Half-Assed Homemaker

To be more articulate, I have gathered, I need to concentrate on what I don't say. More specifically, I want to study the delta between my someone's impression of something like a series of events, a place, a movie, a band, art; and my description of it. To do this, I should ask.

Hopefully, this will help me indentify the types of details I am unclear about and also help me become more intimate with the minds of my friends and associates.

As you may have read, those ungrateful bushes are now starting to comply a little. Now anxious tomato growers have something to blog about. Also photographed are some giant cucumbers and some nice New Mexico Chillis.

Everyone is all a twitter about Mars lately. It made me realize how much of a fan of Roman mythology our president has become. Mars is the Roman god of battle. Mars has a month named after it, March. Bush honored Mars in March by going to war, how festive of him.

Mars must not have been so honored. Amid darkness, flood, swelter and pestilence, he rears his scarlet face. What's next?

There is a squeaky door somewhere and its squeaks sounds like the first two notes whistled in Dock of the Bay. Every time I hear it, I keep expecting to hear the rest of it but I don't and I get sad.

Sunday was JenJoy's birthday so we took a trip up to Wilbur Springs, it's a rustic hot springs retreat in the mountains north of the middle of nowhere. It is very serene, it has hiking trails, an amazing communal kitchen where you cook your own food and of course the bath house. There is even a billiards/music room and a library. I never thought I would be interested in such an experience but surreal as it is, sitting in really hot sulfury water and then jumping in a cold pool and then cutting vegetables on a huge butcherblock island is quite a treat.

On the way up we visited the town of Winters where we saw a photo studio/art gallery/home with tomatos growing in some huge planters.

I got the blasted timer set again and it should work right? Wrong, it refused. What is it this time? (I asked myself in not those exact words) A fuse! Now I need to replace a fuse, this just keeps getting better. I could just go to the store from where I purchased the sprinkler timer right? Wrong, I went to the store where I purchased the cursed sprinkler timer (By the way, boycott OSH) and purchased a pack of 0.5 amp fuses. I assumed they were the right size because I'm an idiot. It turns out, I needed a shorter fuse. Hey, a bad pun is less painful than a wasted trip to the hardware store.

Once I got home I was reminded (by myself and others) of the age old rule for replacing shit... always bring the old one with you. Upon my return trip to that store (old fuse in hand), I discovered that it is not important to them to carry replacement parts for merchandise that they sell. I was referred to Radio Shack (Radio Shack!). So this isn't all my fault, but it ultimately was because I got out of bed that day. Bringing the old fuse the first time would have only served to make me madder sooner but a slow desent to madness seems to be the universe's plan for me.

The house came with a sprinkler system, good right? We wired up a little timer computer, good right? Those things are supposed to take forever to set the way you want them, right? The problem is there is a glaring bug in the UI that I won't get into now but it requires a bit of powering down when a simple undo feature would suffice. But the real problem is that there is an AC adapter and batteries. Why? I don't know. I figured both had to be disconnected in order to erase all the settings you don't want, because why else would there be both?

I feel like one of those pioneers that discovered something great except I discovered something stupid, what I discovered was removing the battery while it is plugged in will erase all the settings you just entered. I also disovered that a discovery like that causes me to walk away from such a disappointing assache and the cooling off period required before I can approach that POS again is going on five days.

So let's recap, some engineer spent the time to build in an AC power source that apparently does absolutely nothing. I would not like to be the person to inform that person about the fruits of his or her labor. I am proud of my brown lawn.

I went on a baking rampage this afternoon but then realized that I had just teathered myself to the kitchen during some valuable daylight hours. I had some banana bread in the oven and I tried to start some dough int he bread maker. It worked out okay because the window between the banana bread finishing and the dough finishing was an hour so I got on my bike and took some photos.

I'd post them but I can't seem to find the cable for my camera, or anything else for that matter. I need to put up a "Where did you put this?" chalkboard in my kitchen to list the various objects that I put down for the last time. I'll need to get a gross of chalk for the next time my mom visits.