Random Conversations

The Shape of Things

Jeremy is obsessed with making the yard as green as possible, watering, fertilizing, more watering, moving sprinklers all across the yard, and most annoying to me, incessantly talking about the lawn and grass.

“Blah, blah, fertilizer, blah, blah, grass isn’t dark enough, blah, blah, should I fertilize again?”  Jeremy asks.

“I don’t know.  I know nothing about grass, other than it’s green.  Or brown like here in the summer.”

“I thought you said not to fertilize again.”

“I did?  Was I listening to you?  I don’t know.  You can if you want.  The yard looks like it’s pretty green to me.”

“What?  It looks like a large rhombus?”

“Like a large rhombus?  How’d you get that one?  I said. . .”

“I dunno.  I was just surprised that you used rhombus.”

“I know what a rhombus is.  Well, I know what the shape is.  I don’t know why it was important that I know how to calculate its area or volume.”

“You just divide it into two triangles,” Jeremy responds.

“I didn’t say I wanted to know how.  A rhombus is just a diamond anyway.  Why don’t they just call it a diamond?”

Jeremy just stares at me like I’m a dunce.  I don’t see what the big deal is.  Why make up a whole new name for a shape when an easier one already exists?  “I am not having this conversation,” Jeremy says.

“Well, it is just a diamond.”

“I said I wasn’t having this conversation.  I’m done with this one.”

“Besides, our yard isn’t a rhombus shape anyway.”

“That’s a tree,” Jeremy says.  Or at least that’s what I think he says, but I’m too busy contemplating the whole rhombus/diamond thing, and I think I missed half of what he said.

“No, that’s a cone.”

“What’s a cone?”  Jeremy asked, obviously confused.

“A tree is a cone,” I reply.

“How is a tree a cone?  A cone tree you mean?”

“No, a cone—as in if you enclosed a tree, it would be in a cone shape—well, an inverted one.”

“I am so done with this conversation too,” Jeremy says, taking a large drink of his beer.  That’s good because I didn’t really have much more to say about yard objects and geometry anyway.

The Sky is Falling

Jeremy’s walking down the stairs and happens to look up at the ceiling part of the landing.  He pauses and stares.

“How’d that hole get there?  I don’t remember that hole being there before,” he says, standing a studying the hole for a while.  I remain silent and inch down the stairs slowly.

“I wonder what happened.  Maybe I just never noticed it before.”  I’m free!  No one ever has to know!  Except then he looks at me, and I start giggling.  Jeremy’s eyes narrow.  “What did you do, and, more importantly, how did you do that?”

“Well, I was carrying the bed frame upstairs, and I accidentally jammed it into the ceiling.  I’m surprised you didn’t notice all the bits of plaster on the stairs.”

Jeremy sighs, looks down at the stairs, looks at me, and scratches his head.  “At least I can fix this one.  That wouldn’t be the case if you had jammed it into the woodwork.”

“That’s how I jammed it into the ceiling.  I was being really careful about the woodwork, and I sorta forgot about the ceiling. . .”

“You are such an idget.”

A Whole Lotta Chicks

After we put in the fence this spring, Jeremy decided he was finally going to try raising some chickens to see if that would take care of the whole farming itch thing he has going.  He spent hours researching the different types and which ones would be best for both eggs and meat.  He ended up ordering something called “Austrolorps  (I’m not even going to look it up to see if I spelled it wrong because that would be way more time than I care to invest in the subject of chicken breeds).  But, he could only order them in batches of 25, plus, they throw in a free “exotic” breed chick, and, as we discovered once they arrived on Monday, a spare Austrolorp in case one dies.  So, instead of just the few chickens he was going to try keeping, we now have 27 baby chicks.  In the dining room.

At 7:53 am on Monday, the phone rang.  It was the post office letting Jeremy know his chicks had arrived.  Jeremy goes vaulting out the door—you’d think he’d won the lottery or something.  10 minutes later, he’s back with a very loudly “peeping” box.

“They don’t actually open until 9, but I think they wanted me to come pick them up right away.” 

“Really, you think?  I don’t know why.  They’re so harmonious and melodic, I would have guessed they would have wanted to keep them around all day.”

“Yeah, they are a little loud,” Jeremy says.

“A little?  I think our neighbors can probably hear them all the way in here.”

“It did sound like a lot of chirping.  Maybe someone else had ordered chicks too,” Jeremy responds.

 I just look at him.  Yes, that’s it.  Everyone in town has ordered chicks online, and they all arrived on the same day.  “I’m fairly certain that you are the only person, probably ever, in this town to order baby chicks for postal delivery.”

I let Jeremy open his wonderful new package and take them into the dining room, where he has a giant aquarium set up for them.  Soon, he’s back.  “You’ve gotta come see the chicks!”  Okay, I will stop playing my time wasting game, and go check out the chicks.  Oh, look, one of the 27 is completely distinguishable!  I immediately pick it up.  It looks like a little chipmunk, tan, with a few dark brown stripes running along its back and up its head.

“Put that one down,” Jeremy says.

“Why?”
“You can tell it from the others.  We are not having a pet chicken.  And if it’s a rooster, we’ll be eating it.”

“I’m going to give it a name.”

“You cannot name any of the chickens.  Especially that one.  They’re food,” Jeremy says in his most commanding voice.

“They’re so cute!  And fluffy.”

“Put it down.”

“I think it’s name will be Spike,” I say, ignoring him.   “Spike the Super Chicken. 

“Super tasty,” Jeremy says.  I frown at him and decide I’ll just stay quiet on this subject for now.  After all, I’m still working on the miniature donkeys and the fainting goats.

A few hours later. . .

“I wonder if I can buy that piece of land behind us and raise a pig on it,” Jeremy says as he checks chicken butts (don’t ask, but apparently something bad can happen to little chick butts if they get stressed out).  Really, I think?  A pig in the back yard?  We haven’t even got the chickens out of the house yet.  I keep this to myself as I watch Spike puff up his chest and push all the other little chicks out of its way at the feeder, despite the fact that he’s significantly smaller than all the rest.

“Sure,” I say, “you can have a pig.”

“Really?” Jeremy looks surprised.

“Yep.  And I’ll name him Wilbur, and a spider will come along and write ‘Some Pig,’ in its web.”

“You are not going to name the pig, and the pig is not going to be a pet.  It’s going to be food.  Just like the chickens.”  I decided he’s completely missed my literary ingenuity.

“It’s from Charlotte’s Web.  Didn’t you ever read Charlotte’s Web when you were a kid?”  I ask. 

“Yes, I read Charlotte’s Web.  But I was ignoring you for obvious reasons.”  Hmmf.

“You can get whatever animals you want.  However, I’m going to read Animal Farm to them, so don’t be surprised if there’s a revolt and the pig takes over.”