The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

My Husband’s Been Abducted By Aliens

My husband six months ago                       

Today was the last straw.

My husband actually told me that he was going on a bike ride. Now, you must understand that he hasn’t been on his bike since before we were married.

I believe that an alien pod arrived approximately ten weeks ago. I think it landed somewhere near my husband while he slept. At which time, a weird alien metamorphosis took place. My husband was sucked out of his human shell and replace by an alien that looks just like him.

I started to take notice of strange events. First he told me was going to go on a diet to lose forty-six pounds. I said, “why do you want to look like, Gandhi?” This guy didn’t have forty-six pounds to lose but lose but he did. He has already lost a total of thirty pounds. Thirty pounds.

His diet isn’t like the ones I’ve been on—no, this is different. He didn’t drink himself into a stupor and then vomit for two days straight, swearing off drinking and food and anything else that comes close to touching his lips.

He didn’t choose my other favorite either: kissing my kids a lot and making them breathe on me when they have the flu, so I can catch it and vomit for two days swearing off anything that comes near my mouth for another three days.

He also didn’t try the one I used last year—an abscessed tooth followed closely by a thyroidectomy. I lost ten pounds on that one.

My alien husband’s diet had to do with blood sugar stabilization and eating healthy. He doesn’t eat carbs or refined sugar. My husband?

No carbs?

Come on, Alienman, don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes. I may not know how to do space travel but I know there is no way my husband is going to give up carbs.

My alien husband says he doesn’t even get hungry or crave sugar.

Right.

Another weird thing that happened after the suspicious weight loss is gardening. That’s right; Alienman was leaving his laptop computer for more than thirty minutes at a time and was working in my garden.

The weeding was great, but then all of a sudden he was planting, planting in my garden. Planting things he had grown from seed–himself. This really made me suspicious. Some of the seedlings have really big leaves. He claims they’re pumpkins, but I suspect they are more pods.

I’m watching him secretly from my bedroom window. He is in my garden right now planting pods using his new skinny human body. He looks pretty good.

For an alien.

My husband after the unfortunate pod incident  

Drooling On My Pillow

O.K., here is the 4-1-1 on Animal Planet’s pygmy rattlesnake.

It turns out that the pygmy rattlesnake was from Florida. The guy who got bitten had what they call in the snakebite-emergency-medicine business “a legitimate bite”. That means the victim did nothing to provoke the snake. He didn’t even know it was there.

“There” was a potted palm.

This guy went to a gardening center to pick up some palm trees for his yard. He reached down to pick up a potted plant and BAM, a snake that was sitting in the container bites him.

The moral of the story is: Buyer beware.

He lived, and didn’t even lose his hand or any part of his hand.

I’m going back to bed now.

More Rain

It has been rainy for the last couple of days and it’s supposed to rain for the next few days.

The garden is wet and muddy and messy, so I will wait to work in it for a few more days.

But today it is not raining.

Today is a good day to take my dog for a walk.

But “take my dog for a walk” is really a misnomer when what I really do is follow my dog, isn’t it?

I try to be good, I really do. The latest training technique to keep your dog from pulling your arm out of its socket is one where you let the dog pull and you stop. You give the command heal and then you wait for your dog to loosen the slack. When the dog loosens the slack by turning her head or backing up you praise the dog and move forward. You keep repeating this until your dog realizes that she won’t get very far unless she moves at your speed.

Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Like many training techniques this one is great in theory. The thing that these so called trainers forget to tell you is that you have to have more patients than the dog. Oopy.

Moondoggie (my dog) is a cattle dog and border collie mix. A border collie is supposed to be one of the smartest breeds in the world. Smart does not equal easy to train. On the contrary. She knows she can outlast me. And therefore,  I follow my dog.

She is always drawn to the lake bed.

Here are a couple highlights from our walk.

A front row seat at the lake bed

Our first newt sighting.

And of course, the star of our walk

Stumble It!

Four Goats in a Lexus

My son with Billy

I was recovering from yet another illness.
I had not had a single workout for two weeks. I finally bribed my eleven-year-old into walking up my hill with me—with the promise of a movie later in the evening. He agreed reluctantly, and we set off.
My son really didn’t want to go with me, so after the first 100 yards it started. “How much further are we going to walk?” “Let’s just walk to the first hairpin.” “My legs are tired.” “I have a cramp.” “I think there’s a thorn in my shoe.” “I don’t know if I can make it to the first hairpin.”
Thank goodness for the appearance—deus ex machina—in the form of my neighbors in their very cool Lexus SUV hybrid. The SUV pulled up to us. My neighbors were all smiles. They told us to peek in the back of their truck and see what they had. There, in two large cardboard boxes, were four goats—two adults and two babies.


