I was stroking my skinny little cat today as she flipped and rolled around, purring vehemently and adoring the violent love which I give her (the great thing about raising a cat from a kitten is that you get to train them to believe in whatever form of petting you give them. I pet her roughly, scratching her and rolling her around and she loves it. My big cat, though, would kill me if I tried that sort of thing) as I sat down at my desk in my basement. I was watching Strangers on a Train and reading White Fang and generally just enjoying life when I stumbled upon a beautiful chapter that describes the first time the wolf cub (who I can only assume will one day be White Fang) leaves the den in which he has been raised. I found myself book marking nearly every page (this is how I mark things when I'm reading a book on my phone, since I can't underline a particular section like I do when reading a hard copy book) so I decided it would just be easier to type it all up for myself. It's a wonderful analogy for adolescence, and reminded me of scenes from my own life, which my newly-daddy-directed thought process immediately reformatted into a sense of wonder and anticipation in awe of the forthcoming privilege of watching my own child grow up. I'll reproduce all the relevant parts I loved here:
"But there were other forces at work in the cub, the greatest of which was growth. Instinct and the law demanded obedience. But growth demanded disobedience...Growth is life, and life is forever destined to make for light. So there was no damming up the tide of life that was rising in him...In the end, one day, fear and obedience were swept away by the rush of life...It was bewildering...Fear urged him to go back, but growth drove him on...A great fear came upon him. This was more of the terrible unknown. He crouched down on the lip of the cave and gazed out on the world. He was very much afraid. Because it was unknown, it was hostile to him...Nothing happened. He continued to gaze, and in his interest he forgot to snarl. Also, he forgot to be afraid...Now the grey cub had lived all his days on a level floor. He had never experienced the hurt of a fall. He did not know what a fall was. So he stepped boldly out upon the air...The cub had broken through the wall of the world, the unknown had let go its hold of him, and here he was without hurt...He traveled very clumsily. He ran into sticks and things...Sometimes he overstepped and stubbed his nose. Quite as often he understepped stubbed his feet...But with every mishap he was learning...This was living, though he did not know it. He was realizing his own meaning in the world; he was doing that for which he was made...He was justifying his existence, that which life can do no greater; for life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do...With every rock he struck, he yelped. His progress was a series of yelps, from which might have been adduced the number of rocks he encountered... Thenceforth, in the nature of things, he would possess an abiding distrust of appearances. He would have to learn the reality of a thing before he could put his faith into it...He had recollected that there was such a thing in the world as his mother. And then there came to him a feeling that he wanted her more than all the rest of the things in the world."
- White Fang, Part Two. Chapter Four. "The Wall of the World." Jack London
Saturday, April 16, 2011
The Lottery (not Shirley Jackson's)
I, Clayton O'Dell, Ruler of the Weak and Impoverished, Healer of None, First of His Name, do declare this day that I am going to the beach. Within the hour I'll be skipping town (probably a good prospect, considering the tornado sirens have gone off three times within the past twelve hours) and heading down to Destin with a trio of dear, dear friends. While down there I plan to, in descending order of importance, gtl (without the g or the l), eat delicious seafood, see TT, drink, finish reading A Clash of Kings, sleep, clip my toenails, buy a stupid beach thing, see a manta ray, get stung by a jellyfish, and see Phan Phan. As all men, know, however, it is often the leprechaun's pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that is more enticing than the rainbow itself, and the jeweled beach at the end of the modest four hour drive is far more desireable than the driving itself. But fear not, what's an O'Dell if he can't make up inane activities designed both to erase boredom and hear himself talk?
To make the trip down to Destin more interesting, I have designed a game that I like to call, quite unoriginally, The Lottery. The Lottery requires a buy-in that I have decided shall not exceed $50 cash, though I'm not fully certain as to how much cash I actually want to put in. I have $34 in my wallet leftover from tips this week, so that'll be my starting fund and seeing as how awful my luck continues to be, I may add a $20 bill to the experiment.
Apparently cars need gas to run. Apparently gas stations sell gas at their stations. I always thought that gas stations were designed to purchase underpriced fountain beverages, overpriced candy, regular priced cigarettes, and who-cares-what-priced lottery tickets, but regular people also go to gas stations to purchase gas. Throughout the course of our journey today I believe that we shall stop at a gas station at least twice, presumably for gas, and I plan to stretch my modelesque young legs by marching into the gas station and purchasing a lottery ticket.
