Landscaping Job

I had some desert landscaping done at my house last week. Here are a few pictures.





The wash is in the front yard...the tall, dead-looking thing in the background is the Ocotillo cactus, which is dormant right now. Some day it will look like this...



...hopefully very soon!

The back yard has agave, red tipped yucca, and two tipuaanu trees with a flagstone patio and pathway.




See that little shadow in the lower right corner? That's me! The potted plant is some ornamental grass for the cats to play with. And by play with, I mean eat.

If my back were stronger I could have done the work myself and saved a lot of money, but since I'm a wimp I had to hire big, strong men to carry the 7 tons of raw materials into the yard. I guess that can be considered as part of my birthday present.

All in all it's been a darn good month!

Hot Summer Night

Last night hubby and I went to the Def Leppard, Styx, Foreigner concert at Cricket Pavillion in Phoenix. A good time was had by all…and when I say all, I mean at least 17,000 people. The place was packed with people from age 5 to 75 and the crowd was as loud as the bands.

Watching Foreigner was like watching a cover band…there’s only one original member left in the group, founder Mick Jones. Jason Bonham was on drums, and the band played a snippet of a Led Zepplin song, which was fun but a little odd. The band played a bunch of their hits…Cold As Ice, Hot Blooded, Jukebox Hero (which was awesome!), Urgent, and Feels Like the First Time.

Styx was next in the lineup, and they blew us away with their sound and showmanship. Original members Tommy Shaw and James “JY” Young front the band with newer member Lawrence Gowan (who replaces Dennis DeYoung). They played a lot of their hits…Blue Collar Man, Miss America, Come Sail Away, Fooling Yourself, Renegade, Too Much Time on My Hands, and the Grand Illusion. Styx sounded great and Tommy Shaw can still hit those high notes!

I haven’t seen Def Leppard in twenty years, and they did not disappoint. Singer Joe Elliot was a little hoarse and had trouble with the high notes, but that didn’t stop anyone from screaming their guts out and singing along. The set list was as follows:

Rocket
Animal
Excitable
Foolin'
Mirror, Mirror (Look into My Eyes)
Another Hit and Run
Love Bites
Rock On
Two Steps Behind
Bringin' On the Heartbreak
Switch 625
Hysteria
Armageddon It
Photograph
Pour Some Sugar on Me

The encore was Rock of Ages

The video and light show was the perfect compliment to the hits. The lights were so bright that my cell phone camera had trouble capturing images. Here's the one picture that isn't just a blob of light:



That's Joe Elliot on the screen, the stage is to the left, and the concession area is to the far right. Beer was $8 and double shots of Crown Royal were $11. Yikes!

I am exhausted, sore, and hoarse today, but I haven’t had that much fun in a very long time. What a terrific birthday gift!

Therapeutic Writing

Anyone who knows anything about therapy probably knows about the therapeutic value of writing letters to vent and express emotions to people who have hurt them. They key is to use the letter for therapy only…you’re not supposed to mail the letter. Expressing your feelings to another person in the form of a letter is therapeutic even if that person never reads the letter or knows what your feelings are.

My father and I don’t have a good relationship right now...maybe we never did. Dad is an alcoholic, a diagnosed manic-depressive (bi-polar), and possibly a sociopath. He is at times violent, angry, and selfish and he is always unapologetic. He is 64 years old and retired, but I’m still waiting for him to grow up.

I could write a book about all of the rotten crap he has done to me in my life, but I’m not interested in dredging up all that old pain. I’m trying to deal with the most recent load of crap that he has dumped into my life, and since I have a blog I’m doing it in cyberspace.

This is the letter I will never mail.

Dear Dad,

I wish you had taken the time to listen to what I wanted to say to you on the phone the other night.

I wanted to tell you that your behavior and your attitude are hurting your family.

When you get drunk in public, drive drunk and steal things you hurt the whole family and make me doubt your trustworthiness.

By refusing to listen to what I have to say about these issues, you show total disregard for my feelings.

Your drinking doesn’t just affect you and your health. You don’t take care of yourself, so how can I trust you to take care of Mom if she gets sick?

Mom wants to retire next year, but if you continue to have legal problems, she will have to keep working to pay your fines.

Mom wanted to plan a trip for the two of you to visit me in my new home, but with your legal problems I don’t know if you will be allowed to travel. And frankly, I don’t feel I can trust you to behave properly in my home.

I am not asking you to change. You are who you are, and I understand that, but you have said and done many unkind things over the years and I am frustrated and hurt by your blatantly unapologetic nature.

Maybe it is too much to expect you to apologize, but that’s what I wanted to hear that night on the phone. I wanted you to say, “I’m sorry” and I wanted to feel like you really meant it.

Over the years there have been many things that I would have liked an apology for; the beatings I received as a child, the distance between our family and the rest of the relatives during the years that you were not speaking to them, the times you didn’t come home for dinner because you were drinking at the bar, the hateful things you said to me about my son after he died, and now this most recent incident in which you once again put your own needs over those of your family.

I will respect your decision if you decide not to get help for your drinking problem, but I will no longer put myself in a position to be hurt by you. If that means I have to limit my contact with you, I will do so.

I love you, Dad and I hope you decide to get help, for your health and the sake of your family.

Birthday Thoughts

My birthday is on Tuesday, and for the first time ever, the gift my mother is sending me will be late. It only took her 41 years to make that mistake, so kudos to her.

This year I asked for a copy of my maternal grandparent’s wedding photo. It may sound like an odd thing to ask for, but I love old photographs, and I have very few pictures of my late Grammy, so it seemed like the perfect thing to ask for. Again.

I actually asked for it two years ago, but my mother never sent it. This year, since I asked for it again, she made the effort and had a copy made. The only thing I resent is that she is also sending a copy of the photo to my brother. Not that I don’t want him to have a copy of it, it’s just that he never asked for it and I’ve had to wait two years to get mine. Jeez. Does sibling rivalry ever die?

Hubby’s gift is a date to see Def Leppard in concert in Phoenix. I only had to mention what a great birthday gift this would be one time...he rushed right out and bought tickets! This surprised me a little because we haven’t been to a concert in almost 20 years. We saw Def Leppard twice before, but both times were in the 1980’s…we’ve all aged significantly since then, so I just hope the concert will be a good experience.




It would really suck if we went, had a lousy time, and had to live with a bad concert memory instead of the ‘when we were young and awesome’ memory.



I think it’s officially too late to hope I die before I get old.

Oh, well. Happy birthday to me!