Friday Randomness
Just a few random thoughts today. A while ago, perhaps 6 or 8 weeks now, we were out for our morning walk, and came across the potted plants in the picture above. They were lying on their sides on the ground. How did they get there? We don’t know. Perhaps they were stolen? We moved them into the positions shown in the picture, and assumed that if they were there rightfully (meaning if the grounds people left them there and were going to come back) they would be put into the ground. If they were not there rightfully (stolen or dumped for some reason) then someone would come get them. Well, they sat there looking pretty for the next many weeks. I watered them a couple of times, lots of dogs peed on them, and no one did anything more to care for them. The weather is warming up (mid to high 80s for the next couple of days) and I couldn’t bear to see them die a little bit every day. So I sent an email to the trail maintenance folks. Crickets. I debated putting a sign up on the trellis, saying ‘FREE TO GOOD HOME’ or something like that, but instead I brought them home with me, and re-homed them via our local Buy Nothing group. This made me happy, especially the woman who took one for her 90 year old mother who spends most of her time in her garden and has a green thumb.
I’ve shown you pictures of some of the citrus trees in our area. We are well past peak citrus season, and if you don’t pick the fruit, it falls down and becomes a meal for critters. Here is our local asshole squirrel, George Bush, looking pretty cute enjoying a tangerine from our neighbor’s neglected tree. He’s cute, but boy does he make a mess scattering the peels everywhere, and we have to clean up half eaten and rotting fruit from time to time. I wish these neighbors would take better care of their tree.
What else. Well, Sunday is Mother’s Day. Today I am celebrating by taking my MIL out for lunch, which I’m looking forward to. We are going to try a new place near the water in her town. Tomorrow Maya is going to take me to lunch at a place we like downtown, which I’m also looking forward to. We avoid going to restaurants on Mother’s Day itself, as they are all pretty much insane and should be avoided at all costs. Sunday I’m not sure what we’re doing. We’re considering a new car. Toyota has a screaming deal on hydrogen sedans right now, and we would like to get into the zero emissions game. Our current cars are a 2005 and a 2008, and my policy has always been to keep them running as long as possible, since they are paid for and well made. So I guess we’ll be going car shopping on Sunday, and we’ll see if the cars we see change our minds on that policy or not.
There is always the never ending ‘what’s for dinner’ question. This week was hit or miss. Monday we had leftovers, because one of the cars needed work and I didn’t get to the store. Tuesday I made some bbq chicken, and served it with some pre-made salads from the deli counter. Wednesday was a swordfish recipe that we haven’t had in a while, and this time it was meh. I’m not sure if the fish wasn’t fresh enough, or if I didn’t use enough salt, or what. It wasn’t bad, and I know the recipe is good because it was delicious last time I made it. And while it was 58 and raining last Saturday for Ted’s birthday party, yesterday was in the 80s and I didn’t want to heat up the house, so we had Provincial tuna melts (pictured above – NOT my photo) that I made in the toaster oven. They are delicious.
I have two new games. One is a new NYTimes game, Strands. I just started playing it, so not sure if I will be hooked or not. You have a theme hint, and then you have to find words that relate to that theme. The game above, the hint was ‘Tap to play’, and the theme was miniature golf.
The other game is called Zen Color, and it’s just paint by numbers on your tablet or phone or whatever. I find it very relaxing and am enjoying it.
I’ve been reading, and listening to books, and not writing about them. Perhaps I’ll get off my butt and write a post about that soon. In the mean time, I’m joining Jamie for AMDRAL – Annual May Dickens Read-Along. I’ve not read any Dickens, and this year the book is Hard Times. I had better find out if the library has a copy…
Any Mother’s Day plans this weekend? Will you see your mom? Will you do anything with your kids? Any recipes you enjoyed? Games you’re loving? Have you read any Dickens?
28 Comments
Birchie
Nom! The tuna melt is calling my name. That’s something that the rest of the folks in my house might like? I know my husband would at least.
