Only A Little Bit Crazy

Isn't freshly cut grass beautiful? (Image from Wikimedia Commons)

The other day, I asked my husband Cal to edge the yard.

Cal said: “You know it’s November, right? The grass isn’t growing anymore.”

I said: “I know, but the edges are rough and I’ll have to look at uneven edges all winter.”

Cal: “Right.”

Me: “And, uh, you know, the grass could be mowed one last time too.”

Cal: “It’s dormant.”

Me: “But it’s messy looking. I could do it.”

Cal: “I’ll do it. But just so we’re clear, I’m only doing this because I love you.”

Me: “That works for me.”

Thankfully, I’m not the only one in our neighbor who’s obsessed with the final trim of the year. Our next-door neighbor had her grass cut yesterday. And the neighbor behind us was mowing his lawn late last night. