Just for fun......

[freya]

I am just like so griped about this.

My partner is working 2 jobs this summer, so I have been mowing the lawn.

I hate mowing the lawn.....Actually, I hate most yard work because it is dirty and buggy and just generally "yucky," but I am doing this because I am not a totally unreasonable person and because my mom (who lives with me) maintains an amazingly beautiful garden (one of those gardems that people walking down the street will sometimes ring the bell and ask permission to go back in the yard and see) and so it only seems right that the yard in general not look so unkempt that it detracts from the garden.

So anyways, last week I was meeting with this client of mine, who is a single retired butch who lives in a little house on a pretty big piece of property about 20 miles east of the city, and somehow the subject of mowing the lawn came up. She, of course, has a riding mower and she enjoys mowing, but even so, it takes her half a day to get her lawn mowed. Well, I guess I said something about how much I hated having to do it, because she said that she especially liked, when she was all done, seeing the nice, neat rows of tracks in the grass from the mower.

......and I, apparently stupidly, said: "Well, actually, I don't mow back and forth in rows; I go around and around in ever-smaller rectangles until I get to the center."

And then she laughs and says: "You're such a girl!"

....which, of course, is true....DUH!!!!......but I really had no idea that there was a "girly" way of mowing (other, of course, than refusing to do it, which would definitely be my first choice!). But anyway, this AM I had to mow, and I decided to try to do it in rows, but everytime my attention wandered I'd come back to realize that I was doing it around and around again...so I guess it does seem to be the natural way for me to do it.

And then I made the mistake of saying something to my partner about this when she called at lunch and got the same kind of "Ha! Ha! that's a fu-fu (and therefore wrong) way to do it" response....so now I'm really ticked and feel like telling her if she wants to be that way, then she can d*mn well get out of bed on Saturday morning and do it herself after working 65-70 hours a week.

I mean, for heavens sake, the grass ends up cut either way -- and that was the point, I thought.

This kind of cr*p is just so friggin' misogynistic!

freya

[louis]

Hey freya

*speaks from hidden behind riot gear*

Nope... you dont mow the lawn that way.... you'd get dizzy for a start :o)
And then your stuck in the middle of the lawn....

I get alittle more creative tho... i keep wanting to mow the lawn (when i have one) like a chess set... but thats because i really like chess... but generally up and down the lawn would be the way to go :o)

hope your day got better

be well
louis

[freya]

Originally Posted by louis

Nope... you dont mow the lawn that way.... you'd get dizzy for a start :o) And then your stuck in the middle of the lawn....

Funny, I've never had either of those things happen to me....Those must be problems specific to "boys!" LOL!



freya

[GoldenGutters]

God, I must be a big ol' girl then too cuz I mow the lawn the same way you do Freya. Then again I prefer to mow parallel to the flower patches that border the lawn rather than stomping through the Salpiglosis (in my dream garden!) like Godzilla through Tokyo to turn the damn mower around to start the next line.

[sct]

Uh. Breathe dude. Neither of them said it was "wrong" just girly. Maybe it is, maybe it's not. To me it depends how your lawn is laid out. I'm assuming your partner didn't add the parenthetical "and therefore wrong."

Really, the only misogynistic thing I read in your post was... your own assumption that someone referring to something as "girly" MUST be wrong.

Breathe, say the serenity prayer, and go back to mowing the lawn however you like.

[freya]

Well you know, sct, it's exactly the same thing as "That's so gay!".......and my guess is everybody already knows that we disagree on this.......

..and just FYI, I most definitely am way too "girly" to be a "dude!!!"

LOL!

freya

[sct]

Yes. I know. I was being ironic.

[Live]

high comedy, I love it!
Thanks Freya for steering me to this thread.

I KNOW what my funniest story is...but I don't think it would be appropriate...nope, not even here. And no, I didn't mean anything by that....but we do know that some of the sub-forums are more liberal than others.

When I AM working in my career thing...it is white collar professional....but those guys in suits don't do a thing for me. They don't really know how to do guy things...like you said physical strength or more outdoorsy survival hunter types....When I meet a guy, one of the first things I ask him is if he has a pocket knife. yeppers...that tells me whether he is a good boy scout LOL and has on the ready tools to fix things with or whether he uses his cell phone and calls some other guy who can. LOL I mean when I am working on those projects...I can use the phone and hire a guy myself. Nope I want one that pees in the woods, marks his territory, knows how to catch dinner and cook it over a campfire, pops out his pocket knife and makes all sorts of creative tools with it, etc etc etc.
BUT he also has to know how to be a gentleman....open my car door, carry my luggage, order my dinner for me in a fine restaurant, help me with my coat.
Yes, I want to be a princess and I want it ALL! LOL
But, dang, I lived by myself in a rural area for many years and I hate it when I know better how to fix the roof, check the fuses, etc and blah blah than he does.

And you, Freya cannot be mad about being girly...because I read your first post. That is SO girly! LOL

I am sort of androgynous in contrast....I like to drive the interstate and play lead, follow or get outta the way. I like digging in the dirt. So to feel femine...I look for uber-masculine. And how did you get out of mowing the lawn as a chore when you were a kid????

[freya]

Originally Posted by liveweyerd

And how did you get out of mowing the lawn as a chore when you were a kid????

Several brothers who would much rather mow the lawn than do the housework.

It just all works out so much more easily when everyone knows whose job is whose! LOL! I have a femme friend who likes to say sarcastically: "I just don't know how those boy-on-boy and girl-on-girl couples do it. I mean like, when they get to a door that's closed, how do they know who opens the door?"

And of course, that's a joke -- but only partly -- because you also better know that she is not the one who opens the door when she's out with her butch!

freya

P.S...and, live, it's late, but I will e-mail you again tomorrow!