Here's the catch, though. I'm required to purchase the dollar amount in lottery tickets on whatever the last mile is on Aaron (the driver)'s car when we stop. His car is new (and beautiful) and therefore has low miles, so if, for example, we stop at a QT when his car has 3017 miles on it, I have to purchase either a $7 lottery ticket (do they make those?!) or a combination of tickets to equal $7. I will be constricted to lottery purchase made outside of Destin, both on the way in and the way out, and every time we stop at a place that sells lottery tickets I'm required to purchase one.
We'll see how quickly the money runs out. Either I get very lucky and have to buy only $1 or $2 tickets the entire trip, or my luck runs out when the gas does and I have to buy $9 or $10 worth of tickets at each stop. Regardless I know I won't win any money, so I might as well hope to spend less on tickets.
I'll report back to my loyal readers sometime next week with PICTURES of the lottery tickets, the gas stations they (and gas) were purchased at, and perhaps even pictures of my earnings through The Lottery. Hold your breath.
To make the trip down to Destin more interesting, I have designed a game that I like to call, quite unoriginally, The Lottery. The Lottery requires a buy-in that I have decided shall not exceed $50 cash, though I'm not fully certain as to how much cash I actually want to put in. I have $34 in my wallet leftover from tips this week, so that'll be my starting fund and seeing as how awful my luck continues to be, I may add a $20 bill to the experiment.
Apparently cars need gas to run. Apparently gas stations sell gas at their stations. I always thought that gas stations were designed to purchase underpriced fountain beverages, overpriced candy, regular priced cigarettes, and who-cares-what-priced lottery tickets, but regular people also go to gas stations to purchase gas. Throughout the course of our journey today I believe that we shall stop at a gas station at least twice, presumably for gas, and I plan to stretch my modelesque young legs by marching into the gas station and purchasing a lottery ticket.
Here's the catch, though. I'm required to purchase the dollar amount in lottery tickets on whatever the last mile is on Aaron (the driver)'s car when we stop. His car is new (and beautiful) and therefore has low miles, so if, for example, we stop at a QT when his car has 3017 miles on it, I have to purchase either a $7 lottery ticket (do they make those?!) or a combination of tickets to equal $7. I will be constricted to lottery purchase made outside of Destin, both on the way in and the way out, and every time we stop at a place that sells lottery tickets I'm required to purchase one.
We'll see how quickly the money runs out. Either I get very lucky and have to buy only $1 or $2 tickets the entire trip, or my luck runs out when the gas does and I have to buy $9 or $10 worth of tickets at each stop. Regardless I know I won't win any money, so I might as well hope to spend less on tickets.
I'll report back to my loyal readers sometime next week with PICTURES of the lottery tickets, the gas stations they (and gas) were purchased at, and perhaps even pictures of my earnings through The Lottery. Hold your breath.
Friday, April 15, 2011
The Things I Hate; The Thing I Love
My laptop ran away again. et al
The Thing I Hate This Week (Month?) #3: People who cannot do simple math.
I understand that the majority of Americans are stupid, I truly do. And I further understand that 102% of all Americans are hopelessly addicted to and supported through marriage by technology. This translates into a nation where even adults can do math only with calculators, and only perform the simplest of math, yet it's socially accepted to be that moronic.
This seed of failure is seen most readily in cashiers. It seems as though cashiers who have to return change, as opposed to swiping a card and handing it back, are in constant fear of incorrect math and rely solely on the computer screen to tell them what change to make. This is oddly complemented by the fact that cashiers are only capable of comprehending obvious numbers and go into a frightened tizzy when someone's total is $6.63 and they hand over $22.00 as opposed just the $20 bill. They don't understand that the change will be a $5 and a $10, instead of a $10 and three $1 bills.
I took a friend through a McDonald's drive thru this weekend and got her a hamburger that cost $1.07. She handed me a dollar and a quarter, but I decided to test the cashier and instead readied a $1 bill, a dime, and two pennies - as opposed to just the $1 and the dime.
The cashier took the handful of change and looked at me dumbstruck with wide eyes. She then turned to the computer, glanced at her meaty fistful of a mere three coins, and punched the sum into the computer with an alacrity amazing in such a lumbering beast. The change popped up on the screen: $0.05. Then she came to realize I wanted a nickel back and her world imploded causing the destruction of three neighboring counties, and my own precious little life.
Gawd, I hate that.
