There’s an incredible amount of dandelions this year. And I can’t deny their charm, as their happy yellow blooms dot the landscape–a prelude to my daughter’s romp through their seeding masses, almost colloidal as they hang in the air.
Yet a part of me cringes as I watch countless potential dandelion progeny drift throughout my yard. I’m conflicted. Do I despise them as a blight, or tolerate them for their aesthetic/medicinal value?
Like all exotics, they’re unstoppable
I considered buying an herbicide, and I admit, I use Roundup. But despite the dandelion’s invasiveness, I’m opposed to fighting nature with such overkill tactics. History has proven that such measures always yield unforeseen, and undesirable, consequences. So I began removing them manually.
What is this, Chinese steel?
But the weeding tool proved inadequate.
And so I debated.
Many times have I learned that fighting the natural world results in only temporary victories, that instead I should either appease or compromise. Such was it that I’ve preserved many a garden crop by planting instead tastier alternatives for the neighborhood rabbits. So why should I dwell on the humble dandelion?
Nay, I shall harvest this plant. I will use this formerly unwanted bumper crop to instead experiment with salad and tea. Stay tuned!
Carpet–I know not whence this diabolical invention first saw universal fruition, but I rue that day.
The Internet was of little help, spouting the usual assortment of trendy anti-(insert whatever’s popular here) sentiments. And I, one of these confrontational assholes, would agree. I hate it, and whoever invented it should spend eternity in a vat of histamine, forever sneezing and itching in anaphylaxis, yet never able to escape the ailment.
Compounding the misery was the result of a whippet’s predilection for misidentification, for so readily does carpet endlessly absorb the liquified proteins of urinary putrification.
And further compounding the problem is a human female’s oversensitivity to olfactorial displeasure.
So it was that I found myself ripping up the carpet in the hallway. The late whippets, always naughty and leaking, favored this spot as a preferable alternative to the bitter cold of Ohio winters, despite the physical punishments that would ensue from such transgressions.
Another futile attempt at deodorizing the carpet
What I found beneath was sheer horror. Over the decades, dirt had sifted its way through until a fine layer of soil covered the sub-flooring. Extensive vacuuming and Lestoil-scrubbing later, the floor appeared to be painted white–at least what the floor cleaner didn’t strip.
Liz scrubbed the floor with baking soda and vinegar, then let it dry until the next weekend.
And so began the hard part. The hallway, being narrower than the boards were long, required that I had to cut every single piece to fit. Adding to the complexity was the oddly-shaped linen closet. Fortunately I had watched enough preparatory YouTube videos that I knew how to hammer segments into connecting, even when wedged around tight corners.
Then there was the problem of the end strips not locking to the floor properly, but a few hammer blows and swear words and emergency runs to the hardware store fixed that problem. The end result was never in question.
An afternoon was required to dismantle the existing flooring, and 11 hours of straight labor to install the new. But like all things in life worth having, it wasn’t supposed to be easy–yes, that’s right, philosophical reaffirmations from flooring installations.
Then I had to install new moulding, which was equally as bad as the flooring. My supply of finishing nails dwindled, and I bought a box at Home Depot. But the nails lacked the head notch, so my driver continually slipped and punctured the moulding. A return visit yielded no better alternative, for the associate stared blankly when asked if they stocked another brand of nails. I made due with what I had.
I estimate this project to have taken 30 hours of work. It sucked, but I have to admit: it is better than a cesspit corridor. The kid seems to agree:
I’ve mentioned The Landscaper, our neighborhood stoner landscaper who doesn’t seem to concern himself much over his children’s blatant disregard for property lines. Our tenuous relationship as neighbors I had considered to be a cliché, owing to the old adage that “fences make good neighbors”. And seeing as I had landscapers in the family, I had never considered the profession in itself to be in any way related to The Landscaper’s sub-nominal personality traits. No one wants to be judged for the profession in which they arrived, if said profession was not the original plan. I can personally attest to that sentiment.
Liz and I had discussed hiring a landscaping company, as the 0.48 acres could be quite daunting to mow in the dog days of Ohio’s summer (during which I had learned to apply deodorant to certain body parts to which I had never previously considered applying deodorant). A 2 hour per week investment is right on the fringe of becoming non-trivial, yet I had faltered for 3 reasons: the cost of doing some simple mowing seemed unreasonable ($40? Fuck you. I’d hire a neighborhood kid for half that), they probably wouldn’t do the job to my level of expectation, and mowing is my primary source of cardio (otherwise I’d have to go jogging–fuck that). But something else nagged at my already-wavering conviction.
One evening, as I was driving home from work, I stopped at an intersection, dutifully obeying the rules of the road. A pickup, hauling a trailer of landscaping equipment, turned left towards me. In so doing, the driver yelled out to me, “Ur takin’ up the fuckin’ lane ya faggot!”.
The comment gave me pause. First of all, I was not taking up his lane. I had merely left the courteously bare-minimum space to my right so that if a car behind me needed to turn right, they could do so without me first having to vacate. Second, it was an extremely rude and offensive comment to make to a fellow motorist. At the time, I had simply ignored it, since the fellow obviously proved himself to be beneath contempt. He completed his turn without incident, proving that I had indeed left sufficient space, and I continued on with the rest of my day.
