Soppho

Confession: I used to think that gardening was the dorky little hobby of people who had a lot of extra time on the weekends did. Or the dorky little hobby of people with obsessive personalities. I’m looking at you across-the-street-neighbor, Mr. H, who, when I was working my shit summer job in college, would be out watering his lawn when I left for work at 5:30, and trimming each blade with scissors when I arrived back home at 3.

Granted, it was the nicest, lushest, greenest lawn on the block, but the view was totally ruined by the constant presence of a (somehow still) pasty middle-aged dude in tall socks and too short shorts.

Still, I might be willing to join the legions of the obsessively, compulsively uncool for some of these babies:

Off to buy stark white tube socks and some Nair for my short shorts.

W:  I love the local news: “I asked them, ‘where does the things that go into a cookie come from’, and they said ‘in a garden in the back of the grocery store.’ So it really shows a lot of kids these days don’t know where eggs, milk, beef comes from.”

Me:  Um.

W: I don’t put beef in my cookies.

Me: Um.

W: Mmmm. Beef cookies.

Me: Shepherd’s cookie?

W: With peas instead of chocolate chips. Mmmmm.

Me: Sorry, I still don’t think the recipe is even half as appalling as the journalism.

My fridge is broken, my stockpile of food is destroyed, this morning I was greeted by a squirrel looking at me through a hole in my living room wall, I’m days behind on a writing project, and I think it will take me a few months to recover from my crazy Easter weekend, but right now you can’t dampen my mood because it’s nearly 90 degrees today and sunny and gorgeous.

Take that, conglomeration of annoyances and people who dislike run-on sentences.

Y Chromosome picked these for me last night from his family’s farm. I just love daffodils, and there is nothing better than fresh-picked, homegrown flowers, even when they arrive in a Wahoo-orange-hued “vase” right out of your boyfriend’s bedroom. Especially when later you find a flashlight in his pocket, because he was out in the pitch black night picking them just for you.

(Thanks to Y Chrome for adding scale and a little ginger-headed human interest.)

Meet Mt. Chipotle, Charlottesville’s greatest current obsession. If this looks like a giant pile of sand and dirt and grime with a little bit of snow mixed in, sitting in the middle of a shopping plaza’s parking lot, let me explain. This is a giant pile of sand and dirt and grime with a little bit of snow mixed in, sitting in the middle of a shopping plaza’s parking lot.

There now, don’t you feel silly?

It has web sites dedicated to it. Everyone is talking about it. There are contests to guess the day that it will melt away entirely. It’s been featured on the news several times. When Y Chrome and I went to take pictures of Mt. Chipotle, there were groups of people taking pictures, posing in front of it, trying to scale to the top, and attempting to pull out one of the shopping carts jutting out of the side of the pile.

Tweets, blogs, and news broadcasts aside, the enthusiasm for Mt. Chipotle feels downright old-timey. Every time it’s mentioned I feel like chasing a wooden hoop down a dirt road with a stick, and getting my bloomers in a twist about this here War of Northern Aggression.

Similarly, a few years back there was a lane-wide sinkhole in the center of a really busy road in the north end of town. It was the lead story on the news for days. Field reporters slapped on their most earnest faces as the stood in front of the barricades surrounding the sinkhole. It was high drama, especially for newscasters who spend a significant amount of time reporting on the area’s high school athletics.

Considering how Charlottesville is often pitched as one of the nicest places to live in the country, vibrant with various cultural, educational and historical attractions, as well as bucolic settings and gorgeous vineyards, it might strike you as strange that Mt. Chipotle is such a sensation. After all, it doesn’t do anything of consequence and has no discernible skills or talents of which to speak—hell you might even argue that it is the most redundant, most unappealing, most intellectually dissatisfying, most horrible piece of crap ever created in Charlottesville.

But then you might remember that Charlottesville is also home to John Grisham.

Well, never mind, then.