Hot Cranky People

Yesterday my sister gave birth to my precious nephew.

She squeezed that little bugger out in less than 3 hours. He is wonderful and amazing.

As I left the hospital with my sister’s sister-in-law (or my brother-in-law’s sister, you pick), I couldn’t help but notice something else wonderful and amazing in the corner by the security desk as we turned in the sticker badge thingies we had been given when we arrived.

Yes. It’s a giant ball of sticker badges. After the stickers have been turned in at the security desk and they’ve checked you out, the security person sticks your badge on this ball. Why? Because it’s fun, and they are bored.

It has its own chair.

“It’s just sittin’ over there chillin’.”, said the security lady.

We were utterly mesmerized by this. “Try to pick it up!”, Security Lady said. It weighed approximately one jillion pounds.

Security Lady was so tickled by how much we loved the StickerBall that she let us put some stickers on it ourselves.

It was a good day.

The diagnosis is official. I have contracted “I can’t stop planting vegetables”.

Sure, there are worse diseases I could have picked up, like “I can’t stop punching people in the mouth”, or “Crabs”, but I maintain that my illness is a serious one.

This is the first time I’ve lived in a place with both ample space and sun. And an intricate system of soaker hoses on timers, preventing me from having to actually remember to water. I thought, awesome, I will put in a cucumber, a yellow squash, a zucchini, and 3 or 4 tomato plants. And maybe a pepper.

Here is what I planted instead:

Cucumbers:
Slicemaster
Lemon
Burpless

Squash:
Ronde de Italia zucchini
Green zucchini
Eight ball zucchini
yellow crookneck squash

Tomatoes:
Celebrity
Jubilee
Better Boy
Beefmaster
Green Zebra
Yellow Pear
Sweet 100s
Brandywine
Cherokee Purple
Black Krim
Kellogg’s Breakfast
Mr. Stripey
Hillbilly
Mortgage Lifter

Peppers:
2 California Wonder
1 Big Bertha
1 Jalapeno
1 Sweet banana pepper

Eggplant:
1 Japanese eggplant

27 plants. 14 kinds of tomatoes. FOURTEEN. And eggplant? I don’t even LIKE eggplant.

What was I thinking??

If all this stuff actually grows, I’m going to be begging all my neighbors to take some off my hands. Yes, even the sex neighbors. (Actually, I haven’t heard any sex from over there for a while. And I haven’t seen their cats in my yard either. I wonder what’s up. Am I using these ridiculous headphones to watch tv for nothing??)

I may have to open a produce stand on the corner.

The other night I got attacked by a mosquito in my bedroom. I felt all itchy and oogy all night.

The next day I was in a friend’s car and there was a mosquito flying around inside. We both kind of freaked out. I felt all itchy and oogy and like bugs were crawling on me the whole evening.

That night I got in bed, I turned off all the lights, and opened my laptop to catch up on e-mail. I thought to myself, “God I still feel so itchy and oogy and like bugs are crawling on me.”

And then a giant spider DROPPED OUT OF NOWHERE FROM ABOVE ONTO MY KEYBOARD.

It even made an audible “thwap!” sound as it landed.

OMG.

I have never moved so fast.

I slammed the laptop shut and leaped out of bed and turned on all the lights. I got some tissue and opened the computer, scooped up the offender, and flushed him. Then I went back to my room. Shaken. Oogy. Itchy.

And there was a huge mosquito hawk on my lamp.

I think it was laughing at me.

Help.