We need more sleep.

"You love me for who I am, for my personality."
"I love you for who you am--"
"Not just because I solve your problems."

"You are simultaneously the cause and solution of all my problems."

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"That's not romantic."

"Philosophical stuff is romantic."

"Philo-sophy isn't ro-mance. Telling me about Socrates's cave isn't going to make me hot."

"Socrates is stupid. There's no cave here, we're not in a cave. He knew shit."

"You know shit."

"Hey, I read books. Books that say things. Things that are right. Then I say those things, and that makes me right."

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Love in the Time of I Don't Want to Talk to You

Adam and I spatted on Friday, sparring to win the title of Most Selfish Spouse. Adam won comprehensively in the Social Calendar round, but I took many points in the Silent Treatment and Revenge Shopping rounds. And then we weeded and drank some beer and looked at Jen's and Chris's vacation pictures, and all was well.

Weeding, like every other house project, has it's own set of tools/props/stuff. The Revenge Shopping happened at Home Depot, where I picked up a grass shears and a new sprinkler. (How very exciting!) It's amazing, though, the difference that an hour's weeding in a flower bed can make. I did the bed in the front of the house, and partway down the front walk, while Adam chased Creeping Charlie in the backyard. After Adam cut the grass Sunday morning, we went around with the weed whacker and finally trimmed up the fenceline along the South side of the yard. The grass had happily grown up into the fence, which is okay if you're going for that Little House on the Prairie look, which we're not. Adam also trimmed up around the verbenas along the curb walk, using the new grass sheers, which resulted in 6 plants looking nice and 1 plant chopped in half. Oops.

It's finally been raining usefully, a lovely slow soaking instead of a harsh downpour, so that's been helping everything in the yard. I've been putting some used coffee grounds by the new hostas, and watered almost everything else with some MiracleGro. We're getting the first ripe raspberries, which we picked last night as our super-fresh dessert. Joanne and John Jongsma were over grilling out and hoping our dogs would get along (which they kind of did), and after dinner we all ate a handful of raspberries straight off the bush. A few more hours of weeding, and we'll be ready to relax on the outdoor chores for a little while. Just in time to start the final push on the dining room!

Getting Schooled

Here are the two tricks that Arrow knows, and the two that we've just started working on.

SIT:

DOWN:

And I can't remember if this was supposed to be UP, or was a failed attempt at BEG:

Keeping up Northern Relations

Adam and I took Arrow up to the Chapman's place outside Wahkon. Their house is right on Lake Mille Lacs, and we were treated to a lovely sunset over the lake on Saturday night. Marc grilled some fantastic ribs, and Becky made us yummy wild rice, which had been gathered and dried in the Indian tradition. There was lots of World Cup Soccer, eating, and good conversation.

Arrow normally doesn't appreciate the car very much, so we gave him a couple of Benedryl, and then he slept the whole way and didn't pull his usual trick of foaming at the mouth and puking. We'll have a couple of other trips this year, so we're happy to find something that keeps him relaxed in the car. And before you all call the ASPCA, the Benedryl was recommended by our vet!

Urban Jungle

Catching up a bit on yardwork this weekend, and took some pictures to let you see what's been going on outside the house. Oh, and let me explain the change to the Comments section. You can still post a comment, you just have to do a little word verification dealio.

Arrow, on the steps next to the bush that he tried to dig up:


What the raspberry patch looked like before I started digging things up:

The rhubarb tree (one of six) that I dug out of the raspberry patch. That's right, all you people who keep telling me how much you love rhubarb, I dug it up. If you had come over and picked it like you said you would, it wouldn't have come to this, but now it's too late. Bye bye, Rhubarb Trees! (And yes, that is my 5' tall shovel standing next to it!)

Remember when I bought that flat of verbenas? Most of them ended up here, on the North side of the backyard, in front of the peonies. Only two of them look like they're not going to thrive, so those might get replaced in the fall by verbenas from the flowerpots.