Sigh citrus trees…something that we do not have on my side of the country. I remember once in high school we were visiting my grandparents and we drove by the house where my parents lived when I was born and I was so surprised to see citrus trees in the yard. What could have been if my parents hadn’t moved when I was three…
J
I hope you try the tuna melt, it’s really tasty. I’ve lived most of my life around citrus trees, but they are still wonderful to me. Not that I really paid attention to them as a kid. I think this is the only house I’ve lived in that has so many nearby.
nance
Why are squirrels so objectionable in their behaviour? (Them and my neighbour who is sitting in her car with the stereo blasting at 8:50 AM doing Who Knows What. I am literally FIVE FEET AWAY AND DO NOT WANT TO HEAR THAT THANK YOU VERY MUCH JUST LEAVE FOR WORK ALREADY!)
What a curious situation with those plants. I’m glad you rescued them from neglect and dog pee. I bought two Boston ferns for my porch–sad things–and immediately found two other places that had much nicer ferns, one of which was significantly cheaper. I now have Fern Buyer’s Regret. Struggling to get over it.
Mother’s Day is always the same here: Rick and the boys put out my porch and patio furniture and sometimes they make/get dinner. But Jared, Jordan, and Theo are in South Carolina right now, so…THEY OWE ME. Just kidding.
I don’t get too hepped up about Mother’s Day. They’re so good to me every day.
J
The stupid squirrels dig up my garden and eat my plants and I hate them. I do like seeing them get a drink from the water I put out for them and the birds though. Contradictory, I know. So cute. So destructive.
Oh, fern buying regret! I hope you will feel better about them when you have nursed them into prime health. I hate when things like that happen, it bothers me more than it should.
Ernie
I love the cartoon. Ha. Ass hole squirrel – so funny. We do not have citrus trees in my neck of the woods, and I can imagine the mess the George Bush makes. The story of the hanging baskets is so weird. What on earth? I’m so glad you re-homed them. I would not usually be interested in a tuna melt, but that photo looks amazing.
Curly has a local basketball tournament for her travel team this weekend, so I will be watching basketball both Satruday and Sunday. Depending on what time her games are, I might opt to go to the pool we just joined. It opens to adults only around April 1 before opening officially Memorial weekend, and I have yet to be home on a weekend to go relax at the pool solo. Typically Coach grills dinner. My usual request is that the house get cleaned up. I’ll take any opportunity to get my people on board with pulling their weight. I have two college kids coming home today/tomorrow, and I’m very excited. They’ll be bringing loads of ‘crap’ home, so my hope for a well organized home is silly and unlikely. My siblings usually monopolize my mom. I’ll try to get over there to visit her, but one never knows if she will be there or if they will take her to their homes. etc. Boxing out on Mother’s Day, not my favorite variation of basketball defense.
Enjoy your weekend.
J
I’m excited for you with the college kids coming home! I hope you get some pool time, and if you don’t get to see your mom on Mother’s Day, that you can see her soonish. I think it’s weird that they scheduled a basketball game on Mother’s Day.
Ally Bean
I didn’t know about Toyota’s deal so will be interested in knowing what you find out. My car is a 2003 meaning eventually I’ll have to get a new one. Thanks for the new word game link. I’m into NYT Connections and The Guardians Wordiply, do them every morning so a third one would be good.
I majored in English Lit in undergrad so *yes* I’ve read Dickens. My senior year I had to write an indepth research paper on one of his works and I chose Great Expectations. Bring on Miss Havisham and Pip!
Happy Mother’s Day!
J
Ally, I don’t know what the deals are out your way, but this one is specific to California, since I think they are the only state that has hydrogen cell cars so far. I think they have some deals on electric trucks too, but trucks are NOT my thing. I love that your car is even older than mine.
Lisa's Yarns
Ugh. Squirrels! They are such pests. We have the most aggressive squirrels in our neighborhood. My parents sent an Easter care package for the boys this spring. By the time we got home from work to retrieve it, a squirrel had eaten into the packaging – but did not get to the candy. They got nothing but some cardboard. I hope it was worth it. When we lived in our last house that was about a mile away, my parents came to visit and they put a cooler bag out on our deck since it was winter so it would keep things extra cold. My mom and I were working on meal prep and Phil shouts out that there was a squirrel in the cooler bag! The little jerk chewed off the zipper and got it. So the bag was ruined and he got nothing out of it because all that was in the bag was bottles of wine!
