Whew!

At 6 am, I was outside beginning the last day of work on the yard, at least temporarily. I had hired the young man from down the street to come help me shovel the crushed rock, but he didn't show up until 9, so I sent him on his way without using him as I was 3/4 of the way done by then.

I not only had to bring in the crushed rock, but also had to bring in dirt to the areas where the ground was low so the crushed rock would be a finishing layer, but not too deep as it's expensive ground covering. I added dirt, watered it to level it, added the crushed rock, watered it again, and kept working the surface until it was level and smooth. Not perfect, but I'm good at puttering.

I am proud to say that at 10:30 am, a mere 4-1/2 hours after beginning, this part was finished. I'm still missing some rocks along the oleanders against the fence (where George's red car is parked), so I left a small pile of crushed rock on the driveway until I can fill in between the rocks and the paver patio. I'll try to finish up before son and I leave for Canada.

Yep, I bought both a ceramic pot (I filled it with day lillies, which I love) and the bird bath (on sale at K-Mart) so I could see some "decor" and not just pavers! I have a lead on a cement table in Joshua Tree that is also the deep red color, so I'll drive up there and see how much it will cost to add it to the patio. I'm also going to buy some copper lanterns, the kind that take candles, and use them to create ambiance. The big white lantern actually goes in the front yard, but I wanted to see how the lanterns would look before investing in 6 or so for this landscaping project.

Now, the best news is that Mike and Dave showed up to work on the house next door, which has been purchased by a lawyer who's buying up foreclosures and renting them. When Mike came over to ask me if I knew the nearest big box store, I asked him about making the doggie door fit. He looked it over, told me what he could do and how he could do it, and I offered to buy him the blade for his Skil saw if he could get the job done today. He's going to do it before he goes back to the house next door as he can work on that over the weekend and I'll be able to secure the house while I am gone this weekend. Hurrah!

So there you have it. My body aches from head to toe, but I did it! I landscaped my backyard and I did it all by myself. Mike did ask me about what I'm going to do for shade, and when I told him that my goal is to have a wooden shade structure similar to the one over the cement patio, he said he'd like to give me a bid on building it. I'm going to think about that during my travels the next 2 months and may just take him up on his offer when I am back home.

Off the Top of My Head

No one makes me laugh like Chelsey Handler and her program Chelsey Lately! I'd love to be as irreverent, blunt, and totally honest as she is and tell the whole world what I REALLY think, rather than keeping it hidden behind a facade of social politeness. This past week, there have been several times that I've wanted to take off the gloves and have my say, but I tamped it down and kept it inside -- and then wonder why I have difficulty sleeping. It's harder to do the right thing, darn it.

Barack Obama should be loudly denouncing the scathing black racism that passes for worship in his culture. If there were any (white) voters sitting on the fence, wondering if this is the time to vote for the first black president, I think the spate of recent overtly racial attacks against whites accompanied by choruses of Jesus Loves Me will keep him out of office.

I love my front yard! All the work I put into the desert landscaping paid off in a peaceful, quiet front yard that invites a person to sit and soothe. I hope the backyard turns out as nice and that I enjoy it as much as I enjoy the front yard.

I wish I could figure out a way to make the doggie door work, but it simply doesn't fit into the space it's supposed to occupy.

The craft project I'm working on could be really great or look totally amateurish: I'm wanting the really great result and will be pissed if I can't pull it off.

After spending an hour filling out the on-line application for Blue Cross insurance to replace my COBRA and save a couple hundred dollars every month, I doubt I'll be approved. In life, I'm actually a pretty healthy person, but on paper, I don't look so good: asthma (controlled), diabetes 2 (controlled), and 2 broken arms (healed) within 3 months of one another come across as suspicious. And I had to answer the question whether I have had anything to drink in the past 12 months honestly: I do have a glass of white wine every so often, perhaps 2-3 times a year!

There was nowhere on the form to say that I've been working 3-5 hours a day for the past month to landscape my backyard, moving large amounts of earth, as well as setting 200 12 x 12 pavers into place. No place to say that I've worked 2-3 jobs concurrently for the past 20+ years and not used up a lot of sick days.

What's going to sink me is having a glass of wine a couple of times a year!

I am SICK AND TIRED of the intimate discussions and photographs of the current crop of BABY BUMPS and protruding belly buttons! I DON'T CARE and I DON'T WANT TO SEE THE PICTURES, no matter how big the star is who's carrying the little bundle(s) of joy. And I don't ever again want to hear the term "baby bump." I'm rooting for BABY BULGE, which doesn't sound quite as cute and may turn the tide away from the over-exposure of pregnant women parading across the red carpets.

Finally, is anyone else tired of the "instant stars" that permeate our culture? In music, they are called "one hit wonders," but in TV land they are instant stars, the young people who garner fame from boob jobs, weird hair-do's, hanging out with well-known people, or doing anything so totally outrageous that they are featured on the evening news and parlay that into a career as ... a star. What happened to talent? to education? to skill? to earning a rightful place in the world? to being paid commisserate with what what knows and can do? Kim Kardashian is an example of an individual who is now the star of a TV show because ... she has a big ass? a boob job? a nasty attitude and demeaning treatment of her friends, family, and complete strangers? is a serial slut who sleeps her way onto the entertainment news? whose father is a well-known lawyer? whose step-father is a former athlete? who thinks the world revolves around her?

