I'm Steve the LLamabutcher, and I'm an idiot

The end of last week was one of those rare eclipses when both Robbo and I are both blog incommunicado at the same time. My excuse--or what I'm going to pass of as one--was that the end of last week was when the lid finally blew off the crapper at work. It's been building since the summer, and, to be perfectly honest, I'm glad it's finally past and I can get on with things.

In that vein, tomorrow morning I'm having a meeting---it's not an interview, but could possibly turn into one---with a guy who my wife used to work for who I have tremendous respect for as a leader. The agenda is to talk a career change and how to pull it off. I'll let you know what transpires.

The weekend was good around Rancho non-Sequitor: it was the first weekend since three kings back in early January that nobody was flat on their back sick, and neither The Dear One or I had to do any office-type work. Fun and early spring frivolity reigned, as well as Phase One of Spring Cleaning 06 upstairs, and the first walk through of the gardens.

Starting a new tradition, I made my Burpee order during the Daytona 500, and while the plants (mostly veggies) will come after the frost date, the seeds showed up last week. I'm working on some drawings for what I'd like to do in the backyard. I've got a handle on the vegetables: we have an about 15 X 20 plot in the backyard that's been worked now for about 5-6 years. We didn't get the early spring crop in last year for some different family related reasons, but we spaded and mulched it over in the fall so it's good to go for this year. We have the heavy Virginia red clay, and so we've been improving the soil each year with big bags of compost, mulch, some sand, kitchen scraps, shredded paper, bags of worms bought at the bait shop for a buck, and, of course, the bodies of my enemies. We're tomato heavy---no pretense to a balanced garden, we grow a lot of tomatos of different varieties, bell peppers, beans, and in a side border garden squashes of different varieties. This year we are putting in a large pumpkin patch in the back corner for laughs (and also so I don't have to cut it).

The big leap for me this year is to jump with both feet into the realm of flower gardening. Now, I realize this is Robbo's area of expertise, and so want to as much as possible mooch, leach, and plagiarize from him. What I need to get a feel for are the different variables and how they fit together. I'm a pretty darn good cook, and part of the secret is understanding how different things taste together so you can improvise and get a feel for what the food is trying to be. For flower gardening, I'm not their yet at all---I'm still quite intimidated by the issue of spacing and placement. However, this year I'm just going to plunge in and see what happens. Fortunately, The Dear One has claimed sovereignty over the front yard garden, so whatever creations I come up with will be spared from our neighbors.

TAKE A COUPLE OF DAYS OFF AND WHAT DO I MISS? X-Donk's tribute to Lea Thompson. Meow.

She's no Elisabeth Shue, but hey, who is?