Marriage, or Jon & Kate & TLC destroy 8

The first two shots are from yesterday afternoon. The kids jumped into the little pool fully clothed. They were so cute giggling about it. They had some of their 'Big Cat' figurines in the pool with them and were playing with them. You can see them lined up along the edge of the pool. The other shot is of M working on one of his landscape plans at his drafting table.


Given the nasty state of my hormones, I’ve slept a lot less lately. I’ve also had no energy whatsoever. That translates into much more tv time than usual for me. The tv shows I enjoy most are typically educational or news, so I’ve caught more than my share of Jon & Kate Gosselin drama lately (until the FF & MJ deaths knocked these fools out of the running). I do not watch their show. I really became first aware of it on a vacation a couple of years ago. I was up late looking for something entertaining. I used to like TLC and saw a show with absolutely darling children, so I watched several episodes that night. It was a marathon.

Initially the kids were cute, and I was entertained in a very twisted way, by the way Kate repeatedly humiliated her husband. I enjoy watching deserving men suffer. After several episodes, it became much less entertaining. I was increasingly upset by the cold and rigid way she interacted with those children. I noticed that only one parent really interacted with and seemed to have a real relationship with the children, and that was the husband that Kate so delighted in humiliating and abusing (both verbally and physically)! She slapped his face on more than one occasion. Hard. The more I thought about it, I didn’t like the very personal nature of footage on these children. It was or would soon be very humiliating for 8 little sweeties. I know how painfully self-conscious children can be, starting at around 5 and steadily increasing (at least with my girls). I quit watching the show because it sickened me for many reasons, and I just didn’t feel good about watching such a dysfunctional family.

Lately they’ve hit the news and been all over the Internet in a big way with their cheating and divorce scandals. What their children haven’t already seen will be out there for their exploration, horror, and humiliation in future years. Those poor babies. I also just noticed that I typed the word ‘humiliation’ way more times than the word should be used in three paragraphs. Funny how that seems to be the ‘theme’ of their show—the one word that has to be invoked to describe that three-ring circus.

I have to say flat out, that it always pains me to have to take the man’s side rather than the woman’s, but I have to admit I’m ‘team Jon’ all the way with this one. I am for many reasons, but the most important of which is that he obviously loves those children and has been by far the best parent of the two. She’s all kinds of fucked up and so is the way she parents. My amateur opinion is that she’s a narcissist and incapable of loving others.

I really don’t care personally for either of the Gosselins and couldn’t care less if they are happy, depressed, or any other emotional state. I always have and always will believe that once you have children, their happiness is all that matters. If you can find a way to be happy while parenting your children in a way that allows them to be happy and healthy—super! That’s bonus. It’s certainly not a guarantee or a requirement. There will be time to pursue your own personal happiness once your kids are out and on their own. Until then, they are the only game in town!

I also do not take marriage lightly. The institution as manifested in the US today sucks, and I don’t personally have any respect or concern for the religious-based artifact that we call marriage in the US. I do, though, take making a commitment and a partnership that involves my children, my family, and my friends, with the utmost gravity. When I married M, I promised to enter a partnership in which we would put the emotional, physical, spiritual, and economic welfare of our children first and foremost in our lives forever. That contract had nothing to do with romance or any other feelings or deeds that occur between the two of us. I have no intention of violating that contract. Because I take it so seriously, I always pause when I hear of someone we know who is divorcing—what went wrong?, is there something that I should examine in the spirit of preventive maintenance?, is there something that I can learn that would be beneficial to our relationship?—I want it to be a learning experience.

So while I typically don’t think about or evaluate the relationship of people I don’t know, particularly celebrities, I did reflect on the Gosselin debacle. Besides the fact that they have made their lives public and anyone watching could see the train coming, I reflected for a more personal and unflattering reason. My brief night of watching Kate made my blood run cold for a very personal reason. There were things about her personality and her relationship with her husband that reminded me of myself and my past relationships. In no way are we similar in our parenting. I find everything about the way she relates to her children vile and repulsive. The way she treated her husband and other adults, I could see similarities, and I didn’t like any of them. She served as a good reminder for me of what I could be if I didn’t continue to work very hard. I spent much reflective time considering the state of my marriage and how well I was doing on my efforts to keep my inner bitch in check.

