Okay, now, where was I?

Oh. I was hoping you would remember.

I guess I’ll just make it up as I go along…

SO anyway, in case I’ve never asked the question, why do kids instinctively know when it’s the weekend, and wake up before dawn and start giggling and playing all sorts of bleeping video games (and I use “bleeping” in both the euphemistic AND the onomatopoeiac senses of the word) and wake up their sleep-deprived parents hours earlier than is strictly necessary? The rest of the time, they would gladly sleep until noon, but come Saturday, some sort of internal mechanism like the one that makes pigeons fly home makes them get up and start ripping and roaring. ::sigh::

Oh well, it’s only sleep.

UP early Saturday, Reba made us some biscuits and it was time to start knocking down the Bermuda. Bad thing about Bermuda grass is that the green is only on the upper third or so of the grass blade, so if you allow it to grow for three weeks before cutting it, the lush carpet of fine green grass that threatens to overtake the house like kudzu looks pretty much dead after you cut it. But, at least it looks like someone actually lives there now, brown grass or no.

Got most of it done, including about two-thirds of the backyard when it got to be time to get ready to take Boy to his soccer party. Stop mower, put it in the shade, come in and take shower and rush around trying to get everyone else ready. Have to make emergency stop at grocery store for something on the way, have to stop and buy stamps, have to do a billion other things that absolutely drive me bonkers—I’m really not a Type A person, except when it comes to being somewhere on time. I have had to learn MUCH PATIENCE…and I still have a ways to go. Anyway, got through doing silly running around, got to the restaurant and into the pit of hyperactive boys.

The place itself was actually pretty neat—it’s in sort of a nondescript strip shopping center, and from the outside you can’t tell anything about it, but inside is big and open with all sorts of local sports memorabilia on the walls, and the food was actually good. Boy went and abused the billiard table with the other hooligans, apparently none of whom had ever been out in public before. Jonathan’s a playful kid, but he knows he’s not supposed to just run wild. A point lost on the majority of his teammates. Can’t really blame the kids when their parents are no better, though. Did get to see part of the Auburn-South Carolina baseball game on the giganto teevee, which was pretty good—I’m glad I missed the one later in the day when Alabama whacked ‘em 13-3. Thank goodness it wasn’t football.

Got through eating and gabbing and then it was time to go to the Butterfly Store.

If any of you read Southern Living magazine, Larry Anderson pointed out a few days back that this month’s issue had a little blurb on Trussville, which included a short write-up on Cedar Street Garden Shop. This is what Catherine calls the Butterfly Store—all those flowers means all those butterflies, and I think she thinks that they come with the plants when you buy them.

In any event, it’s her most favoritest place to go shopping, aside from every other place, and the visit was arranged as a bribe to take her mind off the multitude of uncomfortable mosquito bites on her legs. (It never seemed to occur to any of us that their might also be mosquitoes in addition to butterflies at the Butterfly Store, but there you go.)

Got there and looked around a bit and surveyed all the damage they got in the flood earlier this month. Their building had nearly five feet of water inside, and they had a couple of trucks and Bobcats that demonstrated their submarine abilities. They’re still cleaning up muck and gunk, but at least they’re still plugging along. We looked around for a while, saw the mom of one of the kids in Rebecca’s class (who scandalized Rebecca by having on only shorts and a spandex jogging top—“Mama!! She just has on UNDERWEAR!!”) and not finding anything both inexpensive and pretty, we went on over to the hardware store across the tracks.

They got hit pretty hard, also—they have a big lumberyard right beside the rail line, and when the water came through all the lumber got jumbled around like a big pile of pick-up sticks. They too, are still trying to get fixed up, but at least the water didn’t get up so high inside the store. We did manage to find two things that are sure to make for many more stories—first was bird seed in a big resealable tub. Last year (as you most assuredly recall) I had a big bag of seed out in my Giant Plastic Playhouse That Is NOT A Storage Shed and it became home to a family of mice. But a bucket, SURELY, will be more secure! (Said with some sense of a sure-to-come comeuppance at the paws of the local rodentry.)

