Gardening in the Rain

Mom gave me over a hundred flower bulbs. It was time to replace her tulips, so of course she ordered enough bulbs to populate the Netherlands. My mother is a generous person. She felt I needed about a hundred of them.

Thanks, Mom.

So, there I was with a big crate of every kind of bulb I ever wanted to plant and no time to do it. My plan was to have them in the ground by mid-October. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men . . .

October came and went. As from my former post, you remember what happens when you wait too late in the state of Illinois to do an outdoor project. I still have frostbite on my ass from that one.

The problem was more than time. The summer had been hot and dry, and the ground had been baked to a brick-like consistency. So, I needed to wait for a little rain.

A little rain.

It was too cold the day I cleaned the flue on the roof. It was too cold and icy to do much at all. I needed to wait. Hey, the weather man said it would warm up. He also said it would rain almost non-stop.

Like without stopping.

But Mom had given me a crate of expensive bulbs. Before the bulbs could go in, I had to take out the tomato beds. The wood was rotting. The beds were full of fungus from the wet spring, the kind that infests tomato plants and makes them die. So no tomatoes could be planted there again. So they had to come out.

When I put them in a few years back, I put in a potent mix of well over 2000 lbs of organic materials to grow my lovely veggies. Each year before planting, I mixed in another 250-500 lbs. I figured, after some run-off and whatnot, there was probably still 2500 lbs of soil to move. Removing the rotting wood took little effort. One sharp whack with a hammer and the wood falls away.

Yesterday dawned drearily, but the rain had stopped. It wasn’t a heavy rain all week. It was a drippy, drizzly rain that soaked into the bones, but not the kind that fully saturates the ground. It does, however, soften it enough to actually drive a spade into it without killing oneself.

So, yesterday I started. I knocked down one box, carted the soil away—a wheelbarrow at a time—and worked the area, put in 28 bulbs in the cold wind and quit. It was too chilly, too windy to carry on.

Which meant my extra day off was going to be hell. I needed to cart off another 1500 lbs of dirt, break down the box, put in two more tulip beds and a bed of annis, various hyacinth, daffodils and whatever else was in the crate.

Then get Christmas lights down from the attic, string them up, put up the deer and other display lights. So much for reading that book I have sitting on the table. Sigh.

The wheelbarrow is rickety. It’s only 30 years old. The ground is wet. No, it’s a slog of mud. The grass is wetter. The mud is slick. The shovelfuls are heavy.

I was on my fourth load in the wheelbarrow. I was moving the soil to various low spots—anywhere where I could get rid of it. That’s a lot of dirt to dispose of, but I was determined.

My muscles screamed, still sore from the day before. My back was telling me no more. My boots were soaked through and heavy with thick globs of mud and wet leaves. It was like carrying around 10 lbs of cement on my feet, and my feet were freezing.

The fourth load was especially heavy. For some reason, I failed to remember how rickety the wheelbarrow was. So, I was moving the load, moving fast because it was heavy.

The handle snapped off at the base. It sheered away under a couple hundred pounds of muddy garden mix. The other handle was intact, so the barrel immediately listed sideways, causing me to over-correct, which caused the barrel to drop to the ground at a dead stop.

I failed to stop. I failed to stop when my pelvic bone came into contact with the lip of the barrel. I failed to stop when I went down into the mud in the bowl. Ah, I just love the flavor of organic, composted shit in the morning.

So, wiped the mud from my face, spit out a mouthful of sphagnum and manure laced with vermiculite, and crippled the barrel over to my next dump spot.

Time for a break.

I hate my neighbor. He said, “Hey, why didn’t you come get me? I would have used my in-loader to move all that for you.

Yeah, I hate him and his kind offer. I guess my deer-in-the-headlights look with black mud streaking my face and hair, not to mention the copious amounts coating my clothes and boots, must have been comical. He launched into a belly laugh that would make Merry Ol’ St. Nick envious.

“Too late?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

I was done moving dirt, so it was time to plant. Bulb diggers are fabulous tools. I highly recommend them to anyone who wants to plant bulbs. You plunge them into the soil, twist, pull, and you have a perfect hole.

