Hello from Grumpyland

I'm Buddha, and I do not approve of this post.

No wonder so many people in Portland are so humorless. Look, I know this rain is good for us, and much needed, and with it the garden grows and blah blah blah fucking blah. But being extremely light sensitive, I confess I am ready for a break from the pissing sky.

Rain reminds me, unfortunately, of a day in -- was it 1998? -- when I sat watching it pour outside the window as I swapped melodramatic emails (replete with-- how ridiculous is this?-- Edna St. Vincent Millay poems) with the two-timing mofo I was allowing to torture me at the time. (On a brighter note, I was in the attic the other day, and came across a delightfully Oedipal photo my son had snapped of me and this same asshole, and the asshole's head was completely cut off in the shot, which is the reason I was able to keep that snap around. Oh my son-- he could always spot the problem long before me.)

Rain also seems to provide me with the extra time I am otherwise hard pressed to locate. This is because it robs me of my long walks and brings me so low that I am unable to lift ass from chair. Thus planted, what the hell, I go ahead and get the inboxes down damn near close to zero. The momentary elation gives way to more gloom, knowing that a) soon the boxes will refill and b) I still have time to kill.

This in turn feeds a guilty pleasure/pain in which I confess I sometimes indulge-- surfing around to sundry mommy blogs to remind myself that of all the genres and mediums out there in the world (Thomas Kinkade paintings, Rush Limbaugh rants, Faces of Death movies, Christian propaganda) there is not one other thing that so consistently chaps my ass as the "mommy bloggers." The title alone is so creepy that I often have to squeeze Rebound's belly immediately after viewing a mommy blog in order to elicit a forced stink bomb of a fart to cleanse my mental palate of whatever account I've just read about... well about the crap that mommy bloggers spew.

I have a theory. No, make it a prediction. I hold that perhaps beginning in the next decade, there will be a loosely formed band of young adults who dwell in basements and spend their entire lives describing their severe cases of PTMBSS (yes, you got it: Post Traumatic Mommy Blog Stress Syndrome). Just as their "mommies" have spent every minute of every day writing about all the time they are allegedly spending mothering, these no-longer-children will go back through the archives and refute, post-for-post, every claim their mommies ever made. I want to say this should make for good reading, but what I really think is that once the trend gains purchase, I damn well better be living somewhere it never rains, because I really don't want to get sucked into that shit.

Anyway, I know, I know, I'm sounding like one of those bitches who has an abortion then turns coat and says no one should have abortions. It is absolutely true I have written plenty about my son. But thankfully this whole put-up-a-post-every-fifteen-minutes shit wasn't de rigueur back then, and my Dallas Morning News column about being a mom only ran once a month. Who are these women recording every nanosecond of their families' lives and, more importantly, how can we stop them?

I told you the rain got me down, didn't I? I warned you. Seriously, this post was supposed to be a garden update. Well, actually, it was supposed to be the start of my Second Annual Send Me Some Money Tip Jar Drive, but damn you, KUT, for holding a SECOND fund drive in two months. My plan was to wait for their spring drive to wrap in March, give y'all a break in April (because I know the only two places worth donating to are me and KUT and downtime is a good idea), then hit you up for some change in May. But noooooo. KUT needs to move into a new $9 million dollar building and until you people pony up the dough, they are going to unleash John Aielli's tales of... well everything on you.

In conclusion, here are some pictures of my garden, which unlike me is really happy about this rain crap. Oh, and talk about a day late and dollar short-- or more accurately a year late-- also a plug for my friend Stephen Orr's wonderful gardening book which you should buy right after you put some cash in my tip jar (which I shall officially put up next week).

This is my friend Stephen's awesome book. You can buy it at BookPeople and you can read Stephen's blog here.

Major score-- I bartered with a wedding couple recently and yesterday the groom. Willy, came over and totally got the two beds I'd left in winter-garden mode into summer-garden shape. 

Willy turned me on to Malabar Spinach, which means I can still have green smoothies in summer and the chickens, which are actually little pigs in chicken costumes, will still have some leafy greens for the summer, too, now that they have eaten all the kale and chard. Pigs.

Willy taught me that if you put flowers in your veggie beds it can help with pollination. Thank you, Willy.

Won't be long now before the cocksucker squirrels decimate the tomatoes like they did last year.

Speaking of which, those little assholes, when they aren't busy destroying the bird feeder out front, have taken to eating all the peaches off my little peach tree. Shit heads.

When I "bought the house" (READ: got the world's shittiest mortgage that I will not be able to pay off in my lifetime) it came with a fig tree that died. Demonstrating that yes, I do know the definition of insanity, I planted a new fig tree. Stay tuned for Another Dead Fig Tree soon.

My basil starters. They say basil has anti-depressant qualities. As soon as I publish this post I am going to go bury my face in this planter.

English lavender, so I can pretend my house is Downton Abbey.

Meyers lemon, excellent bee attractant. Maybe I'll get to use my Epi-pen this year!

Jade plant. I got this at Phoenicia in Houston. That's not a very funny caption, is it?

View out my window from my desk/table. Beyond the bird bath is a red Japanese maple like I had growing up. Hanging in the tree is the $2.99 made-in-China bird feeder I got at Walgreens that the Elvis squirrels hang off of and chew to bits. Jerk offs. I like the gnome/Eiffel Tower juxtaposition because it makes me think of how my French friends make fun of the English and vice versa. Human beings! Tres droll!