Lesson for the day

BP got the mower ready for this season and the LP mowed the lawn yesterday.
Remember: Do not scalp your grass! Set your mower at about three inches high so your grass can get thick and remain healthy. Set too low can cause bare spots in your lawn and invite disease and weeds to sprout.

Having said that, why not get rid of most of your lawn and plant some native plants. Lawns are old leftovers from English lords and ladies and palatial estates to show how wealthy you were. Nowadays with gas prices so high, we don't need vast expanse of lawns. Lawns require fertilizers and water and gas for mowing whch releases god awful chemicals into the air.

Once established native plants (easy to research what is best for your area of the country) require very little care and water and fertilizer. Plus you'll be doing all the little birdies, butterflies, ladybugs, earthworms and other beneficiary buggy boos a massive favor by providing food and shelter.

Google "(Your State name) native plant list" or email Ded---I'm sure he'll be happy to help you. :)

Survivor

I'm watching Fans Vs Favorites Survivor, and while she's not my favorite to win, Cirie is excellent at strategy--booting out Ozzy tonight with his immunity idol unplayed. Great move!

Jason's growing on me--he's naive but a good game player.

For my affection, no one can beat that muscley gravedigger James. He's so very purdy!

People please

Who first started saying "at the end of the day"?

Also "It is what it is"?

I'm sick of both of these sayings.

Is it Dr Suess-type philosophy?

What gives?

My daffodils are blooming








The fence, which is probably four inches on our side of the property line, plus today she was on her ass putting down those planks and marble rocks which encroaches even more.

Defend the Line!

I got up early this morning and washed clothes, cleaned the bathroom, fed the birds, cleaned the bird bath and read the paper. Now I’m enjoying my coffee.
Weird Spring: Today it’s colder than a witch’s tit, but my daffodils and hyacinths are blooming and look spectacular.

You may remember the nasty neighbor I told you about . . the Gladys Kravits nosy parker. The block gossip. The one who crawls around (literally) on her lawn, picking the crabgrass, paints her walk three times each summer. The one who hated us sight-unseen because the old lady we bought the property from wouldn’t sell it to Frieda’s mother. Anyway. She had a company put up a fence between own properties.

She’d hate it if she knew that she actually saved us money, because we had planned on doing the same thing in two years. I noticed she had the company put the “face side” in toward her own property, and the unfinished side towards us. Having researched fencing ordinances in anticipation of our future project, I knew this was against code. In our area, the face side of a fence goes out to the public side.
I went over to her and politely (yes, politely) asked her if the fencing company was finished with the project. She said, “Yes” in that icy Frieda-tone. I told her that the face side should be out facing our property and she said, “I told them I wanted the nice side facing my property.”
Me: I’m sure, but ordinance says that it should face out toward the public side.
Frieda: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Me: The fence company should know the local ordinances, but you’re going to have them come back and redo the fence.
Frieda: Like hell!

A few days later I called the Zoning and Building Inspector and asked them to go and take a look at the fence, and last week the fencing company was back and faced the fence on our side.

BP said that now the fence encroaches about four inches onto our property. He wants to call again and she’ll probably have to take the whole fence down and redo it completely.
I don’t really care that it’s over, but BP says, “We have to defend the line! When we go to sell, it’ll be an issue.” I don’t know how this will play out.

Rag's Luck

I just read old Rags' blog and it puts me in the damnable position of defending her—which I do not like at all.

Apparently someone posted in that Zag Wiki Shelf thing that Rag was in a cult, and since she uses the name Ragmuffin in her photography business (only God knows why) a potential client Googled her name . . up pops the Zag thing and now this would be client doesn’t want a cult member to photograph his whatever. Rag’s out $700 big ones.

I always knew that Wiki thing was a bad idea and a place that people would go to shit on others, that’s why I wasn’t a fan of it. Not to mention I wasn’t a fan of Zagglossus….I thought he was a pedantic blowhard. But I digress.

Anyway, if Rag wasn’t such a rag I’d consider sending her $700. That is, if I had an extra $700 bucks. Or I could sell one of the purses my sister’s given me over the years. But I won’t do that either.

But I’m sorry about her luck.

A creep goes out of his way to make derogatory and mean comments when a post merely laments the untimely passing of a kid. There was no cause for it whatsoever, and I'm hopeful that he'd change his tune if his kids had known a murder victim. But maybe not. Maybe he's just a creep, plain and simple.

Abigail

One of LP's grade school acquaintances was murdered last night. She and two friends (one is still in critical condition at a local hospital; the other was treated and released) were somewhere they weren't supposed to be, doing something they weren't supposed to be doing, and they suffered tragic consequences.
People in general do stupid things, and teenagers do stupid things a lot. You can't tell them anything, because they tend to know it all.
My heart goes out to her parents and friends.

Hello

Hi. I'm back. This week in Florida was boring as hell.
I'm glad to be back.
Free booze though. Still. I'd rather pay for my own booze
rather than sit through boring ass seminars.
That's all.