But what a shame to let citrus to go waste like that! I would love to have a citrus tree! Esp with tangerines or oranges. I would not want a lemon tree but there is a limit to how many lemons I can use…
Your mother day plans sound great! I don’t go to restaurants on big holidays either, especially Valentine’s Day! I was a server in college and saw how awful restaurants were on Vday. Couples would get pissy because the weights were long and I was like – what even if the point of going out to eat if you are going to bark at each other over the wait time and what were you expecting?? I kind of think of my shouldless day yesterday as Mother’s Day “observed” which is a newer concept I’ve heard about where you pick another day to spend exactly as you’d like! On Sunday my husband is taking our 6yo out to his mom’s in the afternoon because she wants help planting flowers and he can help her with the 6yo in toe. I will stay back with our 3yo. We just saw my MIL on Tuesday when she came down for a kindergarten concert so I feel like I don’t need to go out to her house this weekend. It’s supposed to be 80 on Sunday so my plan is to walk to a park by a local lake with Taco with some sand toys in toe because this park has sand which Taco loves. And there is an ice cream place at the pavillion so we will get some ice cream, too. It should be a nice afternoon since we can be outside. I would feel differently about being home on my own with the toddler if the weather wasn’t going to be so amazing!!
Side note: the frog & toad story you mentioned in your comment on my blog wasn’t in the year with frog and toad AND I am not familiar w/ that story so I need to seek it out!! For Year with Frog and Toad, they strung together a bunch of stories that kind of aligned with the seaon of the year. So the play starts with frog and toad waking up from hibernating except toad doesn’t want to wake up so frog changes the calendar to May to get him to get out of bed. My favorite story of the ones they included in the play was the cookies – that’s the one where they make cookies but then they can’t stop eating them so eventually frog feeds them to the birds and toad is NOT happy so goes home to make more cookies. They didn’t include my true favorite which is “the list” – Toad loses his list so basically is paralyzed because how can he do anything without his list?
J
I looked it up, it’s in the book Frog and Toad All Year, but is probably replaced in the play. You can see someone read it on youtube if you want, I’ll bet Taco would get a kick out of it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXXX-1cpaZM
I hope you had a lovely Mother’s Day, it sounds like it was relaxing and lovely, and I’m glad you had your ‘Shouldless’ day!
Your squirrel stories are probably the worst I’ve ever heard! Those are some aggressive squirrels!
Daria
We have so many squirrels. They keep planting oaks, and I keep weeding the seedlings out. Me against the squirrels.
Mother’s day… I am estranged from my mom who lives in Russia, but will probably talk to my dad. Mother’s day is not celebrated there. Here we will probably go out for breakfast to our diner where we are usual customers. On Saturday is my sister-friend husband’s celebration of life. It’s been exactly a year since he passed.
Dickens. I loved the Old Curiosity Shop. Also, for the holidays, I read his anthology of ghost stories as a tradition. I owned this book since I was 16 years old. Still have it!
J
Oh goodness, oak trees are no joke! They are one of my favorite trees, but they’re so huge, there’s no room for one in my little yard.
I hope the celebration of life brings some light to your sister-friend.
Margaret
I don’t have squirrels or not ones that I see anyway. I do have wild rabbits or at least one of them that appears to live (sometimes) under my deck. I have to be careful when mowing my lawn! I love tuna melts; they are yummy. I see my mom most days but our sort of celebration will be tomorrow at my brother’s house. We don’t do much on the actual day either. Too much hoopla!
J
Oh how lucky you are to not have squirrels digging up all of your plants! I hope you enjoyed your Mother’s Day with your mom. <3
Tobia | craftaliciousme
High five for saving the plants. And how lovele ythey found a home with someone enjoying a garden.
A tangerine tree sounds wonderful. But I guess cleaning up messes produced by other never is.
