A Vote For Javier ...

... is a vote for extreme cuteness.  Go to www.doginmypocket.com to see more adorable puppydog pictures!  If you're so inclined, cast a vote for my chagrined Chihuahua, Javier ... and while you're at it, submit a photo of your own canine sidekick!

Do You Weed Me?

I got all in a dither about what I saw out in my back "yard" earlier today and so I applied 30 SPF sunblock and grabbed some gardening gloves and a pair of large hedge clippers (if I crane my neck I can just look out from where I am sitting and see the gloves and the clippers on the ground where I threw them in disgust).  I then charged outdoors and careened around the low retaining wall that separates our pool area from the "jungle" that abuts the privacy fence.  This is where the Tiki torches stand sentinel while we are swimming in the summertime.  There is supposed to be a sort of "walkway" back there and then a higher, more pronounced "flower" bed ... by the way have you ever seen so many quotation marks?  This is what I get for trying to have a "yard."

I pulled and pulled and pulled at weeds that were not there even last week, and they were laughing at me, I kid you not, and so were their white-trash relatives.

See, I am NO gardener.  Truth be told, yard work interests me less than calisthenics ... and that's saying something, y'all.  In the spectrum of symbols that might be placed on display to represent ways I prefer to spend my life if for some crazy reason that's the way things were done and anyone gave a rat's fanny, anything related to gardening and its corollary, i.e. perspiring and being bitten by bugs, would be very much toward the bottom of the graph while important things, like lipstick and high heels, would be close to the top.  I may not "get" gardening but no one can say I do not have highly developed priorities.

Let's spare you the drama and cut to the chase: the weeds won.  Well, they half won.  After I had yanked out enough of them to fill eighteen Hefty bags, it looked like I'd done absolutely nothing.  I'll be honest with you: this sort of thing does not work for me.  I pulled and pulled and pulled at weeds that were not there even last week, and they were laughing at me, I kid you not, and so were their white-trash relatives, and my lumbar spine began to beg for Aleve and something bit one of my toes (yes, I was wearing flip-flops because I was too lazy to put on proper shoes). 

That's when it hit me:  I am a weed.  I ain't got no pedigree ... I was not planted here on purpose but just kind of floated in on a wing and a prayer ... but although my provenance is as murky as it is unremarkable, I am here ... and I may not be as gorgeous as a rose but I can hold my own among the other weeds ... I am not going away ... I'm stubborn but not without a certain softness ... and I don't care what anyone thinks about me.

QWERTY Or Not, Here I Come

I type on a Dell by Logitech keyboard that is over five years old.  But for years now many of the keys have been devoid of letters.  As in, they are blank, black keys bearing absolutely no visual indication of what might happen if you press that key.  Luckily I memorized all the keys in eleventh grade and can bhype type without looking!  LOL! 

Just so you know!

In case you were wondering, here are the keys that are missing or partially missing: W (only the left two-thirds of this "character" remains) ... E and R are G-O-N-E ... T is only the top bar, with not a leg to stand on ... U are fading fast in the lower right quadrant ... O looks like a C, only capsized ... A, S, D, and F are AWOL ... L is just a blip at the very top of its former self ... C is a no-see ... V sports a sizeable divot ... N and M have run off together ... the < sign is almost history. 

Just so you know!

Paint The Town Edamame

There's a commercial for Buick wherein Tiger Woods is standing about a car length from a huge blank white canvas. At his feet, piled in three separate pyramids, are what appear to be gleaming just-minted golf balls. Tiger grasps an iron and takes aim for the first ball, which explodes upon contact into a paint so red, it reminds me of Johnny's tonsorial handiwork in Sweeney Todd. The canvas is no longer white. Before Tiger is finished he has disemboweled lots more golf paintballs and ruined lots more unsuspecting irons, resulting in an abstract "painting" worthy of the Jackson Pollock Hall of Fame. Tiger strides confidently to the canvas and autographs it. I hate to think what a person would be obligated to hock in order to own one of those.

Wash the foyer in Carnelian and cover the door in Dry Dock. The powder room we'll do in Trinket with a Reticence trim.

In the next shot, two signed (and no doubt numbered) Tiger masterpieces serve as the splashy backdrop for three sparkling Buicks ... not one of which has a speck of arterial-red paint on its finish ... not to mention any of the other primary colors that drip from a crayon-box lineup of Tiger's trashed thousand-dollar irons.

Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it? I mean, I could throw paint at canvases all day long and probably couldn't give the finished product away ... signed and numbered or not. I'll have to learn to live with that reality.

But what would be the difference in the canvas I splashed with paint and the canvas Tiger splashed with paint? Why would the result of his artistic effort go for tens of thousands of dollars while nobody in their right mind would want the same thing done by me?

Simple: the name.

Tiger Woods is more than a name; it is a brand. His name means something to millions around the world. My name means something to approximately thirty-four people, none of whom are into abstract art.

Speaking of names and colors and names of colors ... my kitchen is painted yellow. Only it's not called yellow by its maker, Sherwin-Williams. It is called, ahem ... Blonde. Now, wouldn't you rather have a Blonde kitchen than a yellow kitchen? It reminds me of one of my favorite classic movies: Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. In the scene where Muriel Blandings is relaying to the contractor the colors she wants her walls painted, this exchange ensues:

Muriel Blandings: I had some samples ... here we are. Now, first, the living room. I want it to be a soft green -- not as blue-green as a robin's egg --

Contractor: No.

