stinky, stinky, stinky

so i've noticed that these new annoying bugs have been bombarding my window screen. 

these are called stink bugs and they are super annoying. several have successfully escaped into my room and freaked me out with a perfect landing in my hair. and since they do nothing but obscure my window view of my trees, i wanted to see what the deal is with these things!!!! 

i swear i haven't seen these damn things last year so i googled them and found that they are from china. great. i understand we get a lot of things from china, but c'mon. bugs now too?? i can do without, chinese government. 

so apparently you can't kill these suckers with regular pesticides like bombs and if you do try and kill them they emit a stink like skunks do. 

on the flip side, vacuums and they don't have mouths and poison so they can't kill you! most they'll do is maybe suck on you. also, in vietnam, these things are eaten as crunchy snacks. so, maybe this will be our new american cuisine? [cue the gag reflex]

growing up

i remember in the first couple of posts i had published for this blog, i had listed a human being's rough timeline of the major points in life. and through that, it was really obvious that life occurs in stages, some unpleasant (being 13 and the best thing was that you could now sign up for facebook) and some pleasant (age 21 - you can smoke, drink, gamble, go to the club, whatever floated your boat) things.

undeniably, i am in my own phase right now, whether or not my "busy" life can mask it. today i found out a close friend got engaged. and it's exactly at these moments in time when you can't really say, "what? i thought we were still 18." not that people don't get married/engaged at 18, but at my 18, i was having fun in school and still floating off somewhere.
but not everyone around me, i've noticed, at my age really notices the glaring signs that are telling you, you're getting older. grow up. 


the first telling sign is facebook. sure you might get 300+ updates a day or every hour or whatever facebook's push speed is, but if you scroll down and you find little hearts here and there, it means someone's either in a relationship, got engaged, or got married. probably the latter two in our day and stage (and you probably start hearing yourself talk like an old person...). secondly, you start day dreaming with friends (and even just by yourself) even more about getting married and having babies, if there was ever such a thing for girls!! and then comes that last and final stage where i think shows that you're really in trouble, you start wondering when its going to be your turn to post on facebook that, (__person__) is engaged to (__person__) and then for no apparent reason you start getting angry at your other half wondering why the hell he hasn't been as romantic as so-and-so's boyfriend (but all this is kaput if you don't have a boyfriend to begin with, sorry to say).

its sad how fast life moves on without you. first thing, you find yourself yanked out of a warm liquid womb. then you're somewhere on the road trying to learn to drive the right way. then you're going to college and living the life. or so you thought until you get married and find your kids a pain in the butt. then you realize you're up there watching people cry over your wooden casket because you went away.

the story of life

three words: i want one

i'm sitting in the car with my grandma today and she asks me to take her to the hair salon, revealing a little secret at the same time.

Gma: i got yelled at last time since i asked your aunt to pick me up from the salon that time.

me: why?

Gma: because she (meaning boss lady) said that if i take the recreational bus there, i have to take it back. 

me: well, yeah. they're responsible for you. 

Gma: yeah. i wanted to take the bus to the hair salon today since the lady who yelled at me last time is going into the hospital for a surgery. it's her daughter on duty today and she's not as smart.

trust me. my eye brows were raised, but in an amused way. she didn't end up doing it by the way since i had a last minute dentist appointment that she accompanied me to. i love it. 

since i've graduated, the days have been good to me. don't get me wrong, job hunting is a full time job in and of itself but, the results are worth it. and sometimes when the results aren't as worth it, you've got to find some other stress-reliever outlets, and i really find that planting can do that for me.
so i've been planting with my other half lately and being the dork that i am, i feel the need to name our little patch of farm. but when i use our initials i get these really weird (to me) inklings in my head. if i use BK i think of burger king and KB reminds me of KB Toys. BCKW makes me think of bac-kaw! - you know, like a chicken. so for now, i've decided to let that go.
but other than having the problem of naming the real farm, we've had something else. a bear - we nicknamed the thing, bear. i think it's a gopher. i don't really know, i'm not the one who spots it every afternoon chomping on our flowers. so we've been looking online for ways to get rid of this bear and some of the ones that i've come across are really just weird.