I recommend you spend more than a two dollars like I did. On my second row of bulbs, the digger split down the middle, flew apart and sent me face first into the freshly turned mud.

Yummy.

This time, it went up my nose. Not to worry. I always carry tissues when digging in the mud on cold, rainy days.

Yes, it started raining again. Lovely. Four tissues later, I pieced the cheap POS back together and went back to planting. The dog was howling. She hates rain. She wanted in the house, her little body shivering while her cute button eyes looked at me with an expression pure hatred. On my feet again, over to the door, let the dog in.

I noticed every time I knelt and climbed back up; it was becoming more difficult. Each movement elicited old lady grunts from my throat; each reach, a groan.

I sneezed out another load of mud.

When the large tulip bed was finally finished, the neighbor yelled over to ask if I wanted him to send over his boys to help. These are great boys. They are everything true boys should be, but I couldn’t stand the thought of mud balls decorating my siding, so I declined.

On to the next flower bed. It was on the south side of the house, so I figured I would catch less of the breeze. I was soaked to the skin, my hair clinging to my muddy face and neck. It kept getting into my eyes, so I brushed it back with muddy gloves.

Oh, hell. Who cares at this point?

The drizzle stopped. For like a minute. Then it rained. It really rained. Like a downpour. I didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Nothing was going to stop me from planting all those daffodils, tulips, annis, crocuses and hyacinths. I shall be victorious!

The neighbor on the south side pulled in. Upon seeing the broken wheelbarrow lying on its side like a beached whale, he offered me his. His response was my turning my mud-covered face in his general direction and offering him a sneer.

I can still hear him laughing. He started laughing as he walked away. He laughed as he entered his garage and closed the door. He was still laughing so loudly when he entered his house that I could hear him in my yard. He’s still chuckling. I hear it now.

Finally, with all the daffodils, hyacinth and crocuses in, it was time to move to the big garden in the front yard. I’d dumped a lot of dirt there. So, off I trudged with my crate of bulbs, my mud-caked cell phone, and equally muddy mini-speaker, and headed that way. On the wet, muddy oak leaves scattered over the wet, muddy grass. I’m not sure I even managed to find all the bulbs that flew through the air with the greatest of ease when my feet took wing and escaped from gravity. The back of my head landed in the freshly turned mud, causing four bulbs to squeeze out of the ground like toothpaste from a tube.

Come to think of it, that might be why the neighbor is still laughing.

Anyway, I hauled my wet, muddy ass up, picked up the crate, hurled into the driveway with all my failing strength, threw the spade like a javelin, embedding it in the ground more than 40 feet away, kicked the crippled wheelbarrow, possibly broke a toe and set a new record in colorful curses that ranged in the realm of multilingual. My Cherokee grandmother would be so mortified.

With renewed hatred for the task I had taken on, like a woman possessed, I dug what I could find of the numerous bulbs from the wet grass and leaves, marched to the last of the flowerbeds, dug so hard mud was slung into the street and shoved those accursed bulbs into place. I was done.

I also managed to get one lighted decoration from the attic when I discovered I could no longer climb the ladder or pull any heavy boxes down. It was all I had to give. I was so far past done.

Now there’s a trail of mud—and a little blood—blazed through the house, and the water heater is out of hot water, I feel like I was trampled by a herd of moose. It’s not an ache, exactly. It’s more like a burning, blazing fire through every fiber of muscles in my body. My joints won’t bend properly, and there’s a distinct possibly I may have cracked my coccyx.

Those blessed flowers had better be worth it, and spring had better bring plenty of colors.

Another Day in Paradise (Or a Study of the Effects of Tequila on the Human Mind)

System updates—we’ve all experienced the incredible euphoria of that announcement. You get the nicely worded email at work and you know your life will soon turn to crap. We got the emails on Friday. The updates were to take place over the weekend, which meant Monday would be a new adventure through the Nine Rings of Hell. Happy, happy, joy, joy.

Well, here in Illinois, it’s called the Seven Gates of Hell. Those gates can be found near Collinsville, Illinois, along Lebanon Road as you travel toward Troy. Legend has it there are many horrors facing the unwary traveler at the stroke of midnight. You can find out more about it here: http://nightfallunlimited.com/?p=6.

