"Another big piece of metal on the track..."

We tried on our redneck shoes tonight and hooted and hollered at a real honest to goodness demolition derby.  We went to the Chelsea Community Fair with Curtis, Mitch and Allison to grab dinner and a little bit of entertainment. Besides being taunted by the typical carnival hawkers, we had good pizza, great hotdogs and tasty pretzels with various pops, but we had to hurry to grab our seats in the stands before the 7:30 start of the Figure Eight Demolition Derby.  I must say, this pastime is way more entertaining than it should be.  Even the skeptics among us were laughing raucously by the 5th round.  Yes, the 5th round.  In fact, there were eight rounds and one finale, all of which were entertaining enough to keep us in the uncomfortable aluminum bleachers until nearly 10:00.  We saw smoke, blown tires, sparks and, yes, even fire.  Every time a bumper, or some other conspicuous car part would fall off, the announcer would blare a siren and make the cars stop mid-race so that the referees (is that what they're called?) could run on and retrieve it… “Hold up, hold up!  Another big piece of metal on the track!”  On the way out we stopped to say hello to the cows (they were lowing), the goats (they were eating their pens) and the sheep (they are really noisy), and we’ll call it a considerably enjoyable night.  One question remains…are demolition derbies endangered because the new cars are all fiberglass? What will we demolish in derbies twenty years from now?!?!?

Round one, sprinklers.

This is our first house and we have only been here for a year so there are a lot of things that we are still learning, like lawn care.  Last summer we tried to get the hang of the inground sprinkler system and I won't lie to you—there were several mornings when we were awakened at disgustingly early hours by the rush of water against our bedroom window.  Oops, set the system wrong again.  Now, last summer I blamed it on user error, but after the past few days I have come to realize that the issue isn't us, it's our system.  I have just sat down from my most recent mad dash to the control box in what appears to be a futile attempt to reign supreme over its sudden spurt of adolescent egotism.  Last night we were watering when system two decided to throw a tantrum and just quit.  Following that assertion of self independence the revolution spread and none of the systems would work at all.
Today the battle continued in the form of a militant revolt on the part of system two. Its watering every couple of hours started at 9:30 this morning... even though the dial was set to OFF.  It had seriously developed its own agenda and would not even respond to my repeated depressing of the "off" button.  I'm sure its goal was to completely wash away my garden as a means of getting its point across, whatever that may be, but I will not let it be the boss of me.  I unplugged it.