discount flowers

I bought hedge-clippers today and attacked the thorny growth that's been flourishing between the rosebush and the edge of the porch. Rosebush overgrow by brambles...good-thorny versus bad-thorny, I guess. There was also this huuuuge weedy thing there. I shall look it up later to see what it was. I felt sort of murderous as I hacked everything to pieces, but after I was done, the rosebush, and all of its supposed-to-be-there friends, looked much happier.

I went down to the local cheaper than cheap store to buy hedge-clippers. It's the sort of store where you can buy silk flowers for ninety-nine cents, a flashlight for about five bucks, socks, a chocolate bar, fireworks, a hose, catnip mice, film, ceramic mushrooms, questionable looking food items. . .and, well hedge-clippers. Today, they also had a large selection of annuals. Tired looking snapdragons, petunias, and salvia all looking like they'd been left in their little seedling-planters for several weeks too long. So, of course I bought ten bucks worth. I planted a bunch in the huge front plot (notable both for its size, sandy soil, and abundance of rocks). I filled in some of the spaces between the bushes we bough last year with an eye to how big they'll be in five years or so. I hope they'll do ok...sandy soil or no, it's got to be better than sitting in a teeny tiny planter.

I do love snapdragons.

math is funny

Today, I cracked my students up with the following math problem (names have been changed to protect the compulsive):

Amelio observed a squirrel outside his house. The squirrel buried 82 acorns to prepare for winter. The squirrel forgot where he buried half of the acorns. Then, other squirrels stole 10 of what he had left. Amelio felt sorry for the squirrel and gave him 15 acorns. How many acorns does the squirrel have now?

Amelio, easily the tallest and most mature looking kid in the bunch, tried gamely to read the problem out loud, but just couldn't make it through. He got to "observed a squirrel," and started snorting. It was all downhill from there. The class collapsed in collective giggles.

I think it's great that, here at the end of the year - with middle school looming on the horizon and everyone trying hard to look their coolest - they are unable to maintain their preteen cool in the face of a hapless squirrel.

It may not have helped so much that the math problems we were doing today were being pulled ceremoniously from the floppy felt top-hat that I wore when I played the mime last year in "The Fantasticks". Ah well...I pretend I disapprove of the laughing, happy children (I've even been heard to say, "You know I don't approve of laughing, happy children!"), but actually...
I do kinda like'em that way.