There’s a jungle outside my window — one of creeping vines and reaching grass and, infuriatingly, browning hydrangeas. In my zest to kill that fucking trumpet creeper with paintbrush applications of undiluted Roundup, I think I accidentally treated some flowers I actually do like. I don’t know how; I was careful not to get the poison on anything I didn’t care to see die a miserable wilty death. And yet, for the past two weeks, I’ve watched my beautiful blue hydrangeas brown from the bloom down. I suspect some Roundup dripped onto them somehow (they were in close quarters with the treated vine), and started to do its evil magic. It also looks like it got into one of my pots with a dahlia and some creeping Jenny in it. I am become death, destroyer of flowers. And still there are trumpet vines busting up in new places in the yard. I give up. I don’t want a yard I feel like I have to fight. I will call a truce with the vines that make their way through the other flowers and just settle for pulling them up, but I will continue a chemical assault on the ones that appear away from the fold and threaten my vinyl siding.
My zinnias are starting to bloom. I’ve got a hot pink one. Yessss.
I bought some super-discounted nearly dead dianthus with really odd fringed greenery. They look dead and they may well stay that way this year. I’m rooting for them to surprise me in 2011, though.
My dahlias are a mess. They bloom and then fall over and wilt. Immediately. The greenery is starting to look yellowish near the pots and I thought for a split second I might be overwatering them. But honestly? There’s no way. Not in this heat. Mom thinks maybe they just need to be put in the ground, that their pots are too small. Even though the pots are a good size. It’s as good a guess as any. I don’t look forward to transplanting them but I really, really want pretty — and sustained — dahlia blooms.
I really need to mow. That back yard is especially wild looking. I just haven’t had time. Oh, that’s ridiculous. I have had plenty of time but I have chosen to spend it in other ways. Tomorrow Lesley’s coming to see the house for the first time and I had so hoped to dazzle her with my “See, I’m a grownup who takes care of things!” badassedness instead of my “I miss having a landlord!” sheepishness. Le sigh. Guess I’ll just have to get her extra drunk so she won’t remember how high the grass was. And I’ve got to make sure the cats know to be in extra cuddly mode.
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My sister is at home with my parents now, slowly recovering. She says she’s weak — going up and down the stairs wears her out — but she’s feeling better all the time. She had a wacky near-disaster with a $2800 prescription for antibiotics that turned out to not be necessary to her recovery. Dear doctors: Learn what drugs cost and then TELL YOUR PATIENTS IF A RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE DRUG IS NOT NECESSARY FOR SURVIVAL. Jesus.
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I just spent two hours trying to update my iPhone to iOS4 to get some of that sweet app folder/multitasking action. The phone bricked and I had to do a factory restore, then imported my backed up content, except it didn’t resync any of my apps. When I tried to manually resync them, it was like, “Nahhh, don’t really feel like it,” so I’ve been manually resyncing them three or four at a time. I think everything’s OK, though. I feel such guilt when I get bogged down in and stressed out by tech wonkery. Like I should just shut up and keep my technical issues to myself since there is so much actual suffering in the world. Argh.