Summer Garden 2006 (for those of you not on Myspace)

Top to bottom: Vinca, Hibiscus, Handel Rose, Sunflower and a nest of 3 baby Robbins who were being raised by a pair of catbirds and the one mother Robbin. We spoke w/the Audubon and they said that it is very rare for one species of bird to allow another to help it raise its young. Most likely what happened was that the cat birds lost their clutch and the mother Robbin took over their nest, not having a mate the mother allowed the cat birds, (who would have still been instinctively driven to raise a clutch) help her. It really was an amazing thing to watch. Unfortunately, the picture does not do it justice, but I sat every evening and a lot of mornings just watching them w/the binoculars. You could see the cat birds bringing them these big green worms and the mother Robbin sitting on them to keep them warm, you could watch them as their feathers changed and finally as they one by one every couple of days got big enough to hop/fall out of the nest and start to fly. Once they were all out of the nest they moved further into the woods, but would come out in the mornings and evenings as a family to eat bugs and worms.

mazzarella Italian: from a diminutive of Mazza. Mazza nickname or metonymic occupational name from mazza 'club', 'mace', 'sledge hammer'. nickname for a destructive individual, from a derivative of Italian (am)mazzare 'to kill or destroy' (Latin mactare).

Plastic Lawn Furniture

Plastic lawn furniture has its good points, for example: when it rains, plastic furniture dries very quickly, or can be toweled off easily. Unlike wooden or cushioned models (metal should never be considered) which loom ominously amongst root beer guzzling, beer chugging, fruity drinks through straw drinking, diet coke sipping, veggie burger mowing, hot dog stuffing, hamburger gulping, chip munching, onion dip dipping, fruit salad crunching and heath bar trifle stuffing party goers trying to enjoy an afternoon of summer sun, David bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Beach Boys and whatever is on the top forty, these wooden and cushioned arbiters of lawn accoutrement, when wet (which they often are) are a quagmire of disappointment. For those sipping diet coke, or possessing a keen sense for danger all lawn furniture is first tested with a swipe of the hand. Perceiving it is wet one can only stand there staring at the chair, mocking you, begging you to sit down, stop standing, relax, lean back – like a piece of carob chocolate that looks so good but tastes so bitter, so these wet pieces of lawn furniture look so comfortable but feel so gross. Nothing is worse than sitting down on a lawn chair realizing as the cold wet seeps through your pants that the seat cushion is soaking wet. There you are spending the next few hours standing up with a soggy ass at a barbeque trying to avoid all the hot guys, lest they want to check out your ass and suddenly discover it is soggy, leading them to believe you have an incontinence problem which will immediately negate you from ever having a chance with them, because the first thing a guy thinks about (or perhaps in an assortment of first things a guy thinks about) when seeing a girl/woman for the first time is "do I want to have sex with her?" and clearly no man (or any man a girl would want to date) would answer “yes” to wanting to have sex with some one who appears to at the best have a penchant for wearing funny ass stained pants and at the worst have an early on-set of weak bladder syndrome. So yes, plastic lawn furniture has its pluses. In addition to not being wet, it is also inexpensive and durable. Whereas wood or furniture with cushions in addition to being wet are A) expensive B) much less durable C) more likely to get stolen? Wait, are there such things as lawn furniture thieves? I'm suddenly reminded of walking through East Cambridge with Sam wondering how and where we are going to get a grill for the barbeque which we have so feverishly been planning. We do not have enough money for any grill that would be worth buying and we are lazy and do not want to have to drag my parents grill all the way down from Andover to East Cambridge. We are without solution. Then, about two blocks away from our house we notice a very nice grill in stranger's back yard. Our imaginations are ignited and we begin to discuss how simple it would be take that grill, or any grill, in any back yard for that matter, no money involved no unnecessary dragging. It all sounds grand until we realize that this would be stealing and people are not supposed to steal, at least not people like us, at least not big expensive things in other people's back yards, and oh well we end up in fact, having to drag the big grill down from Andover to Cambridge. In the end I am left wondering how it was that the idea of taking someone else's barbeque grill did not immediately register as stealing? How was it that the desire, but not the means to own something was so overwhelming that for a moment taking that grill in the backyard seemed like a solution. I am left questioning not why people steal, but why more people do not. Suddenly, I understand how the overwhelming desire to have a specific material possession can drive one to consider not earning it, but taking it. Sure, I've stolen little things, like eyeliners from CVS or ice cream chipwiches from Christie’s, even a bottle of wine from Richdale’s, but this is a grill, it's big, like a television or a car (sort of) and that is real stealing. It is not pocketing some rinky dink item. It is legitimately stealing, doing something wrong in a big way. Would it have been wrong to take that grill out of the backyard in East Cambridge? Yes, it would have been and that is why we did not do it, but would it have been easy? Oh yes, very easy, the grill just sitting there inside the unlocked chain link fence that only came to waist height, a beautiful barbeque grill with wheels to roll it for easy moving. In the dark two quiet and stealthy people could have very easily stolen themselves a veggie burger, veggie dog, fake chicken cherriake, cheeseburger, hamburger, kebab grilling masterpiece! That summer we brought my parents big old greasy grill back and forth from Andover to Cambridge three times. The grease cup tipping over, the wheels falling off, and I wonder, was it only by chance that the nights the grill spent in Cambridge, in the backyard, inside an unlocked chain link fence that only came to waist height, with wheels to roll it for easy moving, that some quiet and stealthy punk out on a walk in need of a grill for an upcoming BBQ had not just walked in and walked away with a new possession? Stealing a car or a television is big, but it’s also difficult, an automatic deterrent for any average, law abiding twenty-thirty something, but stealing a grill is easy. Is it just the moral high standard of not taking other people’s possessions that keeps us from stealing barbeque grills? Or, is there a universal understanding that karma will bite you in your big soggy having just sat on a wet piece of lawn furniture ass for removing a grill from a backyard that is not yours? I have to believe that it is not just morality which stops us from taking one another’s grills, but the understanding of despair and disappointment that would be inflicted upon a person, their fleeting summer that would be ruined as they walked out to their back yard plate full of veggies and meats ready to cook and realize that their grill has been taken! I have to believe that it this is what keeps us from staying up nights stealthfully rolling barbeque grills from one back yard to another. When it comes to lawn furniture my vote is for plastic, nice shiny white plastic that can collect bugs and grow a black film of dirt, white manufactured plastic, terrible for the environment, easy on the wallet, sure to keep your bottom dry and appealing and sure to be passed over by the furniture thieves for those lovely Adirondack chairs the guy three houses down just bought.