But I digress. This is not what I’m writing about, so back to the subject at hand.

Anyway, Monday rolled in with all the troubles we would normally expect . . . and a few we didn’t. By 5:00 P.M., I was ready to pull my hair out, but I shucked it off and clocked out. There’s a trick to shutting off the work day. It took me years to figure it out, but I’m usually successful at it now. Monday was behind me and life was good.

Until Tuesday.

I’m getting to hate Tuesdays almost as much as Mondays. Still, like everyone else, I slogged through slow systems, internet interruptions and a constant barrage of client issues—each worse than the last. Like Gloria Gaynor, I survived. (Oops, just showed my age.)

Then dawns Wednesday. On the scale of hated days, Wednesday usually ranks fairly low. We all hate the camel that demands you guess what day it is, but hump day signals the downhill slide to the weekend. Unless it was this day, this Wednesday.

Like a moment from my pre-teen life, I rolled over when the alarm went off and begged, “Mom, just five more minutes,” and went back to sleep. Yeah, brilliant move, that. I woke again fifteen minutes before clock-in time. Man, don’t you just hate it when that happens? It was a mad dash to the bathroom to splash water on my face and pass a brush over my teeth.

The kid pounded on the bathroom door, entreating entry. Tough. I was late. She had to grit her teeth and struggle through the minutes until I emerged and ran back to the bedroom to toss off the nightgown, make a stab at making my bed and throw on whatever mismatched clothes I could find on laundry day. (Okay, laundry day was Sunday and I didn’t get it done. Don’t judge.)

I took three minutes for eggs over easy and to set water on for tea, then it was a mad dash to the office.

Relax, people. The office is at the front of my house. I clocked in exactly on time . . . I think. It was kind of hard to tell since I wasn’t really paying attention. I was too busy trying to get the systems up and running.

I work with a VDI system. I’m told that means Virtual Desktop something-or-other. My dear friend, Joey Walnuts, says it means, “A totally #$%@ up day in techno hell,” but those are his words (and colorful symbols), not mine. All I know about it is it has no hard drive, you cannot save anything on it and if it doesn’t like something you do, it locks up and you have to start all over. I was on my third start-all-over when I started drinking tea like it was going out of style. I had to get awake, and quick.

My first phone call from a doctor’s office looking to get an issue fixed was answered with a rough voice and a sneeze. I apologized while my caller blessed me and I jumped into the work day. Then the #$%@ up (again, Joey’s words) VDI kicked me out. The poor caller had to wait ten minutes while I got the stupid thing up and running again. She helped with humorous comments about stunning technology and stellar savings on our valuable time.

We laughed through the call and on I moved to the second. That’s when the dog went off. There’s a new neighbor in the maple tree out front. He’s a squirrel we named Sly because he’s a tricky little fellow. Sly mocks Lucy the Bichon and Lucy is not one to take such an affront lying down. Sly has been known to climb onto the screen where the dog likes to nap and chatter derisively at her. This day was no exception, but I digress again.

The caller started laughing as I apologized for the loud and intemperate animal snapping, snarling and barking at the disrespectful little beast hanging from the screen. If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never understand how one small ball of white fluff can make so much noise.

I made it through the call. The dog got through it unscathed even though I had threatened to cook her up on the barbeque grille out front. She just snorted at me, barked at the window one more time and went back to sleep.

The next call was even more fun when the internet went out and I lost the caller. I have a lump on my forehead where I pounded it on the desk in frustration. I knew when I saw the Mediacom truck drive by my office window it wasn’t going to be good. For the next forty-five minutes, the internet was up and down until I finally called the company and was told they were doing maintenance on the lines. Well, that’s great. I’ll just take a couple of hours without pay while you all have a good time. She apologized and said it wasn’t supposed to disrupt service. I told her to call her guys and get them to fix it immediately or I was going to walk over and find them. I made her understand this was not a scene she wanted her guys to experience. Five minutes later, it was up and running with no further interruptions.

Lunch time.

I fixed a lovely meal of tomatoes with basil from the garden, pan-seared salmon with dill sauce and iced tea. It was a nice meal because I needed strength to get through the rest of the day.

