Bugs...Bug Me...

It’s been hot and sticky for over a week now and we haven’t had any rain in ages. I finally got tired of going out to my tomatoes with a watering can and I broke down and bought a new hose and a sprinkler.

I’m curious to see how the sprinkler does. I’m more curious to see if the pups decide the sprinkler is a friend or an enemy. Since it’s going to be watering their favourite ‘hanging out and watching for squirrels’ spot in the garden, they’re either going to deliberately get wet or they’ll be sulky because they can’t follow their usual routine.

In all honesty, part of me is tempted to enjoy the sprinkler too. It’s so hot out there that whenever you’re out for more than two minutes, your clothes start sticking to you and you’re instantly sweating. It’d be nice to act like a kid and jump through the sprinklers. However, I’ll probably resist just because even though I shouldn’t, I do care what the neighbours think. This is most likely because it would probably involve me wearing a swimsuit and I’m not sure I want to inflict that on the neighbours. Thus, I’ll just be a responsible grown-up and just use the sprinklers for watering my vegetables.

The heat is making it hard to do much outside. It’s too hot to be pleasant and even if we do brave the humidity and heat and attempt to do something outside, there are these rather unpleasant little gnat things that seem to multiply by the second until you’re so tired of trying to brush them off that you end up running inside.

I’m not a fan of bugs anyway. I find them to be a huge nuisance. When I was younger, I used to visualize how nice it would be to go for picnics in meadows of flowers like you see in the movie. Or I’d visualize running down a meadow-hill like that girl at the beginning of “Little House on the Prairie”. Or running through a cornfield, letting the taller corn embrace me and change my perception of the world for a while.

Why I visualized these things, I can’t tell you. I have a weird way of thinking. If you read my blog, you probably know that. The fact is that I did picture these things.

However, the reality of it was never the same because of the stupid bugs. I have yet to find a place on earth where you can sit outside and have a picnic without having some buggy pest drive you a little crazy. It could be mosquitoes that bite and make life unpleasant. It could be spiders who don’t mean to be ominous but are anyway because, well, they’re spiders. It could be those pesky green flies that seem to thrive on vegetation and the pretty the landscape, the more irritating the green flies.

As for the “Little House on the Prairie”- I have yet to find a meadow without similar bug problems. Granted, when the weather is perfect, the bugs are slightly less prominent but try running through prairie-long grass without having a secret fear of ticks, chiggers and other nasty biting bugs.

And then there’s the cornfields. When my family moved to the U.S., we moved to a house in the country. There was corn on all sides of us. My brother and I decided to play in the cornfields. Then, after a few minutes, we realized between many of the rows of corn were spider webs. Inside the spiderwebs were rather terrifying looking spiders that made the experience suddenly far less fun and far more alarming.

Of course, I found out that the spiders were harmless and wouldn’t bite but, well, would you want to risk having a spider like that crawling on you?

Thus, I haven’t run through the corn since. Call me a chicken. Call me a wimp. It’s just that over the years, all of the pleasant, fun outdoor activities that seem so exciting in theory are never quite as exciting in reality because of the bugs.

I shouldn’t let them bother me but it’s hard not to, really. Last night, I went to a dinner party at a coworker’s and we attempted to sit outside. At first, in spite of the heat and humidity, it was pleasant. And then the bugs decided to join us. It was primarily these little black gnats. I’d kill one and three more would appear. We lit bug candles but that had no effect. In the end, when the flies joined in, we abandoned our outdoor gathering and fled inside.

So, I’m not a fan of bugs. I find them annoying. I’m sure there’s a greater purpose to them than to, well, ‘bug’ us. They probably do some good by at least providing a diet to frogs and things. However, it’s hard to see that when you’re outside and suddenly you’re covered by a layer of horrible, tiny biting gnats.

It’s one of the things in summer that I find the most annoying. However, since it comes with the territory, I’ve learned to accept it.

But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t bug me.

Ok, I’m done with the bad puns now.

Happy Tuesday!

Sticky Weather...Bad Moods

I hate it when I wake up in a bad mood. It never bodes well for the day.

It was one of those hot, sticky nights we usually don’t get until July or August. Even though I caved at put the air conditioning on for a couple of hours in the evening, the house quickly got hot and neither I nor the pups slept very well. We tried sleeping with the windows open but Sookie, ever alert, woke up at the sound of any abnormal noise on the street outside and it was hard to get back into a slumber.

It didn’t help that I had one of those dreams that felt like a movie and I was disturbed when I woke up. I don’t remember the details but had something to do with a secret government facility that kept and raised children in captivity to see what would happen if they were trained from birth to do specific functions like eat stones and things. They would torture the captives by blasting some type of evangelist sermon. There was some man who found the secret facility under the ground and he ended up breaking in and rescuing one of the captives. The rest wanted to stay so they stayed. The head of the evil operation was Laura Innes who is the actress on that show, “The Event” who’s an alien. She was also on ER as a cranky doctor.

Anyway, so you can see why sleeping wasn’t very relaxing. When I woke up, I had a headache and just generally felt tired.

The headache went away but I felt like the whole day passed in some kind of haze. I was yawny and my head felt swimmy.

The humidity outside doesn’t help, either. It just adds to the sluggishness.

As a result, I passed the day quietly in my office, getting work done but not joining in the social camaraderie of my coworkers. As a result, they all wanted to know if I was ok. This is very thoughtful of them but it’s hard to explain that some days, you just feel like being solitary and not being social.

It wasn’t a terribly social day in the office anyway. We have some days, particularly when the boss isn’t in, where we’re horrible about working and at any given time, we gather and start talking and laughing about something.