Enjoy your mother day shenanigans. I have not planned anything. Its not such a big deal in my family (or Germany ?!) I usally just call and sometimes we have a dinner. But nothing planned for tomorrow.
J
Is Mother’s Day there the same weekend as Father’s Day? Ours are about a month apart.
Tobia | craftaliciousme
Well it is offically Acension day which takes place 50 days after Easter. For some reason it became fathers day for everyone who is not into Christianity. I don’t care enough to goole and research way. I know there is another offical fathers day. That one I believe is almost irrelavent here in Germany.
In my family it really doesn’t matter. I called my mom today to at least call and she said oh is it mothers day today, I didn’t know but thank you for calling… so I might not be the best source.
NGS
I’m one of those people who tries to pretend Mother’s Day doesn’t exist, but I did send a text to my husband last Wednesday to remind him to pick up a greeting card for his grandmother. She’s 100 and doesn’t always know what’s going on, but I don’t want to be the couple that doesn’t send her something and the rest of the family talks bad about us. LOL.
J
Mother’s Day is HARD sometimes. I’m glad you sent a card to your husband’s Grandma, 100 is great!
Suzanne
I feel very invested in this plant mystery. As soon as you mentioned that you’d water them a couple of times, I thought, “Oh. Well, they’re J’s plants now!” But I’m glad you found them new homes. So very strange.
J
I would have happily brought them home Suzanne, but there is no place for them to thrive in my yard. I wanted better for them than a slow death in the shade of the stupid eucalyptus trees.
Nicole MacPherson
That cartoon!!!
Squirrels are such dicks. Everyone thinks they are adorable – and they are cute – but wow, are they ever destructive. It was a non-stop battle in Calgary to keep them from digging up my plants, eating all my bulbs (I lost that battle), destroying Christmas decorations, etc.
J
Nicole, HA! I know on both, the dick squirrels AND the cartoon.
Regarding the cartoon, I do believe a husband would get his ass kicked if he came up with that. Regarding the squirrels, they are one reason I didn’t take those plants into my yard. Between them, the fact that we don’t get a lot of sun, and the eucalyptus trees that drop their toxic leaves everywhere, it’s every plant for itself around here.
Stephany
I was playing Strands for a while but then I fell off my routine – I need to get back to it. I also love coloring apps. I use Happy Color and it is so soothing for my soul. I am quite addicted to it!
Squirrels! We have so many around these parts, but I don’t feel like they’re assholes here. My mom’s dog Lucy is OBSESSED with them, though. She has a little spot on the couch where she can sit and look out the sliding glass doors to the backyard and she will stare at the backyard ALL DAY waiting for squirrels. Squirrel Patrol!
J
I love my coloring app! They make money by showing commercials, which is fine, I know they need to make a living. At least there are no in-app purchases.
The squirrels around here eat everything. They eat my plants. Once they ate the nozzle to my hose. They dig up plants to bury their acorns. They’re cute, but they drive me nuts. I need a dog like Lucy, and a doggie door, so the dog can chase them to its heart’s content!
San
I am glad you got to celebrate Mother’s Day with your mother-in-law and your daughter … but I understand why you don’t go out to eat ON Mother’s Day itself.
This is so nice that you took care of the plants and eventually rehomed them with people who could use them. So weird that nobody claimed them.
That tuna melt looks delicious. Bookmarked!
J
Thanks San! Mother’s Day is complicated after your mom dies. Sigh. I miss my mom so much. But it was really nice spending time with my MIL and my daughter. I felt very lucky.
I’m happy about the plants, I really didn’t want to watch them wither as the weather heats up!
I hope you try the tuna melts, they’re delicious!
Anne
Mother’s Day can be so complicated, can’t it? I’m glad you got to celebrate your MIL – and be celebrated by your daughter – but I am sure there were feelings of grief intertwined with the joy. <3
Squirrels. Ugh. My parents love them, but theirs do not seem to be quite the jerks that your squirrels – or Lisa's! – are. Good grief.
I don't eat tuna anymore, but do need to try a bean-based version (chickpea seems to be the most common). Perhaps the structure of the melt would work even with a non-fish-based option…