Today has been a very wet sort of day. We started having thunderstorms around 2 a.m. I know this because I have a little dog who is not fond of thunderstorms and I awoke to find her struggling to find her way under the covers (She tends to get tangled between the sheet and the comforter and can’t figure out how to get under the sheet) while simultaneously trying to sit on my chest. Soon afterwards, I saw a flash of lightning, heard the crash of thunder and discovered that Rory had, in fact, found her way under the covers where she proceeded to burrow down by my knees which is her place of safety.
Sookie, meanwhile, leisurely wriggled herself under the covers where she spooned up against me in her favourite position. Sookie has an amazing ability to wriggle into a comfy position with very little movement. Rory, on the other hand, tends to live up to her middlename of Wrigglebottom and thrashes, wiggles and squirms her way to where she wants to go.
For the rest of the night, the storms rumbled. I woke up sporadically, as did the dogs. By the time my alarm went off, the thunderstorms had subsided but the rain continued to pour down.
It finally stopped for a while around 1 p.m. We’re supposed to have more storms tonight through tomorrow. I like a good thunderstorm and I love heavy rain. My only problem is that I’m having a wee bit of a problem with flooding in my back garden.
My area of Cincinnati is built on a spring. This means that the water table is high to begin with which is why we can’t have basements or anything. This also means it can get quite wet when it rains because, eventually, there’s nowhere to where the water can drain.
I’m a little sad about my Soggy Lake of Wetness that has taken over the back garden. I planted asparagus last year. It requires a trench to allow the ferns to grow and drop seeds. Unfortunately, this provides a nice place for water to gather, sit and then flood outwards. Since we’ve had a ton of rain already this spring, I’m pretty certain my asparagus is no more.
Also, it means I have little Ponds of Wetness all across my lawn. I watch the dogs try to dodge the Ponds as they do their business. For two dogs that enjoy getting down and dirty when they dig in the mud and who can tear through a giant puddle without thought if a squirrel appears, my two girls are decidedly finicky about rain. They don’t really like it. They do not like to get their feet wet. Being dachshunds, their tummies are quite close to the ground so, chances are, if their feet are getting wet, so are their tummies. Thus, as soon as they tear out the back door and discover the grass is soaked, they stop dead in their tracks, stare disdainfully around and then stare at me reproachfully as if the rain is my fault.
I’d expect nothing less, honestly. Dachshunds tend to take things personally. They sulk if you offend them and you must bribe them to forgive you with either lots of cuddling or with a treat. Usually, it takes both a cuddle and a treat. The problem is that you don’t always know what it is you’ve actually done. Some nights, I’m sitting on the couch with Sookie sleeping draped over the back of the couch and Rory sleeping beside me when, without prompting, Rory will sit up, give me a filthy look and then go sit in her crate in a huff.
The thing is I know I should just ignore her and let her sulk. After all, I haven’t done anything.
It’s not that easy, of course. She usually stays in her snit until I end up laying on the floor with my head in the crate whispering sweet nothings in her ear while petting her. Yes, I am embarrassed to admit this but there you have it. Captain Monkeypants often sticks her head in a dog crate. At least I’m honest.
Anyway, going back to the rain and our soggy back yard. At present, the water has drained a little since it’s not raining. This means that there are still puddles all over the place but the Soggy Lake of Wetness has drained. If I do walk across the grass, there will be squelching and splashing.
Naturally, it doesn’t help that my grass is also a little jungle like at present due to the exploded lawnmower situation. I was hoping to remedy the lawnmower situation soon but, unfortunately, silly Captain Monkeypants trusted that when UPS says a package is "out for delivery", it means it might be delivered. As I write this blog at almost 8:30 p.m., my package is to be delivered by "The End of the Day". I'm not sure how that translates in UPS time but, well, let's just say I figured it'd be here by now and it's not. If it does get here tonight, it's going to be too late to do anything but attempt to get the 100 lb box into my living room. Which is likely to be an adventure unto itself. One that is reliant on UPS. Which is to say...it might not happen. Anyway...moving on...
The sad fact is that even though I have a nice unexploded mower due to be delivered any moment now (or tomorrow, depending on how long UPS "Day" actually is), I can’t use it. I’m afraid if I subjected it to the Soggy Lake of Wetness, I might accidentally explode this mower too. I don’t want to blow up another mower especially a new one.
Thus, my poor dogs have a small reason to give me dirty looks when they have to go outside during wet times at the moment. The grass is about as tall as they are and rather than just get wet tummies, they also just get…wet.