Today wasn’t one of those days though some of us did have a wee bit of gossip via email about our newest employee who doesn’t seem particularly fond of working. The thing is, when he does work, he’s very good at it. He’s got one of those ‘salesman’ personalities where he can sound like an expert even when he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

It’s just that he doesn’t really work that much. He manages to find reasons to not be in the office- he has appointments that no one can really confirm but no one can really disprove either. He has a lot of sick children. Well, actually, I think he has two children but they’re sick a lot. His wife is also sick a lot. He goes home sick a lot.

When he is at work, he can often be found watching television on his phone. This is what we were e-gossiping about today. I had noticed he was doing this last week and my fellow recruiter didn’t believe me. Today, my fellow recruiter saw our naughty employee watching TV. Now he believes me.

I’m wondering how long our lazy employee will be around. He’s not doing too badly but he’s also obviously not nearly as motivated as the rest of us. I think he likes having a job. I just don’t think he likes the work part of it much.

This was pretty much the only discussable thing in the office all day. Thus, it wasn’t just a slow day for me, it seemed.

The rest of the week is supposed to be hot and muggy. I’m not happy about this. I like spring. So far, spring has been very, very, very wet. Now it’s very, very hot and very, very muggy.

Even when I took the normally enthusiastic pups for a walk, it was clear I wasn't the only lethargic, sluggish one. We cut our walk short because Rory started sitting down in protest every few steps. Then, when Sookie started to join in, I realized it would be easier to go home. It wasn't just us, either. One of my neighbours was walking his beagle across the street from where I stood, trying to persuade the girls to get moving. The beagle decided simply to lie down in the middle of the pavement. The man tried very hard to get the dog to stand up but the beagle was not having it and it simply just lay there, looking up at his master, panting. His owner did finally get him to stand up but it clearly took effort. I tried not to smile but it was comforting to know that the heat was affecting everyone.

I want a few more weeks of spring before we’re sweating every time we move. Now that the ground is finally drying up, it’d be nice to get outside and pull some of the weeds before the heat becomes too much to bear.

According to Mr. Weatherman, it’s supposed to cool down for the weekend. It’s also supposed to rain, alas.

So, it seems my weeds may grow bigger, the ground may stay soggy and I must find things to do indoors. Fortunately, I really need to do some shopping this weekend- I pulled out my summer wardrobe last night and I realized that most of my clothes are at least 5 years old. I could really use some replenishment. Most of my clothes still fit thanks to the fact I was determined to lose some weight but they’re also faded and worn.

There…that helped. The thought of shopping definitely can help take away a bad mood. Perhaps if I get a good night’s sleep, tomorrow will be better.

Here’s hoping there’s no more government experiements in my dreams.

Happy Thursday!

Muggy Musings

Today is the first really hot day we’ve had in a very long time. Unfortunately, the heat is of the humid kind which means that the minute you walk outside, you feel as though you’re in a sauna.

I’m not a fan of humidity. Yesterday was a lovely spring day where it was warm but breezy and there was very little humidity to be found. Today, we’re in danger of storms so the humidity is piling up and making everything feel a little ominous.

It does feel stormy out there. I hope we get a giant storm, even though it means rain. I love to listen to them rage at night. Of course, the dogs don’t necessarily agree. Sookie will calmly snuggle up closer to me and hide under the covers whereas Rory will jerk awake, sit bolt upright at the first crash of thunder and then proceed to also get under the covers, usually sitting on Sookie in her rush to hide and ending up on top of my chest.

It’s quite hard to sleep like that though it is rather endearing. I’ve noticed that the dogs don’t seem to consider me much when it comes to sharing the bed. They definitely like to cuddle up to me but it’s usually in whatever position they find comfortable and it doesn’t matter if I find it comfortable. Often, I wake up to find that I have two dogs laying sprawled horizontally across the bed and I’m creeping closer and closer to the edge of the mattress.

Sometimes, one of the girls will push the other off the bed. We’ve had a couple of incidents in the night where Sookie has knocked Rory off or vice versa. I usually scoop the surprised pup back up on the bed where she sits in an embarrassed, indignant hunch until I lie back down . At this point, the offended dog will turn her back on me and move far away from me and the other pup. Of course, by morning, she’s back and curled up close.

Still, even with the occasional nocturnal Shuffling O’ the Dogs, I still am thankful that my pups are old enough to sleep through the night. My sister got a new puppy- it’s a peculiar looking thing with very long legs and a tiny body. It’s only nine weeks old which is the age at which I got Sookie and Rory. She’s going through crate training and getting up regularly to let her outside.

I’m glad those days are over for me. Many a night was I awoken by a frantic puppy that was licking me to wake me up because she REALLY needed to go outside. This was fine some times. They’d go out, do their business and we’d shuffle back to bed. On rainy nights, it wasn’t fun. For one thing, they didn’t like to go out in the rain so I’d have to go out to encourage them to go and give them a reward if they did and, secondly, we’d all go back to bed wet and soggy.

I do miss the early days of puppyhood. Like many things you see every day, I don’t realize how much the dogs have grown until I look back at puppy pictures. To me, they look the same. Then I look at photos and I see the little five pound babies who are now 14 lb adults.

They still act like puppies though. Last night, I watched them torment Dog Whisperer’s beasts who were driving me a little potty as I sat outside and tried to blog. My girls decided that since the beasts were already barking, they’d at least give them a reason to bark. Thus, Sookie proceeded to tear along the edge of the fence, get the beasts excited to the point where they started fighting and then she’d calmly break away and sit with Rory and watch.

