I don't like being in a bad mood all the time. It pisses me off. But until I can figure out how to sleep again, things like these will irritate me:

• The guy in the white Toyota coming right at me (against the arrow) in the Food 4 Less parking lot.
  
  
• Whoever left the shopping cart in my very favorite parking space.
  
  
• The woman on the bicycle who thought that sharing the sidewalk with me (as I walked to the post office) was a better way to go than using the bike path (which I resisted the temptation to knock her into).
  
  
• The fellow at the post office who waited until I was about to enter, then slammed the door open from the inside. (I saw you lurking. Don't even tell me it was an accident.)
  
  
• The three people walking along too slowly in front of me (but not slowly enough for me to pass them). What good is a twenty-minute power walk if I have to amble?
  
  
• The Tampa Bay Devil Rays, for playing like that (you can't imagine) and yet still calling themselves a "major league" team.
  
  
• Punching the cordless phone and getting nothing but the "low battery" signal — even though it's been on the charger all night.
  
  
• That persistent starling that still thinks it's going to live inside my dryer vent. (I did a load of laundry today, just to prove my point.)
  
  
• Leaky faucets, screen doors that stick, falling bathroom tiles, and other flaws the landlord promised to fix (seven months ago when I moved in).
  
  
• Losing the remote. Again. And again.
  
  

And that's just today.

Last weekend I took a look outside my front door and was shocked at how badly the walkway was overgrown.

Yesterday afternoon I finally did something about it.

It's not a perfect job, but the birds seem to like it better. It's as good a job as I could do for now. There are more important things to do than getting rid of every bit of bad growth from between the paving stones. I have a whole backyard full of different kinds of grasses that are growing so quickly they're almost over my head. It's quite annoying for the local cats who have to tromp through it.

And I don't know what I'm going to do about it, unless I can figure out whether the lawnmower left here by the previous tenant is capable of doing the job. I don't have any confidence in my wimpy little weed trimmer (which needs re-stringing anyway). If it doesn't rain this weekend, I might just go out there and start yanking stuff out of the ground. It couldn't look any worse.