On the plus side, it does deter them from escape attempts and from barking too much at the squirrels and bunnies that taunt the girls by showing themselves and then staying out of reach. It also means I don’t have to keep checking on them to make sure they aren’t Up to No Good because most likely, they’re in the house.
Of course, when they are in the house, they’re generally sulking because the rain means they don’t get a walk and they’re bored.
Have I mentioned that dachshunds take things personally?
Happy Wednesday!
Showing posts with label lawnmower. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lawnmower. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Bad Days are Relative...and Often Fixable
Today was a much better day than yesterday. It was still wasn’t one of the best days I ever had but if I had those all the time, they wouldn’t be best days, would they?
Granted, I went to work in a somewhat dour mood, still a little under a cloud from yesterday. I also realized halfway through the morning when I went to the bathroom that the cute little outfit I’d assembled was a little different in effect that I’d intended. Normally I, Captain Monkeypants, and a somewhat, um, under-endowed female. This is to say that never would anyone look at me and say “Those aren’t REAL!” They’d have a bit of trouble really find them in the first place. However, thanks to the miracles of female undergarments and the wonderous push up bra, today’s accidental effect was for me to look in the mirror and realize that I had a bit of a, uh, ‘boobs mcGee’ effect going on. My top was cut a little lower than normal and the ‘pushing up’ was a little more extreme than intended.
Needless to say, it made me think, “oops,” and so at lunch, I remedied the problem a little. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with being a ‘boobs mcGee’ but, well, it is the office and, well, I’m not exactly someone who goes for that effect very often. If at all. It was almost as bad as the Gold Shirt Wardrobe Mistake of 2010 but it was the type of thing that made me walk around all morning with my arms trying to hide my extreme cleavage effect and made me, well, horribly paranoid that a) people were wondering where the cleavage came from and b) that I was dressed rather inappropriately for work. Chances are, they didn't really care but, well, it's the type of thing you can't stop obsessing about until you remedy it which I did at lunch time. It was a small fix but made things feel better.
So, aside from that slight hiccup, the day wasn’t nearly as bad for me as yesterday. Also, my coworker’s mother passed away unexpectedly and as these tragic events are wont to do, it put my ‘bad day’ in perspective.
That’s the thing with having a bad day, really, isn’t it? Someone’s always got it way worse. The worst feeling is when you have a whine or moan about how irritating your day was because it didn’t go as planned and then you find out the person you’re whining or moaning to has just lost their mother or someone they’re close to has cancer or they just got fired or laid off.
It puts things in perspective.
In my case, it makes me feel instantly guilty and horrible because while I’m complaining about petty little stuff. I hate that feeling because it makes me feel like I’m a lousy human being.
Of course, people are nice and they politely listen and sympathize but even when they say it’s ok to vent because it helps, there’s that voice in my head that says, ‘you’re horrible! How can you whine that your candidate backed out of a job and made you look stupid when [person to whom I am whining] is dealing with [REALLY bad situation]?”
The benefit of this is that over time, I’ve learned to hold back on my venting unless I know it’s safe. If worst comes to worst, I feel sorry for myself for a bit, hug a dachshund and try to put it behind me. I also call my mother because she’s the one person guaranteed to love me even when I’m complaining about silly petty things. Well, I think my dogs love me too but since I’m pretty sure that they don’t understand a word that comes out of my mouth unless it’s one of their favourite words like, “Dinner,” “Walk,” “treat”, “Rory” or “Sookie,” it’s a little different.
The moral of the story is that my day yesterday felt horrible while it was happening. It slowed me down a little at work but, really, it wasn’t anything that I couldn’t fend off with an evening spent mowing the lawn, watching TV and having a nice glass of wine.
It helped that it was the first mow of the season. I hadn’t planned on mowing but the dogs being relatively low to the ground have been having a spot of trouble getting over the rather large, tall clumps of grass as they run around the garden. Sometimes, I’ve lost them and gone out into a panic only to discover they were lying in a tall patch of grass.
So I mowed. My mower was angry. It ran out of oil. I added oil. Mower and I fought. I won. Mower had to mow.
Of course, given the fact that I’m not overly fond of mowing, I wouldn’t say I really “won” per se but, well, the grass is pretty even and the dogs can run freely. Next time I mow, I’m determined to make it more even. It’s hard when there are holes from digging dogs all over the place.
I figure that getting the grass cut was a victory. Also, spending quite a long time yanking the mower’s cord and trying to get the bloody thing to start is definitely a good way to take out some frustration even if a new breed of frustration arises when the mower doesn’t start. It’s worth it the minute the motor catches, finally and begins chugging along.