I came back to work and the VDI was down again. Okay, so Joey was right. It truly was behaving like a #$%@ up tool. Fortunately, it only took a few minutes to get running again and I clocked in on time. After slogging through a few more calls with slow systems and a worsening attitude, I reached for chocolate to keep myself out of the liquor cabinet. I had dreams of a mojito or a shot of tequila with a nice wedge of lime. I abstained. Regretfully.

At break time, I got a bag of ice for the growing bump on my forehead and took a swing at Sly with a ball bat. Hey! It’s not your miserable day. It was mine. And don’t worry. The squirrel was much faster.

Back in the house, a large and fearsome wasp was making himself at home on my desk. I discovered this when I came back in after chasing the fluffy-tailed monster away from my house. Mr. Wasp was sitting on my headset. Without my headset, I cannot do my job. I work for a call center, for crying out loud. I have to take calls.

Ah, the bug zapper. Of course. After a quick run to the gazebo to get an apparatus that looks like a badminton racket—but is decidedly more deadly—I came back to fight the now-infamous Battle of the Headset. The wasp was the aggressor, I swear. I had no choice but to defend my home and my livelihood from the creature. After knocking over a vase of flowers, toppling a shelf of books, smacking a cup of tea all over the carpeting and destroying a desk lamp, the wasp was cornered in the window against the screen. I had him now.

This ingenious zapper is activated with the touch of a button. Aldis sells them for less than $2.00 and I bought several. They make a satisfying snap, crackle and hiss when you slap them against bugs. It smokes some, and it smells some, but it’s vindication against troublesome insects. The wasp was no exception. It smoked and smoldered and fell down dead in the windowsill. Yeah! That’s right. I won and the wasp died a horrible death. I have no remorse. I just wish I’d removed him from his final resting place and flushed him down the toilet. Ah, well. Live and learn.

Anyway, I was late. I had to get back to work. Lo and behold, the VDI was up and working—for the moment.

By 4:24 P.M., it was down again. Another call to the help desk and it wasn’t fixed. At 5:01 P.M. I ended my work day with a slam of my chair against the wall.

Enter tequila. As I contemplated the evening menu and the family arrived home, I pulled out a lovely bottle from my collection of fine tequilas. Just as I uncorked the bottle, I heard the worst screaming of any mother’s life. My child had gone outside to the gazebo, stepped on a wasp and remembered why I always tell her to wear her shoes. Too bad she didn’t actually put her shoes on before heading out.

Our home has become the center for vengeful wasps since the now-infamous Battle of the Headset. They’re all bent on retribution for the terrible crime of having slaughtered one of their own. They exacted that vengeance on my child. This shall not stand!

After some quick first aid and a hug to the shuddering, devastated child, I grabbed all the weapons I could find and went after the enemy. Now, those who know me know I don’t use pesticides, but we keep one single can of hornet killer around because I’m allergic. One sting and I’m ill. More than one and it can be deadly. I was on the warpath and anything flying was my enemy. I found the wasp that dared to touch my daughter and made it my first target. Vanquished, the terrible beast fell from the sky like so much spent ash. Then I went after its sisters and brothers.

That done, I tried to remember what I was doing before the terrible disruption of a screaming, damaged child. That’s when I saw the mess in my office. Broken lamp pieces still lay scattered about. Books were all a-tumble. I had managed to clean up the spilt tea, but the rest had to be set right. So, as I sat in my office chair, reorganizing the mess, I heard a horrified moan behind me.

“Mom, another wasp. It’s trying to kill me.”

Sure enough, when I turned it was to see my again-bare-footed daughter tiptoeing backwards away from an advancing winged dragon that limped across the floor. I glanced at the window sill. The little monster from earlier had not truly died. It was gone and set on attacking the princess. I grabbed the bug zapper, yelled at her to get back and brought the instrument of death down on the fiend once more. It sizzled. It snapped. It sparked—and it stung the zapper over and over. When it finally stopped moving, I scooped it up in a tissue and witnessed it trying to sting the paper. Straight to the toilet and a resounding flush later, I hoped it didn’t crawl back out and try to sting her on the butt at some point. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it aloud in front of the girl because now she’s afraid of the bathroom. Live and learn.

