Maybe some junk TV would help the Monday issues. Mine sucks on many levels. Outlook for Tuesday not much better.

Beyonce on the other hand is a delight. She brings a smile to all members of my immediate surroundings. People would be free to criticize away if I were 1/100 as successful as she is!!

Oh, Monday, this is how you got your rep. Please be Tuesday, soon.

sarameg, I wanted to tell you how utterly impressed I am with your spindles and your handrail and newel post and the whole shebang. Just excellent work, and beautiful. Well done.

Remember I told you guys how I missed hanging sheets and towels outside to dry, since our neighborhood assn. prohibits clotheslines? I mean, I understand that clothes left on the line for a week or two brings down the tone, but a sunny afternoon full of flapping sheets shouldn't be cause for censure.

It appears that, without discussion, this very subject came up in a recent survey. Also? No goats.

I think it's also hilarious that though flowers are encouraged, we have to hide growing veg from general street view. Apparently only peasants grow their own food, and the aristocrats among us deplore bits of land doing something useful rather than strictly decorative.

Dana, how do they pronounce it?

I only heard the "judge" pronounce it, but she said it correctly.

we have to hide growing veg from general street view.

I heard a story yesterday about converting lawn into food growing terrain. There was a brief mention of local ordinances sometimes getting in the way of neighborhood food production, but they didn't go into it much. Maybe because it touches on the weird relationship people have with their lawns and what great swaths of short green grass say about neighborhoods.

Didn't lawns come from people grazing livestock? On the commons if you didn't have your own land sufficient for it. That was always my assumption.

Remember I told you guys how I missed hanging sheets and towels outside to dry, since our neighborhood assn. prohibits clotheslines?

I sure did think that said "assassin" for a moment, and was pretty impressed that you have a neighborhood assassin....

I heard a story yesterday about converting lawn into food growing terrain.

I feel like I read an article about this, too, but several months ago. Basically, people who gardened in their front yards apparently were an affront to their neighbors, and the neighbors busted out some sort of ordinance to force them to not garden in their front yards.

(My street has several front-yard gardens, as well as urban hipster chickens and beehives, along with the family that scavenges for scrap metal and disassembles appliances in their front yard [oh, Northside]. You could probably render livestock in a front yard on my street and no one would say anything.)

Also, my favorite recent story of grazing a cow on the Common: [link]

Has been a Monday indeed. Talked to the dental office and have an appointment tomorrow morning. But talking to the gal, she is baffled based on my x-rays and things it is deferred pain from my upper tooth that is mid-root canal. That gets finished on Thursday.

Meanwhile, I'm finally thinking of getting a new vehicle. As much as I've enjoyed the Mustang, having something better suited for the snow here, something with 4 doors would be really nice. But I have no idea where to start. I think I want new or barely used. I want something I can buy and hold onto for a long time. Front wheel or all wheel drive with 4 doors. After that I'm stuck. Not sure how to narrow it down further.

My mom was always horribly embarrassed about our front lawn. The people who'd owned the house before us had planted some kind of grass (pronounced zoy-ja, no idea how to spell it) that pretty much lasts forever with just about no care other than mowing it, but it turns brown in the winter and doesn't turn back to green again until the snow has been gone for a few months. She always hated it, because it looked like we had a lawn full of dead grass. She asked a bunch of landscapers about replacing it, and they all said that it was nearly impossible -- the roots grow so deep that, even if they tore it all out, it would probably just grow back. Part of "needs no maintenance" is "impossible to kill."