Part of me was highly entertained and satisfied. Part of me felt a little bad that my dogs were just contributing to the normal racket that the stupid dogs provide. I’ve got to the point if I’m just outside sitting, I can ignore them. However, if I’m doing something like, say, shearing the long grass down by the fence and Dog Whisperer lets the dogs out, it annoys me because the dogs throw themselves right at the fence where I’m standing and growl at me. Then they bark. And bark. And bark. And since Dog Whisperer refuses to acknowledge the noise, I end up giving up.

I’ve mentioned it to Wife of Dog Whisperer who muttered something about bark collars and negative reinforcement but, so far, there’s no sign of the collar and the negative reinforcement seems to consist of a weak, “Fred, No!” from the back door. Occasionally Wife of Dog Whisperer will be more proactive but it’s simply not consistent enough for the dogs to grasp that it’s NEVER ok to act like a homicidal, maniacal barking fiend. Unfortunately, as I learned with Sookie and Rory, you have to keep doing something in order for the dogs to learn.

Still, for all their dog issues, at least my neighbours are nice. They loan broken lawnmowers and Wife of Dog Whisperer is nice to chat to when we both have time. Son of Dog Whisperer is a nice little boy even if he is a little…odd. He’s stopped staring at me so much and now talks to me. He often accidentally hits his ball in my garden but I figure my retrieval and return of the ball is penance for all the times my friends and I would do the same thing to our neighbours when we were kids.

Besides, walking around the neighbourhood with the girls in the evenings, I see that there are lots of houses with lots of yappy dogs so it’s not just me. Granted, I REALLY wish that strange dogs that aren’t on a leash would stop chasing us and making us flee but, well, it makes me more alert even if it is a little terrifying. It’s happened three times now and I really don’t like it. I feel like an idiot when I run away but when you have a full-sized German shepherd lunging at two terrified dachshunds with no weapon or defense, all you can do is run.

Although I think I am going to start carrying my little squirt bottle again. Just to be safe.

Ah well, at least life in my neighbourhood is never dull, even on hot and muggy days!

Happy Wednesday.

Crippled by a Thunderstorm

It was a really, really hot day today. I know I said that yesterday but today had to have been the hottest day we've had all summer. It was supposedly 96 degrees but felt like 112 degrees with the humidity. I can attest to the fact that there was definitely some nasty humidity out there.

We also had what our local weathermen like to call, a "pop up thunderstorm." This means that the sun suddenly goes away, the clouds roll in, the wind picks up and the thunder starts to rumble. Today's storm lasted about 15 minutes. It was long enough to take the power out at work.

Being that we're a software company and most our of products are web-based, there's not a whole lot we can do when the power goes out. Most people in our area have laptops. I do not. This usually means that I have to twiddle my thumbs while everyone who has a battery backup can keep working.

That didn't happen today since the internet was down and so were the phones. It essentially translated into about an hour of twiddling our thumbs until my boss decided it was close enough to the end of the day that we should just leave, especially since it didn't look like our power company was going to get to us in time.

Normally, this would be a moment of, "yay! I get to go home early." Unfortunately, in my case, he made the decision at the time I normally leave for the day so it wasn't so much a reward in my case as the end of a normal working day.

Still, there's something nice about sitting in the semi-darkness with your coworkers with nothing to do. It would have been darker if our emergency lights hadn't kicked on but it was still pretty dark in our area. We all ended up sitting around chatting because there wasn't much else to do. Without our computers, we're slightly crippled.

Of course, while we were sitting around, waiting for the power to come back on, we did realize something. The power was out which meant our phones were off. This may not seem like a realization as much as a "duh!" moment but it really was. You see, we've recently been practicing our office 'emergency drills.' In our case, this means a fire and a tornado drill. For the fire, we meet outside, the tornado, we head to the basement.

When we have a real tornado, the policy is that our HR manager will inform everyone that we all have to get to safety over our intercom system.

Our intercom system is our telephones.

When a tornado comes through, chances are, the power won't work. Thus, our phones won't work. The only way we'd know if there was going to be a tornado is if our HR manager ran around yelling and we all managed to hear her.

Of course, this is also in addition to the fact that the basement to which we must flee in refuge requires a key to get into it. We still only have one key for the basement and it's still on the HR Manager's key chain.

I think the conclusion we all came to was that if there's a tornado, we really hope we're not in the office. Otherwise, we might be in trouble.

Still, all in all, the power outage made things fun. I found it amusing that enough people in the office have read my book that my demon gets blamed for things like power outages. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read my book. It's now available in most electronic formats, including the iPad. You can also order a hardcopy through Amazon or through my website.

Yes, that's a shameless plug.

The best part of the whole thing was that even though my neighbourhood is close to the office, we still had power and it appeared to not even have gone out. Of course, by the time I got home, the storm was over and the humidity was even heavier.

I'm really hoping for another storm, to cool the air. Is it so wrong I sort of hope it happens again tomorrow while we're at work and takes the power out?

That's probably a little greedy, really but it does make for an interesting day. And sometimes, we just need those.

Happy Wednesday

A Hot, Sweaty Evening...

It's starting to get muggy again here. I woke up to a thunderstorm with heavy rain. This posed a problem because the puppies do not like to go out in the rain but, when they first wake up, they really need to go out, even when it's raining. When I opened the door so we could go out, the rain was pouring so hard, it was bounching out of the rapidly-filling puddles. The puppies looked at me like I was mental and had a very easily-decipherable, "You want us to go out? In that? Who are YOU kidding?" look on their faces.

They sat under the shelter with me for a while. I can't say I'd blame them. Since I wasn't willing to go out and get soaked, it did seem a little unfair that I wanted them to do so. In the end, I went inside and fetched my cute pink and white striped umbrella and escorted them outside so they didn't get too wet. Yes, I know...my puppies are spoiled.