Throwing my hands in the air, I moved back to the tequila and fixing supper. I wanted to pour the wonderful elixir into a pretty glass, but . . . my daughter’s cell phone rang again.

 So, getting back to earlier in the day, one of the issues I had was the cell phone she left in my care. It rang several times an hour. All. Day. Long.

Okay, she’s a young, new teenager with a cell phone. But this isn’t one of those times. You see, someone has been systematically harassing my daughter. It’s not a bully or someone from her school. It’s not anyone from the community. It’s a spam caller of some sort. The number is (458)201-2338.

That’s right! I posted it.

It’s okay. This number is all over the internet with warnings about spammers or fishers trying to get personal information. The number called no less than sixteen times and I was no longer on the clock. They had called eight times on Monday and ten times on Tuesday. I intended to answer this time, as I had done on my lunch and break.

These people don’t even know who they’re calling. They ask for a name that doesn’t belong in this house. When you ask who’s calling, they start stuttering, acting as if they can no longer hear you and disconnect. Well, this time I wasn’t going to allow such. I answered the phone. The heavily-accented voice asked for “Mr. Dawn”.

The next sound he heard was a maniacal laughter. Then I launched into a tirade that had my injured child backing out of the room.

I yelled, "Don't you act like you can't hear me. I know English isn't your first language, but I know you can understand me. This is my child's phone. I've already reported you to law enforcement, several consumer fraud agencies and my attorney. You call again, it's grounds for prosecution. If that doesn't work, I'll come find you. Say I won't. I'll find you and we'll talk face to face. Am I making myself clear? I will travel to India, Indonesia or whatever exotic country you live in, but I swear I’ll find you. I will not stand for anyone—I mean, anyone—harassing my little girl. Do you understand me? Do you? Answer me!”

The voice on the other end had grown very small. “I . . . I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it, pal. You terrorized my child. Do you know what that means here in the good ol’ states? We don’t stand for such cruelty, such unwarranted bullcrap.”

“I . . . hello?”

“Don’t you dare act like you can’t hear me. You hang up before I get all this off my chest and I’ll reach through this electronic cellular line and snatch you bald-headed. You called this number no less than fifteen times, today—sixteen, counting this one—and you have yet to give me any information about why you’re disturbing us. Why did you call?”

“Hello?”

“Find a teacher. Learn to speak my language if you want to get anywhere with my species. In the meantime, get bent.”

There was a resounding click. I managed to yell all of it at the poor man on no less than three breaths of air while the child was moaning and backing from the room and the husband was storming in to demand to know what was happening.

I was beyond angry. I was searching for a new victim—until I happened to touch something on the iPhone in my hand. There was the answer to the dilemma, staring me in the face. I had the option of blocking the number. What a dumbass! I hadn’t even considered the nifty little phone could do such a thing. I blocked the number and started to laugh at myself. All that drama and all we had to do was block the number.

Okay, so we live and learn. It was a funny thing. After yelling my heart out at the hapless call agent from the Philippines or Taiwan or wherever, I felt much better. It was most cathartic. All the stress of the day washed itself away on that poor man’s hide (or ears, as the case may be) and I was a new woman.

The tequila, now forgotten—and still un-savored—sat on the liquor cabinet with all its contents intact. Supper was prepared, my mood was lighter and my husband and child were cowering in fear. It’s the same effect tequila has on my brain, but I didn’t need it. It was a good day after all.

Drama in the Subdivision

 9/25/11

When you live in the ‘burbs of the state capitol, drama comes in many forms.  When one has a ten-year-old girl in the house, it can be especially unpleasant.  Take homework, for instance.  Getting her to do it can be murder.  It comes with whining, protests, shouting, violent stabbing of the paper with an abused pencil, more shouting (this time from Mama) and a whole lot of wasted energy.

Calgon, take me away.

When I got home from work on Friday, the drama was in the air so thick I needed a chainsaw to cut through it.  The first alarm went off in my brain when I saw my child with two neighbor girls in the driveway.  I remember what it was like to be that age.  I remember the games girls play and three is not a good number.

For those readers who don’t have daughters, let me just say you’re missing out on something.  Boys can be mean, can bully, pull pranks on one another and make things lively at home, but they got nothing on girls. 

