment and a judge had to say, well pay the people. No, not the suppliers, contractors, or your cronies---the retirees. I wonder if everyone knows just how close to disaster all this really is. I am laid off until August 3rd, which I think means I have to look for work. I am not sure of all the rules but my company sent me 5 pages to read while I am already laid off. Alrighty.

Pedicure day so toes are cute and I am ready to take on the Grandma story.

Grandma lives next door and her daughter and son-in-law live 3 doors down next to the Clampetts. Grandma is about 96 now and was going strong until this winter. She is a pip. When we overheard her bitching about the huge fir tree, which Big Daddy tells me was really a bastardized Blue Spruce, we decided to take a look. Don (the ghost and former owner) kept the bottom trimmed so it never looked right but got huge. So huge we could not get near it from the backyard which was surrounded by the huge bug infested hedge, nor the front unless we walked down Grandma's drive and snuck behind it. No wonder she bitched.

When we gathered to cut it down she asked me why it never bothered us. Well, we go to work at 4 or 5 AM and come home late and it is on the other side of the house where we never go. Who opens the window treatments when they are never home. Needless to say the former tree area had no grass. We paid to have the stump removed, put in dirt for a flower bed next to the foundation and put down the best grass seed. Not good enough for Grandma. Then we had the seed wars.

I planted some spring bulbs and forgot about it.

The next year we did the back yard. I did the weird thing with grass as it was only 3 feet wide. Put down layers of newspaper, then leaves (plenty from the Don the Ghost tree) covered with so many inches of dirt and watered. Sure enough, next year grass was gone. We took out the hedge and Big Daddy put down a patio. Ohio Tumbled Blue Stone delivered too many times by the skid (6 tons altogether) for a little back yard. At the end I told him if it wasn't finished by Labor Day I was divorcing him and marrying a Mexican to finish the patio in exchange for his green card. It was finished. Yard was simple, acceptable, somewhat barren-but looked ready for business in the near future.

We were ready to go to New Orleans for our 25th anniversary when 9/11 happened. I was in an assembly plant with co-workers from France and a young Jr. tech. It was so surreal as I had been telling the French they could not go home until they solved their problems when Bush shut down the airlines. Now they were stuck. And so was I.

Stay at home, well, let us garden. Put in a few things. Grandma commented. She wanted a lilac bush. I put in a pink oriental lilac as this is a small yard and they are quite small and can be pruned. SHE HATED IT. It was the wrong color and not French. Grrr. She has also hated snapdragons, marigolds (the expensive white ones) thyme, tarragon, rosemary, oriental poppy plants, bachelor buttons (which she had planted first) and anything I planted. She hated my grass, my dog, and my mulch. She will not weed behind her dying bushes but goes back and kicks off the mulch. She also does not use PREEN. Grrr. Now she wants a rose bush. WTF.

So we started giving her some wine whenever we traveled cuz she watched the house, yea right, and maybe I will plant a damn rose bush even if I can't grow them. Because you know if you get to 95 or 96 well, WTF.

Next, Third Rock from the Sun or as we know them the "Clampetts"

one of those days from Hell

Spent most of yesterday at various medical facilities. Two hours at the urologist, 20 minutes of actual speaking to people. One hour looking for X-ray place with no time left for X-ray. Hour and a half at dermatologist, 15 minutes speaking to people, 10 of that discussing books with the doctor. That is why it takes so long, he loves to talk. I thought I had booked with the daughter but I got chatty dad. Now I only have 5 more appointments and the X-ray. And so far nothing is wrong with me. And everyone wants to know if I have self-medicated. Why would I do that if I don't know what is wrong and you say everything is fine? WTF

Woke up to the WSJ saying we now have Gettlefinger Motors and the Feds are running GM. Wonder what kind of cars they will build. Europe has great cars that can't be sold here due to the Feds regulations, so once again we will re-invent the wheel. That is actually what the auto industry does best. Every meeting I go to is to change everything for no money with no data to show this is a good idea. It is simply the new guys idea. And trust me, every new guy has an idea including using a tape measure instead of a scale.

It is too cold, wet and windy here to garden yet-but the grass and weeds are huge from the short hot weather spell and sun...that is except for the plastic flower lady. Her plastic flowers stay the same year after year. This is what happened. Her yard did not look bad. She is not quite right and spends a lot time working in her yard. Well she works at a local market that was selling these rolls of flowers. Roll them out and water and you get a garden. Well she did. It did not work out very well. Maybe they were poor quality or she picked the wrong "roll" for the area, but it was pretty bad. But it was her garden.

Well, as usual, some well meaning neighbor told her what a misbegotten mess she had made and how it was making everyone look bad. Now, since I had the crappy yard with no complaints except from Grandma and this lady is truly not able to have a normal conversation much less take criticism, she did the only thing she could envision. She got rid of every green and growing item on her property except the grass. She cut down the trees. She kept half the grass. Everything else is bright white stone. Vast areas of stone. Upon the stone she strategically places plastic urns and angels. Into the urns she places plastic flowers. She liked the look so well, she put urns and hanging pots in front; the porch, the garage, window boxes. All with perky and colorful plastic flowers. Which she polishes on a regular basis so everything is nice and shiny. She is actually famous within the local gardening community when they judge houses for the beautification awards. I just hope the old grump who hated her green and growing garden loves the new look. Kinda reminds you of a little cemetery. Be careful what you wish for.

Tomorrow the cookie lady's garden, which is currently including a mud hole or two.

gregory the worm

Yes I know that you should capitalize first names. gregory does not deserve this honor. He is a worm. Today I spent the entire working hours fending off his accusations that my part is bad. Bad as in how? What portion, dimensions, area, actually offending section of this part do you think is bad you f***ing idiot. Guess what, he can't come up with one. Then he is whining about why no one talks to him and everyone talks to his boss. Maybe cuz you are beyond a jerk.

Next subject, I need a project going forward, this time of year should be next vacation. There will be no vacations in the near future. I think we will garden. That will be our look forward to things happening this year. And finding a restaurant where we are comfortable and happy. Have not been to a restaurant in Detroit (area-Grosse Pointe) for 3 months due to the attitudes and why spend our money on people who do not care if we come back. Fie on you.

Oh, read in the paper bringing a lawsuit of the three headed dog is happening and behind the scenes gossip supports this may be the new spectator sport for the future.

Late breaking news reported on the news-WJR-Nissan just told the three headed dog no more cookies.