As the day progressed, the rain tapered off, leaving behind a thick, sultry atmosphere. By the time I got home from work, the mosquitoes were buzzing and the air was humid and damp. It wasn't the type of evening you want to be outside but, stupid me, I decided that it would be a good night to garden/landscape.

As I said last night, I had chopped down the ugly pampas grass that was taking over my front lawn. As I chopped it back, I'd noticed that it had originally been planted in a rather nice flowerbed that had once been mulched with a pretty red wood. The soil beneath the pampas grass was fine and fertile. Thus I decided that I didn't want the pampas grass at all and I wanted to plant flowers that had colour instead of having a ten-foot tall bunch of grass that would cut you if you happened to slide your fingers along one of its' blades. Trust me, pampas grass is sharp. It's worse than getting a paper cut; my granny has some in her garden and I remember very well how my brother and I would dare each other to slide a blade between our finger and see who would bleed first.

And yes, I know, with that statement, I'm revealing the fact that I've been a little dark in my nature, even from my youth.

Anyhow, tonight, I decided to dig up the pampas grass and begin my landscaping efforts. I stopped at Lowes and bought some perennials and a couple of butterfly bushes which meant that I had no excuse for procrastination. I also bought some insect-killer. The nice lady who used to own my house had splurged and had these neato tube things inserted into the foundation. They're designed for Terminex to come out and spray their bug-killer into the spikes so that the house stays bug-free. However, I think Terminex charges way too much so I stopped and bought my own bug-killer. I spent a large part of the evening spraying my spray into the little spiky things. I hope it gets rid of the bugs. Unfortunatly, it doesn't get rid of people who bug you (ha ha, see what I did there?). Case in point, Larry the Potential Serial Killer was just drivin' by on his way to the Aldi supermarket when he happened to see me 'out and about' so, naturally, he had to stop and say hi. He also stopped to chat. He'd noticed I'd chopped the pampas grass last night and wanted to tell me he'd noticed. This would have been sweet if he wasn't quite so creepy. Also, even though I was clearly hot, sweaty and grumpy, he just wanted to tell me all about his butterfly bushes because he'd noticed the ones I purchased at Lowes, just waiting to be planted. He finally left. I continuted to spray bug spray in the spike things in my house's foundation.

By the time I was done spraying the spiky things, I was hot and sweaty. Nevertheless, I decided I still wanted to try to get rid of the pampas grass.

Silly me.

My pampas grass bed consisted of what turned out to be four individual clumps. Clump #1 came out with little argument. I grew cocky.

Then I tried to dig up clumb #2. My cockiness vanished. The blasted thing would NOT come up for anything. I used my fork, I used my trowel, I used my garden shears and still, the roots remained firmly embedded in the earth. After much sweat, growning, pulling and heaving, the bloody things came up, arguing all the way.

Clump #3 was worse. I dug, I stabbed, I unearthed and I pulled. The stupid grass wouldn't budge. In the humidty, I was sweaty. I actually had beads of sweat on my forehead before I was done. Given that I sweat only under extreme circumstances, this was unusual. I felt crotchety. I had a film of dirt on my skin that felt disgusting. Yet, even with all this, I felt like I had to finish. I had to win over the pampas grass.

Clump #3 was hard work. There's no doubt about it. I finally made progress. Pampas grass tends to grow with its' base forming a circle. I managed to dislodge a third of clump #3's circle. Then I got stuck. I dug. I pulled. I used every tool I had...nothing. I grew angry and frustrated. I wanted to rip the pampas grass up by its' roots and show it no mercy.

Naturally, this was the time for me to meet a new neighbour.

Yes. I met Mike. Mike lives next door to Larry. Mike had seen that I'd cut down my pampas grass yesterday but he didn't want to knock on my door to tell me how he felt about that. Tonight, as he walked by on his evening soujourn, Mike saw me outside. He proceeded to tell me how "people would pay a lot of money for the grass" I was ripping up. I realized he was hinting. I told him that the grass was all his. Truth be told, I was quite excited at his obvious desire to take my discarded pampas grass. This meant I didn't have to find anywhere to store the grass I'd dug up.

Unfortunately, Mike was a chatter. Even though I was covered in sweat, bright red from the heat and covered with dirt, he didn't seen phased. He just kept on chatting. He was delighted I would give him my grass and so, finally, he excused himself so that he could get his van to pick up the discarded pampas grass that I had intended to throw away.

I kept on digging. I made no progress. I got sweatier. I took a water break. Clump #3 was just evil. I kept attempting to get to the roots but no luck. I grew crankier and more irritable. Then Mike returned.

Mike did not care that I was sweaty, in a bad mood and clearly not very chatty. He just kept on talking. While I welcome the chance to meet new neighbours, there are some times when you just want to be a hermit so that you don't have to talk to anyone. This was one of those nights for me. For Mike, it was a free-for-all of chat.

The thing is, he seemed nice. Yet when he came, I was sweaty, hot and irritable. I wanted to get rid of the pampas grass but I also wanted to go inside to the puppies who were yipping with indignation that I'd dared leave them alone.

He finally took his grass, chatted some more and left. No matter how hard I tried, I never did manage to dig up clump #3. I got a little of it dug up but, alas, it looks like I couldn't competely lose it. Also, I broke my fork. This does not make me happy as the fork was a house-warming gift from my sister. I'm wondering if superglue will work though I suspect not.

Still, even with my lack of progress on clump #3, it's an improvement. However, I can honestly say that I'll be surprised if it's calmly accepted by the neighbours. As I was digging tonight, I recieved two "why are you doing that?!!! responses and two, "wow, you're brave" responses.

I honestly have to say, I don't really care about the neighbours. They're nice but I've started to realize, finally, that this is MY house. I can do what I like. That's the whole point of being a homeowner...right?

