Summer-spring Time

My brain is in a million different places right now...Finals week! That time of year that always seems so distant, when school ends and spring starts a new season which I like to call Summer-spring.

Summer-spring is when all students begin to get that lethal disease called I-hate-the-indoors! (I don't care what your age is its a valid feeling for all). This is the magical time of year when the neighborhood lawn competitions start. I've never lived in a "neighborhood" until now, so I now have a chance to observe the icicles melt and friendships freeze all over a weed that is commonly called grass.

According to the "How to be a good neighbor" handbook there are three types of neighbors, thanks to this handbook all competition is mapped out; and I have an advantage I know the Achilles heal of each neighbor! (If you haven't guessed I have plans to slaughter everyone on this block over this "cold war"!)

There are three types of neighbors in this world. Honeymooners (aka the retired couple that posses a RV) These can be the single most devastating enemy. They give you cookies (This is a war tactic, its used to take your guard off. Little did you know that they poisoned those cookies and while your sick they're on an Amazon safari killing all of their dandelions!) and have an entire militia of grandchildren that have been breed for the single purpose of winning this war. While these pieces of ancient history can be devastating they also can be completely harmless. You might have the active ones but there are also the senior home escapees that can't really do any thing except continue to strangle you with the velvet glove of love and poisoned cookies. Whats the blind spot for the Honeymooners? Easy. Fruit cake! Yes, the one thing they can't resist but its so dense that our Honeymooners will be feeling sluggish for days after the first fatal bite. With the grandchildren nursing their disabled grandparents you begin to make up for lost time (Dang those cookies! I think more than that recipe survived WWI). This ends the Honeymooner. (Oh and its best if you shovel their snow during the winter so they don't suspect a thing.)

The second type of neighbor is called the Centipede. The average Mormon family have kids, a bunch of them. The centipede has millions of legs while it has only one head, such is the average Utah family when it comes to the war. The head is usually the Dad who takes pride in his mowed lawn. Having such a fine lawn makes their hearts swell with pride, so much pride that they start having a say that in the flower arrangements and the kids are up early on their Saturday to weed. The Centipede isn't easy to disable you have to know how they think, their schedule, their hobbies and most importantly what their allergic too. (heh heh) One of the easiest ways to disarm the Centipede is to distract its legs (aka the children), if something doesn't have legs or wings than they can't go anywhere; likewise the head of the Centipede. I highly suggest that you have a slip n slid set up every weekend that the kids can visit. The head of the Centipede will still press forward but it wont make as much progress.

The third and final type is the hardest to paralyze. I like to call them "Big buck" buck stands for bucks and lots of it. These are those loaded people that hire everything out. So when the latest mower shows up every villager comes out to look at the competition. The Honeymooners make remarks that really time their memories, the Centipede is memorizing every part of that diamond in the ruff. He's measuring it in his mind, when the operator is gone he even goes and licks it so he can have a real taste of perfection. And the "Big buck" is watching from his window with a smirk on his face and than he returns to his theater where he's spent the day watching the latest movies. To hit Achilles in his heal you have to have a team effort. The Honeymooners offer their "famous" cookies. The Centipede goes to talk machinery with the operator has his legs/children play mechanics with the Lord of mowers. With any luck you can distract, disable, discourage and disengage the "Big bucks" help.

Well that sums up what can be expected this summer. Friendliness is a fake, the idea of every man your brother is sprayed with weed poison. It isn't until the fall when we're all sunburned, have bug bites, almost been annihilated with cookies and lemonade is the Olive branch offered and we all return to our houses still believing that we were better than our neighbor. Snow brings us back together and than it all starts over again.

P. S.
I will win this year! Oh and I fit into the Centipede category....little minds are easy to convince that a perfect lawn is a must.

Birds of a Feather

Spring! One of my favorite times of the year! Out of the four seasons there are three that I love, Spring, Summer, Fall. Spring is perhaps the best out of them all because it gives people hope that one day snow will melt and we will be able to find those Easter eggs that were hidden twice. (Once by the Easter Bunny and then old man winter comes to make sure no one will find those little colored eggs until the smell leads us to them...That can't be good. That is unless it's for a senior home...then they might need the extra help.)

Spring a time of hope and sunshine. Filled with random snow storms and crazy wind. Bugs begin to show up and people don't shake your hand anymore because of there allergies (Which I see as a blessing. I wasn't ever really big with shaking hands). But most importantly you actually get to wear flip-flops!

There is just one painful part of Spring that I don't think can be avoided. What is worse then colored sugar, gooeyness? Yes I am talking about Peeps. Little marshmallows covered with crunchy sugar that has been colored according to the mood of the manager. I mean who's heard of blue chicks? I don't know about you, but where I come from a blue chicken covered in crusties is probably diseased and shouldn't be consumed.

Or what about a green peep. I can't help but think of the imagery commonly found about someone being a green color when they are really sick. I don't want to stick the avian flu in my mouth and chomp down! But that is just my thoughts a deadly pandemic.

The pink peep is the hottest pink I've seen in ages! It reminds me of pepto bismol. You know what if it is a type of medication?! What if it's the antidote for the green peep! Well if that's true than you'd have to by both pink and green peeps because you wouldn't want to take the medicine for nothing. Wow what a way to sell a product, making them by two things so they don't die from just one!

Yellow peep. Well you see the yellow peep is the only one I have found that doesn't have a potentially deadly illness hidden inside of it. Symbolism for the color yellow is happiness and hope, so they could be taken as an antidepressant, which is all fine and well until your teeth begin to get cavities and you gain weight. So I'd use them with discretion (That is unless you want to become better friends with the dentist).

Did you know that the color purple it's self is in fact a language! Yep when people refer to a purple prose they mean: exaggeration or colorful lies. Or it they say 'what a purple cow' they mean: Something remarkable or eye-catching. Since we are talking peeps it is only to be expected that they are not cows, so I must say that the purple peep is really a purple prose. What if it's telling a colorful lie?! What if it isn't a peep but a piece of spy-wear created by the government to help see what we are eating so that they can have a bit more evidence that we do need the health care bill! Don't tell anyone that I tipped you off on it....

I don't even want to get started with the bunny peeps. They look like hippies! Since when did we decide to sugar coat the hippie legacy?! I just thought I should mention it.

With all of this Easter candy going astray its comforting to know that there is still one candy that is still a symbol of sugar and joy and that is (wait for it) Cadbury Easter eggs! The inspiration for Charley and the Chocolate Factory! Its true Rhold Dahl fell in love with Cadbury chocolate and wanted to write a book about it. So there you go, fact about my favorite book and about peeps, the disgrace to the marshmallow family.