Subject: ROBERTS' RULES:CHORES
From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 19:25:33 +0000

From:                 Self <shellyr>
To:               ME
Subject:          ROBERTS'
BCC to:           @LIST3381.PML
Date sent:        Tue, 25 Feb 1997 19:06:27

EDITORS AND READERS:

This column may not appear anywhere without the copyright notice, and
identification lines at the bottom. It may be non-commercially
reprinted without change and only in its entirety without prior
permission.  Commercial reprint requires written permissiona and
involves a fee.  To make commercial reprint arrangements, please email
[email-masked]. The last lines of the column, containing author
and copyright information, must appear with any reprint.

####################################################

ROBERTS' RULES
by 
Shelly Roberts

OH NOT MUCH, JUST A COUPLE OF CHORES.

Jude and I played in the mud this  weekend. We pulled out the
centerstrip between our two driveways. That is, we pulled out all the
messy orange flowers that we planted first before jude got into her
purpleand pink flower theme everywhere else in the yard. Now as you
know, roberts 58th rule of the universe, right after "no good deed
shall go unpunished." is:

              There is no such thing as an easy little job.

There were, when we got here six years ago, four ten foot long 4x4's
lining this center strip.  Once they may have been set into the earth,
but the huge  bischoffia  tree roots -or destiny  -moved them onto the
drive way... as kind of heavy floating car- targets.  Yearly they
turned green and needed washing with a pressure cleaner. Yearly I
vowed to replace them with something else.

Three hundred years ago at some price barn, we bought a bag of
wildflower carpet, and vaguely thought they might look interesting in
the center strip.  So this was the morning to pull the orange
thingees, scatter the pink stuff in the bag, water it in, and wait for
our caribbean festival.  

First, the orange thingees had nested.  A not-so-neat matrix of roots
and shoots that required a pitchfork. Then there is this root, see.
Can't use the chain saw, cuz the root is buried in dirt which isn't, I
don't think, all that swell on the chain saw.   Well, the keyhole saw
only cost 75 cents at a yard sale, so what's the sacrifice?  Then with
a sledge hammer and a cold chisel and only one hour and twenty two
minutes later, the root crowding the edge so the brick thingee won't
go in, is out. 

So it's off to home depot...or as I call it,  home despot, since I
never ever get out of the place for under a hundred dollars.
 (there is an unwritten rule that it is okay to go to home depot in
 things that homeless people wouldn't be buried in, as long as you are
 in mid-project, and wear either a back brace or a leather carpenter's
 pouch. These things make you invisible to real people, and afford
 sympathetic acknowledgement from others so attired)

So off I go for two foot long, white, thin, brick thingees ( a
technical term) to replace the mossy beams.  And hey, why not some
scalloped heavier two foot long brickee thingees for the area owned by
the aperagus ferns at the perpendicular end of the drive... and might
as well pick up half a dozen varigated liarope grass pots to put along
the fence to replace the out of control asperagus eyesores.

Then, of course, it starts to rain.  Lightly.  So it feels good on
this overheated overworking body.  Oh-oh.  We're two white brick
thingees shy. Back to home depot in the rain while jude does some more
root canal on the aperagus furns, which put the cia and several
women's groups I know to shame when it comes to underground
networking.  We ain't anywhere near scattering spring wildflower seeds
yet.

We go on like this till saturday is just a ben-gay memory. The rain is
light but the ground is mildly muddy.  I am (whatever the opposite of
mildly is) muddy.  Jude's garden "tan" is approaching qualifying her
for affirmative action positions if there were any left. 

So sunday.

More of the same.  And a trip to home depot to buy the 
undercalculated brick scalopee thingees, to buy a boy's toy to take
out the next set of interfering roots from the bischoffia tree (to
whom I apologized profusely while continuing to cut). $18 for a razor
toothed prunning saw that did the job in 3.67 minutes and didn't mind
getting muddy.  

Finally all the white brick trim was in and looking very neat.  We
left one two foot fan palm in the middle of the strip, surrounded it
with broken popcorn brick pieces to simulate a circle, I set some
stepping stones in the two and a half foot wide strip just behind
where the caddy's front door would be if we always hit the car-parking
mark, and ripped open the bag of wildflower promises that got us into
this "quick little job" in the first place.  The stuff is embedded in
pinky-mauve paper batting and chopped up old Marlboro packs.

 We spread it festively the entire length of the strip, except where
 the fan palm and step stones were, watered it in heavily, and felt
 the first serious raindrops.  We were able to get most of the garden
 tools and dissolvables inside before the deluge, and prayed our
 handiwork wasn't washing away. 

Then a hosing down, and 15 minutes each in the massage thingee I
bought jude for xmas with personal ulterior motives, whipped up a
melenge (that's martha stewart for casserole) of pork, old broccoli,
two leftover kinds of couscous, sun-dried tomatoes and anything else I
could find to add to this mulegatawnny.  I nearly had enough strength
to pick up the tom clancy I finally gave myself permission to read. It
is 804 pages in 6 point type and weighs about as much as one of those
white brick driveway liners. 

Other than that, not much this weekend.  And you?

Oh, yeah, we'll let you know when we get wildflowers.

And you wondered what lesbians DO?
________________________
(C) 1997. Shelly Roberts. All rights reserved.
May be commercially reprinted only in its entirety with written
permission.

Shelly Roberts is an internationally syndicated columnist, and the
author of the #1 best-selling Roberts' Rules of Lesbian Living.
(Spinsters Ink.) 