Girls are sneaky.  Girls are cruel.  An odd number of girls spells disaster.

So, there were three little girls in my drive.  They were playing, and on the outside, everything looked good, but I knew better.  Then they all headed off to one of their houses down the street.  My first inclination was to stop them, but a mother has to let her child learn about reality, even if she knows the outcome.

Less than ten minutes later, our little princess came back.  She was crying, told us she felt so bad.  One of the other girls told her she wanted to play with the other without our princess.  When princess objected she was told to “get the f*&% out of here”.  As a mother, I saw red.  I wanted to tear the potty-mouthed girl a new one.  I wanted to confront her mother and ask what kind of home she was running.

Instead, I put my arms around my shaking child in an effort to lend comfort.  The two children in question have done this sort of thing before.  My child is not the only victim.  And the two girls aren’t the only ones to do this sort of thing.  And, let’s face it, my child is no angel in this regard.  I’m sure she’s done the same thing.  It’s a girl thing—odd man (or girl) out.  I know this and do everything I can to make her feel better.

It didn’t help, of course.  She was heart-broken.  My husband was in a rage.  My wiggly heart began to do a dance in my chest.  There are many different kinds of stress, but at the base of each type is the same real cause:  The mind’s power to override the body’s urge to beat the living crap out of someone.  I was in full stress mode.

The girls came back to retrieve a bicycle left behind in the previous exodus.  My very Italian husband, in full vendetta mode, stomped through the door.  Oh, he was going to take care of this.

My heart flipped.  I reached out a hand to grab him but missed.  I yelled for him to come back.  Then that little monster in the back of my brain—that naughty little voice we all have—chuckled with evil glee.  It said to let him have the child.  I almost smiled before shaking myself and holding my daughter back.

I couldn’t hear what he said, but he opened a new can of worms.  He only yelled at one of the girls, the one who used such foul language on his darling daughter.  Said child went home in tears.  I knew it would only be a matter of minutes.

I was right.  It was twenty minutes and I got a message on-line from her mother.  I cringed when I saw her name.  I wanted to clobber the man of the house.  I might still do it on pure principle.

It seems her child wanted to move away, quit her current school and live with her father.  She was humiliated and hurt.

I wrote back that I had the same issue at home with a little girl in anguished tears over someone she thought was her friend using such bad language and chasing her away.  I apologized for my husband’s behavior.  I told her if I had been the one confronting the situation, I would have had the same conversation with the child’s mother and not the child.

There’s always the hope that such a statement would put an end to the discussion.  My daughter said she felt bad because she didn’t want to get anyone in trouble and that Daddy probably scared the girl.  I smiled and said she got off easy.  She’s lucky she didn’t have to face me. 

Princess’s eyes got huge.  “Yeah, Mom.  You’re way more scary.”

My point was made.

And I got another message from the angry mother down the street.  She was not mollified and she was not happy.  I pulled the heart condition card.

Yeah, that’s right.  I did it. 

I told her how I’d had a recent heart attack, how my doctor wanted me to avoid all stress, but that I was doing everything I could to resolve the situation.  My monitor had gone off twice, the monitoring company had called and my head was pounding, but I was there to help her get through this.  It was all true, but really not something I wanted to share with the neighborhood. 

And end to the matter was found.  She told me she was willing to help with anything I needed.  Kind of her, seeing as our children were at war and my husband was acting as a five-star general on the opposing side. 

I have one rule about kids.  I never get involved in their battles.  I’m there to patch the wounds, bake cookies and make Kool-Aid.  Beyond that, I don’t have any part in it.  Children have to learn about the social pecking order on their own, or they grow up miserable and unable to cope.  I think it’s harder on the parents than the children, but we have to let them learn on their own.

I love this day

Okay. Maybe “love” is too strong a word, but it sounds nicer than “loathe”.

Back-story setup: A few weeks ago, my much-beloved neighbor succumbed the economic climate and decided to sign her beautiful home over to the bank rather than continue to struggle making ends meet. It was a tough decision and I hated to see her go. So now her home is empty and the two-story, much-used playhouse out back is fair game.

