And the livin's easy...

I normally don't post a lot of pictures and not a lot of words to my blog but today may be my exception.  For the last few weeks my roommate and I have been trying to make our house an even better home by overhauling the backyard.  For any of you who live in a rowhouse, you know what a challenge this can be.  At max, your yard is about 8 feet wide, and if you're lucky you get about 20-25 feet of depth.  Many of these old rowhouses have porches and garages and weirdly shaped additions and trying to make the yard into something functional can be a challenge.  Plus, the dog thinks this part of the house is entirely hers.  Down to the bees.

I was told a few years ago (although I couldn't tell you by whom because my brain just isn't as functional as it once was) that the small, charming backyards of city rowhouses are really all you ever need.  This person reminded me that even when you have acres and acres of land, you find you spend all your time in one small section of the yard.  I think this person might have been trying to make me feel better (because I sure remember using every inch of those acres growing up).  But there is something special about these backyards.  Small fences divide our homes and we truly share our yards with the entire block.  We see each other at six am with our morning coffee and at midnight with our wine glasses.  We know what each other's dogs sound like and we pay attention when things move or furniture is rearranged.  I know this would drive some people crazy, but I kind of love it.  Just another charm for me.

Plus, Cara and I are lucky.  We have gardeners next door.  In fact, our neighbors on our left have lived in their house for almost 65 years and have been gardening everyday since they moved in.

Talk about competition.  Every day I find something new blooming in their yard and they've already got the biggest tomatoes I've seen yet in anyone's garden.  Our little puny clover grass and concrete walkway was making me depressed every time I went onto our deck.  I begged the wife (aka my roommate) to do something about it and one morning she handed me a hand-drafted plan of our new backyard.  It would require a lot of building and releveling of the soil and pulling out of the existing grass, but she assured me that for under $300, I could have a yard I'd actually want to spend time in.

And she was right.  And on budget.  And I think we've done a great job as newbies.  I'm slowly finding my green thumb and Cara has been able to release her inner lumberjack.  Lacking 65 years of practice and despite the fact that we're mere renters (so we don't want to sink any real cash into this DIY project), I think we've done a splendid job.  Also, did I mention how great it is to live with a real-live handy-woman?  I mean, this girl is amazing.  If I were a lesbian, I'd so marry this woman.  Hell, I might marry her anyway.

Check out our her project (I'd like to claim more of it, but it just wouldn't be right):

Step one:  Beg, plead, and bribe roommate to build you raised beds for your flowers, herbs, and vegetables.  Fill with organic garden soil and bat guano (from Dr. Earth) and plant the shit out of those flowers, herbs, and veggies.

Step two:  Ask roommate to frame patio square and level the ground and soil.  Remember to ask sweetly and offer to make sausage biscuits.

Step three:  Ask roommate to put down gravel and sand and level it all with this handmade rake (and again, remember to offer to make cocktails and dinner).

Step four:  Sunbathe on the deck while this all goes down.  Don't forget sunscreen!  Try not to look guilty when Cara comes up for a break sweating and dying of thirst.

Step five:  Figure out how to convince the dog that the new hole for the patio isn't a sandbox, litterbox for the alley cats, OR a mini-beach (warning: this step involves bribes and treats)

Step six:  Lay pavers, fill with sand, and layer the mulch.

Step seven: Plant rose bush for good luck.

Step eight:  Invite over friends for a BBQ and make sure the patio is dance-proof.  Play James Brown.  Serve corn.  (Yet to be completed).

First major DIY project of the summer: COMPLETE.  Just in time to sit outside and sip mint juleps.  Thanks, wife. 

And no, you can't have her.

Lemonade

When life hands you lemons, don’t you sometimes want to shove those lemons down someone’s throat and walk away? With no guilt or conflict of morality or ethics getting in the way?

I get that I’m supposed to be all kinds of positive about when shit happens, because, shit happens.   It just does.  In the order of the world, there has to be a balance of good and bad, and I guess life was getting too good (although, I’d like to ask the universe: can life ever be too good? Really?  Are we sure about that answer?)  And as my uncle told me so kindly earlier this week, “you had a yang coming with that steady flow of yin…”   Yeah, yeah.  Whatever.

