Oh, my stars and garters!

Run, Jillbert, run!

Well, I don't usually like to do this, but my sister is running a half-marathon in January to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She's been working her butt off in training, which was kind of hilarious to me at first because she's never been a runner and so would do things like get tangled up in treadmills in public or strain her knee and then come over to my house to loudly demand ice packs and liquor. But in the past few months she's become very committed to meeting her training and fund-raising goals, and she's doing it without a lot of fanfare and hokum. I am enormously proud of her.

This is a cause that's important to both of us, although I must say I'm glad she's doing all the actual work and all I have to do is sit here on my butt and ask if you guys would consider sending a (tax-deductible! totally!) donation her way. Anything you can give will help and would be much appreciated by the both of us.

Her fund-raising page with all the pertinent information is here, and her blog contains updates on her training progress as well as delightful screeds about stuff like grocery store remodeling and weirdo neighbors. Please go visit both sites, and if you do give something, maybe leave a note that you came through here so I know to thank you personally.

Ok, bye!

Impulse

Best

I made the best paper airplane the other day. It really is the best; when done correctly it glides and swoops and skims and turns. The thing is, you need at a good breeze and some open space to really  put it through its paces. 

Dan and I spent quite a while this afternoon trying to make a video to prove its bestestness, but the air was very still and as a result the videos were too poor to post (file download link, yep). Also I should say you might want to consult a friend who is familiar with origami for steps 16-18 (there are 35 steps in all and 16-18 are the hardest, so hard they posted a video to help you along, and they're still really hard). But don't be daunted, please! All that work is totally worth it when you get that perfect graceful flight. I hope to show you video of one soon, and then you'll see.

I am mean because I am a bitch.

Hi. I have something to get off my chest.

"Begs the question" doesn't mean what you* probably think it means. You think it's a smarter-sounding way to say "raises the question" or "leads us to ask," but it isn't.

Using it incorrectly doesn't make you look dumb, exactly; it's too common an error for that. It doesn't make you look especially smart either, though, and it bugs me when I see it. So just cut it out. I beg you.

Thank you, and have a wonderful weekend.

*Not you, of course.

News hole

Now, I know no one's relying on them for their national and international coverage, but the Statesman website has always been mulishly obnoxious about keeping things both local and irrelevant even when there are actual big, real, important stories breaking everywhere else.

Still, I was shocked when I went there tonight. Right before the page loaded, I covered the screen and jokingly asked Eric which he thought would be the top story:

1. The bailout negotiations that dramatically fell apart just a few hours ago;

2. The ACL Fest this weekend; or

3. The UT-Arkansas game on Saturday.

Even I was shocked at the none-of-the-above answer:

Psst

They're speed bumps, not come-to-a-complete-stop-every-200-feet bumps, Mr. The Precious, Precious Shocks on My 1999 Mitsubishi Diamante Are Made of Waterford Crystal and Also I May Have a Load of Nitroglycerine in My Trunk. You have never been secretly flipped off under someone's dashboard with such vehemence before, I assure you.

In conclusion, yargh.

Ok, back to my horrified fascination with tonight's news cycle.

Gray hair does not guarantee adulthood

You know those as-seen-on-TV commercials that show people getting mightily and comically frustrated while trying to do tasks under the tyrannical constraints of their limited technology? Like the woman who slams down the knife while dicing tomatoes and makes this enraged, disgusted face like she just found out her husband's been screwing the next-door neighbor again? Or the man who spills paint on the floor and starts grimacing and waving his hands around like someone just threw a snake in his face?

Ok, good, because now you get to imagine me while I'm trying to water the yard. I trip over hoses, endure blasts of water in the face, slip in the mud, get stuck in the rosebush, and get stung by wasps. And still everything dies.

I don't really know what the problem is. I suspect it's not that hard, but man, for some reason I am really sucky at watering the yard. I'm sure the neighbors are either greatly amused or terrified by my near-constant streams of profanity. Sorry, y'all. I'm glad none of you have kids. If only someone would invent something to make watering the yard easier...hey, you know, if you guys would all chip in to buy me a sprinkler system you wouldn't have to listen to me, unless I split my toenail in two with a potato fork or something.