Rocky

They were heading home to put the goats in their brand new Tuff Shed barn.
There it was, the impetus my son needed to walk another mile and a half up to our neighbor’s new baby goats.


My son with Billy, Rocky and Jasmine

Divinity and Bucky

Tanks and Tables

Today we’re getting our septic tanks pumped—yeah!

Those of you who don’t live in the mountains don’t get to experience the joy of the backed up septic system. That’s right folks, it backs right up into our house. What an adventure.

We had ten inches of rain in two weekends, two weeks apart, and our poor little septic system just couldn’t handle it—even with the two 1500 gallon tanks and the hundreds of feet of leach lines. Oh, nay, nay, it just backed right up. I don’t really know why, after all our water system isn’t working correctly either, and neither are our phone lines for that matter. Oh yah, our heater is broken too.

When it rains it pours, so to speak.

Thank Goodness It Only Happens Every Fifty Years—Part Two

I dragged my kids back into the mall. They didn’t want to go to any more stores (remember, they're boys), so we sat on extremely uncomfortable benches, and I watched as my children slowly tortured each other. They didn’t really fight. It was sort of whine fest. “Mom, he was staring at me.” “Was not, and besides, he stuck his tongue out at me.” “Did not, besides, he pinched me.” “I did not pinch you. You kicked me.” “I did not.”

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I stood up and said; ”I’m going to try to start the car again. Don’t kill each other while I’m gone.”

I instructed my boys to watch outside one of the mall entrances for me if indeed I did get the car started.


Flooding at the back of our property.

I’m not a praying person, but I did plead out loud with my car. I begged it, I willed it to start. I put the key into the ignition and turned it. Miraculously the sluggish engine started to catch and I revved it so hard that I scared the begeesus out of the woman getting into the car next to me.

I threw it into reverse, and with a squeak of tires I was off to pick up the whiner children. For a moment, the boys, who were chasing each other around the mall directory, didn’t see me. Then together they looked my direction, like a couple of meerkats, and came running. Out through the rain and into my steamy—but running—car.

We were happily on our way towards home. The boys looked over their Lego box plunder, while I sang show tunes and my tires cut a wake through the pouring rain. I think I sang something from Grease.

We were just outside of town and about four miles from our house when I saw it, the Megan’s Law sign. A sign that during a severe storm would say something like “gusty winds ahead, drive carefully” or “heavy rains and dangerous conditions ahead.”
or, “Hwy 17 closed at Hwy 9 to all traffic.”

Huh? But, but, but that’s my highway. That means I can’t get home? That means I’m trapped in the car with my children. Nooooooooooooooo.

I turn on the radio to my trusty AM station that gives traffic reports every 5 minutes. Sure enough, an update tells me that there is no way I can drive home right now. There are two mudslides on the highway. Wait. I have two boys who have been together for 14 days straight. Don’t they know that? I have four-wheel drive. Can’t I just drive over the mudslide? The update also tells me that the back way to our home—that normally takes an extra 45 minutes, but that I would be willing to do—it also closed because of downed trees.

I’m in hell.

Now my boys and I are zigzagging through every single back alley and neighborhood street that I know, avoiding the traffic back-up in town that’s due to two closed highways. We are hoping against hope that they are letting local residents up to their houses.

What was I thinking? Now my boys and I are sitting in traffic with all the other local residents with the same hopes. We have been waiting for 45 minutes.

The number of times my boys have asked, “Why are we sitting here?” 15.
The number of times they have asked: “How much longer?”: 23. The number of times they have asked: “When are we going to get home?” 39.
The number of times I have said: “Please, stop asking that question.” 51.

I finally decide to park the car. There is a parking spot just ahead. No one seems to be interested in parking because they are still holding onto the faint hope that the road will open and they will be at the front of the line to get home. But I spoke to a guy that spoke to this other guy, who talked to one of the Caltrans guys who said that the road wasn’t going to be open for at least three more hours.
So I’m going to take the parking spot two cars ahead of me, park, and then take my kids somewhere fun to pass the time.

The road to the top of our hill.

Thank Goodness It Only Happens Every Fifty Years

My friend Paree told me today that if she had to listen to me retell the story of how I didn’t have power for 3 days, she’d slit her wrists. So I decided, much to her horror, to write it down in detail and make it a three-part series. Then I think I’ll just keep emailing it to her over and over under different headings. I might even send it to her disguised as a New Years card, since I haven’t sent mine out yet.

I knew I was in trouble when the radio weather person while talking about the impending 50-year storm said that “people in the mountains should be prepared” because we would suffer the brunt of the storm.

