Archive for June, 2008

June 10, 2008 | Filed under: country mouse, misadventures

The only thing less interesting than watching grass grow is watching it get cut, unless you grew up in the city and never mowed a lawn in your life. THEN it’s pretty damn exciting!

Brian is in charge of lawncare (and by “lawncare” I mean just mowing because it’s not like we’re fertilizing or watering or anything), but I’m home more often so I needed to learn how to use the mower. The front gets really scraggly after a couple of days, and luckily it’s flat and I can manage it. This is the side yard, there’s a little more to mow in front of the house, too. I’m thinking of planting a bunch or stuff there so there’s less to mow. The back yard is simply too hilly for me to even think about mowing. Brian can do it, but I’m too scared that the mower will slip back and slice off all my toes.

I have no grace with the lawnmower, no rhythm and basically no skills.

I can barely start the damn thing.

June 8, 2008 | Filed under: 20 seconds and under, good eatin', misadventures

The day started off great! Birthday party, face-painting, pizza and good friends. Then it took an ugly turn.

The party was on Long Island and we were driving home upstate from there. We knew we had the Belmont Stakes, a Yankees game and just plain ‘Saturday’ to contend with traffic-wise, and because of that and the fact that we had my entire record collection and a whole mess of baby tomato plants in the bed of the truck on a 90F day, we knew we had to hit the road early.

But something went wrong. We zigged when we should have zagged and after a spell I looked out the window and saw water. We were deep South instead of Way North. We got off the highway but couldn’t get back on and ended up driving through the whole of Brooklyn– all of it, no really ALL OF IT from Canarsie through Kings Plaza, Midwood, Prospect Park, Park slope, Fort Green and Williamsburg– via Flatbush Ave. On a Saturday afternoon.

You may have to be a New Yorker to appreciate how awful that really is. If you’re not, here’s a visual:

The drivers were complete maniacs, we got cut off from the right at literally every block. The traffic getting past the GWB and Yankee Stadium was insane. We left the party at 2:30 and didn’t get out of the damn city ’till about 5:30.

We didn’t get home ’till 8:30.

We were broken.

So we broke out the champagne we’d been saving for a rainy day.

(it was also raining)