Me and my Aerogardens: a love story

I am the proud owner of not one but TWO (2!) Aerogardens. "What in all the five hells is an Aerogarden?" you ask? It is an indoor hydroponic plant grower thing that uses UV lights on a timer and a water pump to grow plants for you if you suck magnificently at growing them yourself in a pot like a normal person. Which I do. Hence the collection of Aerogardens.

I bought myself one for my birthday last October, and swiftly planted a bunch of herbs in it. I checked it constantly to see if the herbs were sprouting, and danced with excitement when they started to grow happy little leaves. You see, I have no green thumb -- I have the black thumb of death. There is no plant that I cannot kill. I once bought a little flowering plant from the grocery store and killed it within days. I even murdered a cactus. I didn't know that was a thing that you could do. But you can. I did it.

The second Aerogarden was a Christmas present from Jesse. I was so happy with how my herbs were coming along that I wanted to grow some nice pretty flowers in the house as well. What could go wrong?

So much. So much could go wrong.



I planted the flower garden in early January. This necessitated the moving of the herb garden from its position of prominence just outside the kitchen to a quiet corner of the dining room. No sooner had we planted the flower garden, though, than we encountered our first problem: the pump that runs the water supply through the thing was LOUD AS SHIT. It runs all the time, and is nearly as noisy as a microwave that is currently heating something. What the hell. The herb garden never had this problem.

So Jesse calls the Aerogarden customer service and they send us a new bottom piece with a new pump. It arrives. We set it up. It is just as loud, except maybe it was louder.

Then, a friend with some knowledge of gardening comes over to our house and, upon inspecting my placement of the various flower seed pods, basically tells me that a mentally retarded blind baboon could have done a better job. I had tall plants growing on top of short plants, bushy plants jammed in next to gentle spirits that wouldn't stand a chance growing in the shadow of their bully neighbors ... so we started moving all the little pods around into a better layout. Even though the plants had already sprouted and had pretty decent roots growing down in the water tank. It was easy enough to move them -- just lift the pods out of their holes like little eyeballs and pull until the dripping eyeball-nerves (the roots) made it all the way out. Then guide the eyeball-nerves into a different hole and carefully slip them all in until you could lock the eyeball pod back into place.

Oh, and then the "lights" button broke.

See, the lights run on a timer -- 16 hours on, 8 hours off. You can set what time you want them to go on and off each day, which is really convenient when the garden is, say, directly behind a television that you like to watch during the evenings. So I tried to set it by holding down the "lights" button until it blinked, but instead it just got stuck in the pushed position and never unpushed, so I can't adjust the light timer. If you're planning on staying at our house and end up sleeping on the couch in the living room, I hope you don't mind a light as bright as THE SUN that stays on until roughly 3AM while a pump as loud as a microwave runs constantly ten feet from your head.

But then the snapdragons started to bloom. Ah, those beautiful snapdragons! I was so happy to see their flash of color. This is why I wanted this thing in the first place! This is what it was all about!

About a week later, F**K THOSE F**KING SNAPDRAGONS. ASSHOLES.

They grew so fast that they choked off all the lavender I was trying to grow. Then they choked off the flowering lavender viola. Then they crowded out the pansies. The only plant strong enough to hold its own against the mighty snapdragons were the two coleus plants growing in the corners. Oh, in case you were planning planting some coleus in your garden, DON'T. They are ugly as all hell and their giant leaves will happily be accessories to the murder of your lavender and pansies.

Also, its hobbies include first-degree murder.

As my frustrations with the flower garden grew, so did my frustrations with my herb garden. You see, bullies were developing over there as well. The globe basil grew into such a mighty bush that the thyme, which had been thriving, finally gave up and died in despair. The genovese basil bravely tried to hold its own, but it grew steadily weaker. The lemon basil and dill, perhaps yearning for a larger life than the one they were currently living, grew desperately upwards and into the UV lightbulbs, where they singed and became useless. I eventually gave up on them and pulled the eyeball-pods out, stuffing them angrily into a trash can because WHY ARE YOU TOO GOOD FOR MY GARDEN, DILL AND LEMON BASIL? WHY THE F**K ARE YOU TOO GOOD FOR MY GARDEN?

I was left with only my globe basil to console me. And it did its best. With no other herbs competing for resources, the globe basil started to grow faster and fuller than an old woman's pubic jungle. I had to trim that beast a minimum of 4 times per week if I wanted to keep it under control. It would drink up the entire volume of the water reservoir in a day or two -- a full gallon of water, down the hatch. I stopped even trimming it carefully, and instead would grab great handfuls of basil and hack at them with a dull pair of scissors, like a maniac giving a haircut to a lunatic.

We ate basil on everything. EVERYTHING. I did not make a single food product that didn't contain at least a little bit of the stuff. Pesto, tomato-pesto, pineapple-basil-salsa, you name it. It was madness.

I was reaching my breaking point. I didn't have the time or the patience to spend ten minutes cutting basil four times a week. I would always do it in the morning before work, and 100% of the time, it would take longer than I thought and I would be running terribly late for work. Every time I refilled that stupid gallon jug to feed the beast, I became angry and resentful. It was time for the globe basil to go.

