Can't complete a...

One of the reasons I haven't been blogging much is that my mind has been too scattered for me to actually sit down and write out a full story. So in lieu of anything that actually makes sense, I'll jot down a few amusing, but random, things that have happened over the last week or so.

I watched the season finales of Survivor, Amazing Race, Lost, Top Chef, and I'm saving the Alias finale on VCR for my viewing pleasure tonight. Now that all the good shows are done, what am I going to watch? That stupid dancing show?

A friend of mine cracked a wisdom tooth (ouch!), and had to have it pulled. What was he eating at the time? Smartfood. I'm not making this up.

I woke up this morning from a dream where I was explaining to a bunch of people in detail how cells undergo mitosis. Why can't I dream about normal crap, like pickles or cigars? Oy.

War of the Weeds

I actually had a whole day off yesterday, and I almost didn't know what to do with myself. I slept in (until 9:30!), I watched TV, and I tried to turn into as much of a vegetable as I could. But it was such a beautiful day, I couldn't help myself; I had to go outside and garden.

Every year I come to the same conclusion: I love how big my yard is, because it really gives me a lot of space to play with, but I hate it, because I never have any time to play in it. My pond needs a good cleaning; I tried to start doing that back in March and never finished. I thought for sure my frog was dead, killed off by all the leaves that have fallen in the pond and are slowly decomposing at the bottom, but yesterday I walked past the pond and heard a telltale "eep!" followed by a splash, alerting me that he has indeed survived another winter. I'm going to have to start calling him Wonder Frog.

Since it just rained a couple of days ago, I felt it behooved me to take advantage of the wet ground and start pulling weeds (in case you didn't know, it's much easier to pull weeds out of wet ground than dry ground). The main enemies in my garden are Pennsylvania smartweed, which is prolific but fairly easy to pull, and pokeweed, which isn't quite as ubiquitous, but has a HUGE tap root and stubbornly refuses to go. My arms are already sore from the strain of pulling, even in the soft, wet ground.

I did see the dreaded poison ivy, although only one plant, but that means I have to go get the chemicals to eradicate it. I know it'll never truly go away, especially since the neighbors over the fence have a whole poison ivy patch, but I will do what I must.

In the meantime, I have been coddling my seedlings, both the ones started indoors and those started outdoors. At this point, it's pretty hard to tell the seedlings from the weedlings, so if I'm not sure, I just leave it alone. I bought a few full-sized herbs to put in the herb garden. The hope is that if some of the more aggressive herbs take root, they'll fight my weed battles for me. I have already seen my pumpkins do well against the morning glory, so we shall see how the rest perform.

A large section of garden is now inundated with catnip, in which the cats love to roll around. Every once in a while, I see a large cat-shaped dent in the plants. Sometimes Itchy comes in for dinner stoned, and it's hilarious to watch him roll around, play with my foot, and act so incredibly not-Itchy. I'm not sure Scratchy really likes the catnip...either that, or he acts the same way whether he's stoned or not.

Hopefully it will rain again today so that my seedlings can get watered and I can do some more weed battling tomorrow or the day after.

Don't Forget to "Buy" Our "Product!"

So I was walking down the streets of New York the other day and passed by a sign outside of a restaurant that said:

We now have "sushi."

What does that mean? Since quotes are generally used to connote irony or something unusual about the word (when not actually quoting something or someone), I have got to assume that whatever they're selling is, in fact, NOT sushi, but some parody thereof.

I know I'm a little nitpicky when it comes to little stuff like spelling and grammar, and usually I just snicker at emails from friends (or strangers) and get on with my life. But when someone is trying to sell me something, the least I expect them to do is use proper English. When they don't, I lose respect for them as a credible vendor, and they lose my business.

For instance, I've been receiving all sorts of advertisements in the mail for various bridal-related services: photography, limousines, flowers, etc. One such envelope, upon opening, contained a letter, which read:

Hello Future Bride,

We are a new store which opened recently in May of 2005.

