To the point

I am often rather direct. This can hurt people's feelings.
It is not intended to do so. Nor does it bother me when it does.
That's really just your own mind games - and has nothing to do with what I am saying or doing. But I suppose that in and of itself is a whole 'nother post.

So - to the point then.

If you are currently watering your lawn, or washing your car, or perhaps rinsing off the driveway - please stop.
It's rude, selfish and unnecessary most of the time, but even more so while we are having a dry heat wave.

Thank you.

what would weese do?

freak little storm blew threw here last night and limbed this pear tree.



The answer that is poised on your lips is... she would go get her chainsaw and have that taken care of by lunch time.

But you know what?
weese is tired.
We have dozens of trees and have had many limbs come down over the 22 years we've been here.
It's heavy work.

Meh.

All this butchy yard work was fun at one time.
It's getting old now.
Or wait... maybe that's me.

I think instead of picking up my saw, I'll pick up the phone.

It's that time again

I bought my last car on my lunch hour... this was not a normal weese-like behaviour. I am pretty sure it was some sort of mid-life crisis. Actually, now that I think of it - buying a 'used' car as a mid-life crisis is rather weese-y. It's all that crazyness tempered by a resonable price point.

This time however, I am considering a 'more recently assembled' car. And so it's taking longer. When I say longer I sorta mean l.o..n...g....e.....r.
I am not one to make spur of the moment decisions, I generally leave that to my spontaneous wife. At times, it seems, I am not one to be able to decide anything at all. I wonder if this has to do with sticker price... sounds like I may need to do some further research on my personal price breaking point. That dollar limit where I everything becomes fuzzy and I can't think.

And so I have been researching and driving and researching and downloading spreadsheets and making up my mind and changing my mind and then driving more cars often more than once and then coming home exhausted and downloading more spreadsheets.

Frankly, even I am getting sick of myself (this is where I mention again what a saint my patient wife is... and where she implores me to get someone to prescribe me some paxil).

I feel a decision coming on people...
Beware.

Part of the problem could be that I am currently reading 'Walden' --
but here's what happened.

I was sitting in a Dr.'s office waiting room yesterday afternoon, thumbing through a magazine. The magazine I picked up was some 'home-ish' type rag with a picture of a cute, but pricey lakehouse cottage on the front.

Who doesn't love a lakehouse cottage?

I started to read the cover article about the happy, happy family pictured in their cute, but pricey lakehouse cottage. The pictures showed their happy, happy children carrying around a top of the line but gently used kayak, and their adorable Labrador dog lapping their happy faces and scampering around the finely manicured yard. The article talked about how these folks built their house to look historic and renovated... rather than like new construction. It mentioned how they left the open rafters on the second floor to gain that rustic look. I wondered, only briefly, what climate they might be in... but didn't have much time to ponder over that because I was quickly bombarded with pictures of their o so Pottery Barn interior, interestingly showing that happy Labrador in almost every shot (hmm, no visible dog hair on the floor). My climate question was eventually answered however, when it was mentioned that this happy, happy family only stays in this house during the warm summer months. They retreat to their winterized home down the street for the rest of the year.

That's when I put the magazine down and picked up National Geographic.

Something so seemingly innocent.
Cute little pictures of a cute little lake cottage...
Tell me, what is the percentage of people who can actually afford that lake cottage - nevermind afford it as a second home.

And so it is further ingrained in our sheep like brains -- we WANT it, we NEED it. We will be HAPPY if we have this, and so will our family, and our dog.
My poor, poor dog... o dear.

Over and over, on TV, in magazines, in advertisements we are trained to want more. We are convinced that these are the things that bring us true joy.

And if you are EVEN thinking of commenting that you like to read these magazines just for decorating ideas and such ...think again.

My point is that exactly.