Also found a new birdfeeder to try out—we buy birdfeeders like Imelda Marcos bought shoes, continually and compulsively. But doggone it, at some point in here there has to be a time when I can find one that holds enough seed, is more or less water resistant, is easy to clean, and most important (aside from being cheap)—is squirrel-proof. Wood ones rot and let in too much water, and they usually have nice little seed trays that make perfect spots for big stupid doves and big clever squirrels to lounge about. Metal ones rust, plastic ones break, some can’t be cleaned. But the search goes on.

I think I have found one that does pretty well—clear acrylic tube, tight fitting metal top, metal perches that can't be gnawed off, lots of openings in the bottom to let any water out, and cheap. I wound up getting three of them, and if Sunday was any indication of their usefulness, things may go just fine. Woke up, ate breakfast and a biker gang of squirrels were all over the backyard. One climbed up the skinny little metal pole of one feeder, managed to get on top, hang upside down by his back legs, grab a perch below, try to get down, and fell. Repeatedly. HAH!! Another jumped over to the one by the pine tree and a had similar lack of success. They all finally gave up and sat their big bushy butts down in one of the little flat feeders close to the ground that I fill up for them and their big stupid pigeon brothers. That’s probably the easiest way to keep squirrels out of your birdfeeders—just pay ‘em off with a little easy to get seed.

Anywho, back to Saturday—no spectacular must-haves at Marvin’s (aside from the feeder) so we went on up to K-Mart to get our paint. Which sounds simple until you factor in the fact that they have a garden shop, too. “HEY!! THEY’S GOT BUTTERYFLIES, TOO!!”

Yep, they sure do.

The girls each picked out some little flower plants, and Jonathan decided to become a farmer with the purchase of two Big Boy tomato plants. Then we went and they learned how to mix paint—Martha Stewart "Bonnet Pink" consists of 5/32nds violet, 5/32nds red, and 7/32nds of insufferable, cloying triteness per gallon of Bright White Base. Just so you know, in case you want to experiment at home. Then they witnessed the magic and joy of the paint shaker, and then it was time to head home to get the plants in the ground and finish cutting the grass.

On the way, I spied a nice, straight 1959 Biscayne—two door sedan, refrigerator white, steel rims with dog dish hubcaps—the cheapest model of the ugliest Chevy. Hmm. Obviously, though, it had been worked on a bit. It had a particular stance and gait that seemed to be a bit more than stock. Might have been the fatness of the tires on the rims, or possibly the two discreet chrome tailpipes sneaking out the back. Probably NOT one for the import tuner kids to demonstrate their 2Fast, 2Furiousness on. I saw it again when we were coming home from church on Sunday, this time going in the same direction as we were—I slowed down a bit and let it pass—a quiet burble that didn’t sound like a small block and didn’t sound like a big block, and it had an antiroll bar on the axle the size of my wrist. Made me wonder if the guy had decided to go all out and drop in a 409—a boat anchor for sure, but extra nose-thumbing points when you walk off from a pimply-faced kid in a Civic that has more bass power in the stereo than it has torque. Just a tip, kids, but it’s best not to taunt such ugly pieces of iron.

In any event, we all got back to the house and unloaded shrubberies (you may call me Roger the Shrubber) and got them into the dirt, and I got started again on the grass. The back half of the yard has all the kid stuff in it, so it takes almost as much time to mow around as it does to cut the entire rest of the yard. The swing set is a bear, and it’s probably time to let go of it. It has been through four kids and the plastic parts long ago gave themselves up and the rust is about to get the rest. But the swings still work. Hard to get rid of working swings, and it does have some sentimental value. I have a picture of my father-in-law and me taken right after we finished setting it up at our old house in Irondale. It’s funny in a way, because we both have the same sort of unsmiling faces that you see in photographs from the nineteenth century of mill workers and convicts. It wasn’t THAT hard to put together! And to break down and move and reassemble. Better let it hang around a bit longer.

Beautiful day all around no matter how you cut it, though, and then it was time to come in and take my second shower of the day and scrub the kids of their daylong coating of grime and get them ready for church.

