Toiling Tina Takes on More than She Can Munch, er, Mulch

"Oh, fuck!" I heard it distinctly as I raked soil and mulch back onto the first mound in the front yard. It was a low hissing voice. Movement caught my eye.

Yup, it was Snakey above, moving away from the rake and expressing his displeasure. He is brown with yellow stripes. The picture is deceptive with no size ratio: he's only about pencil size. Because any of you who know me, know that I have an inordinate fear of snakes. But he's so small, I figured I could out slither him.

Of course, I'm thinking, 'Is he poisonous? What if he's a baby -- where's his mother?' Not knowing the answers to any of these questions, and feeling pretty tired from my hour and a half of weeding, digging, laying landscaping cloth and putting the soil and mulch back, I quietly picked up my tools and packed it in. So my efforts, while vigorous, don't show much progress.

Before

After

Yes, it's true: the weeds LOVE my soil/mulch mixture. I've got to get some real plants that will come up by themselves. There is 3/4 of this mound left and the other whole mound to the right and behind this one. Sigh.

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Thursday's Sammy Awards were great. The cocktail hour was held at the Mead Art Gallery at Amherst College. What a wonderful setting! At one point during set up, I wandered into one room where I spotted a Monet that I had never seen. I was enthralled. I will have to go back soon. 

Lisa, Sharon and I

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Sunday

Yes, I did shopping and cooking yesterday. You're used to that. I also washed the kitchen floor, which I just dripped meat juice on. Sigh. I'm waiting for some cauliflower to cook to go with my broiled London broil. I've got another quiche and stuffed peppers in the oven. The bacon is cooked. (This is just today's stuff.) I'm set for lunches and dinners for the week.

I went to Aldis today to buy some bacon and half and half. The eggs are 69 cents a dozen!! It's a special. Eggs are almost $3.00 at Stop and Shop where I was yesterday. Glad I bought them at Aldis.

So I went to church like a good girl. I come out and there is so much bird splatter on my side window -- I really think it was a cow that flew over my car.  It was feces brown and white ... gross.

I didn't want to go to the car wash because it's raining off and on and supposed to rain all week. So I kept dousing it with a watering can. Wow.

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I just saw the best movie! It's called "The First Monday in May."  

[Guess who just burnt the cauliflower and set off the smoke detector? I should know better than to blog while cooking.]

Anyway, the movie is about the Chinese Fashion Exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There is a big debate as to whether fashion is art, but if you see the display pieces in this movie, there will be no question in your mind that these fashion pieces are art.

The curator of the Chinese artifacts section of the Museum worked closely with Andrew, a fashion curator whose ideas created the exhibit of fashion intermingled with Chinese art. The fashion was designers' ideas of China, not necessarily fact.

Ann Minotaur (that name can't be right, but she's a trustee of the museum and Vogue's fashion editor -- she's the one they made the movie about which was called "The Devil Wears Prada") was mainly in charge of the whole thing. She's so detail oriented that they showed her auditioning table cloths and scrutinizing the seating many times. At one point, she asked an assistant, pointing to tags up in a corner, 'And who are these?' And the assistant said, 'Those are people we hope will go away.'  Hmmm ... 

It was an amazing spectacular with Rhiannon performing, many celebrities in attendance, and a fundraiser which raised over $12 Million! They did not say if that was after expenses or before. 

And we got to see a lot of the exhibits. I wonder if they are doing another gala tomorrow.

By the way, I learned something: Kim Kardashian's ass is big enough to be named a planet.

Ta ta. It's time to eat supper and watch Mad Men. I'm getting nervous because I think I'm getting to the very end and I don't know what I'll do. I might have to read that book I started ...