That's precisely how they get the average person to read these magazines. They know you can't afford this cottage. But clearly you can apply some of these great ideas to your own home!
Because then people.. you will be happy.
And your mutt will become a Labrador but will not shed, and your children will do well in school, and they will love you unconditionally - even through their teen years, and your marriage will improve and your sex life will be better than you can imagine.

am I speaking another language?

All I wanted to find out was how to recycle cardboard.

I have been putting flat cardboard out with our blue recyclable bin for several weeks now and suddenly they started to leave it behind.
So I started making phone calls.
First I called the town hall.
Clueless.
Since it's the law to recycle here, she seemed to assume that I was looking for an easy way out, and gave me permission to overflow the local landfill to my hearts content by simply throwing all that nasty cardboard out with my rubbish.

I asked her for the number for the recycling company.

I called and posed the same question - do you take flat cardboard (to be differentiated from corrugated cardboard -- which can be recycled here if you are willing to drive it over to the dump yourself, which we do) in the recycle bin.
Now when you work for a company called 'Enviro' shouldn't you know something about recycling in general. Isn't that your business?

She basically told me - No. We don't take that.
Ok, great - would you know who does?
Short silence - Um, no... I have no idea really.

These questions, in this day and age, in my forward thinking state of Connecticut should NOT be this hard to answer. And should certainly not be met with a response that sounds like it's the first time anyone has ever asked. It's not like I asked why the Hadron Collider shut down last week, for goodness sakes.

If you're driving by my house this winter - look for flames shooting out of our chimney. Because I know my pyromaniacal wife is reading this post right now and planning to take matters into her own hands.

(hmm, this begs for a tip-o-day on fire extinguishers)

The Law

Have you heard all the rumblings about dropping the drinking age here in Connecticut?
Seems all the universities here are getting behind it.
Can you believe this!!???

And they couldn't get their act together to do this a couple of years ago.
The savings in lawyer fees alone ...

And if any of you out there are MADD ... lemme just tell you this. If the law says you can take my son* to another country and strap a gun on him and make him shoot people...then the law better sell him a tall cold one too.

I am all for it.
I think we will have much more responsible drinkers coming out of university than we do now.

*or my daughter... tho now she is too old for either of these issues to be relevant. :)

I have a vagina, not a brain disorder

(warning... this is an unusually sexist post. please do not generalize my sexism. the sexism blatantly alluded to in this post is a direct result of a specific incident and is not a true reflection on my actual feelings toward anyone of any gender)


When I called regarding my broken tractor I was mindful not to sound cocky and certainly not to sound like a 'know it all' - so I carefully explained in great detail the symptoms of my tractors demise to the penis'ed mechanic.

After a polite silence he asked me if I would like them to come pick it up.
Um... yes please.

After some poking around initial diagnostics - apparently with complete disregard for the details I provided - they put in a new fuse and charged it up and sent it right back home to me.

Where the exact same set of problems happened.

This time I asserted myself on the phone.
A part has been ordered... on my description alone.

It's a tractor people, not a moon rocket.

enough already

I suppose it's a shame that young man Heath died. And I would not be irate right now if it were just a mention on the nightly news the other day.
But enough ...pulleeze.

Personally, I don't really care that he's dead. I didn't know him. I will not be forced to be sad for someone just because their career was in acting. That was his job. That's what he did to pay the bills.

I don't know the other 150,000 people who died that day.
Why do I not mourn for them?

What... is it because this Heath guy was young... or his death was tragic?

Why do I not mourn for the 28 year old who lost his battle with Leukemia, leaving behind his wife and children after they spent all their savings on his health care.
Why is he not on the news? Why are we not interviewing his family?

Remember, 150,000 people die every day - bet you could find several tragic deaths in that number.
Like... say... starvation - is that more tragic than popping some pills and guzzling some booze**? What about death from an elephant stampede? Or how about missing your partners hands on the trapeze? There is tragedy. There is drama.

People... let's put things into perspective -- please.

**This is not intended to be accurate. I don't know how the fellow died. Frankly, I am not really interested in the details.