I want to start by assuring you that I was talking about gardening and, more specifically, about the importance of mowing the lawn correctly.
See, it was Sunday night dinner following the Packers-Redskins game. Captain, my brother-in-law, who is currently pulling duty at the Pentagon in some PowerPoint intensive job, traveled out here to the country to help Harry and Ben shout at the television. While they watched football, I did the following:
1) Made homemade pretzels for their halftime snack
2) Chopped herbs and mixed it into my homemade Neufchatel cheese, packaged it and put it into the frig so they could have cheese and crackers later
3) Washed, folded and put away approximately 50 loads of laundry
4) Mowed the lawn
5) Hand watered the drought-starved plants, including toting buckets of water to the far reaches of the lawn
6) Started dinner, which, to be fair, Harry finished. He can now make spanakopita. (Smart man!)
Well, Captain, being Captain, started giving a hard time to Harry and Ben about the fact that I was the one who was doing all the heavy lifting associated with the lawn.
Their response?
“Pheethhhhhhttt. She wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Although I appreciate, nay ENCOURAGE, anyone to be on my side in nudging anyone (anyone, please!) to pitch in around this labor-intensive household, I had to admit that they were right on this one.
I do not like for my husband and son to mow the lawn. In fact, I had been trying to figure out how to give my lawn that nice checkerboard pattern, but from my research it involves some sort of press device, which is too far to go even for me.
“Precision is important in lawn mowing,” I explained. “I like all the lines the mower makes to be straight and even. When Harry or Ben mow the lawn, there are always crooked lines and bits and pieces that are missed. It ends up looking like a $2 Navy haircut.”
Well, that was Captain needed.
“OHHHHHHH. That’s the worst!!!!” exclaimed Captain with great feeling.
Turns out he was talking about cheap haircuts, not sloppy lawn mowing.
“I can’t believe how hard it is to get a good haircut. And don’t even GET me started about coloring!” he went on.
Well, I knew that Captain was a devotee of all things related to hair since he started showing up at Christmas holidays with blond highlights. OBVIOUS blond highlights. This provided no end of amusement among me and the other sisters-in-law (of which there are many) because at nearly 6’7 and 265 pounds, there is nothing at all girly about Captain.
“I like to be a little different and go for the blond surfer look—that Coco Beach look. But it’s really hard to get it right at these salons with their foils and their caps. I have been brunette, blond with highlights, even RED. RED!!!! I had to call in sick when that happened until I could get it fixed.”
He went on…
“In the military, all these guys like to go for that high and tight look,” he said mocking the military bearing and stiff posture you see of Army generals in the newspaper. “But that’s what gets you promoted.
“That’s why when I was up for promotion for this Pentagon job I got a ‘high and tight’ cut and had my portrait re-touched to give me some grey hair at the temples.”
Well, of course, I was roaring with laughter. And Captain, always loving an audience, played up the hand gestures and stories.
Harry piped in with the importance of regular pedicures, which, of course, Captain also had opinions about.
Later, as he was getting ready to leave Ben asked about the bag that Captain had carried in with him. I thought perhaps he had planned to stay the night or had something inside he wanted to show us.
Well, no. Turns out it’s his “man bag.”
“But I’m no metero-sexual,” he said, meaning, of course, metrosexual.
He can’t bring himself to carry a leather satchel, so he carries this “man bag.”
Good grief. Man hair. Pedicures. Man bags.
Here I am worrying about straight lines on a lawn when there are such many more weighty subjects to worry about!
Tomorrow on Bumblebee…
More on the slowing down lifestyle.
Amused and Dismayed,
Robin
Before I fall off the wagon and eat a whole coconut cream pie, I suppose I’ll explain why I am on a detox diet following my trip to Las Vegas.
Newsflash: Las Vegas is an astonishingly unhealthy place. In fact, if you truly hate yourself, just pack up your bags and move there right now, get a job in a casino and live in one of the teeny tiny concrete apartments on the edge of the desert where you can enjoy the sounds of cars whizzing by at all hours.