My brief exposure to Kate was really very beneficial, because it reminds me of what I never want to be again. It reminds me of how NOT to treat my family. My first reaction to almost any situation is straight-up, hardcore bitch, and I have to always be aware of that and intercept it before it comes out. It's not that way all of the time, so my self-retraining program is working slowly but surely. I check the ugliness (not always, but usually) and try to replace it with a reaction that more aligns with my conscious, higher self. I wish my unconscious, gut-reaction self would catch up though, because the constant self-editing is damn exhausting sometimes! Unchecked, I could just steamroll my way through life—a big, bratty bitch. I choose not to be that for many reasons. The main one, though, is that I could not respect myself if I behaved that way. M. has never really tolerated that from me, and I appreciated that early on in our relationship. It helped me to grow and mature.

Since I’ve only been married once, (and you can take this one to the bank: I will only ever be married once) I can only speak for what works for me, but I tend to think it’s just common sense stuff that holds true in most cases. Things that are not enough to keep a marriage solid: love, romance, infatuation, great sex, children. I don’t think a couple should ever get married when they’re googly eyed. Marriage should be approached as would a business partnership—logically, practically, with an unemotional evaluation of how well the partnership functions. It is an economic contract in the same way that creating a corporation is and should be evaluated with an equally cold eye.

Our marriage is not perfect. We have high points and low points. We have strengths as a couple and weaknesses as a couple. Our marriage is solid, though, and I am as happily married as I am capable of being. I love my husband, but that really doesn’t have much to do with a successful marriage. (I know, I know, this is just killing all the die-hard romantics out there!)

The reasons our marriage is successful include the following: 1. We are good partners. We balance each other out, making the whole greater than the parts. We make a good team, and it's a bonus that we manage to have fun together too. 2. Our first and foremost priority is our children. I know that traditional thinking, particularly in the religious community, states that you should place your spouse before your children. That sickens me. That smacks of selfish-ass men trying to make sure they aren’t superseded by their children. It sets up the potential for competition between the husband and the children for the wife’s attention/affection and time. It creates the potential for resentment. It creates the nightmares of the children being abused—whether emotionally, physically, or sexually, and the spouse remaining in the marriage. Our children are our first priority. There is no resentment from either of us when we place our kids’ best interests before ourselves and each other. I love him more for putting my children and their happiness first. I love that when he has unexpected free time, he looks to spend it with our kids before he even thinks of me. How could you not love and respect someone forever, when they live their entire lives in such a way that honors and nurtures your children?! I would be disgusted and horrified by a husband who put me before the children. I think that is one of the most unhealthy and dangerous things one can do in a marriage! If my husband wasn’t a terrific father and good for my kids in every way, he simply would not be my husband. And finally and most importantly for me…3. Respect. I respect my husband, and I’ve learned that for me, that is the single most important factor in the success of any relationship. I respected him before we were married and have grown to respect him more throughout the years. We all have different criteria in place for what makes us respect a person. While the criteria may vary, I don’t see any way that a marriage can endure a lack of respect. I wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who didn’t respect me as a person, and I sure as hell wouldn’t want that in a spouse!

I have a lot of thoughts and feelings on marriage, and some of them are quite conflicting. I could go on another 20 pages on marriage. As a radical feminist, I have more issues with and aught against marriage than most. I’m not great at it. It’s not a natural state for me. I will always believe that my husband is a better a husband than I am at being a wife. I learned quite early on that I couldn’t manipulate and control M the way I could with all the others. He knew exactly what I was when he got me though, and still signed on the line.