Of course, Mike (he of the pampas grass adoptee program) did introduce me to a new concept: That of the RENTERS.

Apparently, our neighbourhood is divided by the BUYERS and the RENTERS. The BUYERS are people like me, people who bought their house and owned it. The RENTERS are the lowlifes who just...rent their home.

To me, there's little distinction. To Mike, there was a lot. He's been around our 'hood longer than many people. Thus, he can tell the difference between a RENTER and a BUYER. Apparently, RENTERS don't care about the property and constantly need to mow their lawn. My non-Dog Whisperer neighbours are RENTERS. I did not know this. Mike took one look at their lawn and declared them so and who am I to argue?

I don't care, honestly. I do care that Mike scavenged my discarded pampas grass in order to plant it along his fence which, apparently, borders that of The Dog Whisperer. Mike gets tired of the constant yapping. He hates it. He's hoping that the pampas grass will privide some privacy. I wish him luck with that although, based on my Dog Whisperer experiences, I'm not going to hold my breath.

Mike, however, seemed rather annoyed with the Dog Whisperer and his yappy beasts because apparently, he can't go out into his yard without being barked at either. I'm hoping he gets REALLY annoyed and calls the police. As awful as it sounds, I think that would be good for the Dog Whisperer and Wife of Dog Whisperer. They've stopped hearing their dogs' desperate cries for attention and begun, instead, to stay indoors and get wrapped up in something else.

Nevetheless, I now know another neighbour. I do wish he'd have come by when I was decent and not hot and stinky. Still...he got his pampas grass and, in doing so, I managed to minimalize my refuse by donating my plants. I wish Mike luck with his endeavors.

In the meantime, I think, for now, I'm done yanking up pampas grass. At least until it grows back.

I'm really hoping it doesn't.

Happy Thursday!

Sounds of Suburbia...

Oh, the sounds of a surburban neighbourhood. Birds chirping, music pumping, squirrels squawking and...

...oh yes, barking. I'm currently listening to an orchestra of dog yips. Well, orchestra is a wee bit poetic. Not unless it's one of those orchestras where someone plays the saw, someone else plays a pickle-tub drum and someone else is attempting to play the trumpet without knowing how. Needless to say, it's a horrible sound.

Yes, the Dog Whisperer's beasts are at it again. Sadly, this week, we don't even get a break at lunchtime. Apparently, because Son of Dog Whisperer is done with school, it seems that his parents are rotating schedules to stay home. This means the beasts aren't crated and are free to run out at lunch and yip at my puppies who HAVE been crated and merely want to do their business and have a short time outside before I have to re-crate them.

Still, there are other sounds I can hear. The squirrels, for example. They do, in fact, squawk. Well, actually, it's more like they click. It's a peculiar thing but they go up in the tree and click at us, sounding like they're trying to spit. It's a weird sound but it happens rather a lot. Also, the squirrels seem to not be as agile as you'd expect squirrels to be. We've now witnessed several of them trying to play trapeze in the trees but wildly swinging instead, missing the branches and falling several levels below before finally getting a grip. It makes a weird rustling sound, sort of like you'd see on Lost when the smoke monster was approaching. If you didn't watch Lost, you're probably not sure what that sounds like. It sounds like trees rustling.

Naturally, there's the sound of lawnmowers too. I mowed tonight too. It was a bad night to pick. It's humid again and I think another storm is on the way. This is the kind of humidity that leaves you sweating and lightheaded after you've only mowed a little. Still, the lawn is mowed for now. It grows so quickly, I'm constantly amazed. The grass and the weeds grow quickly, my plants don't. I'm not sure how that works.

The puppies are ok with the lawnmower. They're still terrified of the hoover but they don't mind the mower. They like to lie down in my path and then scurry away as I approach. They've taken to digging holes in the lawn now. I think it's because they can smell bunny. The rabbit who used to live under my toolshed rather likes to taunt my puppies. He lays down right where Rory's favourite hole-digging spot is and waits until the puppies come out. Then he lets them get a couple of feet away and then he runs. He's fast and I don't think the puppies will ever catch him. I'm also amazed at how he seems to get through a solid fence with no holes. That baffles me at my parents' house too. They have rabbits and they're always running through the fence but I can never figure out how they get out.

Nevertheless, until the bunny starts eating my swiss chard or squash, he's welcome. He's an ok sort of pest. I'm constantly thankful that we only have furry squirrels and bunnies to worry about. My good friend, Ms. P, lives in Texas and has a dog named Burt who is part dachshund, part chihuahua. He's a lovely little thing. He got bit by a copperhead snake two days ago. He's going to be ok thanks to a trip to the animal ER but I can only imagine how scary it was. We have some rather large worms in our backyard but, thankfully, no snakes. I'm hoping Burt makes a speedy recovery.

Ah, there, finally, the dogs next door have stopped yipping. And yes, they WERE barking the entire time I've been blogging. Welcome to our life. I've given up on the privacy fence. Given that the dogs bark at any noise or movement, I have a feeling it wouldn't do very much anyway. On the plus side, Larry-the-potential-serial-killer has volunteered to raise a secret neighbourhood campaign to get the police involved. I'm not sure I'm ready for such drastic action but it's nice to have an ally. The thing is, I like the Dog Whisperer's wife and Son of Dog Whisperer is a little odd but he seems like a nice kid. I want to like the Dog Whisperer himself but he's sort of, uh, well...hard to like. I think it's his blatant ignoring of his yippy dogs combined with his desperate attempts to lure my dogs to the fence. Sookie barks at him. She doesn't bark at anyone else like that- not Possibly-Joe, not Larry-the-potential-serial-killer or Wife of Dog Whisperer. It's just him. Then again, sometimes I'd like to bark at him so I can't blame her.

