Hey, well at least the walls were painted completely behind those box shrubs. My friend just bought a house and found that once the seller removed their furniture, they had a lot of painting to do! (who DOES that??) :)

Hmmm...I know Francisco comes with the house but maybe it's time for a chat with your landlord?

LMAO at the directions! We went to a funeral last summer and my mom tells me to follow them, but if we get separated to just turn left where they are "fixin to build the new bank." Priceless!

What on God's green earth is Francisco doing!? He is going to chop down everything growing so that he can just come and drink beer with you without the hassle of having to take care of the yard. Hmmm.

By the way, as of 7:00 this morning gas was still 2.99 at the Chevron at the corner of Fairfax and Beverly - you know, the one across the street from where they do the Price is Right and on the same side as the Farmer's Daughter Motel.

Sigh. I miss having my own laundry room. Even if it also contained both my refrigerator and kitty box.

I'm so off-white trash.

Why is Francisco removing everything? That is so weird. Does your landlord know what he is up to? I know these are not questions you have answers to, but this is what I am wondering. Although personally, I like your pots better than the shrubs anyway.

LOL @ Monkey ... "Off-white trash" (!!!!!) Best one I have heard in ages!!

I think the little boxes will be nice, and I can put flowers there and okra, and no... I have no idea what F. is up to. I don't think my landlord cares. My landlord is... an oddball.

I live in a townhouse condominium in Northern VA. Part of our condo fees goes to yard maintanance. This is mostly mowing, but includes 2x/year of putting on the smelly mulch, usually on a day when you can finally open the windows and enjoy the nice spring weather. HaHa. Or they prune the trees/bushes. I use the word "prune" when it should be "hack to death". When the bushes/plants need replacing, they go with the cheapest, ugliest plant they can find. I am scared this year, because our beautiful azaleas of 14 years have died (or are almost dead) and I am afraid of what they will put in. Odds are they won't put in azaleas or any other flowering plant. My husband & I are thinking of putting our own plants in, but knowing this lawn/yard group, they'll rip them out and put whatever they want in.

Me reckons I'm gonna build me one dos dere plant boxes.

Thanks for the idea, Sugar.

my old landlord had the same disregard for aesthetics. i can't wait until you have the freedom of your own garden.

With gas over $3.10 a gallon up here in the Bay Area I've decided to pretend I'm all high and mighty and too big for my britches. Ok, I am too big for my britches, but's another comment.

Instead of getting in the car and going to the market? I go online and make the grocery bring me my goodies. Target? Oh, how I love thee. Alas, get your own ass in a Fed-Ex truck and bring me my stuff.

And everyday is like Christmas! Mr. UPS guy, with the great legs in those short shorts, brings me boxes of yarn! Hot guy. Yarn. What more can I ask for? Not a whole lot.

However, Fed-Ex and UPS would adore me if I quit telling them the cross streets are "where there were cows when I moved in and the houses that really need paint."

So, who is that person that is looking through the door at the camera?

Do you own said hat? Because I've been looking for it.

I know I've said this before, but I wish I had a Fransisco. I have to do all my own chopping, dirt hauling, planting, watering, etc.. Although I love it, there is never enough time to do it all. What a suprise it would be to come home and find something new (or gone) and then have a man to drink a beer with. Okay, I'm fanaticizing now, I gotta go.

Gas prices suck and something needs to be done about it.

Hmm...Laurie? Do you really trust Francisco to not touch your gardening experiments? I'd hate for you to come home one day to find your okra and tomato plants "weeded" away... Methinks you need a little chat with senor F...

Just don't grow that mari-ju-wannna....
if ya know whut I mean.

Hey, maybe those are magueys, not aloes...then you could brew your own tequila...

Also known as blue agave...

Sugar, it's time for a come-to-Jesus with Francisco. You need to give him a list (maybe in Spanish) and make him stick to it. It seems odd to me that he just does this stuff on his own. I don't have a gardener (because here in Texas, they don't come with the house) but the few times I've hired someone to do something like trim the crape myrtles, they've never done one lick of work more than I asked them!

