The View From Down Undah

Everything was going so well.

We had been having ourselves a late July weekend for the ages -- this has been one *hell* of a July, my peoples -- and we were back home on a Sunday afternoon after seeing so many friends and doing so many things, and eating and drinking and swimming in our clothes -- and all of a sudden I heard a sort of half-cackle, half-"Whoa!!", full-on-hilarious-belly-laugh . . .

. . . coming from somewhere in the Gahdens.

There is a reason the Gahdens are so lush and full and flowering and beautiful: We live in Camelot. It rains at night and is beautifully sunny in the day and everything is perfect . . .

. . . except the ground is soaked . . .

 . . . and the decorative chairs from Mom? Well, their legs tend to sink down into the earth . . .

And Mistah? Well, the full-on-belly-laugh was coming from him, I was pretty sure . . . but I couldn't quite figure out from exactly where it was coming . . .

. . . and then I found him . . .

Mistah was *down*.

"Bring me the camera!" he bellowed . . .

. . . oh I brought him the camera all right . . .

. . . and I brought my own, too.

This is a man clearly dedicated to his craft . .  .

. . . and he had quite a view from Down Undah . . .

. . . and me? . . .

. . . I lorded over the world from Up Ovah.

Big Cac Is Back

It was time.

Poor ol' Big Cacti has been busting out of his home for years -- he grew, and his roots grew, but his pot just never did. So he was terribly root-bound, and rain pooled atop his sad silly pot, and cacti can handle water, certainly, but they do not need to bleedin' soak in it like they're water lillies.

They're Cacti, for the luvva pete's sake.

Big Cacti was not looking well. It was time to go in.

We prepared a surgical theater . . .

. . . and we tilted Big Cacti right down upon the operating table.

And then we freaked out because we remembered we're not surgeons.

But those roots needed to go somewhere . . . and we found the perfect somewhere for them . . .

. . . a new gigantic pot for Big Cacti.

Which he borrowed from his friend arborvitae.

Big Cacti has become a gigantic cactus.

Remember when he was a kid?

I'm talking about Big Cacti, not Mistah . .  .

. . . but, yeah . . .

. . . we were all kids.

But, in the immortal words of Inspector Clouseau? Not anymore.

But who has time to be a kid when surgical success is at stake? Not us, that's who.

Big Cacti survived his procedure, got a nice new coat of rocks, and we are pleased and proud to announce . . .

. . . Big Cac Is Back.

 And his friend Cacti Corey's not doing half-bad herself.

High Alert

The World Cup is over.

I'm not even a soccer fan but man, did I have World Cup Fever. I loved the group stage and I loved the drama of the knock-out stage and I loved the Senegal coach and I loved Mbappe and I loved the athleticism and grace of those beautiful, beautiful men. My poor little Croatian friends lost yesterday -- there goes my five bucks -- but Mistah's lovely Frenchies won in commanding style so at least I got a drink out of it.

So now what do we do?

The World Cup is over. It's baseball's All-Star break. Wimbledon is over. Sailfest is over.

So now what do we do?

I'll tell you what we do.

We go to the beach. We embrace the second half of this glorious Summer.

And we go on Cacti Corey High Alert.

Blossom #1

Blossoms #2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9

Please be comforted to know that I will keep you duly apprised of her progress.

Happy Summer Part 2!

movin on up

This is ridiculous because I moved over a month ago, and the house has changed so much since I uploaded these on that first Friday with the intention of showing off the new pad. I was just thinking that I should find the cord and hook up the camera and scroll through the myriad shots of how things look now! Then I though what I always think ... I don't have time for that right now, I'll do it later. Then another month goes by. 

Sorry, charlie - we're going back in time

 to the very first day I got the keys to our big bad beautiful 

(what's a synonym for house that starts with b? I just looked it up. I don't like billet)

HOUSE! 

I sent this to two friends who are now neighbors with the caption: "There goes the neighborhood"

It's a big house. A big beige empty house.

If you recall, the yellow house of love was inhabited in a furnished state, so we never had much cause for concern about the fact that we'd left most material possessions behind when we got divorced. We enjoyed a lovely two year respite from caring about such things, but now it was time to navigate some acquisitions, baby. Big ones.

So we got a big rig 

and filled it with big stuff

This, my friends, is my happy place. I'll upload one recent pic at the end so you can see it in all its present glory. I can't stop buying things for this deck. That door on the left is my bedroom. 