What's Wrong with the United States Postal Service?

Nothing in my opinion. In fact if I had to choose a shipping outfit to call my own, the USPS would definitely get ALL of my affections. Both FedEx and UPS cost considerably more than the good old US mail system and in my opinion do not deliver domestically shipped packages as efficiently or effectively. Over the past few years I've had a number of companies ship purchases to me via UPS. At least half a dozen times these orders have not been delivered when they were scheduled to be and this includes times when I've paid for expedited service. Go figure. UPS does not deliver or continue to ship your package on Saturdays...the post office most certainly does! Also UPS takes eons longer to get a package to you. For example a package mailed priority mail will take two days to go from the East Coast to the West Coast and three to four days going first class mail. The UPS equivalent of first class mail takes SEVEN days! and of course that's if it doesn't come a day late, which happens often. Additionally, and what many of you probably don't know, is that when you send a package via US Mail Priority the postage fee automatically includes up to $100 of insurance, and more often than not packages sent via US Mail arrive earlier than anticipated. As if the efficient and speedy service that the US Postal Service provides is not reason enough, they now have some really great stamp collections available, there are: stamps with super heroes on them like the Flash, Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman etc. and the colors and designs are great, there is a collection called Wonders of the US which includes such categories as "Largest Frog" amongst others.they have a neat baseball collection and also a "Crops of the Americas" for you agricultural types out there. Unfortunately it seems that most online retailers prefer to use UPS and do not give an option of using USPS instead. I wish they did, I'd get my mail more quickly, and they'd be able to stop raising the damn postage rate every two years!