Outdoor Decorating
This is Misterarthur, filling in while Jennifer (who actually knows about design) gets a hip examination. Men have definite points of view on outdoor decorating. We’re happiest when we can use equipment, you see. The bigger, noisier, and more dangerous, the better. We’d jump for joy at the prospect of a nuclear powered hedge clipper, or a steam powered lawn mower, I’m sure.
Men like symmetry and straight lines.
Where women are happy arranging different kinds of flowers in lovely decorative pots, men are more interested in using machines to make precise edges.
If not that, then we’ll settle for a geometric-in-its-perfection hedge.
And above all, we want a lawn that is more like an outdoor rug than something one would find in nature.
If we can’t have things the way we want them, we tend to give up entirely. And park cars in our yards.
This all makes sense, really. Men probably invented junk yards, too.
4 Responses to “Outdoor Decorating”
Avatars are randomly assigned unless you get your own
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Posted by Jennifer on July 10th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Thanks for helping me out Arthur. And now I have a story to tell. When we were dating he took me “home” to Grosse Pointe (we lived in Baltimore). I was stunned to see all the perfectly manicured, edged lawns.
It looked great. But it got me thinking. How did it all begin?
Grosse Pointe is set up in a typical, Mid Western grid. So if one person buys an edger and gets their part of the sidewalk looking fine then the neighbors look bad. So they go out and buy edgers. And so on and so on.
Every now and then you get a maverick who plants wildflowers all over their front yard. I’m surprised they haven’t received a citation. :)
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Posted by misterarthur on July 10th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Oh, they may not receive a citation, but they will definitely suffer the slings and arrows of their neighbors’ wrath.
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Posted by misterarthur on July 10th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Actually, there is a steam powered option for lawn mower. Here’s how to make one yourself: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/02/converting_a_la.html
This looks like my old neighborhood in the D.