Prematurely self-obsessed

I just had a sobering moment when I realized I have too many gray hairs to pluck.

I remember pulling out my first gray hair at 19. I held it up to the light and examined it for a while, marveling. I'd heard this would happen eventually but never quite believed it; here was proof.

I had a nifty little silver streak at my right temple pop up almost overnight in my mid-20s, but it's mostly been obscured by my bangs. I always kind of liked that it's there; it's like a free highlight, and it's handy to be able to pull it out for inspection when I want to buy beer but forgot my ID.

It wasn't long before a few strands here and there popped up, and I yanked those out when I noticed them. A prematurely gray streak is cool, but encroaching random hairs are another thing altogether. As those started multiplying I got more determined and ruthless, a neurotic gardener at war with the dandelions, until I was pulling out several a day.

Anyway, I just now decided to give it up. I'm a little sad, but it's not that big a deal. It's a big enough deal to write an overlong post about and then protest that it's not that big a deal, I guess, but it's still not that big a deal. I feel fine. I feel like I look fine. The gray is still definitely in the minority, overwhelmed even. It's just a little too prevalent to fight by hand.

So. Should I dye? Should I care? Should I try to guess how many people who read this will try to surreptitiously assess the grayness of my hair tomorrow? It appears I have some important decisions to make now that I'm getting older. Jeez. Just imagine if I had real problems.

Screw a serval.

I want a baby langur.

Commerce

Well, I've decided not to get a serval. I don't want to bring one into a household where one of the members is so unsympathetic and just plain ignorant about how awesome they are.

To fill the serval-shaped hole in my heart today, I bought quality art supplies, a badass little tent for an upcoming camping trip, and a snazzy tote bag that's on sale.

I have to say, felt a little weird about spending so much money on an afternoon when every news outlet in the country is screaming about bailout and collapse, but I desperately needed a new bag. I've had my current one for about seven years, well past its useful lifespan. Also I figure the tent will come in handy if things get really bad.

Denial of serval

Credit: Picture Taker 2

In light of the raccoon scare, I decided we should get a serval to protect our other cats from critters. They're amazing animals--totally beautiful and extremely fun to watch. Plus now that I'm getting rid of my air hockey table, I need something to make me feel cool.

But Eric says no. He says exotic cats are "too big." They're "wild animals" that are "dangerous" and "extremely difficult to train" and will "piss and shit all over the place."

Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me. Sounds like someone just doesn't want his wife to be happy, is what it sounds like.

How dumb is the cat?

I just watched him chase a raccoon across the yard. A raccoon! I really hope my neighbors didn't hear me yelling because Sweetloaf! No! What the fuck?!? SWEETLOAF! sounds kind of insane. But it was alarming.

Seriously, dude, you would be very, very sad if you ever caught a raccoon.

Gentle purging means another offer

No takers on the air hockey table yet, but I bet you want this adorable star ice cube tray from IKEA, right? 

First commenter that wants it gets it; I will hand deliver it to acquaintances and mail it to anywhere in the U.S.

I will throw in an air hockey table for free, too; just say the word! (Although I cannot mail you an air hockey table. That is the sad but true fact you must accept.)

Listen, though, I will write you a lousy but serviceable Shakespearean sonnet about air hockey tables and ice cube trays if you arrange to take both off my hands.

I guess I could just put the air hockey table on Craigslist, but that doesn't seem sporting somehow.

Record shelves, or why we had to lose the air hockey table

Before

After

Our living room looks 874.25 times better now that the record shelves and TV stand are finally here.

Before

After (note the clean spot where the couch was)

It *sounds* 874.25 times better, too, because all those records are finally unpacked and available. I found Eric's copy of Daydream Nation just now. Yeah!

Thanks to all our friends who put in toward the furniture at our wedding shower so long ago. We still need art and a slipcover for the couch and a better place for the litter box and maybe a coffee table that doesn't look like an elephant with a glass top that's prone to tipping over, and I still kind of wish I'd painted it. But whatever, man; I actually want to be in this room for the first time since we've moved in.

