What is better than the Fourth of July?

The day after the Fourth of July, especially if it falls on a Saturday. Oh yes.

Hope you had a good celebration of independence. Me? I went to Home Depot, the only store open on the Fourth, thronged with mall ordinaries like me in the rattiest t-shirts and tightest congo shorts that aren't supposed to be tight. But the Memphis heat has set in here, and we're all swelling like dough rising for the first proofing.

Speaking of baking, I love my new oven. It's gas. It's great. It's the best thing since bourbon and coke. Lemme see if I can find a picture of it...*

*Stop. I am not turning into "complete everyday boring". Even though my friend Scott claims I've been boring since we first met. "All you do is talk about cooking and cleaning." Ok, but who taught you how to use your George Foreman grill? And who cleaned your bathroom once... correction: who killed the living, breathing organism created in the bathtub that was once Your Bathroom? The bathroom actually fought me back. Anyway, back to a stove worthy of laud.

Behold my master:





Every day is like a cooking show now. I have always used electric. I might as well have learned to cook in an EasyBake. Can I have a witness? How lame is electricity compared to a gas oven with Speed Bake convection? Plus, if one day I decide to end it all, I can just blow out the pilot light and stick my head in. Can't do that with an electric oven, now can you. You have to be a thinker to get ahead in this world, and you have to stay one step ahead of the creditors, even if it may involve the hereafter to do so.

And now, I'd like to take a moment to gush over my whirlpool tub.

TubSmacked: The Story of a Girl and Her Luxurious Bath

That fairly well sums it up. Yesterday was the first time I had used it. Mostly because I hadn't the strength to unearth it as it was being used as a giant laundry basket since we moved in last weekend. But that tub is better than a valium. Not only because it costs less (about $4.95/month of the mortgage payment), but also because it made me feel like Steve Martin in "The Jerk". The part where in a letter to his mom, he began listing off things he'd gotten since he struck it rich with the Opti-Grab:

"Remember that giant pool with the S-shaped hedges that I always wanted? And the bathroom with the red shag carpet and the big, golden tub shaped like a clamshell? Well I got that, too."

Not word-for-word, but sentiment-for-sentiment. Damn good movie. I love Steve Martin. And to all those bad fast food tv scripts I've been forced to write for pay, I'd like to thank you for not killing anything more than a creative little plot in my head and for affording me this little Liquid Paradise. Which the rotten part of my brain just reminded me that I could drown myself in happily if ever the need should present itself. Nyah.

For a minute there, i just had an Amityville Horror moment with all the subliminal suggestions from the house of How to Kill Yourself Around the House. In black and white, apparently it's hard being me. But at least we can all find it funny for the time being.

Another thing I love about this whole home-owning experience is that my yard is so incredibly small ("HOW SMALL IS IT?")... well, it's so small that I finished all the yardwork in less than 30 minutes. It involved (1) watering the spongey-looking, half-toasted Oak Stick posing as an Oak Tree, and (2) kicking all the dog poop out of my yard and into the street. I've decided that I need a golf club, like a driver I guess you'd call it, so I can make swatting dried-up dog poop more of a game of skill and flair for the neighbors to enjoy. I can strike rakish poses with my golf club as I ponder the best trajectory for the poop birdie.

Yes, I think I am going to enjoy this new home-owning thing a lot. Until things break, and then it will turn into "house-crap." So stayed tuned, as I know my odds.