real life better than Sienfield

Greetings my fellow Sodbusters.

I was out at the garden implements section of my local walmart yesterday and went out to look at the potting soil and noticed that people were driving awfully close by. For some reason people drive through the side of he Walmart parking lot like there are not going to be pedestrians but this was worse than normal. I was focused on the potting mix and garden soil so much that I hadn't noticed two vehicles that were directly behind me that were sitting face to face with each other about 2 feet apart. I then noticed 3 walmart employees standing on the side walk and the top boss of them all (somehow it was obvious) came up to the guy leaning on the back one of the vehicles which was a pickup truck.

The manager lady walked up to him and asked if she could help him. He told her that they had a "situatoin". At this point I was only pretending to look at the potting soil and was as focused on the "situation" as I could be with out looking obivious.

It turns out that the guy in the truck had pulled over to go around someone or for someother reason was driving on the "wrong" side of the parking lot lane and he had come face to face with a lady in a car who wanted him to get out of the way. I didn't get to see the initial face off but I would imagine that the walmart people reviewed on tape.

As far as the guy with the truck, He was a black dude about 40 to fifty years old and the expression on his face when the manager walked up was what reminded me of the sienfeld episode. There was a scene where George was parking his car on the street below Jerry's apartment and another guy was backing in at the same time. George and the other guy both had thier cars angled in about halfway into the spot.

The difference between the Walmart scene and sienfield was that Goerge and this other guy were actually trying to get a tangable thing, the parking space. I know it is tough to find parking in NY City. But back here at the Walmart, They really had a dispute about nothing. It was only about being right and both were stubborn enough to take a halt from thier rest of thier lives to get this dispute resolved to thier own best interest.

The manager lady did show me why it is she is a manager. She made a smart decision to not go in and tell anybody to do anything. She actually told the guy that he was welcome to keep his car parked there as long as he wanted to. She then walked over the the lady in the car. She younger than the guy. Maybe 30 and was in a small car. The lady in the car was getting into the specifics of who was right and how the guy was on the wrong side of the lane and so forth and the manager lady at the end told her that it was with in her (car ladys) power to resolve the situation and she did not need any help from her (manager lady).

What was smart was that the Manager Lady did not paint herself into a corner. She did not make the situation worse by trying to express that she was in authority and then tell anybody to actually do anything. She avoided confrontation.

She then went back over to the dude in the truck and spoke to him some more and then she walked back into the store. As she was walking, he got in his truck and pulled around.

Good Job Walmart Manager Lady.


Now back to my exciting gardening news. Please keep in mind this is not as bad as posting about being on a diet. I know the difference between boring and rude thank you.

I did purchase 5 small plastic pots and some potting mix. I also mixed in some Miracle Grow Garden soil. I know you re not supposed to used the topsoil as potting mix but the Miracle grow potting mix was too expensive. I just bought the walmart version of some miacle grow plant food to add later.

I did fill three of the pots and put some of the excess cherry tomato plants from the garden. I needed to thin the cherry tomatos anyway since it looks like just about all the seeds sprouted. I also bought a package of seeds for garlic flavored chives and will probably plant those in a pot today.

In other exciting news, The lettuce I planted last week sprouted a couple of days ago and this morning I saw that the spinnach and peas have started to sprout also. Nothing yet with the squash, watermellon, or cantalope seeds.

My plan at this point is to put some of the spinach and lettuce in pots also becuase they will need some seriouls thinning out and more space than what is currently allocated the garden.

It is kind of exciting to see the seeds coming up.

I did have a run in with the elements already. Mt neighbors Cat came around and dug up a spot and killed a couple of the cucumber plants but he did actually help by adding some fertilizer.

I decided to get seme plastic drinking water bottles (individual size) and place them in the valleys between the rows. I figured it would make the cat less comfortable walking around and digging. It has seemed to work so far.

Then this morning we had some heavy rains for about half an hour. They have passed through and it looks like nothing washed out. It does make me think about how it was for the people in the old days who were farmng becuase they had to. I can also see why that country people are more likley to shoot a critter woutout thinking twice.

I have a plastic owl that I bought a while back and I placed it on the ground next to the garden. I know that is not going to be enough and when the time comes I have already decided to make a couple of scare crows. I may not know what I am doing but I can promise you that I am not fooling around. Go ahead and look over my fence and laugh at my scarecrows. It isn't going to deter me one iota. I am not going to move my car!


That is it for now but we will be back soon with more exciting details.