[Live]

LOL
Well, she walks up to the door, looks bewildered, checks her nails, adjusts her jewelry, checks how she looks in the glass.....
LOL

Being androgyness, I do not want to be constrained to one role for everything.
I mean I think he should cook for me.
I am a princess after all!
When he eats an apple, he bites off a piece and hands it to me. Yeah, I love that.

But, maybe I wanta put on the hard hat and try to drive the Tonka truck...like getting into the forbidden zone....LOL

[Live]

I used to like the term that I coined "polyandrogeness"...but I have settled down a bit!

i think sometimes I just like to play around with and be a little bit "in your face" with those stereotypical guys who have dumb ideas about what females can and can't do.

[Toronto68]

Freya, I read your gender thing from a long time ago, nice

Have you ever heard of a fufu? I can't remember what it was about, but I was talking with a neighbor one time, and it had to do with fixing something. She was a lesbian. She said she could take care of it, and didn't need a fufu, she had the right tool for it. She explained that a fufu is a fancy, power-assisted tool as opposed to a good old-fashioned tool that took a little strength and skill to use.

I still think of the word fufu when I see a fancy gadget. Just a fond memory of mine.

[freya]

....around here -- which is somewhere between central and western New York State, ~4 hours from Toronto -- the butches seem to use "fufu" to denote anything that is "not butch enough" or "too girly" for them.....a "fay-fay," on the other hand, would be a woman ( such as myself) for whom the same item would be gender-appropriate.

For example, we are having our local AA convention in about 2 weeks and I have been having a really hard time trying to find an evening clutch to go with the dress I'm going to wear. (I want one that is black and white -- but there seems to be some kind of unwritten rule that evening clutches have to be monochromatic -- because probably 98% of them are, and the rare ones that aren't are either to ugly or too expensive for consideration.) So, anyway, I was telling my my partner about my conundrum yesterday, and she like totally cannot understand why I don't just forget it and use one of the black ones or the silver one I already have....and, when I tell her why I need to have a new, black and white, one, she just laughs and tells me I'm "such a fay-fay." But, once I have obtained said bag, should I have the opportunity to ask her to like hold it for me while I go to the ladies room or something, she will screw up her face and crinkle up her nose and moan: "You want people to see me holding that fu-fu thing!?!?!?"

freya

[Toronto68]

Ha ha. I'm glad I wasn't all alone with that word. I used it when I was sailing with some friends a while back. (Straight couple.) The guy would make fun of speed boats (as opposed to sail boats, which is what he has.) So I designated the speed boats as a fufu and proceeded to explain, using the story I told you. He liked it.

I don't know for sure what a clutch is (although I drive manual transmission), but I followed along all the same

Hope you have a great convention!

[freya]

A clutch bag is a purse that doesn't have handles or a strap(s), so one either "clutches" it in one's hand or, if it's a larger one -- as opposed to a teeny-tiny one for evening and/or formal use -- one might hold it under one's arm, like pressed up against one's side.

freya

[Toronto68]

That makes sense. Doesn't it drive you nuts having to hang on to it though? I guess it is part of the outfit and just another way of being "dressed up" though.

By the way, I feel like a nimrod about the fufu topic now. It's right at the very top of this thread you started!! I must have forgotten I saw the word. I guess I should be thankful I have what brain I do have. Actually I know I should be.

I don't know if I have ever seen anyone mow lawn in squares. I haven't done it since the 1980s. I don't miss it. Once in a while I got some enjoyment out of it, just out of a sense of satisfaction about completing something. Push mower as well as riding. (I called it a tractor.) Today I hate the smell of fresh cut grass. Not sure if it has to do with memories of the chore or because I associate it with particles of stuff in the air and hay fever or what. But I just hate it. And the sound of those gas leaf blowers is taking it to a whole 'nother level

[freya]

Originally Posted by Toronto68

Doesn't it drive you nuts having to hang on to it though? I guess it is part of the outfit and just another way of being "dressed up" though.

Well, it isn't the most convenient thing -- but, of course, part of the "idea" is most likely that a "lady" attending a formal event is not going to have to be doing anything that seriously requires the use of both hands, so why not use one of them to hold an absolutely luxury item clearly indicative of conspicuous consumption -- like a fu-fu bag???????

Kinda like that story from the court of Louis XVI about the noblewoman who complained to her clothier about the fact that her relatively new pair of court-shoes had begun to show signs of wear, only to have him respond with shock and horror: "But, Madame, it appears that you may have been walking in them!"

freya

....and don't get me started on those ludicrous markers of over-the-top machismo: leaf-blowers! For heaven's sake, one might as well go around bellowing loudly: "Look at me, I'm a real man.".....a certifiably stupid and self-absorbed one, but a "real" one nonetheless!

Geesh, like anyone with half-a brain doesn't know perfectly well that a real man would know how to use a friggin' rake!

[Toronto68]

It's probably like a gun ("boy" stuff) as a vacuum in reverse, moving leaves around without having to sweep. I doubt there are many people that actually achieve efficiency with those things. The groundspeople I have seen just move the leaves around. It's like the most they are accomplishing is spending fuel without clearing anything up (like my drinking was, ha ha). And I hate the noise too, big-time.

I saw an old-fashioned mower in action once (a rare thing, I had never grown up around them). Nice and quiet and it looked like it was doing the same job.

One time I saw a neighbor moving his lawn with an electric machine the day the power came back (after the blackout of 2003). The first thing I did was line up to buy more non-perishable food and put gas in the car in case I had to go somewhere else to survive, if the power went away again. But he needed to cut the grass, immediately, ha ha.