If you can't beat them, join them...right?

Happy Friday!

Overactive Imagination vs. The Kindness of Strangers

It's a soupy night out there. If you've never lived anywhere with humidity, you might not know what I'm talking about but, chances are, you have. It's the type of night where no matter what you do, you feel sticky; when you go outside, the bugs flock to you and though you don't see them, somehow you come in with a few mosquito bites, even when you sprayed repellent.

We're supposed to have storms tonight and I hope we do. The atmosphere is thick out there and we need a storm to break it up. Even if it means waking up to crashing thunder and sharp flashes of lightning, it'll be worth it if we can have a cooler day of it tomorrow.

I think the puppies sense the storm. They are, as they have been on previous stormy nights, quite restless. I took them for a walk tonight and though Sookie didn't lie down in protest as she quite often does, they walked quickly as though trying to get home as quickly as possible.

Of course, they didn't take into account that we'd meet Larry, my very friendly neighbour who lives on the second-to-last corner we turn on our nightly walk.

Larry is a sweet man. He calls my girls "fellas" even though I've told him they're girls. He loves to garden and knows I do too. Thus, when we pass by and he's outside as he so often is, he has to tell me his latest garden developments.

He's very nice. He really seems to love seeing the puppies. He's just...a little too friendly, if you know what I mean. When he talks to us, he invades my space and I find myself taking a step back to fight for some personal space. Tonight, he insisted on showing me his back garden and showing me his plantings. It's a nice garden and he's got a lot of good stuff growing.

It just took a long while to make our excuses to get out of there. Also, he uses human hair as a bedding nutrient.

Yes, you read that right. Larry uses human hair to fertilize his plants. Larry is probably ten years older than me and he lives alone. If I had an overactive imagination, I might be a little worried about Larry and his human hair fertilizer. I might think he had some serial killer tendencies.

Ok, fine, I do have an overactive imagination. You know I'm now a little curious and a little worried about Larry. I mean, hello, he uses human hair to feed his plants.

I know. It's not that weird. After all, it's a good fertilizer, I know this. I know you can go to the barber and ask them for clippings and they'll give them to you. But most people don't because...well...it's a little creepy. I mean, after all, decomposing bodies also make good fertilizer but you don't hear of people going to morgues and asking for unclaimed bodies to make their garden grow nicely, do you?

Fine, that's a disturbingly dark exaggeration. I still won't lie and say it doesn't make my skin crawl just a little that around every tree and newly planted shrub, Larry has a neatly lain circle of human hair.

Personally, I prefer mulch or, you know, plant food or, perhaps, compost which takes a little more work and smells a lot but somehow manages to be more appealing than human hair.

Needless to say, once I saw the hair-circles, I tried to excuse ourselves from Larry's company. He's nice but he's the sort of nice that won't stop talking and doesn't like to see you leave. He made comments about getting one of 'them cute l'il dog pens so the l'il fella's could have their play while you and me sit on the deck'. Translation: He wants to find a way to pen my puppies so we can sit on his back deck and look at his flowers.

Now, while I find Larry to be an exceedingly friendly and kind neighbour, I'm not sure I like the idea of him getting a little pen for my dogs. After all, we can see the Dog Whisperer's garden from Larry's so it's not like they really need to be penned. Also, well, frankly, Larry and his need to get up close and personal while he talks to me, combined with the fact that he uses human hair and appears to be very lonely does send up some red flags, I have to confess.

So, even though Sookie, Rory and I will continue to take our walks, even on muggy nights, I think we'll be a little more wary of Larry and not let him invite us back to his gated back garden to see his hostas. He's very nice and I know he means well but...we're just being cautious, that's all.

Of course, the puppies did happen to conveniently find a 'chicken' bone outside his house the other night. I pulled them away quickly. If I had an overactive imagination, I might debate about whether it truly belonged to a chicken or not.

Overactive Imagination? Please turn off now.

Happy Friday and have a good weekend!

Hazy Days of Summer...

It ended up being gloomy for most of the day yesterday. The gloominess became accompanied by humidity which meant the evening resulted in a sticky, sultry heat. Today is already starting to feel a little oppressive with its thick air and if the weatherman is right, tomorrow will be worse.

Of course, that's if the weatherman is right. Which he rarely is. This means I shall just have to wait and see, as is usually the case.

I'm looking forward to the weekend, humidity or not. My parents are coming down to see my house which I'm both excited and terrified about. I want them to see my new home and approve of it which is where the fear comes in. I have this horrible worry that my dad will walk around with his engineering-type hat on and start finding things wrong that sound dooming. While that would be helpful, I'm already a bit skittish about owning my own place.

They're also the first ones to actually see the house besides my realtor and me. I wish it could be perfect for them but the best I could do was to finish painting last night. There's no way that those mounds of boxes are going to get unpacked before they arrive tomorrow.

The hard part is that I have to at least clean the house a little from my painting attempts AND I have to clean my apartment which currently looks a bit like a bomb hit it due to the fact that I barely spend any time there at all and, when I do, it's either to eat, sleep or pack.

Still, I know they'll be ok with whatever I'm able to do. That's the nice part about parents. I need to mow my lawn again because it's already long. I know my dad will notice that. Part of me wants to leave it and, if he mentions it, happily show him my new mower and suggest he try it out. However, I know that won't really happen so I'm going to try to squeeze another mowing in tonight.

I keep reminding myself that a week from today is the last day I'll be commuting to work from my current apartment. The thought is a little alarming just because it made me realize I'll have to get up earlier to make the longer drive. I'll actually have to change my morning routine until, at least, the office moves and my commute is shorter again.