The Thing I Hate #2: Alarm systems.
I moved into a new home a mere six-odd weeks ago (more like four, maybe?). Said home was equipped with a state-of-the-art alarm system (and still is, so robbers beware). The alarm doesn't merely sit in silence on a bedroom wall, but instead is prominently posted in the hallway and chimes every time a door is opened. It also features a STAY button, wherein we equip the alarm while in the home and every time an entrance is breached - even if it's just us going out - an alarm goes off that calls the security offices; this is in addition to the EXIT button, which equips the house to seize in alarm thirty seconds after a door is opened, unless the code is put in, and additionally arms the motion sensors within the house to alert police. It's pretty awesome, I have to admit. I'm giddy over it every time I put in a code.
Well the second day I was in the house the police showed up to the house, and within three days I'd set the alarm off twice. I got a bit more used to the alarm in the next weeks, though I inadvertently opened a door at 4:00am'ish to go to work and set off a wild alarm that woke both roommates and the security offices. That one was my fault, though the two times I entered the backdoor this week only to feel like a burglar and have to answer a phone call with the phone password (the password is "I RUN L.A.") were obviously NOT my fault.
Regardless, alarm systems are annoying, and quite frankly I estimated my renters' insurance payoff much higher than the actual value of my threadbare possessions so that if a robber were to steal every item from my room, the deductible and the cost of the insurance, plus replacing all stolen items, would be much less than the payoff. I'd be set FOREVER! Ugh, it was so exciting! But no, with this alarm system I'll never get to commit insurance fraud. =/
Thing I Hate #3: Desperate sports fans.
Okay, here's the deal. I once hated sports and now I don't, yay, such character development. But that means that I'll wear my Alabama hat out wherever and be fearless and careless in the face of possible Auburn idiots, but it'll be not so much because I love Alabama as it is that I just need a hat to wear and I only own an Alabama hat. I will support my team, and speak highly of them and accuse opponent players of not being legally born in the United States or wanting money or whatever, but I am not delusional and tied solely into my own team's existence.
I worked at my corporate coffee joint in Alabama today, and in "Tiger Country" to be a bit more specific. This means that as I rendered services to the customers in the most jovial ways as possible, I saw a deluge of Auburn fans who wore idiotic navy blue t-shirts with NATIONAL CHAMPIONS 2011 and a combination of tigers killing elephants or Panama City art-style tigers looking buff on a football field; also, lists of past inflated school records; people who spent a notable amount every year on paying the fee for an Auburn tag AND sported two Auburn bumper stickers; many more things that made me lose my last feeble thread of hope in humanity. And I realized that people who live their lives and *ROTATE* fully around their sports teams aren't really people at all, but demon zombies who ought to be silenced.
And This One Thing That I Love: FOAM.
Just think about foam. It's this airy, light substance that is dense enough not to be trasparent, but still can float and be moved with the most minimal of efforts. It crests a glass of freshly shaken tea, it sits atop a steaming sink of water ripe for dirty dishes; it mounts effortlessly upon a Mexican beach in the back of a bar and hosts a bilingual and drunken foam party. It is all of that. It is Madonna. It is undeniable. It is FOAM.
I can think of no possible medium that foam is bad in. The Mexican beach story is true, and I participated in an eight-man interracial dog fight, wherein skinny me, Redneck (and, unbeknownst to us, Pregnant) Vicky, and Captain America AKA Joel took on five locals who didn't speak English and repeatedly rammed them into the sand before they gave up and went inside the bar and we all from Uninter immediately left the bar, went back to the hotel, and hid in our rooms for fear of a gunfight (for which we were ill-equipped, as was the nearby Burger King, which was home to a beachfront gunfight the night before we arrived in town). But despite the frightening end to the night, and the fact that the next morning Joel, Vicky, and I examined our limbs and chests to find a host of raw scrapes from the sand beneath the foam, we still loved the foam. It had been air to shield our fall, from the evil master of sand. Regardless, America had prevailed.
Foam is at the forefront of the baseless reality of childhood. The airy nature of foam, the odd mixture between defiance of weight and adherence to density visibility scales, its mysterious yet easily recreateable nature... all contribute to the positive existence of foam. I do dare you to find even one thing slightly wrong with the loveable and notable presence of foam. I LOVE IT
The Thing I Hate This Week (Month?) #3: People who cannot do simple math.