From:                 Self <shellyr>
To:               ME
Subject:          ROBERTS'
BCC to:           @LIST3381.PML
Date sent:        Tue, 25 Feb 1997 19:06:27

EDITORS AND READERS:

This column may not appear anywhere without the copyright notice, and
identification lines at the bottom. It may be non-commercially
reprinted without change and only in its entirety without prior
permission.  Commercial reprint requires written permissiona and
involves a fee.  To make commercial reprint arrangements, please email
[email-masked]. The last lines of the column, containing author
and copyright information, must appear with any reprint.

####################################################

ROBERTS' RULES
by 
Shelly Roberts

OH NOT MUCH, JUST A COUPLE OF CHORES.

Jude and I played in the mud this  weekend. We pulled out the
centerstrip between our two driveways. That is, we pulled out all the
messy orange flowers that we planted first before jude got into her
purpleand pink flower theme everywhere else in the yard. Now as you
know, roberts 58th rule of the universe, right after "no good deed
shall go unpunished." is:

              There is no such thing as an easy little job.

There were, when we got here six years ago, four ten foot long 4x4's
lining this center strip.  Once they may have been set into the earth,
but the huge  bischoffia  tree roots -or destiny  -moved them onto the
drive way... as kind of heavy floating car- targets.  Yearly they
turned green and needed washing with a pressure cleaner. Yearly I
vowed to replace them with something else.

Three hundred years ago at some price barn, we bought a bag of
wildflower carpet, and vaguely thought they might look interesting in
the center strip.  So this was the morning to pull the orange
thingees, scatter the pink stuff in the bag, water it in, and wait for
our caribbean festival.  

First, the orange thingees had nested.  A not-so-neat matrix of roots
and shoots that required a pitchfork. Then there is this root, see.
Can't use the chain saw, cuz the root is buried in dirt which isn't, I
don't think, all that swell on the chain saw.   Well, the keyhole saw
only cost 75 cents at a yard sale, so what's the sacrifice?  Then with
a sledge hammer and a cold chisel and only one hour and twenty two
minutes later, the root crowding the edge so the brick thingee won't
go in, is out. 

So it's off to home depot...or as I call it,  home despot, since I
never ever get out of the place for under a hundred dollars.
 (there is an unwritten rule that it is okay to go to home depot in
 things that homeless people wouldn't be buried in, as long as you are
 in mid-project, and wear either a back brace or a leather carpenter's
 pouch. These things make you invisible to real people, and afford
 sympathetic acknowledgement from others so attired)

So off I go for two foot long, white, thin, brick thingees ( a
technical term) to replace the mossy beams.  And hey, why not some
scalloped heavier two foot long brickee thingees for the area owned by
the aperagus ferns at the perpendicular end of the drive... and might
as well pick up half a dozen varigated liarope grass pots to put along
the fence to replace the out of control asperagus eyesores.

Then, of course, it starts to rain.  Lightly.  So it feels good on
this overheated overworking body.  Oh-oh.  We're two white brick
thingees shy. Back to home depot in the rain while jude does some more
root canal on the aperagus furns, which put the cia and several
women's groups I know to shame when it comes to underground
networking.  We ain't anywhere near scattering spring wildflower seeds
yet.

We go on like this till saturday is just a ben-gay memory. The rain is
light but the ground is mildly muddy.  I am (whatever the opposite of
mildly is) muddy.  Jude's garden "tan" is approaching qualifying her
for affirmative action positions if there were any left. 

So sunday.

More of the same.  And a trip to home depot to buy the 
undercalculated brick scalopee thingees, to buy a boy's toy to take
out the next set of interfering roots from the bischoffia tree (to
whom I apologized profusely while continuing to cut). $18 for a razor
toothed prunning saw that did the job in 3.67 minutes and didn't mind
getting muddy.  

Finally all the white brick trim was in and looking very neat.  We
left one two foot fan palm in the middle of the strip, surrounded it
with broken popcorn brick pieces to simulate a circle, I set some
stepping stones in the two and a half foot wide strip just behind
where the caddy's front door would be if we always hit the car-parking
mark, and ripped open the bag of wildflower promises that got us into
this "quick little job" in the first place.  The stuff is embedded in
pinky-mauve paper batting and chopped up old Marlboro packs.

 We spread it festively the entire length of the strip, except where
 the fan palm and step stones were, watered it in heavily, and felt
 the first serious raindrops.  We were able to get most of the garden
 tools and dissolvables inside before the deluge, and prayed our
 handiwork wasn't washing away. 

Then a hosing down, and 15 minutes each in the massage thingee I
bought jude for xmas with personal ulterior motives, whipped up a
melenge (that's martha stewart for casserole) of pork, old broccoli,
two leftover kinds of couscous, sun-dried tomatoes and anything else I
could find to add to this mulegatawnny.  I nearly had enough strength
to pick up the tom clancy I finally gave myself permission to read. It
is 804 pages in 6 point type and weighs about as much as one of those
white brick driveway liners. 

Other than that, not much this weekend.  And you?

Oh, yeah, we'll let you know when we get wildflowers.

And you wondered what lesbians DO?
________________________
(C) 1997. Shelly Roberts. All rights reserved.
May be commercially reprinted only in its entirety with written
permission.

Shelly Roberts is an internationally syndicated columnist, and the
author of the #1 best-selling Roberts' Rules of Lesbian Living.
(Spinsters Ink.)