I bought a cardinal "windy wings" outdoor mobile and it's cute.
It's hanging outside on my porch alongside my windchimes.
Cardinal is the Indiana State Bird. Do you know your State Bird?
Clanky & Mems, does England have an official bird, like the
U.S. has the eagle?
In case there is doubt in anyone's mind, I have officially crossed
over to "old lady." Not quite on the par of the woman who has thirteen
house cats, but close. However, I do talk to the butterflies and birds who visit my birdfeeders.

It figures

My periods have been very spotty lately---hahahahah "spotty" get it???
And I'll go two or three months without having one. Well, I'm leaving for Florida on Sunday and guess what?

Yep.

Mostly for Spidey

Spidey Puddin,

I'll be on a business trip to Orlando next week so don't worry.
I'm not leaving until Sunday so I'll be around until then.

Love ya

Emma's Plan for Economic Renewal

It's Tuesday.

I'm going to campaign that America adopt a 30 hour work week. We'd probably be more productive and there's be less sick time.

A 30 hour work week.

A mandatory 10 weeks of vacation time per year.

A minimum of 10 dollars per hour.

Meetings cannot last more than 30 minutes or the caller of that meeting gets beheaded.

Free Panera coffee and bagels every morning.

If a person wants to come into work in flannel pajamas, I say go for it, however any man who comes to work dressed in khaki pants and a blue shirt gets beheaded.

I will be issued a Taser gun and and am free to use it on people that I dislike and who I do not want to hear from in the office. First offense, get Tasered, second offense, get beheaded.


That will do for starters.

Easter

We had a nice Easter. LP and I joined my sister , Mom, my sister, husband and their three kids for an Easter brunch in Indy. BP was on a business trip and didn't make it home for Easter.
This place had a groovy three-piece instrumental group who played while we ate.
Here are some of the brunch items:

eggs
omelets
potatoes
bacon/sausages
waffles
cereals
pastries


All kinds of lettuces and salad stuff



antipasto:
salami,
*spiced ham,
*olives,
*herbed mozzarella cheese balls,
*peppers,
*fennel & orange salad,
*grilled asparagus with feta,


scalloped potatoes
seasoned rice
grilled fresh mixed vegetables
*poppy seed fish with asian sauce
*jumbo shrimp cocktail
*pork loin with thyme dressing
roast beef


chocolate cake
three kinds of *cheesecake
fruit tart
chocolate fountain with marshmallows, graham crackers and crisp cookies to dip
coconut pie
coconut cake
carrot cake



The starred stuff is all the stuff I tried (oink) but it was so good!

Enchanted

I bought myself an early easter present: Disney's Enchanted on DVD.
What a wonderful movie! Amy Adams is just charming as a cartoon come to life--she's a got a good singing voice too. The group song of How Does She Know That You Love Her in Central Park was one of my favorite scenes.

Patrick Dempsey was good. And I loved that the casting person casted a real-looking little girl as his daughter Morgan. She wasn't cutesy. She wasn't blonde. She didn't over act. She wasn't bratty. She was a little chubby and looked like a real six year old.

Only my sweetie Susan Sarandon was a scenery chewer as the evil stepmother. She should have scaled it back a bit, but I forgive her--she's Susan Sarandon for cryin' out loud.

Even my poor black gangsta child watched it with me and enjoyed it in spite of himself!~

A Day in the Life

Yesterday in Indiana:

The rain stopped, the clouds parted and the sun shone a little brighter. I think it was because Hillary Clinton visited our fair State!

Tuesday is my good news day.

I took today off. We're supposed to get rain, rain, and more rain today, tommorrow and into Thursday.

I think I'll paint today and read and clean the bedroom. What a day-off agenda.

Happy St Patrick's Day

I've decided to go to work today and take off either Turesday or Wednesday. But I'm not wearing green so you can pinch me.

I'm debating on whether or not I should take Monday off.

Arguments For:

1. It's St. Patrick's Day.
2. I don't have any meetings set up for Monday.


Arguments Against:
1.
2.

On another note, in an effort to jump start a bad, sagging economy I will once again offer the Emma Powerball Jackpot Extravaganza. Powerball drawing tomorrow is $275 million. If you'll email me a number between 1 and 55, I will go and buy a ticket. If that ticket wins the Jackpot, the ticket's participants will split (Dr Evil dramatic pause) One million dollars.
Email your number before NOON Saturday to emmawrites@aol.com

Lewis Black

You guys know Lewis Black? He’s had his own comedy shows on Showtime & Comedy Central, and he’s a contributor on The Daily Show.

On a recent TDS segment he wondered about the Elliott Spitzer thing and asked why someone would spend $4300 for sex? “For $4300 you could buy a used Honda and go FUCK IT!!" You know the way he gets all manic and his faces screws up? The line was hilarious.

But maybe you had to be there.