Weekend Wrap Up

There is not much news on our front.

Another weekend went by without Dallas and I tending to the front flower bed. I'm sure that sometime soon, the Home Owner's Association police are going to drive by and give us a warning for excessive weed growth and butt ugly ground cover.

But the job is so big, neither one of us want to tackle it. I can't imagine anything less appealing than laying a bunch of black plastic sheeting down and spending hours meticulously cutting holes in said plastic for the existing plants we'd like to keep. But we have to do something because all of my neighbours have gone to great trouble to beautify their landscaping and we look like the family that could any moment jack a car up on cement blocks.

And shade trees. Did I mention those? Our yard is void of them. It's not like I haven't tried to conform to the subdivision standards. When I moved into the house, the lazy son of a bitch builder had planted a sugar maple in the front yard. It was thriving. Then my gram died and my coworkers gave me a dogwood tree to plant in her memory. Naturally, as a flowering plant, it belonged in the front yard. So, I dug up the maple, replanted it in the back yard and replaced it with the dogwood. BIG MISTAKE. The dogwood died and when I removed it, it made a sick sucking sound and smelled like a sewer. I replaced it with a Bradford Pear, which is apparently idiot proof. Not so. Died a slow, painful death like Hillary Clinton's presidential bid.

Meanwhile in the back yard, the transplanted sugar maple was happy, that is until it met Sandy, my first and last experiment with large dog ownership.

Sandy was a yellow lab mixed with some sort of high energy hound. She was sweet natured, playful and dumb as a box of rocks. She dug and chewed and gnawed and pulled until there was nothing left of that maple. For a long time, it resembled the Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

And then one day, it just wasn't there anymore. Shortly thereafter, Sandy went to live with a nice family in the country who didn't mind that she shat herself senseless in the house.

I'm thinking that something in a cactus variety might work. Don't they flourish when you forget to water them and leave them alone? Of course, mother nature doesn't always cooperate and it would probably die too. Drown. Or get blown away in one of our weekly freaking tornadoes.

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It's already dripping hot here and even though I said that I wouldn't go through another southern summer without a pool, I am eating my words. I had every intention of spending the 25K to dig a giant hole in my easement-challenged back yard. Of course, that plan hadn't figured a wedding into the budget so I recently tossed the idea around that maybe one of those above ground numbers might do. I mentioned this to Dallas and he wrinkled up his nose like he had smelled something bad. Okay, I will concede that they are a bit ugly and that the set up would require work. Yes, it would kill the grass it sat upon leaving a crop circle-like impression in the yard but it would be wet and cool and underwater, it's hard to hear the children and I can hold my breath A REALLY, REALLY LONG TIME. Dallas wasn't swayed so relief will have to be a lawn chair under a sprinkler.

Again.

Speaking about the wedding (aren't I always doing that lately?):

Dallas and I are shamefully delinquent in accomplishing the tasks set forth by our wedding planner. We were given a list of things, by week, that we were supposed to have accomplished and since receiving the missive three weeks ago, we've done nothing.

Bubkas. Squat. Nada. Zip. ZERO.

Each day, Dallas would say, "Hon, have you seen the list?"

I'd answer, "It's on the coffee table."

He'd reply, "I don't see it."

Me: "Oh really?"

And then we'd be off on another topic or headed out the door or generally MOVING ON with life. This weekend, I cleaned for the first time in the better part of a year (recently let our housekeeper go) and guess what I found?

Right! And it was on the coffee table.

And we both looked at it and came to the conclusion that we were screwed. It is now less than six weeks from D-Day. I'm sure everything will come together but if it doesn't, our plan "B" is to have enough grog on hand so that nobody gives a hoot.