Which brings us to the present day—a day, I might add, which started before 6:00 AM. The playhouse is right outside my bedroom window. Some neighbor boys decided it would be fun to get up before the freaking sun and play construction worker. They borrowed some of their dad’s tools and went to work.

WTF? It’s not even sunrise and the little brats are hammering and pounding away at this thing. The resulting noise pollution woke first my child and then my husband and I. Of course the neighborhood dogs joined the chorus. Before long there was a cacophony of racket designed to rob everyone of much-needed Saturday sleep-in time. I suddenly decided I hated little boys.

Now, I try to be a good neighbor. I don’t yell and go into fits over such things because it’s not good for local relations. I growled a bit and grumbled and stumbled to the bathroom to wash my face.

Once I got the glue off my eyes and managed to get the kid away from the TV, I glanced out the window. The boys were carrying firewood away from my wood pile. Damn. How many times do I have to tell them it’s not safe? How many times do I have to remind them to leave stuff that doesn’t belong to them alone?

After a yell out the door to tell them to put it back and keep clear of the pile, it was time to start in on the house. Holy crap! The kid was only up about fifteen minutes before me. How the hell did she do that much damage in so short a time? Time to hit the warpath.

Sensing the trouble in the air, my husband wisely decided to take his family out to breakfast. Good thing, too. He was next on my hit list.

Back home, I saw the mess in the garage. I could barely get the car in, and with so much water standing in the yard, gardening was out, so it was time to clean the garage. The things I found! I won’t even go into it, but suffice it to say, I was pretty angry at the state of affairs—especially when I discovered how much of the junk in there belonged to all the neighbor boys. It’s all neatly piled in the yard now with a sign that says take it home by Sunday night or lose it forever.

Taking a break from the garage work, I decided to slog through the yard and see how much damage was done by all the rain. That’s when I found the big pile of trash the kids had carried from the playhouse and put in my yard. I suppose I shouldn’t have been so angry, seeing as how they had filled my burn barrel (thinking it was a trash can) and piled the rest neatly in three huge piles, but damn! This was the last straw. Time to talk to the parents.

So, I got all the firewood out of the playhouse (in seven trips) and stacked it back up. I drove down the road to speak to the very hot and hunky Ken about his children. No luck, no one home. Double damn.

I got back home to discover someone—during my short absence of five minutes—had nailed my mailbox. It was lying in the road, gasping out its last breath. Triple damn. My mail was scattered in the mud.

After asking my child if she had seen anything and watching her blasé shrug, I threw up my arms in disgust. The mailbox—looking a little worse for wear—is back on the job. It only took a sledge hammer and the vent of my growing frustration to put it back in place.

Back in the house to fix lunch, I discover the little hurricane had been at it again. When I went looking for her, I saw her clear down the block at the bad neighbor boys’ house. I had just told her not to go over there. Of course the little twit spilled the beans—since they were now home—about how angry I was. Time-out time. “In your room until I tell you to come out.”

The lunch done, house back in order and supper on the table, there’s a knock at the door. By this time, I’m very tired, very cranky and ready to let someone have it. Hot Ken was at the door with one of his errant boys in tow. Shit. I don’t want to deal with this now.

There’s a long discussion, ending with the boy being sent out back to clean up the trash and promises that I’ll be able to get some rest tonight. Hah! Believe it when I see it. I know his boys. Then he took a look at the big old dying tree in my yard and decided it needs to come down. Now! Oh, hell. That’s all I need to deal with. He volunteered.

This tree is situated between the corner of my house and the corner of my other neighbor’s garage. The only place to safely drop it is in the street. To fell it correctly takes real experience. Hot Ken? How do I know his capabilities? The man was nearly salivating at the prospect. Apparently he’s a closet lumberjack.

Of course, the thought of watching his muscles bulge as the sweat trickles down his naked chest is tempting, but I declined his offer. I really don’t need a lawsuit on my hands.

Supper’s cold by the time he left. So, after nuking, we finally sit down to eat. I’m no longer hungry. I’m just tired. The kid is whining. The husband is bitching. The cat is howling. The neighbor boys are hammering away in the playhouse again.

I need a drink. Or a valium. Or a really big gun…