I do have to say, though, that given my very strong personality and extremely outspoken nature, people often assume that I ‘wear the pants’ in the family. In a sense, that’s right. I do wear the pants, but so does he. He may look passive, but he does whatever the hell he wants. He has no problem simply ignoring me and proceeding or even laughing in my face (which can be really infuriating sometimes!), but he is most definitely NOT my bitch. Our marriage wouldn’t survive if he was. (Maybe if Jon hadn’t let Kate turn him into her bitch, they would be able to provide a loving, functional set of parents for their god-awful-size family. They’re not just breeders—they’re stupid breeders. YUK!)

So, husband, this is about as close as you’re going to get to a romantic love letter from me. I know that you will reciprocate this very romantic gesture by not blowing your stinky belches in my face for a night or two. We are a lucky pair, aren’t we?

Most importantly, though, let TLC know you will not watch their channel or patronize their sponsors until they stop exploiting these poor Gosselin children, particularly at this very hard and vulnerable time in their lives. Their worthless, abusive mother won't protect them, so it's up to total strangers to try to look out for their best interests.

Tenacious Tica

I've had a busy (but not productive) week, but more than that have just been feeling kind of antisocial. I'm hoping today was the last of the nasty hot days for a while. It's been too hot for too long!

M and I are getting more irritated by the minute with all of the Michael Jackson crap. I can't even watch the news obsessively, like I normally do, because all of the news channels are covering him all day every day. He sang and danced. Oooh. He and several million others can sing and dance well. He's never contributed anything positive to the earth (unless you count the singing and dancing). Even as far as being talented, MJ had absolutely nothing on Prince, who sings (better--wider range and more styles), dances (at least as well if not better), writes all of his own music & lyrics (in many different genres), plays seven different instruments masterfully--and he doesn't look like an artificially constructed freak. He's a completely pointless individual even if you completely ignore the fact that he's a child rapist. Suddenly he's a saint and the world's most important citizen. I just don't understand all the damn hoopla! The death of a drug-addicted, singing, dancing, child rapist is clearly more important than anything else in the world, including the unrest in Iran and the brutal killing of Neda--a death that really does matter to many and will for many years to come.

L finished her first week of summer school and still likes her classes. She's been quite busy this weekend. H spent the night last night. My friend Orinda and her boys came over this afternoon, and the kids played in the little inflatable pool outside, until they got too cold from the icy hose water and came back inside to play. As soon as the boys left, H came back over, and they've been playing since.

I got another very pretty little surprise from my etsy friend--another very cute little bag, and it has a little cat on it! I absolutely love it!

The other pictures from tonight's post are of our relentlessly persistent little beggar, Tica. M was still napping when L & I ate, so he ate later and was the only one still eating at the table. She really, really likes pizza (veggie) burgers and french fries, so it took two of us to keep her off his plate.

She is the only cat that I've allowed to be on the table while we are eating. I tried to not allow it for a while, but she never, ever gives up, and she's tiny and crippled and I can't tell her 'NO' very well. I counted one day. I was eating and removed her from the table and put her on the floor. By the time I turned back to the table to eat, she was back on top. This occurred 50 times in a row, in immediate procession. I gave up. It's really quite irritating, because we have to keep giving her food or guarding our plates with a hand to keep her from snatching. She's not picky either and will eat just about anything. That persistent, scrappy behavior is the only thing that kept her alive for the two years she was a street cat in a nasty part of Beloit, so I'm really grateful that she's that way. I just wish she'd give us a couple of hassle free meals each week. There's just no bargaining with a cat!

Hmmm. I guess I'm still in my antisocial mode, and I simply don't feel like typing anything else right now.

Two on Tuesday

As always, the most exciting parts of camping for us are the critter encounters. We saw some deer, one of which I got pictures of, but they're dark and grainy. She had ginormous ears that were super cute. I had some nice bonding moments with three raccoons over the campfire. We also got to see an indigo bunting 'in person' for the first time. He was putting on quite an impressive song and dance to woo his lady friend. It was so cool to watch. Of course there were lots of cute chipmunks and birds, and I've already covered the frogs and snails that were in abundance. I so love the beauty and diversity of our natural world!

