The Great American Smokeout
We’ve had an impossible stretch of hot weather lately. Temperatures were in the hundreds all weekend. I had to fight the urge to usurp my neighbors kiddy pool. To make matters worse the neighbor, for fathers day, received a smoker. It’s some kind of grill attachment for the smoking of meats. He enjoys smoking meats several times a week. And apparently when you smoke meat you do so for a really long time. I’ve seen him out there at one in the morning getting his smoke on so that the meat will be ready for his family by dinner time the next day.
The thing about meat smoking is that it smells not unlike warm death. It’s totally different than the normal BBQ smell which, even though I am a pescatarian, I still enjoy. But smoking meat is a different smell altogether. I find it totally repulsive.
As luck would have it, the neighbor’s meat smoker is situated just about ten yards away from our central air-conditioning unit. Thus, when the air is on and he’s smokin’, our entire house fills with the sticky cool smell of smoked flesh.
Fuckin’ Yummy!
With all the hot weather and abundant sunshine the lawns around these parts are starting to turn a yellowed crispy sandy color. Well placed sprinklers and heavy watering have become pretty much futile at this point. But there is one house in the neighborhood that isn’t having this problem. This house, about half a mile away from us, recently underwent a radical change when the owners ripped up their entire front lawn and replaced it with bright glistening plastic artificial grass. It’s hilarious, especially now that all the adjacent lawns have turned beige. The grass color (pms 361) remains steadfast and wholly unnatural. I swear you can see this lawn coming about three blocks away.
I have to say tho, I admire the commitment. The folks in the fake grass house have an insatiable appetite for the aesthetics of plastic. Not only is the grass plastic but they also have these plastic planters around the perimeter of the yard filled with lovely mixtures of fake plastic flowers and plants. On top of that there are plastic rabbits and other assorted critters lounging about the yard. I really should get some snaps of this place.