The husband's vehicle was in the shop yesterday so I had to take him to work at 0'dark 30. Went by the corner station: $2.97 a gallon. Bad, but getting used to it. 2 hours later on my way to work: $3.05 a gallon. WTF? I can assure you that there had not been a delivery in between, because forever and always, the truck arrives during afternoon rush hour, never seems to get its tail end all the way up the drive and causes traffic headaches.

If it wasn't 16 miles to work 1 way, I swear I'd walk.

Ummmm, okra. If this weather ever clears up enough, I'll be putting out my little 'mater seedlings. It'll have to be soon regardless--they're outgrowing their little containers.

Purl, are you in on this Exxon/Mobil boycott? I stopped there the other day (completely oblivious to the fact that there was a boycott) and people started beeping at me & yelling at me from their cars. Now, I'm a redhead. I get beeped at from time to time. But this was INSANE beeping, so I had to ask everyone at work what the frig I had done so bad. They were all "duh, there's a boycott to try to get them to lower prices, loser."

I really need to get gas before prices here get that bad. You take a left where that huge oak tree used to be and it's on the right just after the spot where I broke my arm when I was ten.

I can never move. I'm crap at remembering street signs. *L*

Chop-happy gardeners seem to be the norm. My mom has continued to use a horrific gardener who a) butchered the front hedges, b) trimmed her lemon tree to 1/2 of its original size (and may have taken off with the lemons, ahem - the sage and rosemary bushes got the same treatment), and c) seems to miraculously clean every single stray cherry off of her big Bing cherry tree during the summer.

I think he's taking herbs & fruit home to eat & cook with. But that's just me. He pretends not to understand English, but I don't believe him. When my mother finally got pissed enough to complain to his manager, he understood PERFECTLY.

Do you remember that line in Steel Magnolias when Ouiser (Shirley MacLaine) brings in the tomatoes to give everyone and she says that she doesn't even eat tomatoes and someone asks her why she grows them, then? She says because she is an old Southern woman and old southern women wear funny hats and grow tomatoes in the garden. That's how I feel when I start growing things. It is in our nature.

Love the directions.

As for the gas prices... I'll now stop complaining about mine here. I do have to buy the expensive stuff... but we aren't that high yet! Most I've paid was $2.90.

HA HA, go down the street where the old soda cracker factory was? Yeah, left at the old sugar mill and down the road a bit....

My introduction to directions in Hawai'i....eep.

Count yourself lucky...over here in the UK you'd pay at least twice that for fuel.

Bitch away about gas prices! You have every right. I do too. I'm happy to hear that you are enjoying your "good service" at Home Depot. Fyi: I believe that they will replace your plants if you kill them but you need to keep the receipt. It looks like time for a few boundaries with Francisco.

Bitch away about gas prices! You have every right. I do too. I'm happy to hear that you are enjoying your "good service" at Home Depot. Fyi: I believe that they will replace your plants if you kill them but you need to keep the receipt. It looks like time for a few boundaries with Francisco.

What is that stick with the white ball? Hmmm...

And Jenny, boycott on Exxon is slime. Up here they ruined Prince William Sound and the livelihoods of so many people who fished there and they won't give the people any settlement. It stinks!

You all should check out gasbuddy.com. You can locate the cheapest gas in your area. It's amazing how much of a difference there is in gas prices.

I usually check online before I need to fill my gas tank. Chicago's gas prices are always crazy, not exactly budget friendly. If you check gasbuddy.com you should be able to find something cheaper in your area.

3.03 was the cheapest i saw too.

i got gas monday morning for 2.89 and the same place was 3.03 today.

waaah.

will you be in attendance this evening?

Way over here on the right side coast, I paid 3.19 this morning for regular. DISGUSTING!

And I agree with everyone else, F needs a ropin' in!!!

Those are some big-ass aloe plants...maybe you could make some aloe cream from them and sell it online and bam! Instant millionaire.

Anyway, people where I grew up said "Turn left at the red light." Well, what if it was green? Or yellow?

You bitch about gas prices. I bitch about gas prices. We're all in this crude dependency together.

I nearly cried the other day when I saw that gas at my favorite station is now up to $3.01. Thank goodness I now walk to work.

Also so loved the directions. Sounded like stuff I used to hear when I was in Virginia. "Now you'll know you're heading the right way if you pass the house with a few junkers and a fridge in the front yard..."

