Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Sorry for the lame

I'm planning a cross-country move and tricking out my resume, so naturally I've got nothing but snark. Saving that for interviews.

In the meantime, please accept the offering of these "Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Videos" that a coworker sent me. I think he's trying to get me to change my mind.



And the sequel (sorry, embedding is disabled)

"Our main export is crippling depression... but at least we're not Detroit!"

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Stormy Weather...

La Nina is kind of a bitch. Another reason to look forward to Cleveland.





Guess which line is the forecast for the Pacific Northwest, and which one is Cleveland?

Monday, May 23, 2011

Sexism in Infographics

There are plenty of jokes about female drivers, but statistically, we have fewer (and less serious) accidents than men. Enough so that adding a woman driver to your account can lower your car insurance premiums.

So how in the world did insurance company I-Mingle let this "safe driving" infographic past an initial review? Apparently, female drivers are the symbolic equivalent of just-slightly-better-than-a-16-year-old...

Monday, May 16, 2011

Making changes

This weed was large. It was, in fact, a pine bush: almost 4 feet tall and 5 feet around, bushy, verdant, vibrant. Happy and healthy. And growing where it did not belong - at the foot of our driveway, where it constantly threatened to blind us to oncoming pedestrians, reach out over the sidewalk and snag some passerby, and shade the roses out of existence.

A plant growing where you don't want it is a weed. Any plant. No, really. Grass on the lawn is great - grass in the garden is a weed.

At first, I thought, "let's just prune it up a little." A snip here, a cut there, just to let some more light through and improve the shape. But the more I cut, the better I felt. And the worse the bush looked. I've done this before, so it's not that I'm bad at it, it's just that this particular bush needed to be full and lush to look its best. The Kid, watching this from the grass strip nearby, suggested that we just cut it down.

Cut it down?

Cut it DOWN!

With a saws-all, cutting it down was the easy part. I spent quite a while trying to shove fragrant piney-smelling branches into the yard waste bin, avoiding the sight of the giant stump left behind. Then it started to rain, and we called it a day. Of course, the next morning, there it was. Staring me down. Taunting me.

I went for the saws-all again, taking it easy at first, cutting off feeder roots, and then using my mattock to scrape away the dirt around the base of the stump. After an hour and a half, my husband offered to go to the hardware store and buy a chainsaw as an early birthday present. Oh HELL to the no - this thing was NOT going to make a mockery of my masculinity. Err, well, you know what I mean.

In gardening, as in almost everything else, there are times when you have to admit that you simply cannot do a job well without the proper tools. You can improvise, you can push and pull and hack and strain, and sometimes it just doesn't get you anywhere until you step back and bring in the big guns.

This was not one of those times.

After cutting its ties to the biggest root, I pulled that sucker straight out of the ground. Just me and my muscles.

Sometimes, when you want something badly enough, you just need to go for it.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Unhappy hipsters

My new favorite site. This is Reality Bites, 15 years later.





"With her eyes closed, water tickling the tips of her fingers, she could conjure memories of a time before the bomb, before the zombies. "

(Photo: Daniel Hennessy; Dwell, June 05)

Friday, May 06, 2011

not the hotel stureplan



In Good Company

There's Passover! And Bad Cohen is still finishing his thesis. Oh, and The Kid needs a bigger bed, and a bike. And...

It's amazing what excuses I can come up with for not dealing with something difficult. Fortunately, I'm starting to feel more optimistic about our impending move to C..C..C..

Cleveland.

There, I said it. We're moving to Cleveland. In about 3 months.

Leaving behind our families, my garden (!) and everything our son has ever known, except of course his parents, so Bad Cohen can get a PhD. I'm a little freaked out.

I'm also really excited. Turns out I already know one really fabulous person who lives there (you know who are are, rebbetzin), and am getting to know some more. Hooray, blogging!