Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1105
Super Bowl, Rafa, Noah Kalina's Youtube, tractor time, pressure washing love, those weiner dog boot scraper thingies, REAL WILD CHILD flyer!
Good morning! Monday! Hello! Hi! It’s Me! What’s up? How are you? I am good, thanks. I was feeling super-smug this morning cuz I got Jane to school no problem, early even, and I overslept by about 30 minutes because of the Super Bowl. Jeez Louise. All my life I’ve wanted an over-time Super Bowl, and I finally get my wish now that I have to wake up at 6AM the next morning. Being on the West Coast makes the Super Bowl so much easier.
Oh wait before we get into that here is a flyer for REAL WILD CHILD. And the website is live if you click on that. It will link to the Insta and FB but those are not quite ready yet but you can follow them anyway. And make requests!
Anyway, congrats Kansas City and the commensurate entourage of celebrities. Do we think that private box with Beyoncé and Jay Z and Jack Dorsey in an absolutely indefensible Nirvana parody shirt that said Satoshi — do we think they were all rooting for the same team? Were they rooting for the 49ers? Did we see a single shot of them actually caring about the game? Was the indifference of his box-mates why Jack Dorsey looked so peevish the whole time?
I feel really, really bad for that dude who hurt his leg getting amped up and running onto the field to play. How mortifying.
And those dudes who had those turnovers, that was sad I feel bad for them too.
And that poor Wilfred Brimley who got body slammed by Taylor Swift’s boyfriend. I mean, you think you’re up on pop culture but WTF was Wilfred Brimley doing on the sidelines of the Super Bowl? Why was that big man so mad at him? Is that how he treats his girlfriend? Or was he just super puuuuuumped maaaaan.
And Taylor Swift introduced her boyfriend’s dad to Paul McCartney. That is weird.
And, once again, my desire for a safety was thwarted. I only really like football games with safeties in them. Well, or overtime, so that was cool. Oh! And trick plays my god I love trick plays and a trick play touchdown in a Super Bowl? Right up my alley.
And while we were all watching the Israelis bombed Rafah and killed like 67 people to rescue two people. True heroes.
I am listening to a hyper-literate folk album by a woman named Heather Eatman and it is somewhat distracting. It is hard to write GMHHAY along to verbose lyrics that I have not heard before. I get distracted.
Anyway (good word), like I said I was feeling all super-smug about getting Jane to school on time but then I got home and I realized I forgot to give her her Amoxacillin before school lol whoops. Now we gotta cram to doses into the 5 hours she’s home and awake after school. Sorry about that.
Okay! Let’s see! Weekend! It was awesome! Chores chores chores! Bob the neighbor came over with his tractor and we got all the Birdies Beds out of the garden at the main house and moved over to the new house. We also got all the dirt moved! Dirt is heavy. One tractor bucketfull of dirt weighs a little over 500 pounds. More after an evening of rain. 1600 pounds of dirt per truckload, five truckloads, plus a truckload of hügelkultur logs at the bottom of the beds.
Speaking of hügeklultur, here is what i learned about tree-trunks in the bottom of your Birdies Beds: after two years? Basically still a tree, with a little bit of sliminess on the more-or-less-broken-down tree bark.
But after five years? Well, you more or less got yourself a piece of dirt-wood. The thing will completely crumble in your hand, and the interior has changed color to the color of dirt. It is so fascinating. It really works! And there were so many happy worms and weird caterpillar pupae and whatnot. The underground is teeming with life, man. Fascinating stuff.
Also I did not put enough vermiculite and/or perlite into the middle strata of most of my beds and they turned into clay and it was very, very dense digging for a while there. One good thing about shoveling the dirt into the tractor bucket, then dumping it into the truck, then shoveling out, then shaping the giant dirt pile at the other house with the tractor bucket again is that all of the good dirt and clay-dirt got mixed up a lot, thus infusing the whole pile with more perlite and vermiculite for aeration. I’m gonna order like 50 gallons more of the stuff too. And, of course, this is just the dirt for the middle of the beds — the top will have some quality organic container mix.
I am so excited do this. I’ve been working up to this for six months. We are only one non-rainy weekend away from being done. Which looks like next weekend. SO EXCITING.