Also, when I’m mowing, it means I can watch the pups to make sure they’re not trying to find the latest and greatest way to escape. That, I think, is a double win.
In short, with the help of a stubborn mower, a wonderful mother, two cute dogs and a sobering reminder of what a bad day really is, I’m back to normal and grateful that a bad day for me could be solved so easily. Even if I did have an emergency clothes change at lunch.
And it helps that it’s almost the weekend.
Thanks, as always, for reading. Happy Friday!
Granted, I went to work in a somewhat dour mood, still a little under a cloud from yesterday. I also realized halfway through the morning when I went to the bathroom that the cute little outfit I’d assembled was a little different in effect that I’d intended. Normally I, Captain Monkeypants, and a somewhat, um, under-endowed female. This is to say that never would anyone look at me and say “Those aren’t REAL!” They’d have a bit of trouble really find them in the first place. However, thanks to the miracles of female undergarments and the wonderous push up bra, today’s accidental effect was for me to look in the mirror and realize that I had a bit of a, uh, ‘boobs mcGee’ effect going on. My top was cut a little lower than normal and the ‘pushing up’ was a little more extreme than intended.
Needless to say, it made me think, “oops,” and so at lunch, I remedied the problem a little. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with being a ‘boobs mcGee’ but, well, it is the office and, well, I’m not exactly someone who goes for that effect very often. If at all. It was almost as bad as the Gold Shirt Wardrobe Mistake of 2010 but it was the type of thing that made me walk around all morning with my arms trying to hide my extreme cleavage effect and made me, well, horribly paranoid that a) people were wondering where the cleavage came from and b) that I was dressed rather inappropriately for work. Chances are, they didn't really care but, well, it's the type of thing you can't stop obsessing about until you remedy it which I did at lunch time. It was a small fix but made things feel better.
So, aside from that slight hiccup, the day wasn’t nearly as bad for me as yesterday. Also, my coworker’s mother passed away unexpectedly and as these tragic events are wont to do, it put my ‘bad day’ in perspective.
That’s the thing with having a bad day, really, isn’t it? Someone’s always got it way worse. The worst feeling is when you have a whine or moan about how irritating your day was because it didn’t go as planned and then you find out the person you’re whining or moaning to has just lost their mother or someone they’re close to has cancer or they just got fired or laid off.
It puts things in perspective.
In my case, it makes me feel instantly guilty and horrible because while I’m complaining about petty little stuff. I hate that feeling because it makes me feel like I’m a lousy human being.
Of course, people are nice and they politely listen and sympathize but even when they say it’s ok to vent because it helps, there’s that voice in my head that says, ‘you’re horrible! How can you whine that your candidate backed out of a job and made you look stupid when [person to whom I am whining] is dealing with [REALLY bad situation]?”
The benefit of this is that over time, I’ve learned to hold back on my venting unless I know it’s safe. If worst comes to worst, I feel sorry for myself for a bit, hug a dachshund and try to put it behind me. I also call my mother because she’s the one person guaranteed to love me even when I’m complaining about silly petty things. Well, I think my dogs love me too but since I’m pretty sure that they don’t understand a word that comes out of my mouth unless it’s one of their favourite words like, “Dinner,” “Walk,” “treat”, “Rory” or “Sookie,” it’s a little different.
The moral of the story is that my day yesterday felt horrible while it was happening. It slowed me down a little at work but, really, it wasn’t anything that I couldn’t fend off with an evening spent mowing the lawn, watching TV and having a nice glass of wine.
It helped that it was the first mow of the season. I hadn’t planned on mowing but the dogs being relatively low to the ground have been having a spot of trouble getting over the rather large, tall clumps of grass as they run around the garden. Sometimes, I’ve lost them and gone out into a panic only to discover they were lying in a tall patch of grass.
So I mowed. My mower was angry. It ran out of oil. I added oil. Mower and I fought. I won. Mower had to mow.
Of course, given the fact that I’m not overly fond of mowing, I wouldn’t say I really “won” per se but, well, the grass is pretty even and the dogs can run freely. Next time I mow, I’m determined to make it more even. It’s hard when there are holes from digging dogs all over the place.
I figure that getting the grass cut was a victory. Also, spending quite a long time yanking the mower’s cord and trying to get the bloody thing to start is definitely a good way to take out some frustration even if a new breed of frustration arises when the mower doesn’t start. It’s worth it the minute the motor catches, finally and begins chugging along.
