Epic Handbag Adventures

Only now am I able to discuss with a reasonable level of calm the HORROR, the TRAGEDY, the ABSOLUTE CALAMITY which befell me last weekend. While returning to my humble abode on Friday night, in no slight state of inebriation, I chanced to discover that my BAG, my FAVORITE GOING OUT BAG had sustained an injury most grievous. Namely: one of the straps was broken loose of its mooring, and flapping most ineffectually in the chill night air.

This bag and I have a history dating at least 10 years, and possible 11. Purchased at the Esprit store in Amsterdam in 1998 or 1999, it was one of the first “expensive” bag purchases of my (at that time young) life. I can’t remember what I paid for it, and even if I did it would have been in guilders and the price wouldn’t make any sense now since the debut of the Euro, but however much it was, it was purchased at full price (!) and I remember that it made me a little nervous to be spending that much money at the time, and I hid the receipt from my boyfriend. My friends in Amsterdam teased me constantly for my grandma-handbag fetish, but when I saw this little black number sitting on a shelf I knew it had to be mine.

Numerous are its charms, and hidden features, but a few of the highlights are:

• It is black. This is key for any bag I am to carry long-term.
• It is leather, not some icky-sticky fabric.
• The sides are hard, not soft, carefully protecting all my delicate goods within
• The top has a most cunning silver clasp, which snaps closed with a satisfyingly deep click
• The top of the bag closes entirely, preventing things falling out, or falling in
• It is deceptively small and almost Mary Poppins-esque in its ability to hold things. I have had a full night’s load of stuff in it and still found room to add my gloves, a scarf and paperback book that a friend gave me. It’s much bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
• At this point it’s well-worn and loved, so I don’t mind taking it out to bars and getting drinks spilled on it and whatnot
• It has the perfect strap length, enabling it to be held loosely in the hand (to attract purse-snatchers, if one is of a mood to do that) or over the shoulder, with the bag fitting closely under one’s upper arm (not bouncing annoyingly against one’s hip) This also is perfect for being out at bars, because it frees up one’s hands to hold a drink and gently prod malingerers out of one’s way, but it doesn’t leave your bag dangling so low down that it is vulnerable to pick-pockets and getting carelessly jostled/caught on barstools.
• It is most stylish and classically granny-ish, still as delightfully in fashion today as it was the day I bought it

In short, it’s a perfect fucking bag. So I am going to have to get that strap fixed. I’ve heard there’s a place on Big Bend that can do that, but by all means if you have a suggestion for a good bag-fixer person, please let me know.

Observe how epic, and the sadly broken strappage.

I have a replacement bag pinch-hitting for my fave bag, but even though it’s of a similar size/shape it’s fabric (gross if you spill something on it) with only short/hand-held handles and it only snaps closed on the top, which means things can fall in and out of it. And  I have to carry that one out tonight. Boo.

Attempt at replacement bag 1. Wrong color, good length straps, but too large with unwieldy top-flap.

Attempt at replacement bag 2. Good color, good size, but fabric, with odd length handles and only a snap closure on top.

In other news, I bought two new dresses, a new top and two new pairs of sandals today. I am having the hardest goddamn time finding shoes right now, since I need shoes that are loose enough to not squeeze the broken part of my left foot. That usually equals something like a slingback. However slingbacks are exactly what you don’t want to wear when you have plantar fasciitis, like I do in my right foot. For that I need a closed-back shoe with a slightly elevated heel. But that puts too much stress on the broken foot, and it also doesn’t help my right knee, which is all jacked up from walking funny to accommodate the left foot. See how ridiculous this gets? I need arch support on the right, which aggravates the left, and I basically only feel totally comfortable when I am barefoot. And to top all that off, I would actually like to have shoes the are, you know, cute. Pretty much impossible. So  you can imagine my delight at  finding two new pairs of sandals today which I think will actually be comfortable on both sides of my fucked-up lower extremities. And I debated buying both pairs, and then I realized how hard it was to find anything that suits my weird-ass needs, and totally bought both. Fuck it.