Besides a complete variety of accessories and gift box rentals (bridal doll is our newest), we hand craft your bridal veil "custom" to your exact detail or you can "Rent" A Bridal Veil that we have in stock!

This being the first thing I read, I was terribly confused. May 2005 isn't that recent. Okay, it's not quite a year old, so maybe "recently" is still an acceptable word. But either way, why not just say "opened recently" or "opened in May of 2005," thus eliminating confusion?

The second sentence really doesn't make very much sense either. Someone clearly didn't have to diagram sentences in 6th grade, because this one is a mess. According to that sentence, I have to assume they handcraft accessories and gift box rentals, which has got to be difficult. And what the hell is "bridal doll?" Is it a gift box rental? Do they make gift boxes with little dolls dressed up as brides inside? Does the box look like a doll? Do they rent the doll?

The point of the next part of the sentence, I'm sure, is that they will customize a bridal veil for me. But apparently they only need one detail in order to do so. Do I get to pick the detail? That's why "custom" is in quotation marks, right? Because if I only give them one detail, then it's not really that customized, right? Right?

If they want me to "rent" a bridal veil, does that mean it's not really a rental? Do I get to keep it longer than most rentals? Is it like a car lease or something, where there's a buy-in agreement at the end? Maybe the reason "A Bridal Veil" is capitalized is that it's patented and I'm renting their product but also advertising for them.

The letter goes on (I won't quote the whole thing), but it ends with this gem:

And when your wedding is over, I offer "hand" cleaning and preservation of your bridal gown and formal gown cleaning using no machinery or excessive heat, which causes damage.

So somewhere in the middle of the letter, the pronouns switch from "we" to "I." That's only slightly bothersome, though: the really scary idea is the "'hand' cleaning." Once again, is that an ironic remark? Maybe they don't use their hands; maybe they use their feet. That would certainly be different, something to set themselves apart from the pack.

The way the punctuation stands at the moment, they offer preservation of not only your bridal gown but also your formal gown cleaning. How they preserve cleaning, I'm not sure, but however they do it, they use no machinery or excessive heat. I suppose that's a plus. They never tell me what it causes damage to, but I suppose we all can guess that they're talking about the gown, not the person doing the cleaning.

Now that my rant is over, I will leave you with this picture I took after I saw the "sushi" sign (I should have taken a picture of the "sushi" sign, but it didn't occur to me until later). It's not the same problem, but it is yet another example of a well-meaning, English-challenged company trying to do some advertising.

It's That Time Again

If you're in the NYC area this week, I'm encouraging you to check out two concerts in which I'm singing. The first one is today, so I'm not giving you much notice, I know, but them's the breaks.

Beethoven, Missa solemnis, op. 123
Philadelphia Singers with the Mannes Orchestra
David Hayes, Conductor
Monday, May 1 at 8:00 p.m.
Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center (65th Street and Broadway)

For anyone who has heard Beethoven's Missa solemnis, you know this piece is a huge sing. But it's also really gorgeous. So come and listen to us singers huff and puff and blow the house away.

The second concert is this coming Saturday, and should be really enjoyable. I'm teaming up once again with a couple members of Anonymous 4 to perform Arjuna's Dilemma by Doug Cuomo. Here's the info:

Arjuna's Dilemma
performed as a part of VOX Showcase
hosted by John Schaefer of WNYC
Saturday, May 6 at 8:00 p.m.
Skirball Center, NYU (566 LaGuardia Place & Washington Square Park South)

Arjuna's Dilemma, a staged oratorio, includes both North Indian and Western music, and is based on a story from the Bhagavad Gita, generally considered the most important scripture for all Hindus.

Anyway, both these events are free, and free is good. I'll be singing in the chorus for the first gig, but in the second gig I am a part of a quartet, so I'm a little more exposed, and that's always nice. If you have nothing to do tonight or Saturday night, come on by!