1. Jesus Christo, people, can you believe this bug that is going around? I don’t think I’ve ever had anything that gave me a sore throat, congestion, and nausea (but no puking, thank you Giant Head of Perez Hilton) all at once. Unfortunately, when I get sick or busy now, I tend to forget that my pathetic, lying-in ass could be using her audioblog to complain. Ah well. And now poor Companion has caught the bug as well.

2. The good news is that my friend Supa is back from her trip to California, and sent me the most fabulous socks while she was there.

Figure 1: “WHEEE!!!”

Sock Fridas look happy, so perhaps they can cheer up Wall Frida, who wants you to feck off and die. Perhaps Sock Fridas haven’t discovered that Diego is schtupping their sister yet.

Figure 2: I said, “FEK OFF!”

3. There are some interesting developments with the neighbors, and now I am realizing I haven’t even told you about the neighbors. They are a young couple, and the woman seems really nice. She’s not working right now, because she’s about to give birth any minute. She’s at that stage where she looks sort of glazed and I can see a sliver of her belly hanging out of every shirt she wears.

I have been trying to have coffee with her and be friends but to no avail, because she’s usually busy shuttling her husband to and from the university where he works, and now her mother is here, which is creating the interesting development. Her mother took one look at the yard and declared it “horrible,” and has been running around like a bulldozer putting plants in and pulling weeds. This would be great, but two weeks ago I asked the residents if they had any plans for the yard, and the mother-to-be told me she had absolutely no interest in gardening, and that we could take over the front vegetable garden for our own use.

Figure 3: Look at that dirt goatee. Yuckers.

Well, on Saturday, while Companion’s father was here, we noticed the woman’s mother pulling weeds out of the front garden, and by dinnertime she had completely planted it, mostly with stuff that does really poorly here, like corn and tomatoes that do better in places like the Midwest. By Sunday night she was taking over the back bed on our side of the yard with kale, so I ran out to have a word with her and split up the rest of the yard equitably, only to find out that she speaks absolutely no English. She was nice enough to get my neighbor, however, who spoke to both of us. She apologized and explained that her mother wasn’t really hearing that we were interested in the yard, and we worked it out. She’s about to have a baby so I didn’t want to make aggro for them, and I am hoping we can be friends. I wanted to say, “Give us a minute, lady, we just moved in a month ago.”

I told her that we would dig up another bed in the front, where there’s sun all day, and we agreed on how to split the rest of the beds in the backyard. I’m bummed because her visitor will maybe stay for a month to help with the baby, and then their beds will die or will only produce green tomatoes and some straggly-assed corn. So my companion, the former organic farmer, and me, the flower freak, will squirm this summer while this happens.

In the meantime, however, we are tending to our own patch, as they say. I put in snapdragons, cosmos, and impatiens in the front, and we put in dill, basil, chives, and mint in the back. I have missed having a yard. If only I could sneak in a couple of chickens…but I think that would make our neighbors’ little yap dog completely apoplectic. Their dog already has a hard enough time keeping track of the Evil and Stinky Taibas Jones.

Figure 4: My new gardening system is unstoppable.

Other neighbors, who also have kids at MonsterSorry, came by and sort of made us feel better. “Ah, you don’t want to grow anything in that patch anyway. Look at that border. That’s that arsenic pressure-treated wood. Poison veggies.” And the neighbors won’t be poisoned either, because the tomatoes are not going to make it. Next year, I am putting in flowers there.

4. Companion has discovered the dubious pleasures of Alice Hoffman. I really liked her a few years ago, but something has changed for me. I picked up his copy of Practical Magic, which I read probably eight or nine years ago, and have been snorting my way through it, though I CAN’T PUT IT DOWN. The snorty page-turner I read last summer was The Da Vinci Code. “And then Langdon woke up. He discovered he was on fire, had been shot with an arsenic-laced dart, found himself hurtling towards the ground out of the airplane he had just been tossed out of. He pondered the fact that Venice was founded in 421, and some other historical stuff. End of chapter! What will happen next? WHO CARES.”

If I ever write a book like that, a snorty page-turner, I am going to change my name and move to Humptulips.

Companion declared himself “part female” after reading it, because he got sniffly at the end, when everyone decided to give love a second chance or something. This is the man who ate three giant pieces of my lemon curd tart on Sunday night, to “finish it off” and then proceeded to be a sick beast all day Monday when I was cleaning the house.

“You’re not part female,” I told him. “But you do resemble some dogs I’ve known.” He responded to this with a wounded, soulful look, just like the Siberian Husky I had when I was six would when you would pull your half-chewed panties out of her mouth.

5. Speaking of doglike tendencies, Strudel was racing around in the yard while Companion was digging up our new veggie patch.

Figure 5: A man who can bring projects to completion. Oh, I am overcome. SNIF.

“Hey, I’m going to go inside and get the camera,” I said. “Can you spot her?”

“Sure,” Companion said, and set down his shovel. When I came back out, he was frowning and holding her. “She raced around the corner when you went in,” he said, “and I caught her and picked her up and a pillbug fell out of her mouth.”

Figure 6: “Pillbugs taste better than soap, mmmkay?”

So it’s official–we have a Runner and an Eater. There goes my theory that you have one or the other.

6. And now I am happy, because it is warm and I can yell at drivers when they punk me, because they have their car windows down again. WALLINGFORD REPRAZENT, BITCHES! Yield to PEDZ!

Figure 7: Poppin off in my yard.

Oh, and, not the best page for people who are trying to reduce their Giant Librarian Cans: Pimp My Snack.