Have you thought about planting herbs in the garden? My grandmother always had mint mixed in with the marigolds.

I hope he doesn't get weird with your melons! o.0

Hey Purl - with mint juleps - what kind of bourbon do you use? I like Rebel Yell the best. I think it makes a better julep than Jim Beam or Makers Mark. Maybe next time Francisco comes over you could ply him with a few juleps, and then take away his pruning shears....

I see exactly what Franciso did. You SAID you were fair skinned... he gave you Aloe plants for the burn you'll be gettin. Geez and you thought he didn't understand what you were saying!

Forget about the price of gas, the plants, Francisco, etc.

I can't believe that you found a 76 Station with the old orange ball intact!!! Being a preservationist, you may have noticed that the 76 orange ball is being phased out since Conoco took over Union 76. The 76 ball has turned into a half-sphere in red. Treasure the orange ball!!!
Treasure all things ORANGE!

Hey I used to rent a cute little house and the owner was my gardener. Really. She owned a gardening business. Well, we had the most beautiful berry bushes growing along one long wall of the back yard, and when berries were in season the kids and I would spend long days in the backyard under the shade of the apple trees. I would run a sprinkler to water the grass and let the kids run through, and we would take fistfulls of berries and hold them in the water to rinse them and then stuff our faces. It was heaven.

Well, I made the mistake of telling the owner how much I loved the berry bushes, and when I came home a few days later, the bushes were all pulled up and gone. All of them! Every. Single. One.

This was at least 5 years ago, and I don't live there anymore, and those berry bushes used to grow wild so I think that was her reason for getting rid of them. But even so I am not over it yet, and I am not sure I ever will be. Boo hoo.

So you tell Mr. Francisco Chops-A-Lot to cool it with de clippers! And good luck with the square watermelons. I live in the desert now so I am living vicariously through you. I am hoping to see wonderful pictures of green things growing.

Thanks for your wonderful blog, Laurie. It keeps me almost-sane, and that's as good as it gets around here.

LOL at the directions! My New Yorker friend who used to live down here called them "South-Carolina-turn-left-at-the-big-rock" directions.

And yeah, me too on the come-to-Jesus with Fernando.

I got all y'all beat on the gas prices. I live in California, way up north, and the gas up here is... (ready for this?)

$3.35/gallon

I paid $3.09 in the North Bay (CA) the other day and totally felt like I'd been violated at the pump. (And yes, I buy the cheap stuff.)

Mmm...aloe vera plants. I bought an adorable little 3-inch-high aloe vera plant five years ago, and it is now almost two feet tall and at least two feet wide and inhabits the largest pot of dirtsoil you have ever ever seen. I do love the aloe vera; it makes me feel like a good gardener. :)

That said, I wonder: did Francisco tell you his rationale for chopping down and hauling away perfectly nice shrubs that did not belong to him? Because that would chap my tail, no matter how much I love the aloe vera.

Good grief Laurie, I reckon I was born full of Southern quirkiness, I give directions just like that and have all my life and unfortunately I can't seem to follow directions such as, "Turn left on Willow, make a right on Calle Rio, then a house number. No, I need, I NEED to be told to turn left at the first gas station, make a right three lights down, then when you pass the clay road, etc....

I'm sorry, my dears but I can beat you all wiht the evil gas. Right now, up here in Victoria BC (Canada) we're paying $1.159 per litre. Times 4 to make a gallon equals $4.63 a gallon. Now that Canadian dollars, so using a fairly generous exchange rate of .85 I calculate our price at $3.93 per gallon. And that's the cheap gas.

Oh light rail, where art thou!!

I live near Mackay in Queensland, Australia and the cheapest unleaded fuel is $A1.23 per litre and the dearest is around $A1.26.00. Do you think we're being ripped off??????

the little i know about the exxon/mobile boycott i don't think it is going to work because from what i remember hearing a couple of years ago, if the big places like exxon aren't selling enough gas directly to consumers, they just sell it to the other gas companies (BP and others) who are needing more to sell because we are buying from the other guys like BP rather than exxon. they are all connected...

it all boils down to doing something else completely and changing your lifestyle i think. but i could be wrong :D

my boyfriend works at a gas kiosk (not to be confused w/ an actual gas station where you can walk in and hurt the guy working there, instead you have a nice plexiglass window protecting you from the world as long as they carry nothing more powerful than a .38) and it is AMAZING how many people will gripe at him for the gas prices, as well as get straight out pissed at him. because you all KNOW that the guy working at the gas station/kiosk is the one who controls the prices and makes the profits when the prices go higher. i mean come on people, really.