I understand that the majority of Americans are stupid, I truly do. And I further understand that 102% of all Americans are hopelessly addicted to and supported through marriage by technology. This translates into a nation where even adults can do math only with calculators, and only perform the simplest of math, yet it's socially accepted to be that moronic.
This seed of failure is seen most readily in cashiers. It seems as though cashiers who have to return change, as opposed to swiping a card and handing it back, are in constant fear of incorrect math and rely solely on the computer screen to tell them what change to make. This is oddly complemented by the fact that cashiers are only capable of comprehending obvious numbers and go into a frightened tizzy when someone's total is $6.63 and they hand over $22.00 as opposed just the $20 bill. They don't understand that the change will be a $5 and a $10, instead of a $10 and three $1 bills.
I took a friend through a McDonald's drive thru this weekend and got her a hamburger that cost $1.07. She handed me a dollar and a quarter, but I decided to test the cashier and instead readied a $1 bill, a dime, and two pennies - as opposed to just the $1 and the dime.
The cashier took the handful of change and looked at me dumbstruck with wide eyes. She then turned to the computer, glanced at her meaty fistful of a mere three coins, and punched the sum into the computer with an alacrity amazing in such a lumbering beast. The change popped up on the screen: $0.05. Then she came to realize I wanted a nickel back and her world imploded causing the destruction of three neighboring counties, and my own precious little life.
Gawd, I hate that.
The Thing I Hate #2: Alarm systems.
I moved into a new home a mere six-odd weeks ago (more like four, maybe?). Said home was equipped with a state-of-the-art alarm system (and still is, so robbers beware). The alarm doesn't merely sit in silence on a bedroom wall, but instead is prominently posted in the hallway and chimes every time a door is opened. It also features a STAY button, wherein we equip the alarm while in the home and every time an entrance is breached - even if it's just us going out - an alarm goes off that calls the security offices; this is in addition to the EXIT button, which equips the house to seize in alarm thirty seconds after a door is opened, unless the code is put in, and additionally arms the motion sensors within the house to alert police. It's pretty awesome, I have to admit. I'm giddy over it every time I put in a code.
Well the second day I was in the house the police showed up to the house, and within three days I'd set the alarm off twice. I got a bit more used to the alarm in the next weeks, though I inadvertently opened a door at 4:00am'ish to go to work and set off a wild alarm that woke both roommates and the security offices. That one was my fault, though the two times I entered the backdoor this week only to feel like a burglar and have to answer a phone call with the phone password (the password is "I RUN L.A.") were obviously NOT my fault.
Regardless, alarm systems are annoying, and quite frankly I estimated my renters' insurance payoff much higher than the actual value of my threadbare possessions so that if a robber were to steal every item from my room, the deductible and the cost of the insurance, plus replacing all stolen items, would be much less than the payoff. I'd be set FOREVER! Ugh, it was so exciting! But no, with this alarm system I'll never get to commit insurance fraud. =/
Thing I Hate #3: Desperate sports fans.
Okay, here's the deal. I once hated sports and now I don't, yay, such character development. But that means that I'll wear my Alabama hat out wherever and be fearless and careless in the face of possible Auburn idiots, but it'll be not so much because I love Alabama as it is that I just need a hat to wear and I only own an Alabama hat. I will support my team, and speak highly of them and accuse opponent players of not being legally born in the United States or wanting money or whatever, but I am not delusional and tied solely into my own team's existence.
I worked at my corporate coffee joint in Alabama today, and in "Tiger Country" to be a bit more specific. This means that as I rendered services to the customers in the most jovial ways as possible, I saw a deluge of Auburn fans who wore idiotic navy blue t-shirts with NATIONAL CHAMPIONS 2011 and a combination of tigers killing elephants or Panama City art-style tigers looking buff on a football field; also, lists of past inflated school records; people who spent a notable amount every year on paying the fee for an Auburn tag AND sported two Auburn bumper stickers; many more things that made me lose my last feeble thread of hope in humanity. And I realized that people who live their lives and *ROTATE* fully around their sports teams aren't really people at all, but demon zombies who ought to be silenced.
And This One Thing That I Love: FOAM.
Just think about foam. It's this airy, light substance that is dense enough not to be trasparent, but still can float and be moved with the most minimal of efforts. It crests a glass of freshly shaken tea, it sits atop a steaming sink of water ripe for dirty dishes; it mounts effortlessly upon a Mexican beach in the back of a bar and hosts a bilingual and drunken foam party. It is all of that. It is Madonna. It is undeniable. It is FOAM.