The Flowerpot Tree:

The rest of the verbenas ended up here, on either side of the front walk:

And finally, the poor trampled hostas, with the perpetrator in the foreground!

PS: Sara, your pothos plant is doing fine!

Time to do a picture page...

Okay, here is the massive catch up on our latest pictures. I'm breaking them up, instead of posting 500 pictures in one post, so keep scrolling down, especially if you haven't checked in lately (as if you have anything better to do!).

Arrow on the front porch. You can see that he's wearing his red walking harness. It's designed to keep your dog from pulling too much on the leash when you're taking a walk. It actually helps quite a bit, but we've also stopped walking so much and started going to the dog park where he can run around with the other dogs off leash.

Adam and Arrow indulging in their favorite pasttime:

Next week, pictures about yard work. But now, on to some Darwinistic fun!

The Dining Room Evolution

We started redecorating the dining room in January, after the Lam Christmas Invasion was over. We were supposed to be done in February.

Here, you can see three stages of progress. First, you can see wallpaper still hung on the right side of the window. Second, you can see where the wallpaper has been removed from the left side of the window. Third, you can see what the underlying wall looks like after steaming off the adhesive backing paper left from the wallpaper.

Here's another shot of the north wall after pulling off the wallpaper but before steaming (ignore the Devil Dog in the kitchen):

This is the step that we just completed. We had to scrape off as much of the old primer layer as possible, so that the new primer didn't go on over flakey, adhesive-ey grossness. (That's a technical term.)

While scraping walls by hand might be one of the tortures of hell, it can't compete with the agony of trying to clean up the dust afterwards. And just think, the step we are about to start is fililng in holes and cracks with spackle, and then sanding everything down. Do you think AxMan carries EPA suits?

Kitchen Evolution

Old school:

Hand powered:

Itty bitty chopper:

Finally, a respectable food processor:

Imagine this much corned beef and cabbage (16 quarts):

Wokka wokka!

A sadly picture free update

I keep meaning to post pictures here of the dining room progress. We have finished scraping all four walls, and now we need to spackle over all of the holes and cracks and gouges. After that comes a bit of sanding, and then it will be time to talk paint.
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In outside news, Adam and I finally used our gift certificate to Gerten's. A big thank you to Tom and Marsha Ochs for that housewarming present! We picked up some little fences to try and keep Destructo Dog from trampling the hostas worse than he already has. We also brought home a flat of verbena, for me to use in my container gardening. It wasn't until I started potting them that I realized exactly how many plants are in a flat. After I filled up my flower pots, I still had 50 plants left. Yikes! So, I gave some away to our neighbors, Mary and Brant. They have lovely flower beds all around their yard, and they were happy to adopt a few verbena plants. Then I just decided that since verbena is a perennial, I might as well just plant a bunch in our yard, too. After all, what fun is having a yard if you can't just dig it up and plant stuff? Hopefully, they'll be able to winter over, and we'll have another section of yard planted with low maintenence perennials.
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I was at the Many Voices reading last night, which was highly enjoyable. Each scene or play had to be about 11 pages long, and there were several that I didn't want to see end. I was mostly there for my friend Kiesung, who had written a piece called Love and Chicken, which was wacky and existential, hilarious and thought-provoking. It's so nice to be done with Midsummer, so I can catch up on all of the other theatre going on!
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The rest of this week will be taken up with laundry, and cleaning, and other business. That's to leave the weekend free for more fun, so stay tuned for that!

Because everyone needs a little dose of carbon

Mmm...the puppy's nice and tender...time for...

Grilling With Thornes!!

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When: 6:30pm, Friday June 2

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Where: Thorne House

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Who: You, your friends, your dogs, your kids

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Why: Hello, people, it's FRIDAY! Bring your favorite grill food or side dishes, and your favorite summer beer. All utensils provided.

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No puppies were harmed in the writing of this blog entry.