Misery Island

Yesterday we went up to Beverly to visit Jay's 'rents. We had a great time - they grilled up some great veggies and steak, and they had bought a new fire pit that we got to hang out around. And today we went out on Jay's dad's rowboat (Jay kayaked) out to Misery Island off the coast of Beverly. It's a beautiful island with lots of cool ruins of old water tanks and club houses. I got a bit sunburned even though I put on SPF 48 sunblock. Our camera got a big wave on it so now it doesn't work, otherwise I'd-a posted pics. Okay, I probably wouldn't have posted pics 'cuz I'm too lazy, but it's okay to blame it on the waves, right? Jay and his pops ate lots of hot peppers stuffed with cheese off the grill, and they burned their faces off, but they loved it.

I have the best husband

Jay bought me rib-eye steak (otherwise known as Delmonico) even though he doesn't eat meat, and he bought me tasty beer, and he got me very pretty flowers. Methinks I like this man! In fact, methinks I love him! Thanks, sweetie!

Another half day

So the courthouse closed early again today, so I got to leave at 1:00. And now it's a little after 3:00 and I'm bored. I went to Home Depot, picked up a couple of gift cards for some family members, and I was going to pick up a seed spreader thingie and some grass seed, because our lawn is looking like it has male pattern baldness. But the seed spreader was 10 bucks more than I expected, and I couldn't seem to find the grass seed (all I could find was a bunch of peat moss and topsoil and fertilizer), so I got ansy and just left with the gift cards. I also was going to go grocery shopping, but I might save that for later... I'm nervous about this yard thing, because I would sure love to have a beautifully landscaped and manicured lawn and garden, but I really don't know what the hell I'm doing. No matter how many books or magazines or online articles I read, when it comes time to actually doing something, I get all paralyzed with fear. I don't know exactly what I'm scared of, but I guess I feel like I'll mess stuff up or do a terrible job, and after working that hard and having it come out bad, I would be depressed. BUT, I am going to get off my tubby bum and at least attempt to dethatch the front yard, so that we'll be able to put some lawn seed down.

So Jay has his first Celtics rookie card! I put his new greenceltics site over as a link - keep on checking in as his collection grow! It's like sea monkeys!

So how's everyone doing? I bet you're all much happier now that the rain has finally stopped. Am I right? I mean, I was ready to build me an ark! Come on! Seriously, though, I'm hoping to get some grilling in sometime this weekend. Perhaps we'll have a small shin-dig on Saturday if the weather forecast stays the same as it is now. Check back, as I will have more details as the day approaches.

I wanted Cool Ranch Doritos for a snack today, so I put $.85 into the vending machine. The bag got stuck. So I put in another $.85 and hit C5 again (the Cool Ranch Dorito button) to dislodge the first bag. That bag, too, got stuck. I was pissed, man. My belly was growling something bad! I figured it was just my luck that something so terrible would happen to me. Why did I have to pick the Cool Ranch Doritos? I could have had some Sun Chips or something! Man. Then I got back up to my office, all in a bad mood, and one of my coworkers told me his wife was very sick and in the hospital and was not doing so well. Then I felt guilty for being so mad about my Doritos. Ah, perspective...

Lake Ogallala stops by for a visit!

So last year during the 'wet season,' we found out that our backyard likes to flood and make us a nice little lake. I thought I had some pics of it, but they were probably bad anyway because it was dark out. But today, after almost a week of steady rain, our backyard has brought us the infamous lake-of-chocolate-from-the-original-Willie-Wonka-colored Lake Ogallala!
Anyway, I was 98 percent ready to post some pics of the current flood, but our computer sucks and told me it had low CPU space or something, so I had to quit Photoshop. I think I saved one:

So yeah, our backyard is a huge wet puddle of icky-colored water, but our basement's not flooded! Yet. As we've told many, many people, our only real wish when we bought a house was to have a dry basement. The previous homeowner swore, SWORE that the basement hadn't flooded EVER. Well, it hadn't flooded because they had a septic system until a year before they decided to sell, and when they decided to hook up to the town sewer, they comprimised the waterproof basement's integrity by jackhammering a trench through the floor and laying a sewer pipe pretty darn close to basement-floor level and putting some rock filler around it and then filling it with cement. Cement doesn't bond to cement, and somehow a few cracks appeared in the newly laid cement, and now the basement floods. Ah, homeownership... Luckily we have stuff on pallets (not that anything in the basement is super valuable or anything), so we just take it as it comes.

I hope everyone else's basements are dry so far... I guess Romney declared a state of emergency and there's lots of dams about to fail 'round these parts. Who'd-a-thunk that only a few weeks back there were brush fires galore because of lack of rain?