:D

OMG, the directions...Yes. You nailed it. That is EXACTLY how most people around here give directions. (I'm in Kentucky) If you don't know the name of every family in the county and exactly where every business, barn, or large tree used to be for the past 20+ years, you're screwed.

And they never list addresses or directions in the yard sale ads. The ads'll say something like "hosted by Darla Sue Jones and Mindy Jane Moffett" and you're just supposed to know exactly who those people are and where they live. And once, I swear to god, the ad just said the sale was "at the big red barn". Um, yeah, 'cause there's only ONE of those in the world. Heh.

I might be hallucinating, am I seeing sizable stumps? Well, anyhoo, it strikes me that it is Francisco's goal to essentially whack himself right out of anything to prune! He obviously does not care or does not comprehend the notion of job security.

I would be fashioning every shrub into an elaborate llamma. THEN, how could you ever fire me?

DebR-- Once I was driving through this lil old town in Mississippi, and I was trying to find the local pharmacy, because I needed contact solution and at that time it was sold mostly in pharmacies.

Anyway! I was asking this woman for driving directions, and she said, "Well, sugar? You go up the street about three lights til you see the place where (insert some stranger's name) had that big car accident, what was it? Maybe five years ago? When the so-and-soy boy was coming round in that hot rod and almost thrown out the back? And then you turn there, going in the direction of the old rock quarry. The one where that whole (insert name) family used to live back before when it was a? tobacco farm?"

It was hee-larious. You know how some folks talk like this? Where everything is a question? But reeeaaallll s l o w - l i k e ...?

Jennifer in KC -- YES. Sizable stumpage.

Love it.

Cheapest gas price in RI is just around $2.89 and climbing fast. When we owned a gas station in the '80's we had to scramble to get new pumps because the original ones didn't register over $1.00. We thought THAT was shocking. The pumps today must come with open ended capabilities. Criminal! su

the more I read your blog the more I seem to sense some latent need to return to the deep south. I say this as a very good thing, 'cause I loooove the south. and I say this as a 30-something spinster with a cat living south of the M-D line......
sugar,maybe it's time to come home...

Careful.... I'll post pics of the sign at the 76 station on Montana and Bundy. I swear to Christ I alsmost swerved off the road.

Petrol? Try $1.66 a litre x 4 = $6.64 a gallon. Thats what we are paying here in Auckland NZ! and for 91 - premium is $1.72 or something a litre. It went up 6c a litre last week and another 6c the week before. And before you think we ride on the back of flightless birds everywhere, the average commute in Auckland is 40 minutes each way... Apparently petrol is quite cheap in Kazakstan....

Sooo...is Francisco going to remove said stumpage so you can use the area? Or is he planning to graft on some funky plants?

I almost came to blows with the gas attendant here (here you CAN NOT pump your own gas...which is annoying when you are in a hurry). The sign had said "$2.54" which was GREAT! When he started pumping it jumped to $2.61 (which is still better than a lot of places I know). When I asked he pointed to the sign indicating that the $2.54 price was CASH...ergggggg

I'm just up the 2 from downtown and gas is $3.29 a gallon here. Is four dollars the new three dollars?

I have no idea how the stumpy mc stumperson stuff will go, but probably, if I am totally 100% honest here, i will dump planter mix on it and call it a day.

I am lazy, and also... lazy. LOL

Oh man, if four dollars is the new three dollars, I will cry.

So glad I don't have a car. Public transportation does have its (dis)advantages. I do have a stupid question, though: what's up with the "new" 85% ethanol fuel for cars? I remember reading about that starting in South America when I was in grade school and that was 35 years ago (yes I am ancient and it was called gasahol). It ain't new, but maybe NOW it might make some money for the fuel companies and car manufacturers????