I can think of no possible medium that foam is bad in. The Mexican beach story is true, and I participated in an eight-man interracial dog fight, wherein skinny me, Redneck (and, unbeknownst to us, Pregnant) Vicky, and Captain America AKA Joel took on five locals who didn't speak English and repeatedly rammed them into the sand before they gave up and went inside the bar and we all from Uninter immediately left the bar, went back to the hotel, and hid in our rooms for fear of a gunfight (for which we were ill-equipped, as was the nearby Burger King, which was home to a beachfront gunfight the night before we arrived in town). But despite the frightening end to the night, and the fact that the next morning Joel, Vicky, and I examined our limbs and chests to find a host of raw scrapes from the sand beneath the foam, we still loved the foam. It had been air to shield our fall, from the evil master of sand. Regardless, America had prevailed.
Foam is at the forefront of the baseless reality of childhood. The airy nature of foam, the odd mixture between defiance of weight and adherence to density visibility scales, its mysterious yet easily recreateable nature... all contribute to the positive existence of foam. I do dare you to find even one thing slightly wrong with the loveable and notable presence of foam. I LOVE IT
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Fatherhood: The Blog - Week 10
While I love the ending of the famous Rudyard Kipling poem, Gunga Din for the delicious cadence to the rhymes (and here I show off by paraphrasing from memory: Though I've beaten you and flayed you/ By the living Gawd that made you/ You're a better man that I am, Gunga Din!) I have no earthly idea why I would ever want my baby to wear this onesie. In case you're wondering, I found this by randomly searching, "Rudyard Kipling baby quotes." That's the way my brain works in these fast and furious (or should I say, 2 fast 2 furious!) days of impending fatherhood. I was thinking about ol' Imperialist Kipling and therefore found some way to Google his name along with something relating to babies. In truth though, my favorite Kipling poem is the one I decided to live my life by around age 14 (and gave up around age 15, though I still keep it as my lofty ideal). It's the famous, If and if you haven't read it (or memorized it, really) do so immediately. If - Rudyard Kipling If I have a boy this is going above the headboard of his bed and I'll force him to recite it like a prayer every night (and if he doesn't then I'll beat and flay him Gunga Din style).
Let's dance past all this nonsense and get down to what really matters - BABY CLOTHES. Margaret and I, along with Clayton and some other fools who I don't know (but love dearly, I'm sure) went to our first Braves game of the season on Sunday. We lost 3-0 but that isn't what's important, as it was fun and sunny and we ate hot dogs and drank beer (Margaret not included) and sang Take Me Out To The Ballgame and booed the Phillies and participated in all of the things that make live sporting events so great. We also went to the big Braves gift shop to look for Mag a Chipper Jones shirt and I got distracted in the baby clothes corner. I'm sure it was a strange sight, some disheveled, long-haired creeper thumbing through Brian McCann onesies, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles. My baby is two inches long now, I have to start thinking ahead!
On Monday one of my many brothers turned 10. This was a strange occurrence as his birth is the first I really remember experiencing as an, "adult." I was old enough when he was born to really watch this kid grow up, and really, it's happened rather quickly. Not as super fast as all parents pretend, "You blink your eyes and suddenly they're going away to college!" but he does seem to have reached this age pretty quickly. I remember being 10 pretty well, and it just doesn't seem like he should be that age. Part of that is the difference in birth order though, I remember when I was 11 years old and some dumb rednecks who I've never seen before were walking down my street and started yelling at me (I was playing basketball in the driveway by myself). They kept insisting they knew me, which they didn't, and that my dad was, "that lawyer!" I said he wasn't, and that I didn't know them, so they started screaming at me and calling me a liar and said they were going to go home to get a gun and shoot me. I suppose I should mention these rednecks were about 13, not 30, as you may have assumed. After they walked off I got very frightened and didn't know what to do but told myself, "You're the oldest man at home, Andrew. You have to defend your mom and siblings." (my dad was at work). I didn't own a gun, of course, so I went into the shed, got out my Louisville Slugger wooden baseball bat, and waited at the end of the driveway. Sure enough (rednecks don't make idle threats in Georgia) about ten minutes later the boys showed back up carrying a BB rifle and stood across the street, staring at me for a few minutes. I held my bat in my hands and stared back, and eventually they walked off without any of us ever saying a word. As soon as they left I of course collapsed to the ground in a bundle of quickly vanishing adrenaline and tried not to embarrass myself through vomiting or pissing my pants. Later I told my dad what had happened and said, "They said you were a lawyer, but I thought they said you were a liar, so I was mad." He told me, "A lawyer and a liar are pretty much the same thing." Never let it be said he missed an opportunity to make a bad joke.
