That goddamn little doodly-squat won’t hold anything!
I was sitting on the back steps of the Old Cabin with Uber Kayak Woman. We were about 10 and we were plotting and planning our adventures for the day. Radical Betty was inside cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast when she exploded! She was fighting with a garbage can. It was a little white tin cylindrical [dun dun dun] can with a foot pedal to open up the lid and apparently there wasn’t enough room in it for whatever RB wanted to put in it. Our initial terrification quickly dissolved into gales of laughter. Lemme see. She had said the “G” word. And the “D” word! And what the *heck* was a “doodly-squat?
Yesterday, I was sitting on the Green Couch watching all the dogs go by when Reee-cycle Ann Arbor came along (on a Sunday, go figger) and dropped this off (the leaf collection bin, not the vee-hickle, that’s just a gratuitous shot of my cute little Ninja):
What do you think the first thing that came into my mind was? Well, of course, it was, “that goddamn little doodly-squat won’t hold anything!” Because it won’t. That sniggly little plastic dumpster is what the benevolent despots that rule the Planet Ann Arbor think will hold the leaves that we will eventually have to rake out of our yard this fall. A leaf mountain like this (and that’s a gratuitous shot of the driver’s side mirror on our beloved old Dogha):
Hahahahahahaha! Ya know what? Ain’t no way that GDL doodly-squat is gonna hold our leaves. We used to just rake our leaves into the street and the planet would deploy a small army of these cute little vee-hickles plus some dump trucks to haul it all away to some uber-compost center somewhere:
No more. Now we get these cute little doodly-squats to put our leaves in. I think one of these might work somewhere on earth. The Sahara Desert, maybe? [Do they have fall there?] I do not think it is going to work in my neighborhood. If you look carefully at these photoooos, you will see TREES! Lots of trees. Big trees with lots of leaves. I know that the planet is trying to reduce costs and I know that the current leaf removal system is not particularly efficient (and that would be a whole ‘nother rant). But. Seriously. I will leave you with one more photooo. A gratuitous shot of my loverrrrrly old Island Teal POC parked in a bunch of leaves. How do ya like that loverrrrrly parallel parking job? That was accomplished by none other than yer favo-rite blahgger! And over on the right you can just barely see the tail end of the Indefatigable.
G’night, KW
October 11th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Thank you for starting out with a story about RB, you, and UKW. Just today as I walked past RB’s place (barefooted on Oct. 11!) I was thinking that as long as I have been here, Gitchee Gumee has always deposited something interesting there. For some time now, GG(not to be confused with THE GG) has seen fit to leave and to lappily caress a very large, curved cedar trunk. Now it is not an ordinary beast! It’s enormous and wonderfully shaped with protruding arms. I can hear RB’s uproarious laughter when I imagine a conversation with her about the latest detritus. Tomorrow, During my walk I shall try to.conjure up RB’s fury, for I too have been quite fortunate to hear her swear. But she didn’t swear like a sailor. Oh no. Not RB. Her cadence in swearing was beautiful. Furthermore, she would generally end the eruption with laughter! Loved that.
Still upset by yesterday’s guest blogger’s account of the car towing. That seems so extreme. The whole issue of the police corruption is unnerving.
October 11th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
Man, that’s a LOT of leaves and a very small container. We don’t get many leaves here, so I’m amazed. Evergreen State and all, you know. 😉
October 11th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Yup, RB was a well-known swearer and although she was passionate about a lot of issues, she could stand back and laugh at life and herself, so it was never a threatening kind of thing. When I was a kid, the older generation was very careful not to swear in front of us kids. I remember laughing uproariously when I was a kid and my dad said, “son of a put”, meaning “son of a pup”, meaning, well, you know. He laughed too.
I *think* that cedar trunk was there the last time I was there too. Pretty weird beach flotsam.
I’ve heard that someone contacted the Detroit Lions’ management about the towing. We’ll see what happens.
October 11th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
I lost a shoe (sandal actually) in a leaf pile once upon a Halloween. I think that might have been the last Halloween I went trick-or-treating.
October 12th, 2010 at 6:35 am
Le Marquis has a leaf shredder that he used to set up on top of a garbage can. It makes little pieces of leaves that can be used as compost, or makes them more compact should you be stuffing them into GDL DS containers. I’m surprised your Gadget Guy, er GG, doesn’t have one! I’m always surprised by how much leaves compact into a can or leaf bag, even without the shredder, just pushing down with my arm or leg.
October 12th, 2010 at 6:50 am
Honestly, unless it is a LARGE leaf shredder, or maybe we had five or six of them and a work crew of some sort, I doubt it would help much. I am all for composting leaves and we do compost some. But truly, we have an overwhelming number of leaves and 95% of them come down within about one week. There have been years we’ve raked them in windstorms or raked water along with them or whatever. Oh, and then there was the year it snowed 12 inches on the day of the 2nd leaf pickup. They never did pick up those leaves. They sat in the street frozen until spring. Fortunately, the bulk of the leaves had been picked up on the *first* leaf pickup. Fun times.
October 12th, 2010 at 11:04 am
God put them there. God will take them away.