Sue, I was watching Amazing Race a couple of weeks ago. One of the tasks was to make ethanol (and I am old enough to remember the term gasahol as well) for their fuel for the remainder of that leg. I was watching and thinking,"Why can't my car take that stuff? I could just whip up a batch at home?"

I went to my favorite, and usually cheap, station on La Brea and Beverly, and apparently everyone in LA County decided to follow suit. Twelve pumps and a line for each one!!! Argghh!
I ended up driving to Normandy and Melrose, where it was still $2.95.

Hello. My name is Tami...and I'm a gasaholic...

Okay, so I've heard of the ethanol fuels but also have never seen them...the term gasahol was new to me, and I couldn't resist. (And if you think about it...aren't we all quite dependent on our gas?)

ROFL at the Mississippi directions story and yes, I know exactly how some people do the SlowQuestionTalk thing. Too funny! And the whole calling anyone and everyone "sugar" or "honey" or "babydoll"...gotta love that one too. If I didn't choose to love it I'd have hurt someone by now. (I was "honey" to the younger-than-me-female server at lunch today.)

Ohh that aint so bad, how about the aussie prices
$1.40 a litre and there are 4 litres in a gallon ;)

Honey, you say "filling station". The direction thing just follows suit. ;)

Bye, all y'all!

i just drove home pissed over our $2.95!!!
great! no end in sight!

$2.89 a gallon at the cheap place near my house (in Somerville, MA)

I live in Germany, and the gas price here is about 1,35 Euro per liter. Times 4 to make a gallon and converted into US$, this makes about $6,70/gallon.
And do you know what's funny? Politicians and gas companies over here say, the gas price in Germany is so expensive because it's holiday time in the US and they're all selling the gas to the US so they have enough.
Who's being ripped off?

Oh you forgot that in small Southern towns they call stop signs, stop lights. I drove miles looking for that damn stop light to turn right at.

I grew up in the sticks (North Dakota) where, since there are so few population centers, they give directions like this:

Follow 52 (the highway that runs past our town that only people giving directions know the name to) until you get to County 4 (which is unmarked), then go right for 2 miles, then turn onto 15 (also unmarked, and gravel). Go to the Carlson place and then go another mile and a half and take a right turn, then you'll be on their driveway (another unmarked dirt road, 4 miles long).

Who looks at their odometer that much?? I suppose that they have to do it that way because half of the year, all of the landmarks are covered in snow...

I was happy to move to an actual town after all of that thinking. Now I live in a town that was built on a hill. Directions in this town go a little like this: "Just keep going on 2nd Street until you get to 5th Avenue East, then go UP".

Up or Down--there is no left or right. We also live on a curving lakeshore, and when people say to go North along the shore, you're actually going East. Gotta love it.

im glad that those of you out of the usa are commenting on your gas prices. we here in the usa have been completely spoiled for a long time. i can't believe that the prices in germany are going up because of our holiday travel needs... that's just nuts

i wonder if those of us here would mind paying the extra $$$ for fuel if we had generally better health care provided and such? im pretty sure i wouldn't mind.

THAT is precisely why my mother decided to quit work! She'd come home and her husband would have (a) pruned the flowering dogwood down to a dead stick (b) cut the 7 foot tall butterfly bushes DOWN TO THE GROUND, and (c) removed the glass shower door. There are others, but that's all I can remember. Now he's threatening to destroy a huge patch of lily-of-the-valley in their front yard because they die off in the winter. Hello?!?!?! Ever heard of mulch??? Ugh. It breaks my gardening heart!!!

Gotta speak up, girl. Or your okra might find its way to the compost heap.

The gas prices BLOW, which is why I both envy and admire your ability to take public transportation to work. I can't, unfortunately, because it would take about four hours, which means my 32-mile ONE-WAY commute is sucking the life out of my bank account. Sadness.

Francisco is chop happy. I am sure all of the trees and shrubs in the neighborhood are scared of him. Can you imagine how all the of trees start quivering with fear when he shows up? I be the plants bend away from him when he walks by. Can you check on this theory for me next time he is over? Save the shrubs....tell Francisco to either give you a clue as to WHY he is killing your shrubs or stop killing them. Evil gardener. The least he can do is get rid of the evidence (stumps).

If it makes you feel any better about the price of gas, it is even more expensive here in sunny south Florida. I guess there is nothing we can do about that.

