Duchess Jane

Hononegah is the high school I attended, where I took a journalism course, probably with the poor bastards who are writing for the newspaper I keep mocking.

See how it all comes full circle?

The hot tub deck is almost done.

All of the deck boards are down, all the way to the house. Wrecks no longer stands at the bedroom door shaking, until he finally works up the nerve to jump the two foot span and land on the board that isn’t screwed down, shaking even more when he realizes that the ground is moving beneath him. For that, I’m a little sad, because that was pretty fun to watch.

When Duke first counted how many deck boards would be needed, he came up with 42. I was so excited, but I figured the number would change. There would be 41 or 43 or 42.25. But when all was said and done, 42 boards make up the walking surface of the deck. What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything? A deck with a hot tub.

I promised some photos of the Rock Pipe, but I suppose I should explain what the Rock Pipe is first. As part of the deck construction project, Duke rerouted the downspouts under the deck and into a bubbler box in the ground on the other side. This resulted in a big white pipe that stuck out one side, which aggravated him. He decided it needed to be camouflaged, so he bought a tube of landscaping mortar and glued rocks all over the pipe.

Duke was insistent that I take more photos last night of the finished pipe. His exact words were “Can you please take a new picture of the rock pipe, all finished and nice? Not the in-progress one at night that is going to look all crazy….” Yes, darling. Less crazy. Mmmmmmhmmmm. So last night, I gave him my camera and allowed him to take the photos he wanted to see posted today. The first is my “crazy” photo, the second is his “not crazy” final product.

Rock Pipe in Progress:

Finished Rock Pipe:

See how that pipe blends right in? I’m getting nervous. I also got this via email from Duke yesterday: “I think I am going to create a rock sculpture of Wrecks, then you can make a post about how I glued rocks to your dog. I should glue rocks on the lid to the secret room too, so it will be extra secret. I am gonna start gluing rocks to everything. Weee!”

So the fence is really the only thing left, although there’s been quite a bit of progress on that in the last few days. Naked hot tub fun, coming soon! (To reality, not to the web. Sorry.)

Duke was in charge of picking the soundtrack for this post too (I should just give him his own name and password and let him post the construction updates himself), but I think I forgot which song he settled on already. He threw out so many different "rock" themed songs. I voted for "Rock Lobster", but as usual, I lost.

More photos right here.

I'm alive, though it doesn't feel like it right now. Mr. Yuk is kicking my ass, and I am struggling. Thank you for your emails of concern. If it helps you to gauge where I am on the Is She Dead? Scale, I am alive enough to receive your emails and not quite alive enough to respond to most of them right now. For that, I am sorry.

With the mood I'm in, it seems oddly fitting that today is the day that Ingmar Bergman died.

I will be back tomorrow, I promise, and I will have photos of the almost-done deck and Duke's strangest project ever, the Rock Pipe.

~Jeep driver makes boneheaded traffic move~

Wags: WHAT WAS THAT? Was that a JEEP THING? I don't understand. Was that one of those Jeep things I just wouldn't understand?

Today, the second season of the Showtime series Weeds is supposed to be arriving in my mailbox. I am very excited about this. Weeds is the story of a suburban stay-at-home-mom who is suddenly widowed, leaving her struggling to pay the bills and worried about having to sell her home and get a job. Her answer to the problem is to become a pot dealer. I bought the first season on a whim at Target one day because it was only $20 (and when do you ever see entire series on DVD for $20?) I loved everything about the show and pre-ordered season two months ago. I have been watching the first season again every night as I fall asleep, to brush up on the details in preparation for the new season, and last night I noticed that it makes me want brownies. Really badly. The whole time I'm watching, I'm mostly just thinking about how nice it would be to have a brownie.

The other activity that makes me want to eat lately is so much geekier. I got a good start on the Snowsera website over the last week, and it's such a throwback to my first few semesters of school that I'm craving Cheetos and Mountain Dew and staying awake half the night seeing code in my head. I'm using a content management system called Joomla and it's knocking my socks off with its capabilities, but also reminding me of my own inabilities. I can't stop thinking about code, just like I was when I was still knee-deep in databases instead of furnaces. Of course, back in school, it was Visual Basic and these days it's the much more tolerable CSS, but I reckon it's the same. Instead of seeing For Loops in my head that explain what I'm doing while I'm folding laundry, I'm now seeing color codes, borders, padding and margins as I place a shirt on a hanger. It's pathological, really.

My third topic in this very loosely related "I'm hungry" manifesto is this: Mr. Yuk is back. For those of you who don't know me intimately enough to know the name of my left ovary (you'd be surprised by how many *do*, I think), Mr. Yuk is my left ovary. Or more specifically, the cyst that takes over my left ovary a few times a year and leaves me completely useless for a few days. Mr. Yuk was named by Duke, who created this beautiful illustration for me to use in trying to explain my extreme pain to men who don't understand women's anatomy very well.

Anyway, I spent most of last night flat on my back on the hardwood floor in the living room, with my feet on the ottoman, just trying to breathe. At about 9:30 pm, I made Duke drive to Dairy Queen because fuck it, I'm in pain, I don't want dinner, I just want ice cream. Starve a tumor, feed a cyst? I don't know. I just know that I needed something in my stomach to cushion the painkillers and ice cream was the only acceptable option.

So I guess the point I'm trying to make is threefold: Weeds is good - watch it. Ever worked with Joomla? Drop me an email. And perhaps I should think about going to the doctor.

Now where is that oatmeal cookie I was going to have for breakfast?