The encounter would have faded from memory, but Liz recounted a story of a colleague’s run-in with a landscaper–something about a collision and overblown tempers and threats of litigation. Then I recalled my mother’s stories about her former employer. Then I remembered The Landscaper.
Then this guy showed up at my door, soliciting his own landscaping service. I would have dismissed the encounter entirely, had he not had the audacity to then ask me whom I was currently employing. I told him it was me. He left immediately.
It might be a foregone conclusion, but landscapers are assholes. Were it not merely due to my aforementioned reasons, this conclusion itself is reason enough to deny additional revenue to these degenerates. No, I’ll continue to mow the lawn myself, and when I’m too old and feeble to manage the task myself, I’d gladly pay a neighbor’s son the equal of your their rate, just to deny them the revenue. Fuck you.
I mean, I don’t live in New Jersey. I don’t need to look like a big ripply and tanned turd to fit in. But I do need a reasonably healthy BMI and the body strength to handle maintenance and landscaping duties around the house. And so I do work out, with a simple chin-up bar and some weights.
But then Liz arranged to buy a used machine from a colleague–one of those complicated torture devices with the cables and pulleys–on the cheap. I’ve always been hesitant to use those things, as I’m under the assumption that isolation exercises don’t replicate a natural range of motion and so at best are minimally effective, and at worst physically damaging. Mostly though, they’re expensive, so now with the cost variable removed, I was willing to try.
So off we went to this dude’s house which he was selling and was completely devoid of any furniture save this machine he didn’t have room for anymore. And as the house was no longer occupied, the dust had begun to accumulate. And the lubricant had inevitably leaked out of the machine. It was gross and unwieldy.
I had hoped that we could selectively disassemble the thing into manageable chucks that fit into the back of the CR-V. In so doing, however, the cables tangled, and when we got back home the thing was a giant knot of cable and steel. We then threw it into the front lawn and sprayed it off.
Having lost patience with it for the day, it was cast into the basement, where it lay waiting for reassembly. But then we went on vacation.
Upon returning, I quickly grew tired of the mess and so began putting it back together. This proved to be no easy feat, as since the device was partially assembled, the instructions could not be sequentially followed. So I had to resort to deduction, and the instructions sucked anyway. And did I mention the thing was gross?
But its full assembly was inevitable.
Weider 9300 Pro
It seems to work okay. A point of confusion was the pulley system that changes the weight resistance. Depending on which cable is pulled, a single plate can have 4 different poundages. I’m not terribly interested in quantifying my workout to that extent, but it did cause some initial confusion regarding my abilities and why my musculature seemed so wildly disparate.
And Liz and I can work out together now. That seems minor, but it’s far more motivating to be suffering alongside someone than alone. Now, when the weather ever decides to change into Spring, we’ll be properly conditioned for the upcoming gardening installations.
About this time a year ago, I lamented my lack of office space, and while making due with the old dinner table in the basement, I prophesied my future workstation. And like all prophesies I make regarding things I’m resolved to do, it came true. Imagine that!
Desk space gets allocated quickly, but my primary irritation over the years has been the trend towards smaller and more mobile technology. That’s cool and all, but there are ergonomic limits–a point at which a device is too small for a human to use comfortably. Laptops struggle with this.
But I’m all about maximizing productivity, rather than convenience, so I don’t want a tiny laptop. I want a big machine with multiple monitors. I want a permanent station for my computers, but without the restrictions of a desktop. Basically, I have my own specific preferences and nothing was accommodating them to my satisfaction.
And I was sharing the table with the kid, and the growing mess directly correlated with my growing irritation, and when the glitter made an appearance (resulting in my workstation appearing as if someone had taken a 12-gauge to Tinkerbell), I had had it. I started looking for desks.
My goal was to convert the far corner of the basement into a work area. As of late, it had become a temporary trash heap of cardboard boxes awaiting proper disposal upon the city’s annual unlimited trash pickup event. So, there wasn’t any competing demand for the space. With pocket knife in hand, I reduced the mess to a pile, vacuumed the space, measured some options, and began researching.
Sadly, the oak executive desk was beyond my price range. But more surprising was the lack of mere available options. I wanted a large L-shaped desk, so that I could load it up with my personal/company computer and peripherals, but apparently no one else had that idea in mind. I searched Amazon and Office Space with limited success. Then Liz suggested IKEA.
IKEA, despite its reputation, has surprisingly sturdy furniture. Unlike its competitors’ products for the given niche, IKEA doesn’t bow and break within the first couple years. And besides their quality, their stores are just plain exciting to visit. When we do, I suddenly feel the need to rent a shitty New York apartment and maximize its function for the tiny space.
So after some perusing, I bought two generic desk/shelves. And after an evening of assembly, I had the L-shaped desk area that I wanted.
It’s minimalist, granted, but fits the unfinished basement theme. More importantly, I haven’t had a desk in 7 years, and can finally sit down to an actual workstation–my command center. Damn that feels good.
