Well, it started pretty early, around 5:15a, when Kitten decided that she was tired of being asleep and, Daddy’s attempts to fall asleep on her pillow (only half-joking) notwithstanding (pat-pat-pat on the head or shoulder. “Daddy. Daddy. Daddy ….”), further sleep was not to be had.
So we hung out downstairs. I made some raspberry coffee from a small tin my folks had brought on their visit. Katherine ate Cheerios, which she calls “Qs”. We watched Playhouse Disney.
Around 8:30 or 9, I got a call on my cell phone. “If Kitten would like to come and wake up Mommy, we could all take a shower together.” My wife is cute.
We went up, my urging Kitten to maintain a little mouse voice so as to “surprise” Mommy. She did use such a voice, assuming the little mouse were of elephantine size.
It was an odd Saturday, devoid of any social engagements or needed things to do. Margie offered to cook breakfast for me, which is unusual for either of us to do on a Saturday. I offended her heritage by turning down Swedish pancakes, so she retaliated by making up a fritata recipe. It was wildly successful, and the three of us wolfed it down.
That was the cue, by then, for Kitten’s nap, and I took her upstairs under protest. Which protest lasted about long enough for me to make it back down the stairs again. That gave me a chance to do some more blogging (including pulling my CSS out of all my files and simply referring to it, not to mention creating a “U.S. Bank sucks!” section on my Archives page). Then it was To Work.
Margie pulled the van out of the half of the garage not currently occupied by (a) boxes of detritus from the basement, destined for refugees or Good Will, (b) various items from the basement which were damaged by the sewer line backup a year ago, and are awaiting possible inspection by Insurance Inspectors, (c) an extra refrigerator, (d) left-over cooking apparatus and boxes of supplies from Margie’s Alpha cooking stint, and (e) various items which have taken advantage of the chaos which is My Side of the Garage to flee from their appointed locations and position themselves hither and thither amongst (a-d).
Margie’s goal was building an easel for Katherine, with a whiteboard on one side and a board for painting on the other. She’s had most of the supplies for this for some time, but no time. Today was the day.
While she worked on that, and in-between lending a hand cutting things on the table saw and/or with the SkillSaw (Dave demonstrating that he was paying attention while his father-in-law did all the work on previous visits), I was busy moving (d) into the Dining Room for Margie’s later attentions, putting away (e), cataloging (a) for tax purposes, and organizing (a-c), thus leaving us with a side of the garage that can actually be moved around in, kinda.
I really want to be able to park my car back in the garage. It spent all winter, spring, and headed into summer outside, and it’s a pain in the patootie getting in and out of it on our sloped driveway, dealing with the birdshit on the windshield, and dealing with snow/rain/burning sun, not to mention gloom of night. Bleah.
We only need to get the insurance thing taken care of, the donations donated, and the fridge removed, and I’m in like Flynn.
Being done with that, I tackled The Last Juniper.
When we moved into this house, there were junipers everywhere in the yard. It was a big landscaping thing twenty years ago, which was when the house was landscaped, and they had all grown to gargantuan size. Worse, most of them had several feet of decorative rock underneath them, glued together by two decades of debris and dirt into something resembling concrete.
I hate junipers. This comes, no doubt, from many, many years being responsible for, first, picking up juniper clippings after my Dad trimmed ours, and then, eventually, becoming both trimmer and picker-upper. Nasty, horrid things. Bleah.
The summer after we moved in, we got rid of half the ones in the front beds, turning those beds into rock-free drought-tolerant plantings. Lovely. The next summer saw the rest of those go. A couple of years ago, Margie let me buy a chain saw, which spelled the end of the other big ones along the side of the house, plus the three freestanding ones, Short-and-ugly, Tall-and-ugly, and Fat-and-ugly. The Ugly Triplets space became a huge garden. The ones on the side of the house were replaced with lilacs.
The Last Juniper was a low, creeping variety. Not at all obnoxious, but slowly encroaching on everything. Plus it’s in a space in the front yard where we want to put a footpath from the driveway into what-will-eventually-not-be-lawn. So it had to go.
The Good: It was a single plant, spread over about twenty square feet. I was able to chop it back to a stump in about half an hour.
The Bad: It was over 90 degrees this afternoon (but it’s a dry heat!), and even though I was in the shade, it was pretty uncomfortable.
The Ugly: Three to four inches of decorative rock, glued together by dirt. That’s the next task, breaking it up and removing it (and extending a sprinkler through it and building a path and a little retaining wall and …).
Then another quick shower, and off to dinner in air conditioned comfort. Margie had a coupon to a Chinese place a few miles away, so we piled into the van and drove off there. Good food, fabulous service (including special attention to Kitten), all for $20. Not too shabby.
Katherine’s first fortune cookie: Do not mistake temptation for opportunity. Perfect for a two-year-old.
Long day. But good day.