I am a good gardener!

A lot of people think they know that I am a pretty bad gardener. Well, in the past, they would have been right. Every spring I would get pretty serious about growing my own celery and green beans for bloody marys, but then a couple weeks after I did the planting my little backyard planterbox would look like Night of the Triffids, all with mad weeds taking over everywhere and if I was lucky, a single small green bean hanging off a dead brown vine, kind of dangling like the thing a butterfly comes out of. It was never the kind of thing you would want to put into a bloody mary, at all.

Lately though I have been doing pretty well in the garden. The main thing, I think, is to hire a dude to take up all the weeds. I hate pulling weeds. I'm kind of like Monet, you know, just wanting to have everything ready for me so I can concentrate on my vision. Picasso was also much the same way, as was Einstein. For as mean as Einstein was to his wife, they definitely had some awesome situation worked out.

Anyhow, I hired a local botanist to weed all my garden- and flower-beds. Usually she's done before I even get up and put on my slippers to walk outside, which is basically fantastic. I ain't got to feel bad that she is doing all kinds of crappy yard work, and I am free with my blank canvas. I think I'm gonna plant a lot of thyme and rosemary, you know, herbs that get on real well with a naked chicken. Lots of herbs. Gonna do a French thing, all with tarragon and lavender. Ray gonna start an herb colony called the Succulent Tongue. Crossin' the line between fragrant garden greens and hot thighs rollin' in thick crunchy duvets under afternoon springtime sun. Ray is gonna get it on with his gardener. Ray is gonna bring the sex act.

My date with Scarlet.

So, I don't think I told you about my date with Scarlet from Purple Gypsy Art Supplies! Well, now I will. Okay, blog? Okay, good!

Anyhow, it was on Sunday, so naturally I called her the day before to confirm and ask if there was anything I could bring. You got to do that, if you ever want to get anywhere on a woman-hosted date. Also, always be exactly seven minutes late. Trust me, fellows. She said everything was on and that she even had some "sourdough starter" ready for our bread-making activity! Well, I knew what else was on. That's right -- I used some of the art supplies I bought at her store and made her a little painting! It wasn't too much to look at, just a little watercolor of an orange sitting on a plate. I had forgotten to paint the background first, so when I did it kind of "bled" into the orange pretty bad, but I figured it would seem "cute" and like she had a lot to teach me. Some women like that.

I got there wearin' some pretty fly new Uomo dungarees and this hot cargo shirt like Jeff Probst from Survivor wears, you know, all with this leather necklace that had some kind of little artifact hangin' down in front. Totally Probst, man. I figured she'd have an apron or something I could use to protect the duds.

She answered the door and was still kind of scattered. Her hair was completely wet and there were wetness spots all on her shirt, and she didn't have any pants on. Yeah, the shirt was kind of long, but not so long that a pair of pants would have been obscured. She worked in an earring while walking back towards her room and said to make myself at home. Since I knew that she didn't mean to fire up a joint and call in some Waiters On Wheels, I set my bottle of '02 Cakebread on the counter and opened it for us. My nerves weren't bad, but I poured us out two glasses anyway and by the time she had finally finished gettin' dressed I had drained mine, so I quickly filled it back up again.

She said "Ooh, wine!" in this excited voice and sucked down her glass. That got me kind of pointy, you know, totally interested. Here was a woman who knew how to throw down and have a good time! I did the same and pretty soon we were laughin' about how funny it was that we were makin' bread together. Man, she had this great sense of humor; it was like, everything that I did totally cracked her up and kind of broke the ice between our two completely different worlds. Since I was so happy, I usually laughed at what she said and tried even harder to be comical. When I gave her the painting, she totally cracked up, and that got me goin' too.

It turned out that she worked at the art store part time and also had a job doing some bookkeeping for her uncle's apartment complex. I don't know why, but that got me kind of hot. I could picture us sneakin' up into some uninhabited apartment and just goin' real quick and hasty in the middle of some plain brown carpet in a big empty room. I was thinking about that idea when all of a sudden I tuned back in just in time to hear her say that her mom had died last year in a car accident. I filled our glasses and offered a solemn toast "to your mom." She really liked that and we drained our glasses yet again. I think she may have been touched; it was definitely the right move.

Before long the Cakebread was gone and all she had in the house was Everclear, which she used for "painting dry pigments onto fondant," which is some kind of way of coloring a hard type of cake frosting. I think maybe like that marzipan stuff. Apparently the high alcohol content in Everclear helps it spread quick and evaporate fast or something? Anyhow, we didn't want to drink that stuff straight so we looked for a mixer, but all she had was little Strawberry Kool-Aid packets. Troopin' on, we mixed it all up with some sugar and ice and made a pretty passable punch. She even had this fun ice cube tray where all the cubes looked like little Jesuses, so pretty soon we were drinkin' Strawberry Stigmata (her idea; I laughed) and getting ready to make bread.

It turned out she didn't have any aprons, so she loaned me this old women's denim jacket that was about three sizes too small. I didn't want to ruin my new Probst shirt with flour so I took it and put it on. It was so tight that my arms stuck out to the sides and I had a hard time bringin' 'em down, so I just let them stick out that way, and we both laughed. She put one of those silly-straws into my drink so I could take hits. I really liked the way she was taking care of me, I think that is definitely one quality you look for in a lover.

Pretty soon she's got the dough mixed up into a lump on the counter and every once in a while I kind of swing a stiff arm over and move my whole upper body so that I can bring my hand down and slap it. We crack up every time I do this, and I take a big sip of SS. I got to tell you, that stuff had me pretty looped pretty fast, and judgin' by how skinny she was, she wasn't going to hold out much longer either. At a breaking point in the bread prep, I approached her as smoothly as I could and leaned in for a kiss. She totally came back with some mad passion. I couldn't put my arms around her and carry her to the couch, so we just stood there makin' out for a little while. It was kind of crazy, like that S&M stuff you hear about. You know?

Anyhow, pretty soon she starts walkin' backwards and motioning with her finger for me to follow her to the couch. I'm only too happy to oblige, and my mind is racing about what she has in store for me in my kinky condition. She pushes me backwards onto the couch, and it's kind of deep, so I can't get up and do anything while she walks kind of sexily back to the bathroom, working her pants down a little to show me some thong! Then the door closes and she's in there for a while. I'm kind of looking around, taking in the fun ironic modern advertising posters and wine bottle-candlesticks...bored. I'm kind of losing my pointiness, if you know what I mean, and I can't get to my drink.

Like a coked-up turtle I finally worked myself off of the couch and onto my knees, and had a hell of a time getting to my feet what with all that Everclear in my gut. When I finally did I went over and swung my hand at the bathroom door to knock. Surprisingly, it opened, and there she was, completely passed out on the floor in front of the toilet. Dead to the world, as they say. At that point I wasn't feelin' too sexxed up anymore, but I didn't want her to be in a bad way, so I managed to lob a plastic bowl and a bottle of water from the kitchen at her, and even pulled a towel down over her exposed legs.

I thought I'd look pretty dumb walkin' back to my place like that, so I voice-dialed 321-CABS on my two-way and yelled for a pickup out front. I had the driver undo the jacket, and tipped him a twenty before we even got started. Pretty soon I was on my way home, more than likely never to see old Scarlet again. She's probably alright.