(Cheech accent)
“Sure thing man, we do your lawn. Me and my amigos, we only work for tequila, though.”
-Joe
El-no-o kidding-o. El-I-o know-o how to espeako el-Mexicano.
I was kidding about that, of course.
Seriously, though, xtisme, I’ll take another martini once you finish clearing the dishes.
He’s going to be expecting it on Cinco de Mayo.
I think George Lopez did a bit in his stand-up routine about being mistaken as a worker because he was Mexican. However, I think he was mistaken for a worker BY one of the Mexican workers at HIS house.
It was pretty damn funny…I can’t seem to find any reference to it online.
You were down right courteous to your neighbor, tho. wtg.
Sadly, it doesn’t surprise me.
I had a temp job working for a friend at a carpet cleaning company. It was my friend, his brother, and a cousin (all Mexican) and me(white). Well most companies try to multitask when they have the restauraunt closed for carpet shampooing so there all all kinds of deliveries and workmen showing up. Pretty much without fail they would walk right past everyone else sneak up behind me while I’m sweating like a pig lugging around a 120 pound machine, and dressed in crapy work clothes, tap me on the shoulder and hand me paper work to sign.
Now, Okay, even if you are going to go with the dumbass assumption that I am the head of the shampooing crew, why the hell are you giving me the paperwork to sign for the new freezer? That would go to the restauraunt owner, not the carpet cleaners.
The dumbest was when I was working while our my friend, and the restauraunt owner(also Hispanic) were negotiting for the next years service, so they were both in suits sitting at a table talking, while I was on my knees scrubbing out gum. A workman(Hispanic) walked right past them to hand me paper work :smack: The guy didn’t even speak a word of English, so I had to call my boss over to translate that I wasn’t the guy to talk to.
Sorry about your troubles, but I just wanted to pop in and beg you to forget about the fescue and xeriscape your lawn instead.
Do you mean a rumbled wall, as in a wall made of the special Pavestone concrete bricks? They’re called rumbled stones because to make them, you toss them in a tumbler with some other rocks and rumble them around until they get that chipped, aged look.
The only reason I know this is I helped out a friend with his backyard with his dad, who’s a contractor.
Heh. This reminds me of something that happened to me.
My lawyer boss was out for a week, and in his absence, some guys who were on the opposing and winning side of a suit came in with their interpreter/representative to receive the checks representing the overtime that our client had cheated them out of. Unbeknownst to me, these winning defendants were all Asian gang members and I was warned at the last minute to have a male in the room with me, “just in case.” I thought over who would be most intimidating, and went and fetched a young office services fellow who had been working out a lot lately. By chance, this guy was also Asian. He wordlessly entered the conference room and maintained a low-visibility presence next to the door.
The defendants’ representative read over our paperwork and checks, but would only address any legal questions to my “bodyguard”. My attendant hadn’t a clue about anything legal (he’s a photocopying clerk), and I had to constantly interrupt the agent to get him to direct the questions and comments to me.
You could have had some fun there. Insist that your wife is Korean. Get her to go along with it. “Me? White? Gosh, no, I was born and raised in Pyongyang. Haven’t you ever seen a Korean before? Heck, I’d have thought my accent would have tipped y’all off!”
Who knows? He sounds just about dumb enough to fall for it.
Maybe it’s because I don’t live in that part of the country, but I think that’s kind of sweet. I mean, not that they thought New Mexicans don’t speak English, but that they at least tried to speak Spanish to people they thought were native speakers, instead of just YELLING REALLY LOUD.
And you’re welcome to them. Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!
I appreciate the support! I didn’t really think anyone would wander into this thread…it was just a place for me to vent. 
Lucky for my neighbor I didn’t tell her what this guru said…she would have taken D_Odds advice and rapped him up side the head. She is much more hot tempered than me (ironic that…considering she is from stoic nordic stock and I’m hispanic ).
Yes, its one of those walls that you don’t have to put in an binding compound to hold it together…and yes, its made of concrete though it resembles light brown/tan stone. I thought the guy where I bought it was saying ‘rumble wall’. :smack:
Couple of problems with this. The major one is that my wife is from back east…Maryland/Penn area. She needs to see some green or she goes bonkers.