I have photos of two rather unique things that we encountered in our hikes.

1. Okay, not technically a critter, but a fungus that was both cool and gross looking. We've not run across one like this before. If you look closely you'll see the spider (wolf spider?) hanging out on the fungus.

2. There were lots of these on the hiking paths. Between these guys and the zillions of tiny baby frogs and snails, we were constantly looking down as we walked to make sure we didn't step on anyone. L made it her job to move all of the little path critters to a safer spot in the woods. These giant millipedes were huge and entertaining to watch. In looking them up on the Internet to learn more about them, we found that they are sometimes kept as pets!

Damn slinky!

Is there anything more insidious than the slinky? A seemingly innocent and fun toy, until it inevitably becomes entangled with itself. We have had big slinkies, small slinkies, metal slinkies, cool-colored slinkies, plastic slinkies--you name the slinky, my kids have had it. They all ended up with the same short life and cruel fate, hopelessly tangled and unable to slink anymore. Yet again, in a moment of weakness (I had a headache, what can I say) at the pharmacy, L started campaigning for another slinky. It was cheap and easier to let her slip it into the basket than to argue and revisit all the years of slinky pain I had endured. It's been less than two weeks for this poor slinky. She came running up to me, as I was trying to feed cats, "Mommy, can you fix my slinky? It's only stuck in one place." It was indeed only one small tangle that I felt pretty sure I could handle. I was wrong.

After about three minutes under my very clever ministrations, I realized that what seemed like a very simple, straightforward manipulation was not working. It was slowly improving the previously existing small tangle, but was also creating a much larger mess. I had to stop myself at that point and just admit that yet again, I'd been bested by the slinky. If there was still a chance for this slinky to slink again, it lay with Mark. I told L to take it to her daddy, because he was much better at fixing slinkies than I am. She marched away with the slinky, and I heard her tell M, "Here. Can you fix this? Mommy was trying but she made it worse." Failure again. I'm on pins and needles waiting for M to work on it though. I'm curious to see if it is even possible to fix those stupid things.

I've decided that it's a win-win situation, though. If M fixes the slinky, sure it's still Amy-0; Slinkies-86 or so. If he doesn't fix it, we're out yet another slinky (the last one!!!), but at least I'm not alone in my abject failure at slinky maintenance.

L started summer school today. She's taking Spanish, Phys. Ed., and Mathematically Thinking. Those classes are for four weeks. She also has swim in the afternoons, and that's for six weeks. She was very excited about classes last night and was trying to chose her outfit. She was up and ready early this morning, which is when I noticed that she used her supply-labeling Sharpie to draw a couple of tattoos on herself for the first day of school. On her skinny little shin, she drew the logo from a Pink album. She loves Pink and Katy Perry right now--they are definitely her current faves. On top of her left hand and down her wrist, she drew a skull and crossbones and the Aerosmith logo. She apparently saw it on the album art in her iTunes. Lovely. I'm sure she made a charming impression with her tattoos today. I didn't have time to take pics this morning, and despite the fact that they were drawn with Sharpie, the Aerosmith one had faded a ton from swim. The Pink one didn't fade nearly as much. She let me take a pic of that, but not the Aerosmith--she didn't want anyone to see it 'all messy'.

I rely on routine to get through my mornings and get everything done. I basically operate on auto pilot, which as all I'm capable of until I get some caffeine. This morning was different, because of summer school starting. My morning routine had to change, which always causes me problems. I managed to make it out the door on time without forgetting anything. I was almost out of town, when I glanced up at the visor mirror to check my makeup to make sure it was okay in the bright sunlight. It was then I realized that I had only put on half of my makeup (and I don't wear much in the summer anyway). I had my neutral base eye shadow, under-eye concealer (only the first layer), and mascara. I got sidetracked by L changing into a different outfit, and never finished my eyes. I had a 'backup' eye liner in my purse, and one stoplight left at which I could quickly apply it. I went to work that way. I doubt if anyone but me noticed--people maybe thought I looked more tired than usual, but it made me chuckle all day.

