Today on my walk I played a little game in honor of all of the Halloween decorations. I called it "Which Yard Is The Scariest 2014?" (It was a long walk because not only did I need to oust a Severe Case Of The Crabbies, but I also needed to go to the drugstore. I took, therefore, a circuitous route which gave me a nice three miler or so.)
Anyway, I took some photos, and here are the two Finalists.
Number One:
I'm impressed. That thing is like fifteen feet tall. Along with the inflatable Christmas Eeyore, it may be the only yard inflatable I will ever sanction in my neighborhood. It's scary, yo. But get ready; here is Entry
Number Two:
Holy crap. Do you see what I see? That's about thirty bags of mulch that need to be spread! Talk about Scary! The chills that went up my spine when I saw that...brrrrr. Not to mention the sick feeling in my gut just thinking about the smell and the stains on my hands, my socks, my arms, and whatever else came in contact with that stuff. We won't even talk about what it would do to Rick's back.
Yikes. I think we have a winner.
candycorn monster pic
That ghoul is pretty freaky. Where does one even buy something like that? We stick to 2 hand carved jack-o-lanterns on our property and call it a decorating success. Less is more, you know?
ReplyDeleteI was so sure the second picture was going to be political signs on someone's lawn. :) All of that yard work looks horrid. I hope there are many hands to accomplish all of that work, and that they are well gloved.
ReplyDeleteMike still has black mulch stains in his car from from when I was toting it around for church last year - ick!
ReplyDeleteSorry I've been MIA for so long; life has gotten busy. So to make up for it, I'm going to tell you a story, somewhat related to the horror of Entry Number Two.
ReplyDeleteEvery street has That House. You know, That House with the people who just don't put in any effort to keep it up. Or That House where the garage is literally overflowing with crap. Or That House with the old skeezy guy who's always lurking, just barely in eyesight, but with whom you avoid eye contact because he's always watching you?
Well, the That House on my street is at the very bottom of the hill. At first glance it might seem nice, as it's the only house on the block that has palm trees, but then when you get a closer look, you realize you don't want to know these people. There's a rusty, old weight bench sitting outside in the front yard, but there are no weights, and it never gets used. There are about eight cars parked in or near the driveway, which means there are probably at least fifteen people living there. There's an old TV sitting just inside the fence, which looks like it's meant to be taken to the curb on garbage day, but it never goes. Some of the bricks on the house are cracking and chipping, and the fact that you can't see in any of the windows makes you wonder what they're hiding.
My friend Hannah was evicted from her last apartment, and in the desperation caused by an awful housing market, she agreed to temporarily move in with a former coworker who had a spare room. Where does the coworker live? That House.
She lives on the first floor, along with a family of four, who rents out that floor from the uncle who owns the house. She's staying in the 15 year old son's former room, and he moved into the room that his sister and parents sleep in (yes, all four together). There are two bathrooms: one has a toilet and a sink that doesn't work; and the other has a shower and a sink that sometimes works. There's a small fridge, but everything needs to be marked because the uncle apparently eats things that aren't marked. Why doesn't he know what things are his? He's a hoarder, apparently so bad he could be on the show, so he can't keep track of all of his stuff. There are several other people who live in the house, though she hasn't met them all, so she doesn't know the total count.
She has three doors in her room: the main entrance comes in from the hallway; a second door is permanently locked, as it leads into the kitchen, where light often shines through the cracks; and a third door leads to the outdoor patio, where a flea-ridden dog waits to be let in. And she was given a pillow and pillowcase to use, but both smelled of mold.
I know where I'm NOT going to trick-or-treat.
- Mikey G.
MikeyG--I would think couch-surfing would be better. She can start with your house!
ReplyDeleteBug--When did mulch start being A Thing, anyway? When I was a kid, no one had it in their yards. NO ONE. Now it's ubiquitous. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
J@jj--Here in NEO, the Dems have conceded most of the races to The Enemy. It's pathetic, really, and I have no idea how it happened that we put up such horridly weak, flawed, ineffective candidates. They all imploded, so signs are unnecessary and all but nonexistent here. Especially for governor, which is such a dismal story. And disgusting. Only the Democrats could completely drop the ball like this.
Ally Bean--Oh, my dearest one. Holiday Inflatables are something of a Contest in these parts. The ghoul's yard has something new about every other year. At Christmas they had a huge Grinch. In one yard not too terribly far away, they celebrate EVERY HOLIDAY with an inflatable: Independence Day, St. Patrick's, Easter, Valentine's, Christmas--it's horrifying.
My summertime porch furniture is still out and my geraniums are still blooming. I'm not ready, and I'm in mourning that my basil is kaput.
Mikey G lives in SF, so my first thought upon reading of the horrid house down the hill was, "HOW DO THEY FIND PARKING FOR ALL OF THOSE CARS?" It does sound like a crummy situation, and I hope Hannah has moved on!
ReplyDeleteOne thing I have not missed at all living in an apartment is Yard Work. And, as far as I can tell, even if I did have a yard, mulch isn't a Thing in Seoul anyway. Blech. My back started hurting just looking at those bags. That was the beautiful thing about living in Arizona. No mulch, no lawn. Just rocks and cactus. I hope that's where we end up living when we move back to the USA.
ReplyDeleteMsC--Rick and I don't have a lawn in our back yard, just gardens and a pond. But there is mulch, and I really do hate it. Lots of it is technically rock (crushed red tile, it's called), but there is the mulch. Ugh. Our front is tiny; it takes Rick longer to wrestle the mower from between the recycle bins and the cars than it does to actually mow it.
ReplyDeleteWe both were very happy to hire someone to do the Spring Cleanup And Prep this year, and they hauled around the mulch and spread it for us. Money well spent.
And with the way Rick frets over the one lawn we have here, I'm with you: bring on the rocks and cactus.