If the globe basil were human, it would look like this.

So I went to Wal-Mart and bought some little earthenware pots and a big bag of potting soil. And one fine day over Easter weekend, Jesse and I carefully planted both the globe basil and the wheezing, gasping near-corpse of the genovese basil in pots outside.

The genovese basil was dead by the end of the day. And the globe basil? Well, one day it rained and then the wind blew and the stupid giant bush was so top-heavy that it fell over and spilled everywhere. I still haven't cleaned it up, because f**k that f**king globe basil. Let it rot. LET IT ROT.

Meanwhile, back in flower land, the snapdragons got bored after murdering every other flower in the garden, so they started to die as well. So I got mad, unplugged the garden, and stuffed all the plants into a trash bag.

THE END.

Oh, but if you're looking for a great gift idea, may I recommend the Aerogarden? They're great! I replanted both of mine this weekend and I just can't wait for them to start sprouting!!! I'll be sure to keep you all updated on how they're doing! Oh boy oh boy!

Jesse's side of the closet: A journey into my husband's mind

This past weekend, I decided it was time to make sense of our closet. It is enormous -- I mean almost as big as a bedroom enormous -- and we never really organized it properly after we moved in. Now it's been six months and it's just a damn big mess.

It took me all of an hour and a half to tidy up my side of things and put a bunch of Halloween costumes and other random crap into plastic bins. Then, it was time to work on Jesse's side. You see, Jesse has been out of town and I wanted to get through his side without him there, because I'm sure he'd be looking over my shoulder complaining, criticizing, and generally getting in my way (and in answer to the question of "why doesn't he just do it himself?" the answer is both "ha!" and "then I'd be over his shoulder complaining, criticizing, and generally getting in his way too" so you see that just wouldn't work at all). 

This task required absolute concentration. (I waited until he was back home to tell you he was gone because I didn't want you thinking you could break into my house in the middle of the night and drink my chocolate milk just because Jesse wasn't there to shoot you. I am there to shoot you. It's MY chocolate milk!)

Here are a few noteworthy observations and challenges I faced over the course of this little adventure:

1

Total dresser anarchy

I keep my clothing organized. Every drawer I have houses clothing that can be put into the same category, whether it be "pants", "workout stuff", or "short-sleeved shirts." Within those drawers, I even try to put same-colored items close together for ease in finding them later. I consider this to be pretty standard behavior.

Jesse's dresser? Madness. 

I had to organize the dresser first, because it was absolutely surrounded by loose clothing and there was no way of knowing what should/could go into the dresser until I had figured out his system of organizing what goes into which drawers.

And it turns out that there is no system.

The top row has two small drawers next to each other, which I assumed would be divided between socks and underwear, because duh. 

Nope. In each drawer I found a selection of socks, exercise shorts, and regular-old non-underwear t-shirts. In many cases, the socks were not matched, but were rather split between the drawers, with one sock in each. Because, you know ... convenience. I can understand dividing socks up by type -- perhaps having work socks in one drawer and exercise socks in another. But having right socks in one drawer and left socks in another? That is insane.

In further drawers, my odyssey into my husband's mind became more and more confusing and interesting. There were shirts I knew he had been missing, jammed into the back of what seemed like a pants drawer except that it was actually 50% pants and 50% other stuff (but since 50% any one thing was about as good as we were going to get in this dresser, it was determined to be a pants drawer). There were gloves. So many gloves. So many single, unmatched gloves. I eventually found most of their mates -- in different drawers, naturally. One of them I found inside a sweatshirt in the pants drawer. I don't know.

2

The decision of what to hang up versus what to put in the dresser

Jesse is notoriously bad about putting his clothes away after they're washed and folded. Now that I've seen the chaos that is the inside of his dresser, I understand his trepidation. Nobody has the kind of time it would take to find anything in there. It would take him hours to get ready to leave the house for any reason, and even then he'd probably only be wearing one glove.

The result of this is that his side of the closet features an endless variety of t-shirts on hangers. Why? Why do t-shirts need to be on hangers? I generally hang up things that either take up a lot of space or will wrinkle in drawers -- and t-shirts do not fit the bill. 

Jesse hangs up things he'd like to be able to find later. If that means jeans and t-shirts get hangers while everything else he owns -- things like collared button-down shirts and dress pants -- is strewn about the floor, then so be it. Should he be seeing a therapist or something? Are these all warning signs of a man on the brink of coming unglued??

3

The Army stuff, my god, the Army stuff

One of the results of being in the military for many years is that you acquire a whole hell of a lot of military-issued stuff. Necessary stuff, unnecessary stuff, totally useless stuff that you will suddenly desperately need RIGHT NOW AND OH MY GOD WHERE IS MY PT BELT AND I CAN'T FIND MY OTHER WHITE SOCK CAN I BORROW ONE OF YOUR SOCKS THIS IS AN EMERGENCY ... lots of stuff. And if you're Jesse, then that stuff will never really be kept in one central convenient location. Because ... okay, he can't even get right and left socks into the same drawer. Lower your expectations.