It reminds me of the day I spent at work (when I was still teaching college full time) with two different shoes. As a vegan, shopping for professionally appropriate shoes can be a little difficult. If I find non-leather shoes that are both appropriate and comfortable, I tend to buy them in a couple of colors, if available. I had purchased these particular shoes in black and navy blue. I wore one of each color to work, and didn't notice until I was halfway through my morning classes. It wasn't obvious at home, but it sure was under the glaring florescent lights in my classroom. Mornings are rough for me. I'm surprised I don't do things like this more often!

>>The photos above are some of the native ferns and mosses M and I enjoyed seeing on our camping trip hikes.

Back from Maquoketa

We had a good time camping at Maquoketa Caves State Park in IA, until the rain got the best of it. We were okay with the rain, as it was at night and in the morning, and we had plenty of hiking time during the days. The park is full of caves, and the damp, coolness around them helped make up for the very hot temps. Between the humidity and rain, though, I managed to stay completely damp for the entire trip. I don't enjoy dampness. We had to give up and leave early, which we've NEVER done before.

We've made it through much worse storms, but that was with our old tent, which was fabulous. Our new tent didn't hold up nearly as well, and when our sleeping bags, pillows, and ourselves were soaked inside the tent and there was standing water inside with no indication of the storms breaking anytime soon, we had to call it and leave. M & I packed up the van in the pouring rain and then had the joy of taking down and trying to pack up a very wet tent. We were so happy to get home to dry clothes!

The tent before the big rain out. It was the first time L slept in her own 'wing' by herself, though we didn't put up the room dividers. Usually, she piles in next to me.

M decided that, instead of returning our tent and going with a different one, he wants to do some weather proofing on this tent and give it another try.

L has always found a little 'friend' within the first half hour of arriving at any camp site we've ever gone to. She usually gets right to work at building a house/habitat for her new little friend while we set the tent up. This time, her little friend was a snail. The trip was a booming success for her, as we saw lots of critters, she caught lots of frogs, she got very dirty, and got to play in the water. That's the recipe for her happiness. This trip also had lots of caves that she loved exploring. I was hoping to see lots of bats and strange cave creatures, but in 16 caves, we saw no signs of bats. I thought that was very weird.

It was really difficult to get any good pictures in the caves. They are all dark and very misty, so the pics don't come out too well.

We did manage to hike all six miles of trails, and even repeated some trails between rainstorms. The trails were almost all dirt, which tends to be wet, because of the caves and constant humidity down there. On top of that, several days of rain and humid weather left us hiking in very slippery mud. Somehow I made it without falling, and that's a pretty prideful thing for such a clumsy woman to accomplish!

Last night we had date night, although I was feeling pretty rotten and wasn't too much fun. We just kept it low key and went to see the movie, The Hangover, which was as good as we'd heard. We laughed a lot and look forward to seeing it again. I think my absolute favorite scene was the cheesy white-guy wedding singer performing 'Candy Shoppe' as a ballad, with it's original lyrics. I laughed through the whole song!

My dad and M wanted to take a trip to the Flower Factory today, and since it's Father's Day, that's what we did. We then had lunch at Red Robin, where Dej & Joe met us.

I'm sidetracked...trying to type while 'Issues with Jane Velez Mitchell' is on in the background. I like Jane, as she's an animal rights person, and it just so happened that she's now doing a segment with Ingrid Newkirk about a proposed chimp-breeding facility that they are trying to stop from being built in Puerto Rico. This would supply baby monkeys to cruel and painful UNNECESSARY torturous experiments by "science". That misnomer always angers me, and I was happy to see that Ingrid corrected this by reminding people that experimenting on monkeys is anitquated circa 1920's science, used by businesses that aren't using good science. Good science uses computers, human cells (easily generated), and finally we can complete our move to to progressive science with stem-cell research. All and any of these methods are more accurate, more modern, and humane, and are used by real science. Business doesn't care and has no ethics. Science does care and has ethics.