Earlier this week I was jolted out of my precious slumber by the sound of a horrendous crash outside of my window.  Hazily leaping out of bed to the window, I looked down to find that another car had indeed crashed into MY car.  Out of the 30 she had to choose from on our block, mine was her victim.  Well, mine and two others.  But mine not only got hit, it got CRUNCHED.  And mine was the last one she hit, thus receiving the biggest blow.  And I parked under the street lamp the night before, because I had come in late, and so the street lamp had also aided and abetted in the crunching of the OTHER side of my car.  Epic crunching.

Due to the fact that it was 5:45 am, I was all kinds of confused and disoriented and didn’t quite understand the extent to which I had just been handed lemons.  Smiling, and still trying to wake up my brain, I didn’t think to be outraged or hostile.  I didn’t think to challenge the police when they failed to provide me with any of the driver’s information.  I didn’t think to ask for her driver’s license number.  This was all promised to be in the police report—the police report I would be able to claim in 5-10 days for a cost of $10.  I didn’t think this was outrageous.

Now, almost four days later, my hostility is setting in.  Especially now that the young girl, driving alone on a learner's permit at 5:45 am, is MIA, her insurance plan was cancelled months ago, and the police appear to have “lost” parts of the police report (the only document that contained her information that we need in order to seek justice), I’ve poured the lemonade down the drain.

The lemonade is gone.  I’m looking at a preliminary (I repeat, preliminary) damage report that rounds in at about $6,500 worth of body work (thank god for comprehensive collision insurance).  I’m trying hard not to get hustled by the “industry” that is car insurance and collision repair.  And I find myself totally overwhelmed with it all.  I’m wondering if my car will be totaled—something NO ONE seems to want to tell me—and I’m also wondering if it means I’m gonna have to buy a new car this week (and if so, what do I buy?  Can I even afford a new car?)  I’m driving a crappy rental car that drives like a sewing machine on wheels that smells like ass covered up with air freshener.  And I’m preparing myself for this to go on for another couple of weeks until official decisions are made and repairs can be done (or not).

I’m wondering if this girl, now being hassled by my insurance company and my neighbor’s insurance agencies, is even going to face ANY penalties.  It doesn’t appear that we have any kind of grip whatsoever on the situation, thank you very much Baltimore city police who wanted to rush cleaning up the scene/writing the report so that they could end their shift. 

And everyone keeps saying: Look at the bright side, you weren’t in the vehicle.  No one got hurt.

What the fuck is up with everyone’s love for lemonade?  I know y’all aren’t this positive on a regular basis.  This is why I live on the East Coast.  I live for our perpetual cynicism and negativity.  Live for it.  Please, for the love of god someone say something snarky.

The only thing that has kept me together this week has been the overwhelming amount of anxiety I have about all the homework I have left to finish before my last two classes of grad school this semester.  I fear that come Tuesday morning, I might just dissolve into a big mess in the carpet and poor Cara (patient plutonic wife and roommate that she is) is gonna need to scoop me up and put me in front of a marathon of Always Sunny in Philadelphia with some Red-Hot Cheetos.  And possibly a Quaalude and a vodka tonic.

I got a feeling it won't be pretty, folks.

So thus far, my solution for today has been to bake a cake and to read some scholarly journals (that by noon I need to have synthesized into a well-thought out thesis).  By 7:30 this morning, I was highlighting to the sexy hum of my stand-up mixer, faithfully beating the shit out of some cake batter.  Using my beautiful, shiny, red KitchenAid mixer is like the equivalent of getting high.  It’s totally my heroin.  I also have plans to go buy some plants today and to get my little organic urban garden bloomin'—plans I had last weekend but ended up botching thanks to cold natty boh's and a really, really hot sunshine.

Today, I will blissfully ignore the fucking lemons.  I will NOT look at new cars online (which gives me anxiety).  I will NOT look at my 8 page preliminary estimate from the body shop (which gives me anxiety).  I will NOT call my insurance company or check my online claim for any details (which gives me anxiety).  Today I will do my homework.  And maybe throw on a shirt-dress, some high heels, and some red lipstick.  And maybe I’ll vacuum.  Or make a soufflé from scratch.

Here’s hoping a healthy dose of domesticity (and intellectual discourse) will brighten up my weekend.  But don’t expect lemonade if you drop in.  We’ll be serving bourbon, only.  And no more positivity, people.  It's making me nauseous.