I swear, the universe hates me today

My day started, an hour and a half early, with screaming children and an angry husband. It's been all downhill since. Dumped trashcans, a boy that refused to eat his breakfast, generally not listening and misbehaving......I'm ready to duct tape them to their beds for the day.

It started raining 10 minutes after we came outside, but not constant rain, just enough to make The Miss whine and fuss because she's getting rained on. It's not *quite* enough to chase us inside, and I really want them out running as much as possible this morning, because it's supposed to rain this afternoon and most of tomorrow. If they're already being pills now, they'll be ten times worse, confined in the house.

And, to top it all off, I discovered yesterday afternoon that I have dodder* in the vegetable garden. A lot of it. I suspect it came in on the onion sets I got from Walmart, because the dodder is only in those rows. Dammit. I have no idea how to get rid of it, short of uprooting everything it's on, and burning the whole mess. Herbicides will hurt the host more than it. I'm afraid I may be in for evenings in the garden, pulling that crap off my crops one thread at a time.


* dodder = a parasitic plant with no leaves or chlorophyll, just wiry orange stems that wrap around host plants and then suck nutrients out of them. It's bd juju.

because the day didn't have enough disasters already

First, I'm fine, the kids are fine, we're all a little rattled and I'm a lot mad. So don't panic.

The Boy and I were in the veggie garden this morning, pulling weeds, when my asshole neighbor's larg, agressive, badly-handled and badly-trained boxer came at us. It charged the fence a couple times, bounced off the chain link, then backed off a little and barked and growled at us. I was terrified, because there was nothing between my son and that dog but chain link and my soil knife, and The Miss was playing alone on the deck with no protection. I called 911*.

By the time the cop got here, the dog had backed off, but I was afraid to try the run to the house with a heavy boy in tow. The officer made sure we got to the house ok, then he went after the dog. Mr Uphill wasn't home, so I'm sure he'll be cranky to find a note from the police on his door and his dog pepper-sprayed (because the dog got agressive at the cop).

My neighbor across the street was home, saw the flashers and came up to check on us, so she filled the officer in on the troubles we've all had with Mr Uphill's dogs.

It's just an incident report so far; the officer told me to call whenever I've got problems with the dogs or their owners, so he'll have enough ammunition to take action. It will help that he got picture of the dog running loose (Mr Uphill claims to authorities that his dogs are never out), and that it charged the cop.

Even if it weren't raining, gardening and playing outside can happen another day. My nerves are shot.

* By the way, there are great people at the Leavenworth County 911 dispatch, and the officer who rescued us was equally capable.

(no subject)

Just realized, I should have asked the officer about the county's aggressive dog / aggressive breed laws, or if there are any. Too rattled.

On a brighter note....

Got an email notice that some of Robyn Nichol's sculptural pieces were recently acquired by the Nelson-Atkins Museum, and will be on display until May 2012 as part of the exhibition Acts of Nature: Contemporary Decorative Arts in the Bloch Building of the Museum.

Most of you know, By used to work for Robyn as a studio assistant, and he helped build these silver sculptures. If you went to any of her pre-Christmas gallery openings, you saw the pieces now on display: Thatch Palm Bowl, and Nymphaea Rattle (one of my favorites).

Go take a look--they're shiny! Robyn has been working and teaching in Mexico for a couple of years, so who knows when you'll get another chance to enjoy her work.