If society is going to propel people to prominence, perhaps the person so propelled should have some substance to support the exposure?

The Birthday Blunder

A recent trip to The LA Times Book Fair to celebrate my son's birthday was okay, but not the big event we anticipated. However, many authors were there to promote and sign their publications. One such author was personable, engaging, and witty as I asked him about his novel, written to coincide with a museum opening feting Bob Dylan. I asked that he sign the book with my son's name, but I told my son that he would receive the book after I finish reading it.

I cannot get into it. The character names are off-putting, with either deeply meaningful or playful names, such as Tieresias from the Greek tragedy Antigone, as well as the not-so-subtle play on Bob Dylan's name for the lead character. The dialog is reminiscent of a Dick Tracy cartoon: choppy, intended to be wise-cracking and filled with satire, but coming across as childishly amateur. The "film noire" approach probably would work if the novel were a screen play, but it's not and it doesn't. The setting of "Old Hollywood" is both trite and cliche. All in all, the author tries so hard to make it work that it doesn't.

However, the most egregious error is the lack of understanding that the word mute means unable to speak, while the word moot means subject to debate, arguable, unresolved, as in a moot point. The author joins a long line of writers, most of whom are non-professionals, who insist that the point is mute -- and to me it's important that the point is moot -- especially if you make the (mute) point twice in the same chapter!

The book has gone to class with me, to a doctor's appointment, and to bed, but I've read the same opening five chapters three times now and finally have realized that I'm not going to make it to the next chapter, much less to the end. I have, however, had some solid sleep on the nights that I've tried to get past the exposition ... .

I'll hand the book off to son and let him have a go at it: although we have similar tastes, we also differ in our likes and dislikes, so this gift may be right up his alley. After all, he stayed for the end of the The Players, while I walked out after a meaningless hour spent trying to figure out why time, treasure and talent were spent to make the film. To this day, son insists that the ending made the film, but I need something along the way to engage both my intellect and my interest or the end comes a whole lot sooner for me than it does for either the book or the film!

Ta-Da!

I stood on a chair so you could see more of the completed rough draft paver patio, including the shrubbery that has been waiting for several weeks to be included in the finishing touches. It's overcast again, so I'm hoping it will rain and water in the new plants, as well as settle the pavers.

There are some high spots, and some low spots, and other pavers that are just right, so I'll be fine-tuning the project for several weeks to come as the sand settles beneath and around the pavers. I am going for a rustic, been there a while look, so am not overly concerned that it's perfect, but the low spots will collect water, which I don't want.

At the back of the patio, where I was standing in yesterday's photo, I put 2 bushes that will grow up and around the 2 big rocks. The smaller plants are more salvia, which I love because it grows well and has purple flowers that attract the birds and the bees. What's going to also happen at that end of the patio is the rocks outlining the oleanders along the fence are going to curve to match the patio planter and meet at the far right end to "finish" the look. At the front, the left corner of this photo, I'm putting in a step-down and a narrow path to the pavers -- then calling in the truck filled with crushed rock and topping the whole backyard with sand-saver!

When I get my Lowe's bonus gift cards ($300 total), I'm going to buy the chiminea and a chair to sit in front of it, something that will not blow away when the gale-f0rce winds come through the valley. I've looked for a cement round table and benches for the middle section, but I can find benches and no table. One of the salesmen told me that the tables are "too heavy," so they don't carry them at the big box stores. We have a lot of those places that sell pottery and cementware brought in from Mexico, so maybe I can find a set at one of those vendors.

The built-in barbeque will wait for Mr. He'll Do to enter my life and justify the time, the treasure, and the aggravation of adding that feature! (Which is another way of saying it ain't gonna happen!)

So, having met this goal in the grand scheme of things, I'm ready to drive to Canada as soon as the doggie door is secured.

I'm Still Looking for a Few Good Men ...

I was up and at 'em at 6:30 this morning, working while waiting for the guy I hired (and his friend) to show up and do some of the heavy lifting for me. I offered to pay what he thought was good money and he promised to be here between 8:15 and 8:45.

Yeah, right.

Another no show. Add him to the gardener who was stopping by on Friday to give me an estimate for the watering system I need in the new landscaping and I'm batting zero.

I'm half-way finished with phase 3, but ran out of steam about noon, when friends stopped by to say hidy. The good news is that Fat Matt moved the 2 huge rocks into place, one of the jobs for which I hired help. Where the cut-out is in the pavers, I'm planting some desert plants, which means 2 little areas along the back side of the paver patio. I already have vegetation behind where I'm standing to take the photo, and it'll stay there, outlined in native rocks.

One day, I'll have a chiminea on the right side of the patio (from where I'm standing), a seating area in the middle, and a water feature to the left of the huge rock in this view. And, when I'm rich and famous, I'll put a wooden shade structure over most of the area so it's truly useable (which it's not without shade during the summer).

The final stage of this part of the current landscaping project will be filling in from the paver patio to the rock outlined planting areas with crushed rock, which will look finished, reflect the front landscaping, and keep the sand outside.

One other noteworthy item from today is that Fat Matt says I can permanently attach the doggie door to the new slider -- and I'll get that done by the end of the week. Right now, Mia can use the doggie door during the day, but I cannot secure it at night, so I'm still getting up to let her out then back in.