She went on to say that we should take down our Christmas decorations. Wow, This is one harsh storm, I thought, if it was going to knock down my Christmas decorations. How did they know that I hadn’t taken them down yet? Then I realized that she was talking about outdoor decorations like lights, plastic snowmen, blow-up Santas, things like that. The wind could lift up your twiggy reindeer and chuck it though your living room window or create some equally hideous disaster.

There was a series of three storms coming. Thursday the first storm blew in. It wasn’t bad. My older son and I even went running during the first part of the storm. It was a little windy and a little rainy. It was a medium, as far as California storms go.

At around 4A.M. Friday morning, the biggest of the three storms hit. I lay awake in the dark, feeling warm and cozy, listening to the wind and the rain—one of my favorite things to do. Little did I know how much lying in the dark I would be doing in the next four days.

I was excited. We needed the rain. 2006 had been a dry winter and it had been a dry year to date.

I woke up the next morning to a first-class storm.

I dressed for yoga and took off down the road to my yoga class.

When I returned home through the driving wind and heavy rain, I found the power out and my husband and two children at each other’s throats.

This was day fourteen of my kid’s winter vacation. They had been together every day and they had been fighting every day. In my Zen state I was not prepared to spend another day with them in the house with no power without taking a large amount of prescription medication.

I told the kids to get into my car with their Christmas gift certificates. No argument, they jumped into the car and off we went through the crazy rain and wind. There are some that may think this was a dangerous thing to do. Those people have never been in the same room with my two sons on day fourteen of their winter vacation with no power.

My kids the day before the storm, during happier times, with electricity.

The Fifty-Year Storm

I was going to write about my one-year blog anniversary but then the 50-year storm happened and no-computer-for-three-days happened.

105-mile-per-hour winds.

7¬-10 inches of rain.

Mudslides.

Thousands of downed trees.

650 power poles knocked over.

The road to my house was closed for five hours because of two mudslides.

No power for three days.

No heat for three days

No blow dryer.

When I think of the last item, I still become very emotional.

My family and I survived thanks to a 50-year-old propane stove, candles, a woodstove, and several packages of brand-new Legos.

We all came through unscathed, except my hair.

Stumble It!

Eight Things You Don’t Know About Me.

You know there are a lot of important decisions that we humans have to make every day.

Well, I guess non-humans have to make important decisions also. Like cats, cats have to decide between rodents or birds. Dogs have to decide between dog food or the pot roast on the counter. Snails have to decide petunias or foxgloves.

But I’m talking about humans here. We have to decide how to invest our money so we have a big enough retirement. What about charities? What charity will really make a difference? What schools should we send our kids to? How can we as individuals make a difference in slowing global warming?

And as for me, the subject that has been on my mind for over a week is whom I should tag for the Eight Things You Don’t Know About Me meme. Sarah from Gardener's Gazette tagged me. I’ve never been tagged before so bear with me.

As I said I was tagged over a week ago and I have been going back and forth about what to do. I know it sounds pathetic. And I’m spending way too much time on this but I don’t want to bother any one and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feeling. And I know a lot of fellow bloggers have already been tagged with memes, some multiple times. I know I’m supposed to tag 8 other people but I’m only going to tag one.

I am tagging Amber at Blueberry Basil. Amber is relatively new in the blogosphere. She is a very talented writer and I enjoy reading her blog so I thought I would share her with you.

Getting Roasted at the Coffee Roasting Company

Sometimes I work on my blog at the local coffee house.

They have free Internet access and the best coffee in town.

This is not your Starbucks or your Peets—this is one of the first coffee houses in California. It is the best place to peoplewatch, and now they’ve opened an adjacent cheese and wine café. What more could you ask for?

How about free spine-chilling entertainment—Sort of a performance art thing with you as one of the players?

This is how I like to look at what happened today while I was diligently working on my blog. Well O.K. I was also having coffee with a couple of my favorite friends. But at the moment the “entertainment” happened, I was busily writing, writing, writing.

I looked toward the doorway into the room that holds the actual coffee roaster and I saw a panicked looking coffee barista standing in the threshold. She mouthed something to the head barista behind the counter on the other side of the wall from the roaster. He ran into the roaster room and than sprinted out and past me. I was sitting near the front door to the coffee house and the doorway into the cheese and wine café. He ran into the café.

I looked into the roaster room and noticed a thick layer of smoke blanketing the ceiling. Then the head barista and another gentleman sprinted back past me and back into the roaster room again. I saw flames and then I heard the sound of a fire extinguisher. White vapor from the extinguishers billowed out from the roaster room. I still had my hands on my keyboard and I was still typing. Sort of like I do when I watch bad TV. The TV is just sort of background noise. It doesn’t interfere with my work; it’s just something to look up at every few minutes. I looked around the coffee house and everybody was doing the same thing. They were all typing on their keyboards. Some of them didn’t even notice there was a fire in the next room.