The tractor, truck, our boots, the fain, and the incredibly dark, rich soil were a perfect recipe to absolutely cake both driveways in an inch thick of mud. So after we were done with the entire task, after a second day of working, I spent the rest of Sunday afternoon pressure washing both driveways. And my god: look we are giving McArthur genius grants to the wrong people. The real geniuses of the world are people who get into the pressure washing business. Are you a simpleton who likes simple work and no drama? Pressure washing. Are you a tortured genius whose brain can’t stop running a million miles an hour and you need to find some calming activity to even function? Pressure washing. It is the best. And don’t tell me they couldn’t use the money from a McArthur grant. Every pressure washing entrepreneur needs a sweet Tacoma with a sign silk-screened onto the side and if you are even 2% into the world pressure washing, you will know the cardinal rule: there is always a more powerful pressure washer to obtain.
When people ask “if you could be in a different career what would it be?” I always used to say “dishwashing” but I hereby change my answer: my new answer is pressure washing. Just as zen, less smelly, you get to be outdoors, no timesheets, and no one will stop you from listening to your music.
Don’t get to share tips with hotties, though. That is a drawback.
Let’s see… other than that… Walmart we already talked about. Jane and did a few errands Saturday, went to the hardware store and to get Emma a present. We did a couple game sessions where Jane played the Lego Movie game on the XBox while I played Civ on my laptop. Family that games together stays together dontchaknow.
Most of my Youtube friends seem to be taking February off, which is sad. But I did discover Noah Kalina’s Youtube and it is just great. Noah is a great photographer. We’ve never met, but we have like ten billion mutual friends and people are always like “oh you gotta meet Noah he’s great” but we both live in different woods in different states so unless there’s some sort of convention for bearded ex-tech recluses living in the woods (my god, what a convention ‘twoud be), I doubt we’ll ever meet at this point. But anyway, his video channel seems to be a GMHHAY spiritual kin in video form: at one point he goes off on a long discourse about how the sun is warping his cutting mats, and all the absurd lengths he has gone to try and get them re-flattened, to the extent of taking them to a framing shop to be be re-pressed and let me tell you, I am here for it. Our senses of humor are different but aligned and it is all very relaxing. A+ video content.
Final thought of the day: what is the deal with those weiner dog boot scrapers? I’ve been tracking mud into the garage from all this outdoor work. I have a pretty good system now of leaving my shoes outside before coming in, but it’s imperfect. And obviously I need those boot brush things you put by the side of the door and I have a bunch in my cart. But also when I was a kid I had one of those cast iron weiner dog boot scrapers and I loved it, so I figured I’d indulge my childhood nostalgia and buy one. And the things are absolutely everywhere on the internet for, like, no money. A zillion manufacturers. They’re $25 or less on Amazon for a probably-imported-one from China and $100 or more for a “vintage” one on eBay. All the ones on Amazon look exactly the same because they are clearly all drop-shipped from Alibaba but the ones on eBay have a surprising variety of designs.
Where did these things come from? Why are there no other animals besides weiner dogs? Is there some expert out there on this topic? Has there been a doctoral dissertation? I suddenly need to know everything about these things.
And I absolutely need one. Maybe two. But I need the right one. I want to become a weiner dog boot scraper aesthete.
Did any of you have one as a kid?
It’s funny how when you stop trying to do a playlist every weekday, suddenly doing a playlist every day is a lot easier. It’s like those people who get pregnant after stopping trying, I guess. Yeah. Exactly like that. Anyway here is a new entry into the famed “W Hotel Lobby in a Better, Alternate Universe” series. I still do not have a job programming music in W Hotel lobbies and it makes me sad. And actually you know what? I haven’t even been to a W Hotel lobby in like ten years now. Who knows! Maybe they’re good now. Except I know they’re not cuz you guys send me field recordings, which is just amazing.
Oh and the music is pretty good to. New Shabazz Palaces does not reach the heights of “Bad Bitch Walking,” which really gets under your skin, but it’s god.
What a day, what a Monday. I hope you’re feeling right as rain. Till tomorrow.