Short story long, though, (and here you should stop and marvel at how I can use the opportunity to make my brother's birthday all about myself) ten seems young until I stop and think about how I thought, and felt, when I was ten. Then I have to think about whenever this little fetus turns ten, and what he/she will be like, and think like, and where it'll live, and whether it will have siblings, and how many, and all of those sorts of unknowable answers to questions that haven't even been asked. Also, at my brother's birthday party I told my six year old brother, "Did you know my baby is tiny and can hiccup and do somersaults?" His big blue eyes bugged out of his head as he gasped and said, "What? I can't even do somersaults!"
Let's get this zig-zagging ship back on track (to mix metaphors) and talk about what's actually going on with this little bugger. This week we had our second appointment with the doctor who is actually going to (presumably) deliver the child, and I met her for the first time. She said everything looks fine and dandy and on track for the November delivery. She even put the jelly on the belly and stuck some little portable sonar device into that. All I heard was a bunch of static and some dolphins swimming by but Mag said that she could hear a tiny fast heartbeat. In another few weeks we have an appointment in which we'll be able to hear it clearly, and then a few weeks after that we'll finally figure out the sex of this damn thing. It will be convenient to be able to talk about it without calling it an, "it" or having to write, "he/she" or, "they" as if my one baby is two - both a boy and girl contained in one body, fighting for control. We also, this week, got our first bill from the OBGYN, upon which we promptly contemplated suicide, and then robbed a bank instead. After talking to the folks on the phone, however, we discovered that it is actually a bill for everything we'll owe up until delivery, and not just for services rendered so far, which is a far, far better prospect.
Mag was complaining this week about how she feels bloated, and her stomach is poking out a tiny bit already. I hate all those girls on Facebook who begin taking pictures of their stomachs as soon as they find out they're knocked up and stick them out as far as they possibly can, willing them to grow. Mag isn't like that, so was a bit shocked to find that a 2 inch long baby can actually make your belly visibly grow. It's slight, to be sure, but it's funny all the same. Of course now she's worried as she is a bridesmaid to be in early June, and was hoping not to be showing by that time since she already has the dress. Other than that, things haven't changed much since last week. We only had one giant knockdown drag out argument (though, my lawyers have informed me, I should stress that there wasn't any actual knocking down or dragging out) and it was over the very insulting question, "Around what time do you want to go out and eat dinner at your favorite restaurant tonight?"
 |
| Squash ball is all the way on the right |
The baby is now about the size of a, "squash ball" whatever the hell that is, and is beginning to actually look pretty human. Sadly, it's cute little flippers are mostly gone. According to this book, the uterus is now to big to fit into the pelvis and is beginning to push into the abdomen (which I suppose explained the bloating/swelling of the belly). The book also suggests that this is the appropriate time to inform one's co-workers and distant relatives about the pregnancy. I guess we jumped the gun on that one a bit. But consider this - if you didn't know we were having a baby you couldn't stay up to date on all these super important stories!
Soon, hopefully, Margaret will be big enough to actually begin taking pictures of her stomach (at least until her belly button turns inside out, because that's just disgusting).
| This is what my baby looks like, though less rubbery. |
Our Gardening Adventure
Margaret and I have started a garden. We started a half-hearted garden last year, which mostly consisted of putting some seeds or plants in the ground or something and then ignoring them. I guess I must not have the proverbial, "Green Thumb" as, surprisingly, this didn't yield a bountiful harvest of fruits and vegetables. This year though, we declared from atop a mountain of recently tilled soil, things would be different. This year we would sink our pink little fingers deep in this grimy muck and mire and, through back-breaking labor and the sweat of our regal brows, pull forth from Mother Earth the fruit of her fertile womb. We would play the role of mother, creating a welcoming and nurturing environment for the plants - father, planting the seeds in this environment - nursemaid, nurturing and maturing these seeds into plants - doctor, delivering the bounty of our labor - and finally cannibal, sinking our sharpened teeth into the juicy goodness of vegetables we planted. This year, our long-winded declaration continued, we would not be distracted with petty things such as work, sleep, food, or Halo: Reach. This year our garden represented our child - and if we couldn't take care of a garden (and here we shook hands in solemn agreement) we would immediately sell our child to the highest bidder upon its birth. The stakes were high, our ambition higher, and our dedication higher still. Garden, prepare to meet thy makers.
