Friday, May 6, 2011

Loving and loathing: springtime

Loving:
  • Sunshine! But not too much!
  • The smell of fresh-cut lawns coming through my car windows as I drive home.
  •  It's getting warmer, but isn't yet unbearably hot and humid.
  • I had my first-ever Pimm's cup recently, and I'm 100% sure it will become an important part of my summer routine.
  • My tulips are blooming! They're pink! I haven't killed any plants in, like, months!
  • Napping on the couch in the afternoon with the sun streaming through the window is like a present from the universe just for me. That's how much I love it.
  • Summer food! Andy's family used their grill pretty much every single day all summer long, so he's an experienced grill master. I make a mean potato grill thing (complicated recipe: chuck some diced potatoes, a diced onion, minced garlic, a serious drizzle of olive oil and a knob or two of butter into some tinfoil; fold tinfoil into a packet; grill without flipping for like twenty minutes or until it smells amazing.) and some amazing crumbles and cobblers that will soon be reappearing on our menu.
  • Drinking outdoors is seasonally appropriate! Is there anything more relaxing than an afternoon barbecue with some lovely grilled food and some beers (or maybe a Pimm's cup)?
  • We've made plans for our first attempt at camping-I-won't-hate! It's back in the Thousand Islands, but the people we're going with have a Winnebago and are bringing some of their homebrewed beer, so I'm already feeling more optimistic.
Loathing:
  • The groggy, stupid feeling I get from seasonal allergies, and that it takes me a few days to realize it's allergies and start taking Claritin.
  • Yardwork. We have a lot of ambition, but I seriously despise yardwork more than any other chore. I'd rather clean forty toilets that mow the lawn. (Please note that I mean, like, household toilets used by me, and not any generic toilets. Or mall toilets. Or toilets at a homeless shelter or whatever. I'd rather clean, let's say, four or five of those than mow the lawn.)
  • Same category, but I despise it equally, so it gets its own entry: weed eradication. Our yard is a botanist's dream, as I'm pretty sure we have some species of dandelion that don't exist anywhere else. And we have a super-enthusiastic growth of Japanese knotweed, a horribly invasive piece of shit that sends out a million shoots that require cutting two inches above the ground then an application of Roundup. And no, you can't get the generic, cheaper kind of weed killer, because only certain things kill that shit. 
  • Driving with my windows open does crazy things to my mohawk, but I refuse to be one of those a-holes with the air conditioning on when it's 70° out.
  • The town's Public Works department came through and did something crazy to the sewers on my street recently, and now it appears that one of them is plugged. Every time it rains, which happens a lot in upstate New York in the spring, there's a huge puddle across the road I have to take to get to work.
  • Return of motorcycle season means the neighbor two houses down will once again spend four hours, three nights a week, fucking around with his motorcycle in the driveway (possibly in an attempt to make it louder, as this is the only effect I have been able to discern). The farthest he will ever drive it is around the block.
Conclusion: Hooray for spring, mostly! What are you loving and loathing lately?

2 comments:

  1. Get your revenge by eating the knotweed! I am planning my first harvest - the new shoots are supposed to be delicious. I haven't tried them yet, though.

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  2. I had heard they're edible, but I'd be nervous to try seeing as how I already attacked them with Roundup last year. Let me know how they come out, though - I'd be curious if it's worth hunting down some non-contaminated ones! (P.S. Make sure they're planted somewhere they can't get out of control.)

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