But I digress…
I truly enjoyed Angela’s company while in Vegas. She is one of those gals with a sunny, bright disposition who peppers her conversations with chuckles and laughs. She seems to find almost everything amusing. She’s also up for trying most anything in the way of fun or adventure. Here’s Angela:
The thing about Angela is that she prefers not to spend a lot of time or money in Vegas on silly things like food. She prefers to play poker while in Vegas. So with the exception of a proper sit-down dinner following our outing to Zumanity, my diet consisted mostly of coffee, sandwiches, croissants and, in my misguided bid for at least something approaching a healthy meal, a bizarre kind of boiled fish concoction with overly-steamed vegetables. THAT’S a meal that was donated right to the trash bin.
So, add to this culinary nightmare the bad casino air, light deprivation and noise pollution and you’re starting to get the picture of what I mean by unhealthy.
Sure, we got out and walked one morning. I wanted exercise and Angela, being the adventurer that she is, turned it into a walk with a purpose–hiking on foot from the Venetian to the Sahara where she recalled seeing an attraction where you could drive a Humvee over some obstacle course. Nevertheless, we did walk.
Still, I was feeling very out of sorts. I missed my garden. I missed the quiet. I missed my family and little dogs. I missed the fresh air. And I REALLY missed exercise. To walk in Vegas is to hike along the strip, which is like doing exercise in a gas chamber.
Then, here was the clincher.
I ran into Lady Diana. No, I’m not delusional. I’m talking about her wax image at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. (Thrifty Angela finagled us free tickets.)
See, although I wasn’t an official royalty watcher, I was always interested what Diana was wearing because we were always the same height and weight.
“Wow, she looks good,” I would tell myself, figuring that if she looked that good, I probably did too. Okay, it was perhaps some faulty logic, but there you have it.
Well, I hate to say it, but when I stood next to Diana, I had the startling realization that I could probably, maybe, perhaps not fit into that size 6 blue sequined gown she was wearing. Crap. When did that happen?
Well, so there you have it. Bad air. Bad food. No exercise. And then to realize I can’t wear the size 6 blue sequined gown. Not that I want to wear blue sequined gowns in the garden anyway, but I might want to dress up when I water the indoor plants or something–you know, just for a change of pace and to brighten my mood.
So, here we are at the Las Vegas Detox Diet. I invented it myself. (Okay, it’s mostly common sense.) It consists of:
- Drink a glass of water every single hour you’re awake, starting when you get up in the morning. Fizzy water doesn’t count because it usually has sodium, which defeats the purpose. I have found also that drinking this glass of water every hour reduces the hunger pangs.
- Eat ONLY fresh vegetables, fruits and small amounts of cheese and nuts. Avoid breads, pastas and other starchy foods.
- Avoid alcohol and large slabs of chocolate.
- Take a mega-vitamin.
- Drink green tea in the afternoon and evening (in addition to the water).
- Avoid snacks between meals.
- In addition, run (or walk if you have to) a full hour each day.
Now, I absolutely LOVE to run and really do try. It’s just that I-can’t-breathe-and-my-heart-is-going-to-pop feeling that I don’t really like. So I alternate running and walking. Walk north up the driveway. Run south down the driveway. Walk north up the driveway. Run south down the driveway. Do that twelve times and an hour is gone. It’s an important part of the Las Vegas Detox Diet, so don’t skip this part.
Don’t worry. This won’t become a blog about my quest to get into that size 6 blue sequined gown. But I might consider a series of gardening exercises–stretch while you weed, flower pot weight lifting, aerobic tilling–that kind of thing.
Ciao!
Robin
By now you might be thinking that I have a budding Elvis obsession because of the multiple entries and photos about Elvis and Graceland.
Well, that’s just not so. Can I help it if I had to visit Memphis on business and ended up with some free tim on my hands? And what am I supposed to do if I keep getting these photo ops with The King? I mean, he’s ALL OVER Vegas.
(
By the way, my friend Angela tells me that there now book about Elvis being a vampire, which would explain all of the Elvis sightings over the years. He’ll never die, but for a different reason than the rock ‘n roll historians would have us believe.)
I have some wacky stories about Vegas that I plan to tell soon. Here are teasers about some of them:
- Who I sat next to on the plane and the unbelievable stories he told
- A widely-published slots strategy that does not work–at least for me
- Outrageous things I saw and overheard while eavesdropping (and why I have no shame)
- Why I am now on a detox diet (and it’s not because I drank too much). Hint: It has something to do with Princess Diana.
Tune in again for these and other thrilling adventures!
Oh, and about the garden–I’ll get out there this afternoon too. I have some moon flowers I want to show you.
Robin