So, since Mag's dad has recently given up his hobby of raising five children and eleven and a half grandchildren, he's faced with the problem that haunts many an older man - free time. This isn't a problem for the young, as the young are most excellent at finding ways to waste copious amounts of time without ever feeling as if the time has been a waste. Because of this he's taken up gardening. The guy's a pilot, which means he doesn't halfass anything, and he has been reading some book on square-foot gardening (cleverly titled, "Square Foot Gardening") so we decided to try that.
I'm not much of a carpenter, but I used to play with LEGOs a lot, so even I can put together a 4 foot square box with 2x6s. Of course first we needed the lumber, so we made a trip to Home Depot. We got the wood and a variety of other things in giant heavy bags which we were going to mix together to make the most fertile of soils. After returning home Mag (also known as my Honey Baby Sugar Bookums) began her mysterious mixture of our forthcoming mineral conglomeration, and I got to work on screwing the boards together. This sort of thing is really more fun than it out to be, and I can only suppose it's because of LEGOs. After I built the box I was going to overlay a sort of tic-tac-toe board on it so I had to measure and re-measure the sides, doing the most basic sorts of math to figure out where each end would go and marking it with the oldest, most beat up pencil I could find (I feel this is appropriate for carpentry). Meanwhile Mag mixed together the following substances:
- Composted soil from her dad's compost tumbler.
- Cow manure.
- Organic
We also had a sheet of something to lay at the bottom of the box. When we had everything put together in the obvious and appropriate way, we began planting the seeds. I made up a little grid on a piece of paper (in case our memories fail us in the future) and we marked down what we were planting in each square - okra, tomatoes, peppers, marigold (to keep pesky little pests away) and a few un-planted squares for our as-yet-to-be-decided vegetables. We planted the seeds, stepped back, congratulated ourselves on a job well done, and waited to see what nature would do for us.
That night we had 60 mile per hour winds, multiple trees knocked down on our street, a large branch fall across our driveway, and a hail storm. However, it's a week (or so) later and just in the past few days our okra and peppers have sprouted, and I'm confident more are on the way. I was worried that the massive destruction caused by the storm may have drowned our poor little seeds, but evidently they drank up that hail like the lifewater it once was. I don't even like vegetables, and usually avoid them at all cost, but I can't wait to eat these suckers.
I'm not much of a carpenter, but I used to play with LEGOs a lot, so even I can put together a 4 foot square box with 2x6s. Of course first we needed the lumber, so we made a trip to Home Depot. We got the wood and a variety of other things in giant heavy bags which we were going to mix together to make the most fertile of soils. After returning home Mag (also known as my Honey Baby Sugar Bookums) began her mysterious mixture of our forthcoming mineral conglomeration, and I got to work on screwing the boards together. This sort of thing is really more fun than it out to be, and I can only suppose it's because of LEGOs. After I built the box I was going to overlay a sort of tic-tac-toe board on it so I had to measure and re-measure the sides, doing the most basic sorts of math to figure out where each end would go and marking it with the oldest, most beat up pencil I could find (I feel this is appropriate for carpentry). Meanwhile Mag mixed together the following substances:
- Composted soil from her dad's compost tumbler.
- Cow manure.
- Organic
We also had a sheet of something to lay at the bottom of the box. When we had everything put together in the obvious and appropriate way, we began planting the seeds. I made up a little grid on a piece of paper (in case our memories fail us in the future) and we marked down what we were planting in each square - okra, tomatoes, peppers, marigold (to keep pesky little pests away) and a few un-planted squares for our as-yet-to-be-decided vegetables. We planted the seeds, stepped back, congratulated ourselves on a job well done, and waited to see what nature would do for us.
That night we had 60 mile per hour winds, multiple trees knocked down on our street, a large branch fall across our driveway, and a hail storm. However, it's a week (or so) later and just in the past few days our okra and peppers have sprouted, and I'm confident more are on the way. I was worried that the massive destruction caused by the storm may have drowned our poor little seeds, but evidently they drank up that hail like the lifewater it once was. I don't even like vegetables, and usually avoid them at all cost, but I can't wait to eat these suckers.
THE END
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