What was wrong with the grass!?

(The grass on the ground)

I don't want to go anywhere either where I could become part of the food chain, and that includes predatory bugs and mosquitoes.

ROFL!!!! That is so LA!!! Not that I've spent much time in LA, but I lived in northern CA for a couple years and that's what everyone told me LA was like!

I think I'd last about 5 minutes in LA. Less time than Amy would in a park!!!!

Now I'm off to prune some bushes like the good crunchy that I am....

OUTDOOR bushes, people, OUTDOOR ones. The kind with flowers.

I think the benches in that park are now reserved as the urinal for those you won't let pee on your sidewalk and gate.

So, Miss Alkon, I guess you won't be riding to the bottom of the Grand Canyon on a jackass any time soon?

LOL!!! That is such a classic ADHD moment! Good for Greg for having you write it down.

I could have written that post. "I don't do nature" has become my mantra. If there is any chance that bugs, grass, dirt, trees, unpaved paths, and unflitered water are involved, I will not be a part of it.

My husband once suggested a picnic (before he was my husband). My response was, "I don't do nature."

Him: But we are just gonna sit in the grass with a blanket.
Me: Not me. I don't sit in the grass.
Him: But it's just GRASS.
me: Grass is outside and grows in dirt. Dirt has bugs. Bugs are a part of nature. And I don't do nature.

That phrase has stuck with him ever since. He even knows that I will not get out of a car if there is a low hanging tree next to the passenger side because that low hanging tree might have a spider web in it (if you have ever lived in South Florida in the summertime you understand where I am coming from with this one). And I am not taking that chance.

You made me laugh because my friend and I do that a lot!! Recently we were supposed to be hit by a hurricane and decided to go to the beach and see the waves. Well we got there and could see fine. Some of our comments were, "I just showered." "I don't feel like getting sandy." And, "our view is perfect, why not just sit here in the car!" Thanks for letting me know it isn't just us!

This is pretty much the opposite conversation I had with my husband about getting a goat.

We want to buy a house eventually, and when that happens, we want chickens. We like eggs, and we like chicken, so it's perfect. Then I mentioned getting a goat so we can make our own yogurt and cheese.

Me: Let's get a goat. Making our own cheese and yogurt would be awesome.
Him: No goat.
Me: Why not?
Him: No ruminants.
Me: So, does this mean we can't get a llama, either?

MonicaP, for some reason the phrase "no ruminants" is funny. Beats me why; it just is!

He's unintentionally hilarious sometimes. He rarely gets it that his chain is being yanked, so I can have a completely serious conversation with him about whether a three-bedroom apartment will be enough space to house a goat.

@Nicole, THIS is so northern Cal:
"ROFL!!!! That is so LA!!! Not that I've spent much time in LA, but I lived in northern CA for a couple years and that's what everyone told me LA was like!"

Had you ever spent any time going around LA you'd see the city has the largest urban park in the country, one of the largest on Earth, and is surrounded by national forests and punctuated by green spaces and open swaths of native scrublands. Also, local nurseries make LA County one of highest producing Ag regions in the country... all those plants go someplace, mainly into the yards of Angelenos.

And we're urban too.

Totally with you here, Amy. My catch-phrase is, "I hate nature!" (truth) (Although I do like the Alps, and desserts. From the car.)

My idea of roughing it is when the ice machine is on the next floor up.

That Greg made you take the picture, and record what you had said, says volumes about your man's sense of humor.

Thanks for a great chuckle.

I share your feelings, Dan!

I asked a young lady out once in Louisville KY who wore nothing but high-heels, the only shoes you wore in the power-circles. She took one look at my very comfortable shoes and declined. I suppose she couldn't walk on the grass either.
Amy, where is your primal urge to connect? Bare feet on cool wet grass...ahhhh

For me, if it wasn't for nature's beauty life would not be worth the trouble.

http://wimp.com/foresttimelapse/

Luckily for me, there are people who take time-lapse video of nature's beauty. I'm for it! I'm just not for getting my feet dirty.

No worries. This is why God invented the Internet.

Heh, James, I was only in NoCal for a couple years so I can't -truly- call myself one, but point well taken! :) And come to think about it, wasn't Weetzie Bat into nature?

Alice, the Alps are different because no matter where you are hiking to, there's a nice little buvette an hour or two down the trail. So, you walk along, and voila! An inn, with Rivella and Fondue! Or you could just ride the cable car to some nice vista restaurant and never have to step outside at all.

Monica, I want a goat, too! It would be great! We had considered it, but even though we are in the country I'm not sure our house is zoned for a goat. Also, we go on too many trips (mostly for my husband's work) to have pets just now. But I love the idea of making my own cheese from my own goat. Have you gotten any of the kits from the New England Cheesemaking factory? My mozzarella turned out pretty good by the third or fourth try.

Monica, I want a goat, too!

I want people with goats to sell their fresh goat cheese at a market near me.

Amy, I would sell you fresh goat cheese, but one of us would have to move cross country...and I'd have to get a goat.

NicoleK, I haven't tried their cheesemaking kits. I've been a little overwhelmed canning all the produce I've picked over the past few months: peaches, blueberries and apples.

Nature is good! It gives us blueberry jam!

Nature is good! It gives us blueberry jam!

Stores are good! They sell it in cute little jars!

I'm with you Eric, nature is what makes life worth living. Photographs aren't really on the same level, because you can't take a picture of what pine trees smell like.

And James, LA may be surrounded by national parks but in order to get there I have to risk my life and mental health navigating these freeways. I've only been here a week though, maybe one gets used to it.

My mom is a Brooklyn-bred urbanite who gamely tried to give us a suburban childhood.

She eventually snapped (it was the driving) and said to my father, "I need to be somewhere with sidewalks and a subway system".

So we moved back to NYC.

NYC was a beautiful place to grow up (in my 20s, after my fake childhood).

Very funny.

I remember in HS having to take group pictures before proms out on someone's front/back lawn in heels. I felt like us gals in heels were saving them the trouble of having to aerate their lawns.

Love nature though.

Amy:
NYC was a beautiful place to grow up (in my 20s, after my fake childhood).
- - - - - - - - - - - -
It wasn't half bad for my real childhood.

I caught the cusp of the cultural wonderland that was NYC in the 60s, and was in high school during the financial and social collapse of the Koch years - so I was old enough to to understand and learn from that how unions and socialism don't work.

Am I the only one who finds this post incredibly endearing? :)

Socalism does work, so long as the size of the group practicing it doesnt exceed around a thousnd poeple

When I was a kid/teen, I spent a lot of time outdoors in the summer, mostly barefoot. So kind of the opposite. Except I hate camping. Something about pit toilets, no decent showers, air mattresses (at best), cooking over an open fire (with bugs and smoke in your face).

The problem with socialism is that it expects people to be smart and care about each other and to care in a way where they actually know what people want and what's best. Capitalism says that if you play by the rules and go after what you want, you can make money. If you try to sell people what they want, guess waht, you're doing something that helps people.