Totally random, but this is the only pretty thing in my garden at the moment, so you’re getting  a picture of it.

Bleeding Hearts. Glad they survived the snow/frost.

Winter/Summer Garden Animation

Grabbed a garden shot this morning, loved the contrast between winter and summer. The summer picture was taken in early July, right after I got back from my Savannah vacation. The garden was at the height of lushness. Ah, some day it will be summer again.

(Note the absence of dogs in the winter picture – chihuahuas have no patience for snow.)

Adieu… Adieu…

Parting is such sweet sorrow…

Help me bid a fond farewell to what I presume will be the last of the summer’s roses.

Today’s Image Brought to You by the Letters “P” and “G”

On My Windowsill

Still kind of fascinated with this begonia on my windowsill. It’s beautiful, but somewhat meaty and terrifying as well.

See full size at Flickr, if you’ve an interest.

Today’s Photos Brought to You by:

The Rex Begonia on the windowsill

Today’s Gerbera Daisy

brought to you by the Garden.

Just another Bombtract

Garden is currently looking like a bomb hit it, but it’s too damn hot and way too buggy to be out working in it.

God, that’s embarasassing, weeds-a-plenty here. (Weeds don’t preclude chihuahua enjoyment, luckily) I planned to get up mega-early this morning to clean things up, but a night of drinking in combo with some prescription meds meant that I was unfit for duty at 6 a.m. or even 8 a.m. and then it was too hot.

Anyway:

The hibiscus started blooming this week and is gorgeous as last year.

And this sunflower was supposed to be pink, but I just don’t see it.

How I <3 My Homeownership Status

Have to do laundry out the fuck, cut the grass and repair/repaint a stair rail thingee today. Not really in the mood for all of it, but when it’s done I will feel like I haven’t wasted my WHOLE 4-day weekend hanging out with asstards and fuckwits. Also I think I repaired my leaky faucet in the upstairs bathroom yesterday, and if so… hooray for me, I have been meaning to do that for a year.

My friend Dave sent me a link to the bare-bones version of the audio cables I need to rip my vinyl, which ended up being $21.90 on ebay, with shipping, so that’s MUCH more my speed. OK, so sometimes it DOES (literally) pay to establish and maintain friendships. Fine. :-p

Today’s Slideshow, Brought to You by the Garden

Please to click here for pictures from the garden.

It’s Very Lush Here

That’s the sexy way to put it. The other way is that while I was gone the garden attempted a coup, a total takeover of jungle-tropic proportions. Actually that’s way better than everything dying to death of heatstroke while I was gone, so no big deal. Things have grown (literally) feet while I was away. Take a look the yard both pre and post-weeding:

Isn’t my lily there just rocking socks? You can’t see it from this angle, but I also have a butterfly bush that’s at least 8ft tall.

Adventures in Gardening, Pt. 357

The convergence of

• An actual sunny day
• the return of my energy (can I get a whoo-hoo?)
• the overwhelming amount of weeds in my yard

led to my determining to do some serious weed-whacking this afternoon. I got home from work, changed into scroungy gardening shorts, liberally sprayed myself down with Botanical OFF! and drug the super-long weatherproof extension cord up from the basement. I plugged in ye olde whacker and got to work. Approximately 3 minutes in I ran out of string. Feck. But I was already committed to the whole project, and I was also covered in OFF! which kind of means I just wasted a whole shower unless I do some serious garden work – so I decided to run to the Home Depot and get some replacement string. There you have it, scroungy shorts, OFF!-stink and all, I made my way there. I found the replacement string, bought it and returned home. No harm no foul, right? Wrong. I go to change the string and see that actually I had plenty of string left on my original spool, it had just come un-strung somehow. Feck.

