A double-wide by any other name...

In an ongoing attempt at developing my domestic side, or at the very least feigning domesticity, I've taken up a few gardening projects. Don't get me wrong. I'm not striving for the June Cleaver-brand of domesticity. Although there is something strangely attractive about the idea of enough stamina to greet your husband at the end of the day with slippers, a Manhattan and your highest pair of pumps. Nope, not gonna happen at the Miller household. I can barely find the time to thaw the ground turkey and change out of my sweatpants. Actually they're just stretchy pants. I would hate to have you thinking of me running around the house in those archaic pants whose elastic hits you at all the right places to immediately transform you into the Michelin Tire Man. And they're always grey, so then you look like the Michelin Tire Man who has just run through a gutter full of slush. Not pretty.

Anyway, I'm working on another plan. I'm shooting to be the antithesis of Roseanne. Let's break this down. Any woman (or man for that matter) can simultaneously zap their kids with snarky comments while wiping bacon grease from her tub-o'-lard husband's chin. Okay, I take that back. Men have the snarky comments down, but anything involving the wiping of bodily fluids (or bacon grease) tends to fall on the woman's list of duties -- at least at my house. So, to be Roseanne? Easy. Gain 50-60 lbs., find some Michelin Tire Man pants, raise my voice 3 octaves to replicate that grating whine, and move into a double-wide.

I know it wasn't a double-wide, but come on. Doesn't it seem like a trailer with jaundiced grass growing up around the edges would be much more fitting? Answer me this. What is it with the window boxes on trailers? Do people really think that filling window boxes with plastic poinsettias that blow over in the wind makes their portable metal box more attractive? If I was king for a day, I would outlaw plastic flowers from the decorating canon. No one believes those are real, people! And why can't they invent some dyes that come evenly remotely close to replicating nature's bounty. Those Day-Glo daisies should be accessories in Breakin' 2 - Electric Boogaloo (yes, I did see that movie 3 times thanks to my brother's West Sy-eeedah rap phase!). They do not belong in a planter box anywhere on this planet!

Back to the plan. Marriage counseling could become obsolete. All you need is this simple plan. In order to create a life of domestic bliss, shoot to be the exact opposite of Roseanne, the character and the real-life entity. Should save us from many botched national anthems and a load of money on plastic pansies.

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Here are the gardening efforts that started all this ranting:


My herb garden

Complete with mint, parsley, rosemary, basil, sage and thyme. My only personal Simon & Garfunkel pot. I'm still trying to find some recipes that use fresh sage. Right now the only use I know of is to dry bundles to use as hallucinogenic incense like the Native Americans. That's where the Catholics went wrong. They've got the incense part, but Christian piety disallows the hallucinogenic part. All the stench and none of the fun. So I'm open to any good ideas for sage.

And the second one. Weird angle, I know, but I couldn't get the whole planter bed in the shot. By July this should be in full bloom with purples, yellows and whites.


Look out all you landscape designers!