Jay's new hobby

Update on ants: there's no more of them. I think the ones that survived the Raid went and told all their little ant friends to not mess with 8 Indian Spring Road. ::flexing muscles::

So anyway, Jay decided this past weekend that he is going to start collecting the rookie cards of important Celtics players. He's created a new blog about it: Greenceltics.blogspot.com! It's a cool idea, I think, and I'm excited to see what kinds of cards he ends up with. I just really like the old-school graphic design from the early '70s. Late '70s not so much... but early '70s is definitely cool.

And it's supposed to rain right through the weekend... boo hiss, ninny! I guess people's lawns need the rain or whatever, but man, that means we can't do anything outside. And I like being outside. Hopefully the weather will be super nice once all the rain ends...

Rants about ants... oh, that's right, it rhymes

This past weekend I noticed a few ants strutting about the kitchen. Oh, sure, we don't have the cleanest kitchen on earth, in the US, in Ashland, or heck, even on Indian Spring Road, so sure, I can expect some... but I just hate ants! There wasn't a swarm, just three or four puttering about. So I killed 'em. That's right. No Buddism here; I killed them ants dead. Today I come home to more ants... but y'know, only four or five just hanging around, not looking like they've come in from any specific spot. So for the past two hours, I've intermittently been killing one or two ants, leaving the kitchen area for a while, coming back, killing two or three more, leaving, coming back and killing two more... and so on. I can't figure out where they're coming from, as it's not like a big line of ants following the leader. I suppose some ant traps are in order, as now the house smells sickeningly of Raid. So that's my big story.

Dennis had a very fun party on Friday - except it totally wiped Jay and I out for the rest of weekend. We can't party like we used to, no way, no how. I think we went to bed about 4am, and man, we were exhausted the rest of the weekend. I used to stay up all night, drink too many Pabsts, figure I shouldn't sleep, and go to work at Starbucks at 4:30 a.m. And back then it was okay. I was young. Now I'm old and tubby and just plain sleepy.

Now I have to go kill one or two ants. Yech.

Minor thoughts on major issues

I bet no one really thinks to look to see if this blog is updated regularly, and heck, I can't blame them. I don't update it regularly. I can't really come up with much stuff to say on a regular basis. If I did, I feel like I'd be posting mostly compalints about humankind, and we all know you can get that anywhere on the Internet. And plus I only hop on the computer only once a day, and it's only for a few minutes, and to compose a coherent and interesting post is just too much work for me most times. So I'll just post a little update about Jay and Erin these days:

Jay's been working on a crazy project at work, so he's been working long, weird hours the past week and a half or so. In the meantime, I've been going to work and doing the same old thing (you know, typing, talking into a mask, looking up hyphenated words... the usual). I've had my eye on going back to school, but I'm not sure for what yet. Jay accompanied me to an open house at Lesley University - I was looking into the expressive therapy program there. However, I'd like my job to pay for grad school, and that limits me to state schools. That's where my school search stalled... It's tough trying to figure out what grad progam you want to enroll in when you just don't know what you want to do for a career!

Abe's doing much better. Oh, sure, he's still insane and likes to lick his paws and nuzzle a little too close, but after his surgery, he's 100 percent better. We got those trees down, which makes the house look like it got a haircut. We're looking forward to Dennis's Cinco de Mayo party. That's about it!

There's lots of stuff going on in the news, and I think I can honestly say I don't have a firm viewpoint on much of it. Take the immigration thing, for instance. I don't like the idea of people circumventing the legal system; but when the legal system just can't work for you, your only option IS to circumvent... and the trial of the 9/11 conspirator (I can't spell his name, and I'm too lazy to open a new browser window and look it up), he got life in prison instead of the death penalty, and I really don't have a view on that - the jury found what it found, and that's that... and the National Anthem being sung in Spanish (I guess that goes hand in hand with the immigration thing), I just don't have a viewpoint - when it comes down to it, it's only words, and whatever language it's in, it's still just words, and you know what they say, sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me. So yeah. Maybe I've taken the easy way out and become noncommital or nonconfrontational or something, but I feel like I've got my own things to worry about, and if something comes along that affects me or people I love, then sure I'll take a stand, but now I'm too busy wondering if my laundry will be too wrinkled if I leave it in the dryer for too long.

The next big thing for 8 Indian Spring Road is a new roof. That's coming up this fall, hopefully. So exciting! (That was a little sarcastic.) Oh, did you guys hear about the Nyanza thing? I just heard today that the findings of the report might be overstated. Which buffered the bad news that cancer abounds in Ashland, but still... cancer still could possibly abound in Ashland. Hey, as long as we've got John Stone's Public House!

A whole new house

We got a bunch of trees removed today, and it's like it's a whole new house! I will post more pics later when I get better ones, but here's something:


It's really unbelievable. We got some pines down that were super close to the side of the house, and that whole area is so big now; we got a pine in the backyard out near the shed; we got the maple tree behind the porch out; and we got the big huge oak tree in the side yard taken out. It's really crazy. I can't believe how much more light there is!