Thursday morning I felt right as rain.
I got so much done I don't even know what it all was.
Around noon some landscapers showed up and reminded me how spoiled people in this town are. Especially when they dug out a tree whose placement has irked E for a long time and relocated it.
Who even thinks of stuff like that?
Where I'm from if you don't like a tree and it's alive you deal with it. And if it's dead you send your sons out there with saws and rope and hope for the best. And where I'm from I've never heard anyone say they don't like the location of a TREE.
Whatever. Not my call.
Anyway, the landscapers spent over an hour fixing up our yard, which has been a total wreck since our last landscaper disappeared last year. His wife showed up once, did an awful job and was not asked back. We still don't know what happened there.
Mystery...
We've let the dog pretty much pooh wherever he wants to and with no one caring for the lawn it has become a field of land mines. I've also been letting the kids pick dandelions and so we have more weeds than grass at this point.
Which is why the gardener doused our entire lawn in weed killer. Strong weed killer.
When it was time to get R from the bus they were still blowing dirt and things around with big, loud machines that I was praying wouldn't wake up the Monster.
I took some dirt or sand or a boulder in the eyeball, retrieved the girl child and advised her to keep her eyes closed on the way back inside.
Shortly after she got home, the GE man showed up to fix our brand new, broken fridge. This one was immensely hotter than the guy who came last week and smelled infinitely better too.
I smoothed my hair and batted my eyes as I showed him to the kitchen.
He also knew much more about what the heck had happened to our appliance and when he started talking shop I actually forgot to hit on him.
Stupid digital age is ruining my life.
Because the main control board is a tiny computer, it is highly sensitive to fluctuations in electrical currents. So all you homeowners are now paying scores more for appliances that need to be pampered.
Interestingly enough, the fridge we had just thrown out was a late 60s model that worked flawlessly right up until we killed it, recently. It took fifty years to injure that baby, but the precious little digital models can't handle being plugged in for too long.
Whatever modern technology.
While he worked, I got some work done and noticed that it was warm enough in the house to open the windows.
I paid dearly for that move for the rest of the day.
My nose stuffed up immediately even as I was still enjoying the fresh cut grass smell.
My future boyfriend, Kevin from GE, said he loved that smell too. He also has allergies.
I am still new to allergies and I don't really know how they work, so we chatted for a bit and then he finished his work and walked out the door with his tools and a little piece of my heart.
I closed all the windows again but the damage was done, so while the kids ate dinner I drank six cups of tea and ate ginger candy like it was going out of style, which I guess it already has because they are T's and they are hard to find and she keeps begging everyone else to stop eating them but I can't, I just can't, I NEED TO BREATHE.
After dinner, while I was cleaning up, I called to R to let the dog out, which she does pretty regularly. She also feeds and waters him and then lets him back in.
When he came bounding into the playroom I nearly died from the stench that came with him.
He smelled of straight up pooh.
But I didn't know it was him.
First, I checked the baby's diaper and then I sniffed everywhere but the dog, confused as to how the smell had gotten into the room.
I took the baby for a change anyway and washed him all up. The other two came upstairs and everyone washed up and changed and I didn't smell anything anymore but then Willie came halfway up the stairs and it was like Superman in a room full of Kryptonite.
I gagged and dropped whatever I was doing and would have crumpled to the floor if not for the epiphany that kept me afloat.
I had let the dog out. In the freshly fertilized yard. Full of poisonous chemicals and yellow flags that say not to let pets or children play in or near it.
Whoops.
E got home right at that moment and I was done with the kids anyway, so I asked him where Willie's shampoo was and herded little Willie off to the shower.
I have never washed a dog before.
I am not a dog person.
But it was my fault he stank and for all I knew he was also dying from the chemicals so I decided to man up and wash the stinking dog. Literally to all of that.
He seemed excited. In his tiny, faulty dog brain he thought we were finally crossing the last milestone into friendship. He pranced around the bathroom like an idiot until I ushered him into the shower and turned it on.
Then he just stood there looking wet and nasty while I soaped him up.
I had to use three towels to dry him, and he's a small dog and all I could think about was how I hate dogs, wet dog smell and wet bathrooms. The third time he shook his fur out I covered him from head to tail with a towel and pinned him to the floor.
He thought I was playing so he started to bark and wiggle and burrow against my leg.
Ugh.
You dog people must think this is funny.
I had cats. Cats are easy. They are small and they hate the bath so it's an in and out affair with little fur shaking.
My poor little Dean Bean, may he rest in peace because he is dead, would just sit in the sink and I could wash and rinse and brush and dry him in no time at all. And then he smelled like flowers and soap and sunshine.
Not wet dog.
I got the beast dry and brushed and gave him two carrots for being good and also to get him to stop barking in joy.
Today was pretty slow. I cleaned the garage in a burst of spring cleaning motivation and got a splinter of something stuck in my finger. The garage looked amazing though and as I finished the Monkey woke up from his nap so I went in with R trailing behind me and we unloaded all T's stashes of baby bottles and I washed all the blankets that hadn't yet been prepped for the baby.
I sent T off to work this afternoon with best wishes from R's bus driver and my blessings should she go into labor this afternoon and ruin our plans to have dinner at E's sister's house.
I like E's sister ok in theory, but I have heard horror stories about her house.
Tonight I witnessed it all for myself.
It's huge, disgustingly so. It's full of stairs and marble and museum-like displays. There is an elevator.
I spent the whole night chasing Monkey away from stairs and things he could break and praying for the presence of mind to not curse anyone out for living like that.
I just couldn't deal.
In fact, the only thing that saved me from shooting glares at these people was when E's niece, one that I really can't stand, sat on a couch in the basement den, and it broke. The arm fell off and she landed with an exposed screw up her bum.
Her brother, hot Dr. M, laughed a little but then did his brotherly duties and told her to have Mom look at it. Their younger brother pointed out that the couch was broken and she shouldn't sit on that end.
She disappeared for a while.
I calmed myself down and played with my kids until it was time to go.
Here at home, inside an only slightly larger than normal house with our comfortable rooms that don't echo, we all sent T to bed with permission to go into labor tonight. She has decided to hold off until Monday so we can take maternity photos this weekend and because she was a showing on Sunday.
They have asked me to stick around yet another Sunday, but I laid the guilt trip well, and things will change a bit after the baby comes. In the mean time, they need to sell the house in the city that she is working so hard to show on Sunday afternoons.
Here's hoping!
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