Secondly, the front yard is already xeriscaped…just like almost everyone else’s yard is. However, especially this year, we are getting some rather bad wind storms…and dust from the front yard is bad enough coming in the house. Dust from the back as well would be even worse (it current IS really bad since there is no grass or anything to hold it down).
Lastly I have two rather young children (6 and 2), and they really need a place where they can play. Its rather hard to play in a xeriscaped yard…I know, thats what we had when I was younger. Course, we just called it ‘natural desert’ in my youth, denoting that we essentially left the ground as it was. 
For myself, I would agree…it would be a hell of a lot less work, would cost less, and would use a lot less water (something that we out here in the SW will eventually hit the wall with if we aren’t careful). Probably as soon as the kids graduate I’ll tear it out and put in the xeriscape though.
Yeah, thats kind of what I thought. Who knows…maybe he was trying to make a joke or something. Or maybe he really IS that stupid. Jury is out still, though I’m leaning toward the latter. And I’ll probably never find out as I doubt I’ll be interacting with this guru much in the future…or I should say that now that he knows that there are Mexicans (and corrupted white females) living next door (THERE goes the neighborhood!) I’ll probably never see him again…except maybe peering out of his window to make sure I’m not stealing his lawn furniture.
-XT
I’m telling you, we’re building the wall on the wrong border.
I take it from the context here that you’ve just moved to my (general) neighborhood. Welcome! I live about 30 miles east, where the landscapes are pretty much established.
If we actually get any this year. It’s been pretty dire for a few seasons now. If you decide on buffalo grass, you will probably find that you can’t get sod in the sense of a carpet of grass you can just roll out. It’s so expensive that you pretty much have to use plugs instead. When Mr. Legend and I were in your position (with little kids who needed something inviting to run barefoot on), we broke down and planted a nice grass under a shade tree and used less water-intensive plants around the edges of the lawn. Bermuda isn’t bad if you don’t mind the yellow dead grass all winter (the kids will be tracking it into the house). Mr. Legend and the first little Myth are both allergic to it, so it wasn’t an option for us.
You might try talking to the nice people at Plants of the Southwest or Osuna Nursery. They can help steer you in the right direction.
Gosh, he’s going to have a grand old time living in New Mexico! I wonder how long it will take him to discover that plenty of the Hispanic residents here (some of whose families have been in the area since before the Boston Tea Party) believe that they are, indeed, “white” and that in any case we don’t really need any more ignorant racist assholes moving in from other states.
Sounds like a great opportunity to mess with his wireless network. Even better, put something interesting on his laptop. Those Intel guys all have Thinkpads they take home at night.
I can’t wait until your neighbor finds out the governor of New Mexico is latino.
I know what you mean about guys like this. I worked with someone who would make lame sexist/homophobic/racists remarks and everyone’s reaction was this kind of bewildered “what century are you from?” kind of reaction.
That’s funny. When I go back east now, I feel claustrophobic becuase of all the tress. If I can’t see about 50 miles in each direction when driving, I get uncomfortable.
Oh. And MD is NOT a northern state. We are below the Mason Dixon line. Until they came up with “mid-Atlantic”, we were considered southern.
And so this isn’t a hijak: Your neighbor’s a tool.
I’m from Maryland, and I was glad to move to the West. I’m allergic to the lawn grass they grow back East, and evidently most of the grass out here is a different type that I’m not allergic to.
Funny thing about whether Maryland is part of the South- ask a Pennsylvanian and they’ll say yes, ask a Virginian and they’ll say no.
When I lived out east I had the opposite problem as my wife…it was all so GREEN! And you couldn’t see the horizon, so like with Fear the Turtle I was always vaguely claustrophobic. Between that, the humidity and the bugs (and other assorted minor things like the people in DC/Northern VA/NY/Boston/Philly/… ) I was happy to move back west…even with a huge pay cut (both mine and my wife).
As for the Maryland being North or South, I’m afraid that even though I lived in Chesapeake Beach for 10 years its a distinction that is lost on me. Its certainly north and east of Arizona.
-XT