Francisco is chop happy. I am sure all of the trees and shrubs in the neighborhood are scared of him. Can you imagine how all the of trees start quivering with fear when he shows up? I be the plants bend away from him when he walks by. Can you check on this theory for me next time he is over? Save the shrubs....tell Francisco to either give you a clue as to WHY he is killing your shrubs or stop killing them. Evil gardener. The least he can do is get rid of the evidence (stumps).

If it makes you feel any better about the price of gas, it is even more expensive here in sunny south Florida. I guess there is nothing we can do about that.

My dad worked for the sherrif's department when I was growing up and I remember their radio frequencies strangely getting in with another station in the north. When they figured it all out, the guy in the north and my dad were on a phone call and the guy in the north asked my dad how they knew where everyone lived. Dad asked what he meant and he said that all he ever heard over the radio was to respond to a call at Mr. Smith's next door neighbor, or turn by the street that Dr. Green lives on, etc. I was stunned that everyone didn't give directions that way.

Ah, pruning landladies ... mine hacks away at my trees because she doesn't like mowing if the branches hang down too far. So she BUTCHERED a lilac tree to death just because it 'stuck out'. Then she pruned my Magnolia tree into ugliness because 'the branch was bent'. Then she took out a cedar, every single rose bush, a holly, and a forsythia. I'd come home and find yet another nude spot in the yard. Wah. When she took the gate off my fence (the lack of which now lets strange dogs enter my yard and poop all over, and lets solicitors in to knock at my door, and lets every jane and john doe come up and hang stuff on my doorknob) because she didn't like pushing her mower all the way to the back gate, it was THE LAST STRAW. That's the day I started my "buy a house real soon now" campaign.

this morning the same place that was 2.89 on monday and 3.03 yesterday was 3.07 for the worst gas possible.

i hate this.

Oh my @ the gas prices! Ours has reached over $3.00 as well up here in Sacramento, but not 87 yet, please God don't take the 87 gas over three too!!!

Well, we got premium gas for $3.49 here in SF at the gas station near my house and that's not the most expensive one, which is a sad victory... I stopped driving and ride my bike, take public transportation instead. Yeah, it takes longer but at least it doesn't support George and his war. Time to buy a Prius or a bio-diesel car.

Be grateful, dear woman... You could be paying $2.95 and have to live in Pittsburgh...where they give directions just like that, too. I miss my halfamil shoe box and expensive gas... but not the 405!

My college roomie (a KS farmer's daughter) used to give directions in "KS farmese"- "head south for about 2 miles, then east at the T-intersection..." Drove me crazy. I finally taught her the "go right toward the Sinclair station when you exit the highway, go about 2 miles til you come to the big blue house with the rooster mailbox..." method. Luckily my truck has a little compass on the mirror just in case anyone (like my husband!!) gives me "farmese" directions. Hey, maybe F put in the aloe plants so you could use the aloe gel on the friction burns from knitting too fast? Oh, and if you plan to grow your own mint for those juleps, make sure you keep them contained (in a pot or sink a cement chimney liner into the planter box) or they'll take over the whole garden (they spread via underground runners and mine even went thru the box joints and started into the grass). Mints come in all varieties too and are very easy to grow so you could do a peppermint, a spearmint, a chocolate mint (no joke!), and a catmint (aka catnip- the Sobakowa will be pleased).

Just be careful with the catnip. If is it fresh it is toxic. It has to be dried.

Live hard, Die Fast. Poor Shrubbery. I wonder if Francisco took your pale skin to heart and gave you the aloe vera as a consolation prize for taking away your shade since it's known to heal sunburns. Too bad he had to kill some more greenery in the process. Soon you'll have nothing but veggies, square melons and red skin. Come to think of it, maybe the aloe vera plants are an omen....

Our fuel prices here in the UK are a nightmare, so don't come over here and hire a car LOL you would totally freak out, we pay the equivalent of between $7.00 and $8.00 a gallon.

Girl, the term "y'all" may be southern, but nothing says "I am well and truly from the south and that will never change" like the phrase "filling station." You might catch a non-Southerner trying to pass off a y'all now and then, but you will never hear "filling station" come out of their mouth. I love it!