Butter Side Down

My buddy Kris tagged me this morning with a meme. So, since I’m SUCH a team player, here goes:

The rules:

1. Post the rules of the game at the beginning.

Check.

2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.

Um, with questions that all ask “what are your…” or “what are you…,” just who else precisely would the questions be for? Perhaps there might be some confusion if I owned a pair of goldfish I’ve named “You” and “Your,” but otherwise, isn’t this rule covering something a trifle… well… obvious?

3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read the player’s blog.

I can see a slight process problem, as Kris (who tagged me) has already tagged everyone I would tag. We’ll just skip this rule.

4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

Check. I’ll go do that in just a moment.

On to the questions!

What were you doing five years ago?

You have GOT to be kidding - five years ago? Like I keep track of what I ate for breakfast today, much less what I was doing 1825 days ago? I think not. Humph. Next question.

What are five things on your to-do list for today?

Hm. Another tricky question. Maybe create a “to-do” list? Nah. Why do that, when I can use my trusty ‘projects and tasks’ spreadsheet? It even lets me enter weighted priorities to figure out what needs getting done first and tells me if it’s even possible to finish something in the available time. Note: having a spouse who is a spreadsheet programming wizard can have unexpected benefits, including nifty spreadsheets that explode when you say you have one minute available but need 10,000 hours for your backlog of household- related critical priority tasks. Undermining software can be so entertaining!

What are five snacks you enjoy?

Shortbread cookies - my own recipe. Cheesecake - my own recipe. Parfaits - my own recipe. (Are we seeing a pattern here?) Fresh sliced strawberries and bananas smothered in Sibbey’s vanilla ice cream. Anything made with tart cherries and lots of sugar. I do not enjoy celery, skimmed milk, raw broccoli or any other tasteless substitute for real food. So there.

What are five things you would do if you were a billionaire?

Probably what I’m dong right now, except with money.

What are five of your bad habits?

Bad hobbits? Are there bad hobbits? I thought they were all nice, like Frodo and Sam and besides, I don’t own any hobbits - wouldn’t that be slavery? What? Oh. Bad habits. Now I’m even more confused. I don’t wear a habit! Only nuns and sisters wear habits! I wear ordinary street clothing… Have the rules changed? Am I supposed to be wearing a habit? And why would I want a “bad” habit? What’s that? Oh. Can you repeat the question?

What are five places where you have lived?

In my imagination. Nice place, most of the time. Oops. Sorry. You meant physical locations. Lemme see… suburb of Detroit… Big 10 University city. Big 10 University suburb. Different Big 10 University city. Yet another Big 10 University suburb. Small village in Wisconsin.

What are five jobs you’ve had?

Paying or unpaid? Volunteer? Mandatory? First job I had was dusting and mopping my room. The pay was lousy (not suprising, as it was unpaid forced labor - parents can be so darn mean). Hated it. Still do. That’s why if you come into my house and complain about dust bunnies you’ll be given a choice between dusting and mopping yourself, or taking the top sheet from a pad of post-it notes, writing an appropriate dust-bunny-type name on the top sheet (e.g. “Fang”), and tagging the nearest critter. After all, if it’s a pet, then it belongs, right? Of course right. Perfectly logical.

Then there was my second job, which entailed ironing my Dad’s handkerchiefs so they were precisely square and perfect and fit all military specs. Then there was –

Oh, quit grimacing! I’ll stop now!

Memes. Humph.

We had a little ‘incident’ here last Thursday.

Our village public works department decided to ‘water jet’ the sanitary sewers for preventative maintenance. Basically, the task involves using a truck to pump water at very high pressures through a municipality’s sewage systems, to prevent blockages from developing in the sanitary sewers.

If you, Oh Best Beloved, haven’t ever heard of water jetting, I have one piece of advice:

Be afraid. Be very afraid if your municipality decides to buy this type of equipment.

Visualize this scene:

Michael and I were in our kitchen, enjoying a late lunch when we heard a gurgle coming from our pipes… a distinctive gurgle… the gurgle that says our normally sane municipality has hauled out the “water jetting” equipment and failed to contact us, as they had promised, after we had problems LAST time they water jetted.

See our horrified expressions? No? Well, trust me. We had horrified expressions, the type of expression Indiana Jones has when he drops into a snake pit.

Now, visualize Michael as he ran frantically down the hallway to our bathroom, because from past experiences we know that:

Satan has taken possession of our toilet.

Yep. We needed a toilet exorcist, because water was shooting straight up, in a demonic swirling geyser - and it wasn’t clean tap water.

Being an intrepid soul, Michel did what I did last time our village helpfully jetted the sewers: slammed the lid on the toilet.

So, we had Michael holding down the toilet lid, with water (laced with you-know-what) boiling out around the edges of the toilet seat.

*AAAIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!*

As I frantically dialed the village’s public works department to tell them to shut the freakin’ equipment off, Michael lunged across the bathroom (leaving one hand holding down the toilet lid), grabbed a toilet plunger we own, whipped up the toilet seat and slammed the plunger into the toilet, blocking the outlet-turned-inlet.

Result: Michael, feet braced, leaning with considerable force into the toilet, became the living plug in the sewage dike. The sewage, not to be thwarted, blew the drain cover up in the bathtub and spewed all over inside the tub.

At least I got through to the work crew and got them to turn the equipment off well before the bathtub overflowed…

Oh, yeah, this was just SO what we needed in our lives.

*Sigh.*

The village says that they’ll try to remember to call us when they do this again (Again? AGAIN?!) in two years and use ‘lower’ power in our section of the village.

Right.

Like that’s happened the last three times they did this — with the same results in not only our house but other homes.

We spent the afternoon and a large part of the evening cleaning then disinfecting our entire bathroom.

Talk about sh– happens…

Ferns aren’t supposed to sneeze. Given that little fact of nature, I was rather startled when I went past the bank of ferns that are behind our house this afternoon and heard a very distinct sneeze.

Then… I started to laugh.

*Judy stands with her hands behind her back and says in a very sing-song voice, “I know that you’re in there! That’s you, Missus Bunny! You’ve got baby bunnies!”*

To confirm my suspicions, I carefully studied the ferns from a prudent non-bunny-disturbing distance, and finally pinpointed a spot where I could see a set of bunny whiskers amidst the plants. Yep. Missus Bunny was hiding in the ferns. Michael and I have named her Petunia, by the way. We’re calling her Pet for short…

When I had the audacity to reach over and pluck a fern frond that was growing into the pathway several feet from her hiding spot, Petunia indignantly hopped out. She then skittered across the yard, radiating “I’m just a lone bunny, all by myself, you can just pay attention to me hopping over here. Nope, nothing under the ferns you need to bother looking at. Really. Move along.”

I wasn’t snookered.

She’s about half the size she was two weeks ago. Also, I’ve found tufts of bunny fur here and there buried in little rabbit scratches. Momma bunnies dig scratches like that and line them with tufts of their own fur when they’re testing out potential nursery sites.

I can’t wait to see this year’s little dandelion chompers!

Because of all the bunnies that frequent our yard, I grow very few tulips. Those that I do have are surrounded by rabbit wire fencing so that I can enjoy them instead of the bunnies enjoying them…

For some reason known only to the bunnies, these red and white tulips apparently aren’t tasty. If I knew which variety they were, I’d grow them en masse, as their blooms last for weeks and the white and red combination reminds me of peppermint candies.

As these tulips age, the red from the edges and the stripes gradually broadens into the petal until the petals become more red than white. I’d love to know how the color gene that produces this effect works!

This clump of alliums is a new addition to our gardens. I’ve eyed them in garden catalogs, but only last fall was I able, for the first time, to find organic allium bulbs.

I’m fascinated by how the buds develop, slowly emerging on top of a 3-foot tall stalk.

The fully opened blooms are spectacular, each the size of a baseball and a deep rich purple - I can understand why this variety is named “Purple Sensation!” The foliage is already dying back, so these are similar to daffies and tulips, in that they need to be planted in a place where something else takes over. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a big bare spot in your gardens when spring has passed.

Next to bloom — probably over the coming weekend — will be our Irises and the early blooming daylilies. I’m also keeping my eye out for little future hoppers - I haven’t seen the Missus about in the yard, so I suspect she had her baby bunnies earlier this week!

When I was a child, we lived near an old estate that had been abandoned decades earlier. The grounds had reverted to woodland and meadows, and in the spring daffodils sprung up everywhere, signaling the start of spring.

I’ve kept since then my love of daffodils, with all their subtle variations. This beauty has a deep yellow trumpet that is flatter than most - and the bumblebees love it.

The contrast on this variety of daffodil between the white petals and its golden-orange edged yellow trumpet is one of my favorite daffodil color combinations. These daffies are a tad smaller than their cousins above, but very long lasting.

This clump of daffodils has a pale yellow and white mottling that I’ve never seen on any other daffodil. They also have a sweet fragrance that is wonderful.

I enjoy these white daffodils long after the other daffies have faded and gone. They bloom later than most, and have a strong but sweet fragrance that carries across the yard.

I know that spring has firmly established a hold when the chipmunks surface from their hibernation. I’ve been watching especially for this particular chipmunk to appear, as she’s a scrappy little fighter with a cheeky attitude. “Stumpy” lost half of her tail two years ago, while escaping from a predator.

The missing tail hasn’t slowed Stumpy down a bit - or toned down her ‘tude one iota. I laugh every time she charges into the mourning doves (that are twice her size) that gather under the feeders and bowls them over to keep them from eating ‘her’ seeds!

More to come…