Let Me Tell You A Story About a Man named Jed

The house 2 doors down had the most beautiful roses I have ever seen in my life. They were huge, tall, lush and bloomed all summer. Gorgeous. A very old lady lived there and the lawn boy (mowed until he was 22) took care of the yard. Now the lawn boy, using his own equipment, mowed, weed whacked, edged, removed the debris and did leaf cleanup in the fall for $10.00 a week. This was in the late 90's. Big Daddy gave him a $2.00 raise after a few years. He did 4 or 5 houses and made his gas money. Took him a couple of hours.

Well, the old lady died, lawn boy retired, the Al Quedas were living next door and ta-da . . .the Clampetts moved in. Mr. Al Queda sold them the house. The house was dated but clean and neat. Well the first thing Jed did was to have Mrs. Clampett (Jed never does outdoor work) put Playschool Plastic all over the front yard. Under the HUGE 50 foot tall Crimson Maple was a sand box, picnic table, and a plastic disc attached to the tree for swinging. This in a 30 x 30 yard.

The first thing the darling children did was to completely trample a 12 x 3 spring bulb and flower bed while trying to tear down the neighbors decorative white picket fence. Then there was no grass left in the playground. So there were 2 mud holes that spring, but thankfully they dried up to just plain dirt in time for the Clampetts first and last annual Memorial Day party. Well as the guests began arriving the Clampetts soon realized they had no outdoor seating. Problem solved-they took the Al Queda's furniture off their brand new deck. By the way, they kept it and Mr. Al Queda was afraid to ask for it back. (More on that another time)

Since the seating problem was solved they now moved on to the entertain issue. See, they had another problem. They could not entertain in their backyard as they had never mowed the grass and a fishing boat was back there, as was most of their clothing and eating utensils. So they set up a horse shoe throwing contest on the boulevard section of their lawn-creeping into the neighbors houses on both sides. They placed the stolen chairs and the beer cooler on the sidewalk and they were good to go. Unfortunately so was the neighbors BBQ. So now you got the guys in suits and ties trying make their way thru the horse shoe contest. Thank goodness Jed lost the boat in the friendly betting game. Had to use the Al Queda driveway to get the boat in and out, but I sure Mr. Al Queda didn't mind as he confiscated my driveway once.

The Clampetts then decided to renovate. This involved removing their window screen and some of their siding. Months later there were reports of the Clampett children sitting on the lower roof naked outside the windows with no screens. Then the tree died.

Well we were fedded up as my French colleagues say. Someone overheard Jed saying he would buy a keg and get his buds to take down the tree. NO NO NO. City explained about permits and restriction. Cost him $2,500.00. Then most of his appliances ended up in his driveway. Garage door not closed for weeks. Neighborhood was simmering. Then Mrs. Clampett disappeared. Permit stuck to the door to allow work done on the premises. Permits have a limit and on the last day everyone was poised to go to the city. The only reason we were worried about Mrs. Clampett is that no one mowed the weeds since she left. We were hoping she left an abusive relationship. Jed is rather vocal in his opinions of others, including his family, usually swearing his head off.

Well the house got finished, kinda, Mrs. Clampett came back, the police are there off and on, and the children are now the ring leaders of the hooligans. Once I heard Mrs. Clampett asking the police why no one tells her of the problems. We are all terrified of them.

Tomorrow, bumps in the night and the sidewalk wars.

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"