Life in a cat house

M & I stayed up way too late last night watching Milk (from Netlix). No doubt about it, Sean Penn can act! He did a fabulous job, and it was a fantastic movie. Some of the scenes were very powerful and gave me goosebumps. It was really sad, though, and we still have a long way to go. The homosexual=pedophile=deviant logic was exactly the same propaganda that Rev. BS and the other liars in my childhood church pushed. I actually remember the whole Anita Bryant campaign of hate and the way the xtians worshipped her at that time. What a bad flashback!

Work was insanely busy today! A two-hour meeting early this morning about upcoming changes to our racial/ethicity data (required by the Feds) started out with me trying really hard to stay awake. It became much easier when hostile angry dude, who happened to be sitting right in front of us, started getting loud and cursing. I don't like to see people behave unprofessionally at work--emotions should stay at home, but I have to say that I kind of appreciated the help staying awake. My caffeine wasn't doing anything, but hostile angry dude kept me quite alert right up to the end. He stormed off with a final insult--calling us geeks. Ouch. We're IT people. Of course we're fucking geeks. He meant it to be an insult. We giggled.

I have a ton to do tonight in order to get ready for our camping trip. We leave tomorrow. The kids (D & J) will be staying here to keep the critter company. My mom will be helping with the pet care, and Chloe will be staying at "Grandma & Grandpa's". She needs a lot of help with her collar and loves to go to grandma's house, so she will have a little vacation there. I still have to pack, check Luciana's packed bag for appropriateness, get all the food packaged up for the cooler, and prepare the animal care sheets. Love camping. Hate the prep. Since we won't have Internet in the tent, and M wouldn't let me bring a laptop along anyway, I won't be back online until this weekend sometime.

L & H took over the big box that Tica's new cat tree came in and transformed it to a house for the cats. They cut windows and doors, made curtains, and decorated it for them. They started with a plan to color the whole thing white, but they quickly decided that was not fun and took too long. It even has a little front porch. The cats love it and have been hanging out in and on it since the kids set it up. Check out the cute little kitty paw prints they put on the front porch (barely peeking out from under Ivan). It even has a mailbox and address on the front by the door.

Ivan on the front porch

The top of it

Lila strolls along the roof

Oliver looks out the window

Hallie pays the boys a visit

Two on Tuesday

Chloe is now wearing a collar, which she abhors. We tried to avoid it by having her wear a halter top (that I no longer wear) with ACE bandage wrap at the bottom. She kept "breaking into" her stitches at night though and getting her naughty little tongue in there. She now has an infection, so I have to keep the collar on her. She keeps getting stuck and is very unhappy about it. I feel so bad for her, but she's going to have to keep this on until the stitches come out. So our vet visit today, was another $140. Great. That's life with the zoo, though. I see my vets more often than I see any of my friends. How sad is that.

Here are two adorable poses Chloe struck tonight to show off her new fashion wear.

1. I love this one, because it's a nice close up of her cuteness.

2. I love this one, because it shows her one curly whisker. All of the others are normal, straight whiskers, but she has this one on her right side that always grows in curly like that. I love that little whisker! If you look closely at the background, you can see Ivan sitting on the 'front porch' of the cat house that L & H made. I'll post more pics of that later this week.

I laugh every time I see it

I have a new favorite commercial. It's on CNN every night--30 seconds that I always enjoy. Yeah, I know. I'm a geek. ROCKSTAR!

a new love

It seems to be the case lately, that my greatest passions and excitement involves food. It's quite pathetic, but that's the way it is right now. So I've discovered another great love that will do nothing but make it harder for me to lose weight, but I'm weak and intend to indulge in this short-term delight for as long as it's available.