Offer

Anyone need an air hockey table? It's free! It works! It comes with all the pucks! You just need to glue one of the goals back on and it'll be ready to fill your living room with airy excitement.

I love air hockey, but we've only been playing it about once every six months for the past two years. That doesn't seem worth the space it takes up. The cats will miss it as a perch, but that doesn't seem worth it either when someone else could be having so much fun with it.

OH, MY GOD, WE'RE ALL GONNA...be just fine

Wow! To think I worried I might be overreacting by putting the lawn chairs in the garage. And, as it turns out, I was.

Ike

I can't seem to do anything today besides look at hurricane sites. The weather geek in me is fascinated; the good citizen in me is dismayed. Katrina did a lot to temper my enthusiasm for really big storms, but watching them evolve is still mesmerizing. This is apparently a really weird one, with a puny wind speed for its low pressure and size. This sucker's enormous.

It's only supposed to graze us with its dry side, if anything, so I haven't made any preparations except to buy a little extra beer (half of which has since sort of disappeared), fill up my gas tank against the almost-certain price spike next week, and figure out where I'd put all the patio furniture and potted plants if they had to come inside. I wish everyone could have such problems right now.

Braaaaains

Our neighborhood is not especially cool or fun. We don't have a coffee shop, or boutiques, or really anywhere you can walk to other than a couple of taco stands, oil change places (which you wouldn't walk to anyway, silly!), and smelly convenience stores with burglar bars on the windows.

But we do have a park and two branch libraries, one of which is hosting a month-long celebration of zombies that culminates with a zombie fest and art show (pdf) on October 25th. I'm no huge fan of zombies, but you better believe I'll be going to that. What's your branch library doing next month? Yeah, I thought so.

Better living through particle physics

Just think, if we get sucked into a black hole tomorrow, all our problems will be solved. Atomized, even!

The reassurances that we will not all get sucked into a black hole are, well, reassuring, but I think I will put off doing laundry tonight just in case.

Scream in heavenly peace

The ice cream truck in our neighborhood is weird. No "Entertainer" or "Turkey in the Straw" for us. Most days we hear get stuff like "Happy Birthday" and "Rocky Top, Tennessee." Right now I'm writing this to the strains of "Silent Night" as it struggles up the block. We keep popsicles in the freezer, so I've never had the pleasure of meeting the strangely inapt ice cream man.

A review of the 13 minutes of True Blood that I saw

Maybe it's good--Six Feet Under was a blast--but I had to stop watching because the main character's fake sassy down-home twang and everyone's fake sassy down-home dialogue made me writhe. I might try again, but this show is going to have to be really good for me to get past all that.

There!

It looks a little sparse, but we wanted to give everything room to grow and leave space to add or replace things as needed. We'll see what does well and what doesn't.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions, and extra thanks to Bryan, who does not have a web presence but should, for sharing his expertise and cactus and succulent clippings. 

Garden update

I can't believe this has taken the better part of a week.

This morning: Not that exciting.

I thought I was done before I took that picture but after inspecting our work for a while I decided we needed more rocks to keep all the sand from washing down the street. I went to the rock dealer Lynell suggested and picked up a trunkload. It was a little scary threading my car through the gauntlet of zippy forklifts and giant rumbling gravel trucks, but I got my damn rocks.

Oh, my god, shut up about the rocks. But I love rocks! No, really, shut up. Okay.

This evening: Not much more exciting but less prone to sand loss.

Most of the time was spent breaking up the clay soil and working in sand; lots and lots of sand. It's extremely tedious but not unpleasant work. I sit on my ass a lot, both professionally and recreationally, so it's fun to do some actual labor sometimes.

So. Hooray. It's finally ready to plant now. I was really tempted to do it tonight after I redid the rocks and dug in the last of the sand, but it was getting dark and Eric was at work. He did a lot of the shitwork on this project, so it would have been exceptionally crummy to do the fun part without him.