TIP one:
stick a piece of gum in the hole. but they didn't say what kind of gum. so what if i put a fruity gum like that multilayer trident gum that people want to get paid with. heck, if people were choosing to feed me tasty gum i'd come back and eat it every day. i wouldn't mind some big red either.

TIP two:
bring a barn owl into your garden. at first when i saw this tip, i wondered where in the world you could buy barn owls. after all, we're not in harry potter world. but apparently you're supposed to attract them to your garden. by doing that, you'd have to bring in little garden snakes, mice/rats, birds, whatever else owls like to eat. and we were just thinking, we'll have enough animals by the time we lure the owl to the garden to make our own zoo...forget about the garden at that point!

TIP three:
use pest control. i understand that pest control can probably kill the gopher. but it can possibly kill the dog or any other domesticated animal. and it can kill us. so, never mind with this one.

TIP four:
dig trenches that are 18 to 24 inches deep then place hardware cloth in them. do they know how much digging you'd have to do to get to 18 to 24 inches?? considering that most normal people are usually using shovels and not heavy duty machinery. and what's to say that i can think like a gopher and predict that he'll dig where i've put my trench? i think at that rate, that trench will become where i will lay, thank you very much.

i personally think the strawberries have gotten to this size because they aren't juicy and red enough for the darn bear. 

i was taking a nature hike with my mother the other day and she was, you know, catching her breath and trying to talk to me at the same time. typical. so she starts talking about how young people (that's us) are now such bums and no one wants to get off their couches to do exercise. and she finally touches on someone specific in my life and says:

mom: [friend] is very athletic. he looks good.


i nod. not really knowing what else to say. i just want to keep walking and get out of the forest. i felt like i was on the set of LOST. but, she keeps talking...


mom: you know, i bet you [friend] can walk and run like a horse. 

me: ...i don't know what that means. 

no inspiration? yeah...that was pretty much the reason for the hiatus of this blog :) or rather, honestly, a lack of motivation to write. haha, but i'm trying. 

so, the newest thing i've learned since like, two days ago, is that there are multiple meanings to the word 'farmer's market.' that's right. when i thought it was universal, it wasn't. 

farmer's market one

scenario: various vendors of vegetables, fruits, flowers, jams, honey, etc. it's essentially a place where you can buy things for that night's dinner or the next morning's bread and jam. it's also a place where you can taste the freshest fruits and vegetables of that day's harvest from the farmers. 

diagnosis: this is what i think of when you tell me farmer's market. nothing else. 

farmer's market two

scenario: various vendors along a street with a mix of fruits, vegetables, and homemade craft items or scary looking dolls. this is where your mother bought your aunt that 'i-love-my-sister' picture frame with someone else's picture in it, or where your sister is begging your mother for that tacky looking bracelet made out of rocks someone found on the floor from texas. 

diagnosis: this is definitely a flea market to me. i don't know why it's named 'flea' instead of 'flee' because it would make more sense to me that these people would be trying to flee the cops because you know that someone in there somewhere is selling something someone else stole. 

farmer's market three

scenario: blow up castles, slides, obstacle courses crowd one end of the street and down the other end of the street are vendors that specialize in face painting, little knick-knacks someone definitely saved from countless mcdonald's kid's meal toys, popcorn, worms in dirt, an officer and his buddy teaching how to ride a bike with a helmet, etc. this place is usually swarmed with kids who are 9 and below with their parents. you're bound to hear a parent scream 'no shoes in the castle!!!'

diagnosis: i was recently tricked into going to this so called farmer's market, which prompted this post. this is not a farmer's market. this is a carnival, or something close to it. i'm 22. i don't want my face painted and i don't want a reflective snap on bracelet, which my mom actually got for me. it's bright yellow.