I will force myself to stick to my one-a-week limit on Mt. Dew. It will be hard, but I can do it. Probably.

I love, pine for, and dream about the 'new' Mountain Dew Throwback. It's made with real sugar, the way it used to be when I first became hopelessly addicted in my teens. It's heavenly and oh so much better than the HFCS version that we've all adjusted to. It goes down so much smoother. When I close my eyes and drink it, it takes me back to being 16 again. It transported me to one of countless sleepovers, where we consumed the real sugar Mountain Dew in returnable glass bottles and chomped down copious quantities of peanut M & Ms. A time where the thought of weight didn't even enter my mind to murk up the enjoyment of my goodies, because I was way too skinny and never gained weight. Oh for those days!! If only I could find vegan peanut M & Ms--the recreation would be fabulous.

Kathy, you have to try it! Get some of the throwback dew, peanut M&Ms, pop in some 80's tunes, and like magic, you'll be transported back to the trailer up north. Even better if you can find one of the songs from the one mixed tape we had that we played over and over and over. Add a little blue Glade, and it doesn't get much better. ;-D

I will be taking my love camping with us next weekend, where I am going to make vegan s'mores with our vegan marshmallows and will chase it down with the delectable Mountain Dew! Have I mentioned that I have a sweet tooth? :) I've always been that way, but it is definitely more prominent these days.

Because the Throwbacks (there's a Pepsi version too, but I'm not a Pepsi fan) are only a limited release, I will now spend my time buying all of the Mountain Dew throwback I can find, so I can enjoy it long after it's off the shelves. Oh sweet nectar of my youth.

No one's gonna tell me; what's wrong or whats right

I got another lovely gift from Lisa, my Etsy friend. She sent this gorgeous bag for me. It's got six gorgeous animals attached to it, and I love the color! It's too pretty for my everyday use, and I wouldn't want it to get all beat up. I can't wait until we go out for our next date night, so I can use it. It is made of a heavy satin that stays structured but is very silky smooth and fun to touch.
Luciana, still on her sewing kick, made me some handsewn little bags for carrying things like my cell phone and gum. I will be loading them up for use this weekend.

We've gained some unfortunate new neighbors across the street. We're hoping they don't last long (and hoping even more that they are renters, rather than the owners). I can give you a pretty good picture with three words (ok technically, phrases): chain-smoking, old trans am, and mullets. I was enjoying a beautiful night last night, weeding until dark. Even with my headache (still!) it was lovely, except the white-trash new neighbors. For the entire several hour period that we were outside, I breathed in their cigarette smoke. There were lots of them over there, but there was not a single time that they didn't have at least one stinky cigarette burning. They are very loud and redneck, and will not fit well in the neighborhood at all. :( We miss Joe and the kids already--I hate that they lost the house! I'm going to try to have to weed when they aren't home, so I can breathe fresh air without the trashy smokers making my headache worse. They fucking stole my serenity last night! L marched out with her sidewalk chalk, and drew a giant "No Smoking" sign on the end of our driveway, complete with a three-foot long cigarette with a line through it. M & I laughed our asses off at our her blatant art. I really cannot tolerate that habit or any other habit that negatively affects others. I sure as shit shouldn't have to breathe in their nasty chemical laden second-hand smoke while I'm trying to enjoy my front yard. I think I will enjoy antagonizing them and making their lives difficult in the neighborhood for as long as I am forced to smell their trashy, poisoned air. Considering the fact that I seem to be struggling with my menopause moods (just feeling hateful and bitchy for no apparent reason with no warning), I'm actually kind of happy for having an outlet for my irrational hostility. It might be my new hobby.

Here are a few pictures of our gorgeous oriental poppies. I love all poppies--just adore them. Our opium poppies aren't blooming yet, but the stunning, short-blooming oriental poppies are close to peak. They have such wonderful texture, and the buds and seedpods are also wonderful!