One of the most daunting parts of organizing this closet is figuring out the Army stuff, and what needs to go into bins for occasional use versus what needs to stay out and easily accessible. I take my role as wife seriously, and part of that role is always knowing the location of everything my husband owns. When he suddenly needed his beret and couldn't find it, was it him that remembered seeing it in the corner of the closet stuffed with a wig, some garbage, and a pair of novelty 2011 spectacles? No, of course not. It was me.

So the Army stuff is everywhere, and it needs to not be everywhere. But Jesse needs to be able to find things when he needs them, preferably not by dumping out the contents of three enormous duffel bags all over our bedroom ("That Kevlar helmet has GOT to be in one of these bags!!!"). 

(No Jesse; the Kevlar helmet is in the living room under the snake tank with an MRE and a bottle of Elmer's white glue in it. This is our home. This is how we live.)

4

Keeping the chaos from returning

The real fear I have is that I'll do all this work to reorganize things, but it will just go right back to chaos once Jesse gets his hands back on it. How to avoid this? A few ideas:

- Label the drawers of the dresser. Example: Pants. This drawer is only for pants. Is that a shirt you're holding? Then it doesn't go in this drawer. I don't care if the shirts drawer is full. Maybe that means you have too many shirts and should go through them and put a few into the Goodwill bin. I mean seriously, how many shirts does a man need? Especially a man who wears a uniform to work every day??! Good grief. It's like I live with Kim Kardashian.

- Put his clothes away for him. This is not the ideal solution, but I may not have a choice. I already wash and fold the laundry (Jesse was banned from washing anything other than his own uniforms because he always runs the washer half-empty and wastes water while leaving the laundry bin full. He was banned from folding laundry after I watched him spend a full minute trying to fold a thong. Plus he folds shirts all weird). Is it really such a big step to also put his clothes away in their proper locations? It would probably take an extra thirty seconds at most, and soon I'll be washing and putting away baby's clothes anyway. I might as well just become the Family Laundry Fairy.

5

Learning to accept the inevitable

I knew Jesse was a disorganized mess before I married him. I knew how he likes to leave his shoes everywhere, and how clean laundry never gets put away properly, and how drawers get filled to bursting and then are never opened again because the shirts are all stuck so the drawer is a pain to open and close so eff it, might as well just write off everything in there. 

I may just have to deal with a messy closet forever. But at least I've got a happy life with a man I love, a lovely home, an awesome family and a baby on the way. I don't have much to complain about, really.




Oh f**k it. I'm just going to start putting his clothes away for him. Because if I trip over one more shoe, I swear I'm just going to f**king kill someone.

Terrible Movie Reviews: Con Air

Con Air is easily among the worst movies ever made. It stars a bunch of people I hate, badly acting their way through the stupidest plot in cinema history.

Con Air is the story of some prisoners who escape from an airplane. But it's also a beautiful story of justice and honor and doing the right thing even when it's hard. Probably.

It stars my old favorite friend Nicolas Cage, who plays a former Army Ranger who goes to jail for using excessive force to subdue someone who was attacking his pregnant wife. Because if there's one thing juries in this country love to do, it's send military veterans to jail for defending their pregnant wives against drunken attackers. Happens all the time. Totally feasible.

Naturally, I had this picture saved already, as it shows up in every post I write that involves Nicolas Cage.

It is important to note, however, that in this movie, he looks like even more of a f**king jackass than usual:

Pictured: enormous jackass.

So anyway, there's poor Nic Cage sitting in jail and thinking about how excited he is to get out and meet his kid, who was born while he was in jail. Lucky for him, he will be getting released soon! Specifically, he will be released just as soon as a plane can fly him and a bunch of other prisoners to Alabama. GEE, I HOPE NOTHING BAD HAPPENS ON THAT FLIGHT ....... (foreshadowing -- something bad is going to happen!!!!!!!!)

That plane looks pretty sinister, though ...

Nic Cage is, of course, not alone on that flight. There are a bunch of other bad guys too, including uber-bad-guy John Malkovich. 

John Malkovich then manages to hijack the plane after takeoff and kills a DEA agent who is on board pretending to be a prisoner for some reason. Then they go to Carson City and offload the guards and pilot, taking on some additional prisoners including the drug lord who apparently masterminded the entire plot.

But Nic Cage isn't about to let these bad guys get away with it. He adopts a brilliant strategy of trying to tell the authorities what John Malkovich's plan is while also making Malkie think he's on their side. Most of his brilliant strategy involves planting clues on dead bodies, including Dave Chappelle who is dropped out of the airplane and splats in the middle of Fresno, CA. Classy.

The authorities totally get all Nic's clues on the dead bodies so they head to some random airfield where the plane is supposed to land next. The plane sort of crash-lands there and all hell breaks loose, but not nearly as badly as the next time they crash-land (yeah, it happens twice), conveniently RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE F**KING STRIP IN LAS VEGAS. Their plane literally enters the lobby of the Sands. Y'know, because ... that's awesome.

Check out this sweet CGI:

Then the bad guys get killed/escape and get killed in really gruesome ways, and stupid Nic Cage gets home to his wife and kid. But by that point you've driven a screwdriver through your brain so what difference does it make?