On the bright side – I now have plenty of replacement string, with the added bonus of taking myself out in public looking like a hot mess, which is always fun.

OK whatever, it’s fecking gorgeous here, nothing can foul my mood. So I get back to whacking. Now, here’s the thing. I planted peony bulbs last April. That’s more than a year ago, for those who can’t calendar. Last year they didn’t do anything, but this year three of them came up. Peonies grow slooooooooowly. Two of them have one stalk of green and the other one has two stalks of green and also developed a bud a few weeks ago.

Every day I would go out and check to see if the bud was blossoming, but nooooo, nothing. Every day I would drive back and forth from work, seeing these giant heavily-laden peony bushes all over the place, and all I have is a couple of sprigs and a bud. Then the day before yesterday – it blossomed. And it’s truly gorgeous, almost worth the wait. So in my usual careful manner I was whacking weeds near the peony stalks and whacked one of them off completely, right to the ground. “Feck!” says I. “Well, at least it wasn’t the one with the flower. I will have to be more careful!” then I turned around and cunningly whacked that one to the ground too.

One time I had my horoscope done and in the midst of a lot of other unflattering accuracies it stated that I had a very “unstable” personal energy. This is an example of that, in my opinion. Me and my unstable personal energy. Puppy-like, but not in a cute way. In the way that always ends up with mud on someone’s pant leg.

Oh well. Since my hormones have re-balanced I found it funny and ridiculous rather than either tragic or infuriating. Hopefully they will grow back, sloooooowly or not. And now I get to have the pretty flower inside in a vase – see how delightful to gaze upon it is? (It’s the big fluffy pink one, not the knobbly green thing. That’s an avocado.)

Now I go to shower off all of this OFF!

And it’s the desperation to hold on to
Something that can’t be held on to
So, don’t waste your time filling up my words
Don’t tell me why, assume the worst.

I don’t need to need you
Tell me what to do
Tell me what to say

Don’t you wanna help me?
Tell me what to do
Help me find a way

Hopefully, you make no mistake
If you learn from what you‘ve got to take
Good or bad, it‘s all gonna add up in the end but,
You can never win.

Don‘t thank me,
Don‘t tell me how,
Don‘t break me down,
Don‘t help me make it,

I don‘t need to need you
Tell me what to do
Tell me what to say

- Fischerspooner, Never Win

Gardens By Seuss

I think one of the reasons that I love my garden so much is that I can grow things that look as magical as the things I dreamed of when I was a child. Like truffula trees from The Lorax, for example. Gardening is a chance for me to build my own fairytale kingdom.

The color of these daisies is so vibrant that I think it’s messing up the calibration of my camera.

I TOLD you it was a good year for roses (so far). These are Moondance, English Mary, Angel Face and Abraham Darby varieties. All from my garden. Am I not the luckiest?

More pictures

This Week’s Garden Pics

Red Daisies
Originally uploaded by superBadGirl



Meadow Sage
Originally uploaded by superBadGirl


Cinderella Sweetheart Ivy
Originally uploaded by superBadGirl

Lots of work in the garden yesterday for seemingly small result. The weeds are/were insane but I managed to get quite a few pulled.

The sunshine (which finally arrived) means that some things are trying to bloom. Like this red daisy – the picture came straight from the camera like this and I loved it.

The meadow sage is doing beautifully in my garden and makes a perfect contrast with the pink of the salvia in front and the Mary rose behind, I am in awe of them.

And finally, there was no way I could resist this Cinderella coach for my sweetheart ivy to twine around. I try to stay away from too many garden tchotkes, but some you just have to have.

Easy come and easy go
Has never been the case
Dreams of you are hard to erase
Call me crazy, call me mad
Call me what you will
But I’m sane enough to know that I love you still

They say that life goes on,
But I’ve been dead since you’ve been gone
I think they were wrong
So who’s the fool?

I am ever after you
Always ever after you
Tell me what I have to do
Is there a way to be happy ever after you?