Also, when I’m mowing, it means I can watch the pups to make sure they’re not trying to find the latest and greatest way to escape. That, I think, is a double win.
In short, with the help of a stubborn mower, a wonderful mother, two cute dogs and a sobering reminder of what a bad day really is, I’m back to normal and grateful that a bad day for me could be solved so easily. Even if I did have an emergency clothes change at lunch.
And it helps that it’s almost the weekend.
Thanks, as always, for reading. Happy Friday!
Thursday, June 10, 2010
One of those Evenings...
This has officially been one of those evenings." I'd say it had been one of those days but work wasn't so bad even though we had to sit through more practice demonstrations, one of which was for one of the products I work on daily and didn't exactly need to see a demo of it. It was done by my coworker who usually does all the demos for this piece of software. I could gripe about how I do a great deal of work on the software but she gets the credit but I don't feel like it. Besides, I had a good old whine and a moan to my lovely mother and I feel better now.
Anyway, enough griping about work. I came home with a checklist of things to do since my good friend is coming in tomorrow from L.A. to stay for a long weekend. I needed to mow, do some cleaning, do some laundry and, somewhere in there, make dinner and spend time with the pups.
Well, I did manage to get the mowing done although I had a scary black-smoke incident after I accidentally ran over another tree root. The end of my garden is filled with these from the big old trees that were fairly recently chopped down before I moved in. It makes mowing a nightmare because when the grass is long, it's hard to see the roots and I only know they're there by the big old clunk of my mower, the scary whine it emits and the black smoke that pours out. Fortunately, it was a minor black-smoke incident and I was able to keep mowing.
It was a hot night for mowing. I didn't realize how hot it was and by the time I came inside after finishing, I was drenched with sweat and I had that alarming fuzzy-head feeling and ringing in the ears that comes with getting overheated. I quickly sat down and drank a lot of water and then took a cool shower.
It all went well until after I'd made dinner and started cleaning. My kitchen faucet has been leaking for a while from a crack. Tonight, I must have hit the faucet the wrong way by banging it accidentally with a plate as I lifted it up to put on the draining rack and, clang!, my tap bent the wrong way and water began to seep out. I nervously turned it on to see how bad it was and instantly, water began to seep out of the crack, turning into a gush and flooding the back of my sink and the countertop.
I was horrified. This past week, I went to turn on the light on my kitchen ceiling fan by pulling the light cord and it came off in my hand. Since it's an old fan, the only thing to do is replace it because the pull cord was really, really broken. This is the same fan that almost knocked me unconscious after moving into my house by having the dome fall down and shatter into a thousand pieces, barely missing my head by a foot.
Unfortunately, since the fan was on in the kitchen when I went to attempt to pull the light cord, this now means I have no light though I have a fan. It sucks not having a proper light in the kitchen. I'm limited to a small one above my leaking sink and the one in the nearby hall.
Now I have a badly squirting faucet. I have to replace that as well as my fan. Since I was still a little het up and crotchety from mowing the lawn in the heat, I am ashamed to admit, I had a minor meltdown and called my dad. He wasn't available so I ended up having another whine, moan and meltdown on my poor mother.
I hate meltdowns. They catch you off guard and make you feel very silly afterwards. Fortunately, I do have to say that I have two of the sweetest puppies in the world. When they heard me getting upset, they ran in to find me and then proceeded to give me a ton of puppy kisses. There's nothing better than two adorable furry puppies when you feel like you just want to lay on the floor and kick your legs and have a tantrum.
I didn't have a tantrum. I'm not sure I was every really prone to those. I'd have to ask my mother. I don't remember having many laying on the floor-kicking type of tantrums but it's entirely possible I did.
In the end, my dad ended up calling me back and helped me figure out how I might go about replacing the faucet. He's good like that. If all else fails, he's promised to come and help me. I felt better after that.
And then I tried to turn on my Dell Mini laptop to type this blog. First, I couldn't get Internet Explorer to come up. I only use IE because the silly little machine hasn't enough memory to let me install Chrome or Firefox. I tried to fix it but it froze. I rebooted and then discovered that my user profile has been lost and now I have to try to find a way to get it to let me open up windows.
So, I'm now sitting at my desktop. Except my monitor is doing this strange thing where it's flickering and changing colours which is NOT a good thing and makes me a little worried. I have a horrible feeling that's dying or it's going to pop or something. I certainly hope not but given the evening I'm having, I would not be surprised.