The thing about the office moving is that the date keeps getting pushed back. This is fine but...it's Ohio. We've been told September now. I'm hoping it's not much later than that just because this is Ohio and not too long after September comes winter and bad weather. The last thing I want to do is have to navigate the rural highways to get to work when it's snowing. I'll keep my fingers crossed though that we move before the winter. Though the people in our office who will be then doing the commute from here won't be too happy about that.

Ironically, as much as I love snow, I don't want to think about that at the moment. I know I've said that I'm not so fond of summer as I am the other seasons but it doesn't mean I'm quite ready to move on yet. Despite the sticky humidity out there, summer does boast some lovely treasures. There's nothing better than fresh summer vegetables and fruits on a nice day, of being able to walk outside, cold beer in hand and just enjoy the sounds of the summer around you. The flowers are in bloom, buzzing with bees and butterflies, growing slower and lazier as the heat increases.

In some ways, I'd give anything to have the days of summer back that we had when we were kids: Long, lazy days where you don't have to get up for school or work, in which you can get up when the heat is already in full swing in mid-morning. Days which were spent at the swimming pool, reading on a sunbed until the sun got too hot and then cooling off in the chlorine-acrid water only to climb out, laze your way over to the concession stand for ice-cream and then start the routine over again. Though those days were during my awkward teenage phase and they seemed hard back then, now I can look back and see how nice it was where the hardest decision for the day was ice-cream sandwich or frozen pizza slice?

This morning as I drove to work, I saw a man cleaning out the fire hydrant. Water was blasting out of the hydrant and forming an ocean-sized puddle on the street around it. I thought for a second how great it would be to pull over, strip off my shoes and play in the water letting it wash away the cloying humidity from around me.

Then reality set in and I realized that going to the office dripping like a drowned rat was probably not the best way to start the day. Yet for one brief liberating moment, I mentally let the water soak me and I was taken back to the days of my youth where my siblings and I would soak ourselves with the hose in the back yard on the hot, sticky summer days.

Yet, though it's hard to quite recapture the freedom of my youth where it was completely acceptable to spend the day at the pool or getting wet in the backyard, there are some advantages to being an adult and looking at that past through the rose coloured glasses that are a little foggy from the heat. The simple pleasure of getting home from work, grabbing a cold beer from the fridge and relaxing on my own patio is hard to replace. Having my very own hose that could be used for summer cool-downs or to water the garden I can plant exactly as I like is a pretty nice thing to have, indeed. And if spending the day in my office instead of listlessly trying to find something to do on a hot day without air-conditioning is the way to get those things, then I say bring on the hazy days of summer.

Happy Friday.

Scents of Smell...

I hate humidity. I've always suspected this but I'm finally going to just come right and affirm it. I hate how when you're inside an air-conditioned place, you think it's cool outside. Then, when you step out, it's like hitting a brick wall of moisture. It hits you, creeping both under and over your recently cooled skin until you're suddenly feeling sticky and damp. Your hair begins to frizz quickly and breathing becomes just a little harder. I hate that if I leave my car windows cracked to let the fresh air in overnight, I get in the next morning and it smells like a nasty wet dog.

Actually, I'm sure that's all the humidity's fault. If my car gets remotely damp, it smells like a wet dog. I'm not sure why since it's a fairly new car and as far as I know, nothing has died in there. I haven't even had a wet dog in there, not even Sausage. The sad thing is that nothing removes that smell. Air fresheners only end up mixing with the wet-dog smell so that it smells like a lavender scented wet dog. I've officially crawled around in the trunk of my car to try and find out if there's a culprit for the smell but, alas, to no avail.

So...long story short, unless I'm telling it because then it's long story...long...it's humid outside and my car smells like a wet dog. Also, my rubbish bin by my desk smells like parmesan cheese. I've just discovered that even though our janitorial staff does actually empty the trash cans, they don't...empty them. They clearly just shake the bin into a trash bag to get out the rubbish out without having to change the bag. This is a great way of saving rubbish bags but, well, if you have three day old parmesan cheese that might have been part of your arugula-salad-with-lemon-juice-and-parmesan lunch on Monday, it's not necessarily good that they saved the bag. Also, I noticed there are a lot of cherry pits stuck to the bag. This means chances are my desk will also smell a bit cherry-like only not so fresh very soon. Exciting. Or...you know...not.

I suppose given that I sit quite near the "men's" bathroom, there could be (and have been) far worse smells drifting out. This is where I find it endearing that our new HR manager has been trying now for over two months to remedy that. She's one of these optimistic people who came into our company thinking she could get everyone to immediately do things her way. She clearly doesn't know our company. People here are...set in their ways. They know what they like, how they like it and that's that. It's not a bad thing but it's something you learn after a little observation. Our HR person didn't seem to quite get that just as she didn't seem to accept that the bathroom was really the "men's" bathroom.

I'm using the quotes around the word "men's" because we work in a converted house. There are four bathrooms in the building but unlike in a commercial building, they're not designated Men or Women's; they're just normal little bathrooms like you see in a house. However, it's understood that two of them are more 'male oriented' and two of them are girly, given away by the presence of lotions and other nice feminine smelly products in them. For some reason, our HR person doesn't like to climb the flight of stairs to get to the nice "women's" bathroom the way the rest of us females do. She uses the "men's" bathroom. Of the two "men's" bathrooms, this is most clearly a male one. It's sparse, the seat is always up and, frankly, as a woman, I would rather not use it at all unless it was an extreme emergency. I'm not sexist, I just prefer not to use this bathroom because it's a little...nasty.

