Okay, okay. It's only until next Friday. She went to NY to visit a friend, and help landscape her friend's new house. (If you ever want someone to plan and plant your gardens, talk to Debbie. I wish she'd do this professionally. She's an absolute garden artist).
And I'm wandering around here like a lost child. It's only been since 8 am this morning that I dropped her off at the airport.
And that's what's weird. Bill (Hunter Rose, aka Strings) and I have talked about our relationships with our wives. Bill and Spoon have much in common when it comes to interests, activities, etc.
Debbie and I have little in common, other than the pleasure we take in each other's company, and this "thing" we've had for each other that goes back to 1968.
We've now reached the point that a lot of people who've been together for decades reach: we can sometimes complete each other's sentences, or know precisely what the other is thinking.
Enough flowery talk: this time, I don't need to know what she's thinking.
She left me a list.
[Edited to add the list of things to do, and thus clarify my rambling post.]: Replace light fixture in basement; fix wiring to garage motion light; replace 1960's era patio light with New Orleans-style light; wash her car; put down weed killer (but don't harm the animals); mow lawn (but don't hurt flowers or animals); trim bushes (but don't disturb the families of rabbits that live in them).
The light fixture in the basement above the laundry area is broken (broke just four days ago). But this is one area where Deb and I have what is called "failure to commun'cate." (Thank you, Struther Martin from "Cool Hand Luke").
She assumes I'm going to do laundry.
She assumes a lot of other things, too. Such as the idea that I have any ambition left. I've seen roadkill with more ambition. Any time I've seen roadkill more ambitious than me, I've backed up and ran over it again, just to be sure.
The motion light on the garage that I disconnected probably two years ago is still disabled (had to be invented by Chinese engineers: the lights only came on during the daylight hours). I promised to find the short in the wiring from the junction box to the fixture...at least two years ago.
The way I see it, if she hasn't learned how to use a flashlight by now, she won't be much help if the SHTF. Of course, given my ambition, neither will I.
That's why I have the entire Five Crime Families of Bunnies in our yard under paid contract for nightime surveillance and, if necessary, carrying out a "hit." (Think about that for a minute: your nephew from the bad side of the family turns up in the Milwaukee River, and the only lead is that he got whacked by a couple of bunnies. That would be embarassing).
That's power
She has now four times clipped out Lowes newspaper ads for an El Cheapo New Orleans-style lantern to put above what passes for a patio in our yard. Our neighbors are less flattering in their description of the "patio." They call it the "cement slab." (My neighbors and I get along just swell: they don't let their kids into my yard, and I promise not to shoot their kids or their yippy little dogs if they're out before the sun sets).
Given our beat-up garage, even at $39.99, the New Orleans Lantern strikes me as gilding the lilly. But, OK, I'll do it. Even if it means taking a SawzAll to the side of the garage (my style of re-decorating: mass destruction first, pay carpenters later).
As I mentioned in my "@@#%@#*% Construction" thread, every bit of air from here to the WI/IL state line is filled with dust and dirt from our neighborhood. And, as I mentioned in a much, much earlier thread, I spent a lot of time and effort getting Debbie her PT Cruiser. She really loves that car.
Did I mention that she chose a black car? If you sneeze near a black car, it gets dirty.
Problem is, she parks it out on the street, in the mud and the dirt. When I got into it this morning to drive her to the airport, it was pretty hard to tell the difference between the carpeting and the muddy streets outside. Maybe I should have one of the backhoe guys fill the car with dirt before I pick her up on Friday. Think she'd notice?
As also mentioned, my wife loves gardening. When we bought this place back in 1992, though, the yard was nothing but weeds. The first thing I did was spray defoliants on the entire lawn. I felt like Robert Duvall in "A Popsicle Now." I love the smell of napalm in the morning. I killed every last thing that didn't walk on two legs.
That's power.
My wife and I finally agreed about flower beds. I stipulated that they have some kind of border: bricks, stone, plastic, barbed wire, whatever. Anything that would tell me that the green things inside were things she (we) had paid for.
Anything growing outside those borders was fair game for the lawnmower. She had some Japanese Grass growing outside one of those borders. I just mowed it down (although, in hindsight, there's a good chance that somebody would want to smoke that stuff, and maybe pay for it. But then the Bunnies would probably whack me out of respect for The Bunny Bosses' no-drugs policy).
If it's outside the border, and doesn't look like a rose, I figure it's a weed.
That's power.
One time, I mowed over a chipmunk. It wasn't green, it was outside the DMZ, and it didn't have a red rose on it. Stupid little sucker. Sure made a mess of my boots, though.
I also mowed over my own set of car and house keys once. (Guys, keep your keys in your pant pockets. I forget which side means Gay, so take your chances. If the guy across the street is smiling at you, though, check out his wife. She's probably lonely).
Once again I have to mention the "@@#($*$ Construction" thread. Everyone's yard is being ripped to shreds by heavy equipment. Before sunset, I looked down the block and I swear I saw maybe three blades of grass.
But people are still paying ChemLawn to come out and spray fertilizer. That's $80 a month to spray lawn chemicals on dirt, mud and clay.
I'm going to get my wife to start growing that Japanese Grass again. As I figure it, we could charge our neighbors $40 a month for a few tokes, and then convince them that the neighborhood looks like an English Garden.
But, then, I'd have to kick back 50% to the Bunny Bosses. And I'd have to tell them it wasn't drug money, or those furry little suckers would whack me.
Between our house and the house to the south is a row of bushes. At first, I could trim them. Now they're over seven feet tall. I need a stepladder just to see over them, and I'm 6'1''.
Those neighbors are Jehovah's Witnesses. If they're happy with their religion, I'm happy. But every time I look over the bushes, they try to give me a copy of The Watchtower.
And, I'm sorry, but their kids are weird. After the last string of really heavy storms, I was checking out the shingles on the roof of our house, looking for any damage.
I heard one of the neighbor's kids say, "Daddy, there's a man next door wearing a black bathrobe, smoking a cigarette, and looking at the house with binoculars."
Fortunately for them, it wasn't sunset yet. And they hadn't crossed one of the Five Bunny Crime Families.
Even bathrobe-wearing, cigarette-smoking Bunny Mafia wiseguys have principles.
My wife left me, at least until next Friday. Can't say that I'd blame her if she didn't come back to this at all.
