(no subject)

[dragonlady7]

Fun trip to the grocery store last night.
Bought beer. Stuck our IDs onto the six-pack for the cashier. He gets to them, looks at the IDs, types a number into the cash register, turns to hand us each our ID, realizes he's got them backward, switches them.
"I'm the one with the short hair," Dave says.

(Those who don't know what Dave looks like, here's a general idea; I don't have a good one of his hair, but you can see it in silhouette in that shot.)
We scored a turkey fryer yesterday-- Dave's mom said we could keep it, as she'd never need to fry a turkey again. (It was Dave's dad's.) The thing is primitive and terrifying. But, I mean, I'm not going to complain about fried turkey.

I have to work up the courage to get out of bed and go plant marigolds and snapdragons, and to rip out a bunch of Star of Bethlehem and Solomon's Seal. I might leave some of the Solomon's Seal. But the hostas? Which are coming back from the impenetrable root clusters I couldn't remove all of? I'm going to be merciless and kill those. Goddamn hostas. Like two would be nice, but when I moved in, the previous tenant had filled every flowerbed with them. Every damn one. And had even stuck them into the flowerbed that was already mostly lilies. They're sort of wedged into every place where it's possible to plant one. I tore them out, sparing perhaps three, but several of them are coming back, and I've got to find some way to remove them if i am to have room to plant strawberries. I am realizing that hostas are immortal.

But in the meantime, it's cold out there, and warm under here, so I'm not moving.

Oh, one more odd thing. Our thermostat hates life, and will randomly click on and off with a loud noise. Lately I've been turning the heat off, and then when I move the switch back to "heat" it won't turn on again. It's a pain in the ass.
Yesterday it was on "heat" and had actually turned on (it will for Dave: just not for me). The thermostat registered that it was cold, so it turned the heat on. Then it crapped out and turned itself off again. Leaving the heat on. It was set to heat to 67, but with the thermostat crapped out, it just kept going. It got to 70 and I started hitting the thermostat. It got to 72 and I considered shutting off the gas to the heater. Finally I jumped up and down and smacked the thermostat repeatedly, and it turned on, and after a few more minutes during which I actually went down and removed the heater's panel and looked at the gas shutoff switch (which I have operated before when we re-lit the pilot, but I don't remember how), the stupid heater turned off.
Christ. How hard is it to install a new thermostat? We've got to get one that actually works. What if it craps out like that while nobody's home, and doesn't kick back in? We'll come home to a 90 degree house and another seven hundred dollar gas bill. Just what we need: no thanks.

Comments

[mother2012.livejournal.com]

It's easy to install a thermostat. The hard part is buying it. I love the one we put in a few years ago that has four different settings throughout the day and another set for weekends. We never have to monkey with it, once it's set up for the season.

[kittyc1978.livejournal.com]

You are ripping out hostas? those things are like 9.00 a start! what are you doin? just transplant them! I would kill for those!

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

You can HAVE 'em!! (*mails you hostas*)
Crikeys, kid, I got nowhere to transplant 'em to. Jen (dave's cousin, who lived here before) musta bought a flat of 48 of them. My backyard is like thirty-five by thirty-five feet. Hostas? They're big. I ripped them out last fall because I didn't have one single place to put a tulip. Also, they were covering the driveway, and providing refuge to fugitive criminals. I think one ate the neighbor's cat. In ripping them out, I broke several garden tools older than I was, and near killed myself. They were vicious, and their root systems were impenetrable.

Here's a little tip: if you leave a chunk of their roots in dirt, it'll root and sprout again come spring. AUGH. I got hostas out the wazoo. I've pared it down to a dozen. I will have three in the front yard, several along the edge of the driveway where the soil's too poor for anything else, one in the flowerbed as a buffer zone between the Solomon's Seal and the rest of the stuff (SS spreads), like three randomly in that flowerbed I'm not touching this year (I'm waiting to see what the hell's in it. It's probably all weeds. So I'll rip those out at the end of the summer and re-strategize), and then I'm transplanting a couple to go along the south fence. One has decided to transplant itself behind the garage and more power to it; I can't get in there.

I know they're perennials, but oh my god they're wolf-spider houses and cricket breeding grounds. I don't mind bugs, and all, but the wolf spiders were the size of cassette tapes and the crickets were like to keep you up all night. (Wolf spiders, in case you don't have them out there, are hunting spiders that don't weave webs. And they can jump. And they've got really big fangs. And they're damned huge. Sometimes they're big enough you can hear 'em walking on hardwood floors. I like 'em fine but don't really need to encourage them to get that big. Me and spiders gotta keep away from each other.)


My mom's got the right idea with hostas. In a fifty-acre lot, she has: Two. And they're the ones that bloom blue. These are ALL white ones, which is more boring than boring. At least two or three of them have stripey leaves: the rest are all plain green.

So instead of fifty identical hostas I have an herb garden, a bed of tulips, a vegetable garden, and a bed of flowering annuals. I really don't think I'm nuts to make the switch. Also, I think plants are cheaper around here. :)

[kittyc1978.livejournal.com]

Oh trust me, Wolf spiders are out here too, and you CAN hear them walk eeeew eeeek, and if the hostas are hiding them then burn the roots!

[kittyc1978.livejournal.com]

By the way is dave Nekkid in that pic? Where are his slippers? He could catch cold!

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I took the picture because he was standing behind my monitor and his boxers were entirely concealed. Sadly, he rarely wanders around naked.

Of course he's wearing his slippers. He wears his slippers for everything except sleeping and sex, and the latter only because I insist.