HR Lady, bless her optimistic heart, hasn't given up though. She has this Bath and Body Works room spray in a "Warm Vanilla Sugar" scent that she has put in the men's bathroom in hopes that it makes it a little...uh...'friendlier'. The men, being 99% of the population that uses this bathroom, naturally, ignore the spray. I don't think they're doing it to be rude; I just think that in the masculine mind, things like that don't exist and thus they have a small cloak of invisibility that masks them from the men's awareness level. Nascar does that for me as does a lot of more "male" type stuff. Golf, for example. I know there's golf and Nascar races on the TV but when I'm scrolling through the Direct-TV guide, my mind slips straight over them in favour of something I want to watch, not really aware that it's doing so.

Same thing for our office men and Warm Vanilla Sugar room spray. Periodically, HR Lady will come through with her spray and say, "no one uses this!" as though she's shocked! Then she will inevitably squirt it into our cubicle area because we're close to the bathroom just to prove that it does, in fact, smell nice.

Thing is, it doesn't smell that nice. It's never been on of my favourite Bath and Body Works' scents because it's cloying and makes me want to drink a lot of water. It's not hideous but it tends to give me the start of one of those headaches that exposure to heady scents gives a lot of people. My cubicle-neighbour, on the other hand, is extremely sensitive to smells and will get a headache if I or her neighbour on the other side of her cubicle wears perfume. So when that spray is spritzed into our air...well, it's never pretty.

Yet it hasn't deterred HR lady from her quest of trying to get the men to use it. She's tried to coerce them into using it by teasing. They politely chuckle at her and go on to their bathroom business, conveniently forgetting to use the Warm Vanilla Sugar Room Spray. The only time this causes an issue is if they leave the bathroom door open which almost never happens.

I feel bad for HR lady. She's very sweet and really wants to fit in. She's not particularly adept at HR since she was an accountant before she came here but by carrying her copy of Human Resources for Dummies into the office in the morning, I know she's trying to learn. I commend her efforts to learn. Of course, it would probably help her out a little if she didn't carry that book around in front of us since, you know, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence. She can read it but it might be better if we don't know she's reading it, if you know what I mean.

Still, I'm enjoying her try to fight her uphill battle with her room spray. Most of us quitters would give up and just start using the women's bathroom upstairs but not our HR lady. She's determined to win over those men. Maybe if she tried another scent?

Happy Thursday...

A Grey and Humid Day...

It's a humid day out there today. It's not quite raining though it seems like it wants to. A cloud of steamy dampness is floating everywhere and everything feels just a little heavier than normal. I'm not used to the humidity anymore; very rarely is it humid in L.A. Instead, it's just an intense dry heat that feels like it's drying you from the outside in.

I have a feeling I'll be wishing for that heat come the summer months. I know here in the midwest, the thermometer can read a mild 80 degrees but when you factor in the humidity, it feels like it's 105 degrees out there.

Yet, like everything else, everything seems better from a distance. I know I used to HATE that Los Angeles desert heat. The intensity of it is insane. You can feel the heat beneath the soles of your shoes, sinking up from the asphalt. There are 'heat traps,' areas that store the heat and when you find one, it feels as though you are trapped in an oven. The air takes your breath away and you long for a breeze to make the heat fade, just a little.

Then, when the breeze does creep up, it's hot and sultry and it makes you sweat instead of providing a reprieve from the sun-baked world.

It's the nights the provide the relief in the end. That's the beauty of living in a desert. The days will roast you, turning everything yellow. But the nights are cool, chilly even. It's a sharp contrast and it means that if you leave your windows open, the night air will provide at least a little relief.

That's the different between the heat of humidity and the heat of the desert. There's no escape from the sticky air. Here, at night, it will remain so that without air conditioning, even a thin sheet while you sleep is enough to make you feel as though you're being strangled.

Summer is my least favourite season. It always has been. When I was in school, I enjoyed not having to go to school and having the weeks of freedom that the summer holiday provided. I do appreciate the fact that the world is warm and sunny and the flowers are blooming but I don't enjoy the inevitable onslaught of summer heat, 'the dog days of summer' as they're known. I like the mornings, the dew fresh on the grass, drenching my feet as I walk. I like the evenings when the sun begins to set, the sound of crickets chorusing and bringing in the night. It's the days I don't like. I feel like I should be outside because I can be but then when the heat starts to prickle, the idea of being inside in the air conditioning, a cool drink at my fingertips starts to appeal more.

It's not that I don't appreciate summer. I know a lot of people like the outdoors and love that they can stay out longer and enjoy the warmth. They do things like swim and go camping. I don't like camping. I like swimming though I tend to think of it more as 'flailing in the water.' I like to water dance which means I twirl and float and splash a lot to the rhythm of the music in my head. The trouble with that is that I'm the only one who knows I'm water dancing, everyone else worries in case I'm drowning or they complain that I'm splashing too much.

I do appreciate summer food. I love salads and fruits and vegetables. I love walking barefoot in the grass. I love spraying my parent's dogs with the hose. I call that "The Hose Game." Sadly, now when I ask the dogs "Who wants to play the hose game?!" (with great enthusiasm, I might add), they scurry away the minute I edge towards the hose pipe.

Summer will be here soon enough. For now, I'm going to continue to enjoy spring and hope this humid spell passes. Unless it brings with it a nice thunderstorm to break the air, it's going to get old rather quickly. I don't like days that begin with a grey nothingness; I want them to do something.

Yet, I suppose in a month or two, I'll be wishing for the milder temperatures of days like this and wondering why I was complaining. For now, there's still some Spring to enjoy, the tulips are in full swing and the scent of lilacs hangs in the air. This, I have missed over the past few years. If it comes with a side of humidity, I think I can live with that.

Happy Thursday!