I think the only solution for this type of evening is to pour a glass of wine, finish watching "Top Chef Masters" on the DVR and then go to bed and hope tomorrow's better. At the very least, having my friend come and stay is something to look forward to. Also, since she's terribly handy and logical, I know she'll help me figure out this faucet thing. And the ceiling fan thing. I'd feel bad about asking her but she volunteered. Hopefully between the two of us, we'll figure it out.
But for now, I think I ought not to touch anything. It's been that kind of night.
Happy Friday. And have a great weekend!
Anyway, enough griping about work. I came home with a checklist of things to do since my good friend is coming in tomorrow from L.A. to stay for a long weekend. I needed to mow, do some cleaning, do some laundry and, somewhere in there, make dinner and spend time with the pups.
Well, I did manage to get the mowing done although I had a scary black-smoke incident after I accidentally ran over another tree root. The end of my garden is filled with these from the big old trees that were fairly recently chopped down before I moved in. It makes mowing a nightmare because when the grass is long, it's hard to see the roots and I only know they're there by the big old clunk of my mower, the scary whine it emits and the black smoke that pours out. Fortunately, it was a minor black-smoke incident and I was able to keep mowing.
It was a hot night for mowing. I didn't realize how hot it was and by the time I came inside after finishing, I was drenched with sweat and I had that alarming fuzzy-head feeling and ringing in the ears that comes with getting overheated. I quickly sat down and drank a lot of water and then took a cool shower.
It all went well until after I'd made dinner and started cleaning. My kitchen faucet has been leaking for a while from a crack. Tonight, I must have hit the faucet the wrong way by banging it accidentally with a plate as I lifted it up to put on the draining rack and, clang!, my tap bent the wrong way and water began to seep out. I nervously turned it on to see how bad it was and instantly, water began to seep out of the crack, turning into a gush and flooding the back of my sink and the countertop.
I was horrified. This past week, I went to turn on the light on my kitchen ceiling fan by pulling the light cord and it came off in my hand. Since it's an old fan, the only thing to do is replace it because the pull cord was really, really broken. This is the same fan that almost knocked me unconscious after moving into my house by having the dome fall down and shatter into a thousand pieces, barely missing my head by a foot.
Unfortunately, since the fan was on in the kitchen when I went to attempt to pull the light cord, this now means I have no light though I have a fan. It sucks not having a proper light in the kitchen. I'm limited to a small one above my leaking sink and the one in the nearby hall.
Now I have a badly squirting faucet. I have to replace that as well as my fan. Since I was still a little het up and crotchety from mowing the lawn in the heat, I am ashamed to admit, I had a minor meltdown and called my dad. He wasn't available so I ended up having another whine, moan and meltdown on my poor mother.
I hate meltdowns. They catch you off guard and make you feel very silly afterwards. Fortunately, I do have to say that I have two of the sweetest puppies in the world. When they heard me getting upset, they ran in to find me and then proceeded to give me a ton of puppy kisses. There's nothing better than two adorable furry puppies when you feel like you just want to lay on the floor and kick your legs and have a tantrum.
I didn't have a tantrum. I'm not sure I was every really prone to those. I'd have to ask my mother. I don't remember having many laying on the floor-kicking type of tantrums but it's entirely possible I did.
In the end, my dad ended up calling me back and helped me figure out how I might go about replacing the faucet. He's good like that. If all else fails, he's promised to come and help me. I felt better after that.
And then I tried to turn on my Dell Mini laptop to type this blog. First, I couldn't get Internet Explorer to come up. I only use IE because the silly little machine hasn't enough memory to let me install Chrome or Firefox. I tried to fix it but it froze. I rebooted and then discovered that my user profile has been lost and now I have to try to find a way to get it to let me open up windows.
So, I'm now sitting at my desktop. Except my monitor is doing this strange thing where it's flickering and changing colours which is NOT a good thing and makes me a little worried. I have a horrible feeling that's dying or it's going to pop or something. I certainly hope not but given the evening I'm having, I would not be surprised.
I think the only solution for this type of evening is to pour a glass of wine, finish watching "Top Chef Masters" on the DVR and then go to bed and hope tomorrow's better. At the very least, having my friend come and stay is something to look forward to. Also, since she's terribly handy and logical, I know she'll help me figure out this faucet thing. And the ceiling fan thing. I'd feel bad about asking her but she volunteered. Hopefully between the two of us, we'll figure it out.
But for now, I think I ought not to touch anything. It's been that kind of night.
Happy Friday. And have a great weekend!
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