Muriel Blandings: -- but not as yellow-green as daffodil buds. Now, the only sample I could get is a little too yellow, but don't let whoever does it get it too blue.

Contractor: No.

Muriel Blandings: It should be a sort of grayish yellow-green. Now, the dining room ... I'd like yellow. Not just any yellow; a very gay yellow. Something bright and sunshiny. I tell you -- if you'll send one of your workmen to the grocer for a pound of their best butter and match that exactly, you can't go wrong. This is the paper we'll use in the hall. It's flowered, but I don't want the ceiling to match any colors of the flowers. There are some little dots in the background and it's these dots I want you to match. Not the little greenish dot near the hollyhock leaf, but the little bluish dot between the rosebud and the delphinium blossom ... is that clear? Now, the kitchen's to be white. Not a cold, antiseptic, hospital white; --

Contractor: No ...

Muriel Blandings: -- a little warmer, but still not to suggest any other color but white. Now, for the powder room in here, I want you to match this thread ... and don't lose it. It's the only spool I have and I had an awful time finding it. As you can see, it's practically an apple red -- somewhere between a healthy Winesap and an unripened Jonathan. Oh, excuse me ...

Contractor: You got that, Charlie? Red, green, blue, yellow, white.

Speaking of Sherwin-Williams, a name synonymous with paint ... anybody like to take a guess what the color Knitting Needles would look like? Or Messenger Bag or Muddled Basil or Hinoki or March Wind or Lanyard or Recycled Glass or Stamped Concrete or Rustic City? How do you feel about Yearling ... Front Porch ... Jogging Path ... Ethereal Mood? I think I'll paint my living room Stolen Kiss ... no, make that Patience, with an accent wall done in Alaea. Wash the foyer in Carnelian and cover the door in Dry Dock. The powder room we'll do in Trinket with a Reticence trim. In the master bedroom we'll use Salute, with the bath done in Fleur de Sel ... or maybe Brittlebush. Accept no substitutes! Red, green, blue, yellow, white.

Here's a fun game you can play to test your aptitude for color recognition: http://www.iamcal.com/games/paintgame

That's What You Call A Real Drag

Keli over at www.counterfeithumans.com is sure to love this one. Daughter Audrey arrived home last night for a weekend visit. For our (exceedingly rainy) Saturday activities we planned to run some shopping errands, then hang out at Barnes & Noble for an hour or two, slurping overpriced coffee beverages and perusing gossip magazines. TG, busy all day elsewhere, was not in the picture. At least not to begin with.

Audrey ... didn't call to notify me that it appeared I had "a plastic bag or something" hooked underneath my car.

My first order of business was to make a routine stop at the nail salon for a manicure. Audrey needed to get her car's oil changed, something she had been putting off and would have taken care of at home had she been there. So, we set out in two cars and she followed me for a few miles before turning left to go to Goodyear. I went straight for about 50 more yards, ending up at Tina's Nails.

During those 50 yards, even though Josh Groban was loudly serenading me from the CD player, I thought I detected a "bumpy" kind of sound beneath my car. Since a few days ago I experienced a semi-flat and was obliged to have a nail surgically removed from my left front tire at the dealership, I suspected the tire was still losing air. Annoyed, when I pulled up at Tina's I got out and gave the tire the evil eye. It appeared fine and stared back benignly. Hoisting my black-and-white houndstooth-check umbrella, I entered Tina's in medium dudgeon and was greeted by the nail techs, who know me well.

For some reason I glanced back at my car, from which angle I was now looking directly at the right front tire. Oddly, it appeared as though I had run over something that used to be white ... only I knew there had been nothing in the parking space when I pulled in. Pushing the button to reactivate my dripping bumbershoot, I went back outside to conduct an investigation. You'll never guess what I discovered.

Attached to my right front wheel on the inside and wound up so tightly that, although I pulled as hard as I dared, I was unable to extract it from beneath the wheel well, was one of TG's smaller paint tarps. YES! A paint tarp had come with me from the floor of our garage (where TG has been refinishing some cabinet doors) and had remained attached to my car the whole way, winding around and around the inside of my wheel. Audrey, driving behind me, told me later that she had inadvertently left her cell phone on my kitchen counter when we left home, which was why she didn't call to notify me that it appeared I had "a plastic bag or something" hooked underneath my car.

I placed a call to my darling TG during which I am fairly sure he could tell I was less than thrilled with the turn of events (no pun intended). He told me not to worry about it, to go about my business and that he would take care of it later ... so I went ahead with my manicure and left my car keys with Tina. Meantime, Audrey had used the phone at Goodyear to call and tell me she was without her cell phone, at which time we arranged for her to pick me up when her own car was ready.

All's well and y'all can breathe easy now. TG quickly solved the embedded tarp problem when a few hours later he was able to drop by Tina's. "Piece of cake," he told Audrey and me. "I barely had to pull to get it out." Of course it was the simplest thing in the world for him to get the tarp unstuck from my car wheel! Falling off a log would have presented more of a challenge! This is the mighty TG we are talking about!

I'm kidding! The Gregory is a diamond and what would I do without him? The whole thing was just a drag.