Does anyone have ideas for a nice top dressing? Pebbles? Granite? Glass? Ideally it should look nice, not blind passersby, and not absorb so much heat that it fries the plants. And--this is essential--it should discourage cats from coming in and crapping all over everything.

In other news, the spider we killed was probably a trapdoor spider. They are mostly harmless, slightly ingenious with their trap door construction, and the females often live in the same den their whole lives. Now I feel kind of bad, but in this case looking that horrifying while pregnant may not have conferred an evolutionary advantage.

Also, my toe doesn't hurt very much, but I'll probably lose the nail at some point. Just typing that gives me unpleasant shivers in my neck, so I will stop thinking about it and focus on pleasant things. Like rocks.

Tip

Unless you are tired of having a big toenail that's in one piece, do not leave a potato fork sitting on the sidewalk.

Grousy springs

Krause Springs is lovely and lush, if a lot smaller than I expected, but if they know there will soon be people running jackhammers 20 feet from the swimming areas, they should really tell people that before taking the entrance fee. And then, when the customers come back up a half an hour later to ask for their money back, maybe not refuse to refund more than half because they "got to walk around and enjoy the grounds, after all."

Oh! How love--GAGAGAGAGAGAGAGGAGAGAGAGGGGAGAGAG--ly!GGGGGAAGGGAGAGAGAGGAAGA!

Basically we drove 45 minutes and paid five bucks plus gas to eat a sandwich, put on sunscreen, walk down to the springs, take one picture apiece, and decide the jackhammers were not only annoying but physically painful and must be escaped as soon as possible.

Dammit. I was excited because I'd heard great things about that place, and it really was pretty; we would have loved to hang out there if our eardrums hadn't been bleeding. Well, whatever. There are nicer, closer, less expensive places to swim. If they'd just given us our damn money back, I would have gladly tried again later, but Krause Springs is fired.

Windy Point, however, is eternally hired. It has never made any top 10 lists, so far as I know. It is not especially beautiful, historic, special, or secluded. But it does have pleasant views, pretty fish, and an interesting but not overwhelmingly large crowd. Most importantly, I have never heard a jackhammer there.

Succulent/cactus garden progress

Here is the before picture of our mailbox. Except it's really a during picture because I was so obsessed with getting rocks I forgot to get the real before picture. Luckily, the curious can look at our neighbor's mailbox and get an excellent idea of what it looked like not too long before this.

Here is the horrifying spider I dug up. For reference, it was about the size of a dime. A terrible, vicious, iridescent dime with eight legs. Does anyone know what kind of spider this is, please? It's almost certainly with children; many, many children. I have never seen anything like it.

Usually I am pro-spider and will either leave them alone or move them to a spot where they won't interfere with me, but this one looked like it would kill you with its mind and then poison all the land around it just for kicks, and also it started rearing up in this terrifying defensive posture. So Eric killed it with a pick. This spider was so evil it took three swings to make it stop writhing. It was horrible.

Do not tangle with this spider if you see it, and do not try to tell me it's beneficial because aside from snakes I have never sensed this much malice from another living thing. It was actually extremely cool, as long as you were wearing gloves and had a pick handy.

Here is a picture of Lei-Leen making a window display for End of an Ear yesterday. This has nothing at all to do with our cactus garden, but she's cute and I took it and figured I should do something with it. So here it is. End of an Ear has nice cactus out front and is next to the succulent/gift/goodness wonderland that is Happiness, so I guess we can tie it in that way. Sound good? Ok, then!

OH HALLELUJAH WAIN BROUGHT ME ROCKS FROM THE CREEK I LOVE THEM THEY ARE PERFECT I LOVE YOU WAIN YOU ARE THE BEST THANK YOU. Tomorrow we will put the rock border in, then spend lots of time breaking up the horrible clay soil with sand. Actually we plan to go to Krause Springs tomorrow for most of the day, but even with that detour I think the cactus garden will be finished by Wednesday at the latest. Thanks to Roone, Lynell (you know, we drove by that place yesterday but it was closed!), Kristy, and JLowe for their advice and/or kind offers of rocks.