The time for which came after what seemed like only five minutes worth of sleep. Good classes and sermon, as always, then we had to scoot across town to go visit with Ashley’s grandparents. Saw a dead armadillo over on Daniel Payne Drive, which I suppose is probably a very fitting omen for the day, and that will be the extent of my comments on that subject.

Afterwards, we went back to the house, and looked around at Oldest’s room still locked in the messy embrace of clutter and bric-a-brac and junk and pictures on the walls and curtains on the windows and furniture in the way. “You know, we need to move this stuff so you can paint.” Operative words being “we”, meaning YOU; and “you”, meaning YOU. So YOU got to moving stuff while still in his Sunday duds, working up a nice moist glow. But after it was all over, there was no junk on the floor and there was maneuvering space around the perimeter sufficient for a painter exactly 3/4 of my size. Cooled off, read the paper a bit, went back to church, came home, ate supper, went to bed, and the next day being Monday, was given a welcome respite from chattery kids. They thought it was a regular day, and thankfully slept five minutes longer than normal. Hooray.

Got the spackle pot and putty knife out and covered over the millions of nail holes, got out the paint can and started going over the spackle holes and killing smudges and scrapes, and then proceeded on to the very most fun thing about painting, cutting in the trim.

Tiny room, really. Yet it has five inside corners, one outside corner, two windows and three doors. And space sufficient only for a chimpanzee to go between the stack of furniture. I, it must be noted again, am rather larger than a chimp, tending more to the lowland gorilla side of the primate growth chart. Painting all the hot spots and around all the baseboards and ceiling and doorways and corners took three hours. You heard right. But once that was done, the roller came out and the pace really picked up. It only took another hour and a half. Part of this was taken up by my proclivity to act like a real house painter and disappear for long periods of time, although once I returned I can say that I was stone cold sober. So it's not like I could do this for a living.

Another part of the time was taken by having to explain to curious children why paint stinks (it has special stinkifying agents so that you can find it in the dark), what THAT thing does (it is a paint can opener and spy radio), why is it called "Basket Pink" (because "Viscera Pink" was perceived by focus groups in a negative way--go figure), and what a ‘holiday’ is.

A holiday usually describes when a professional painter goes on a three day bender and returns to work with an altered perception of what has been painted and what has not, resulting in areas which receive no paint. In my case, it is when Daddy misses a spot with the roller because he is simultaneously trying not to get paint on himself or the floor or on the antique dresser which is 3 inches away from his gluteus.

“Daddy, you have a holiday HERE, and HERE, and one THERE, and there’s a long one HERE!”

“Uhh, well, it may look like it, but it’ll all even out by the time the paint dries.” (I learned that from a painter.)

“I don’t think so, Daddy—it’s not pink, it’s beigey colored.”

“Your mama’s calling you.”

“I didn’t hear her.”

“Maybe it was someone else—why don’t you run downstairs and see.”

“Okay.”

Then I ran back to where she was and touched up the spots she found. Just to make sure it does match when it dries.

Once done, The Missus got to come in and inspect and was suitably impressed and said it looked like a girl’s room. But, could I get the brush and get this spot HERE, and right around HERE, and up above the door THERE.

“I think once it dries it should even out.”

“Well, maybe, but I think this really is a spot you missed.” Obviously, she has talked to the same painter I had.

All done, and it looked pretty darned good. Went and washed the tools and brushes and got ready for supper. Yummy grilled chicken breasts cooked on the explosive natural gas devise. MMmm! While I sat recuperating from the day’s painting activity and waiting for the grille to get hot, I watched the birdies eating out of their new feeders. They seemed very happy, although it was a bit Hitchcockian when I slapped the yardbird on the fire to find that a very large gathering of starlings had taken roost up in the hickory tree. Watch it, birds. This could be YOU if you start thinking I look like Tippi Hedren.

Nothing came of the birds, and the chicken came off the fire nice and tasty. Eat, clean up, bed, wake up, and I wound up HERE!

Imagine that.
posted by Terry at 3:45:00 PM