So anyway, we had a big rig for a couple of days and drove it endlessly back and forth along the 5 mile journey from the old house to the new house. We sure had a lot of stuff for people without any stuff.

Let's go back to the happy place. That's SeaWorld back there. They are turds but they make pretty views. 

The house is big and spacious and has many funny quirks. Take, for example, the oven

Normal sized roasting pan for scale. Don't come for Thanksgiving. 

Other things are quite large

Teen sized pantry

One of the first nights we slept over, my son went back to the old house to get a few things and I asked him to pack up some useful stuff from the pantry. Here is what he brought:

Someone said it looks like the shit you donate to a food drive

One of my very best friends lives 5 doors up, which is awesome and so fun and convenient and the best thing ever. Look how adored I am by these two:

#overit

Thank goodness that Mary is just down the way, and came right over with booze and an actual adoring glance.

The photo below is packed with meaning. I was taking video at the time, which I planned to entitle "the slow wag of confusion" because that was exactly what she was doing.

However, the photo was the one we ended up using to find that confused little knucklehead when she got out of the yard while naked from her collar.

We only had one dog that night. It was awful. 

Hey look, furniture! and TWO dogs! Yay, we found her. 

Glam

We've all settled in nicely, and our tails are no longer doing the slow wag of confusion. Mostly. It's a great house in a great neighborhood and so what if I'm in a vortex of repair mishaps and customer service horror? So what. It's a great house and we're home.

Happy place. 

Home Improvisation

We had a Big Plan.

We had a tree that was in a pot in front of the house when we bought the place and moved in ten years ago -- I know! -- and everything was just absolutely fine, but then we planted a Rose of Sharon and it kind of took off . . .

. . . it "kind of" took off.

The poor ol' original tree, in its poor ol' original pot, was lolling about back there behind Rosie. And he really was lolling . . . and by "lolling" I mean "rolling": he kept falling over.

It took three people, a rubber mallet, and a kitchen knife to get him out, but get him out we did.

Here's here he was.

I'm sorry; I'm a terrible photographist. But Mistah was busy shoveling and digging and replanting and being generally Of The Earth and for the love of pete's sake I was not going to interrupt that.

And we didit. We got him out of its old pot -- nay, pots; there were two, one inside the other; go figure -- we transplanted him, we gave him his shiny new home . . .

. . . shiny new home

And Hsinny came over and said, "The arborvitae looks great!"

Um . . . what???

Yeah. It's an arborvitae. Not quite as exotic and unique a tree as we thought. But man does he look great. In his pot. Directly across the street from all his relatives who live for FREE in the GROUND.

But not our arborvitae, oh no. Our arborvitae has class. Our arborvitae pays for his lodgings. No wait a minute. No, he doesn't. We do.

That's how Home Improvisation goes around here . . .

And speaking of which . . . wish us luck with our next project.

What could possibly go wrong?

Heat Wave

Martha and the Vandellas have got nothing on us.

What we have here? We have what we've been waiting for for approximately one million years. Or at least all through that long winter and chump spring.

We have got ourselves an old fashioned Heat Wave.

Compare and contrast, please:

Huh. Weird that our old thermometer had the Celsius scale on the left.

But anyway. No more single digits:

Right??

Vast amounts of mercury -- just the way we like it.

I can give you excellent and useful advice for a Heat Wave . . . would you like to hear it?

Yes?

Perfect.

1. Enjoy it. It's not Winter; it's Summer. It's the best thing in all the world.

2. Go to the beach. It's nice there. There's a breeze. And water. But don't come to my beach.

3. Never mind where my beach is; you have your own.

4. Go to the Ocean; make that your beach. Ride the Waves. Be an Ocean Goddess.

5. Have a good beach bag. Never leave it behind thinking, "I won't need this coolie cup or this wine opener." You will need them both. Every time. And you will be a hero to all your friends who forgot their coolie cups and wine openers.

6. Can you believe it's already almost the Fourth of July?

7. Ice. So much ice. Get twice as much as you think you'll need, then double it.

8. Beer. See #7, above, for amounts.

9. Ice.

10. Goldfish! They're made in Norwalk CT and they are the best snack in All The Land.

11. More snacks.

12. More ice.

13. More booze.

14. An umbrella for the love of god. It's 2018.

14. Chairs. Towels. Suntan lotion (we still call it that). Your Personal Beach Table. Beer and ice and snacks and coolers and all the friends you can gather because this is a fleeting moment, this beach time . . . this season . . . this Heat Wave.

15. You've got it from here.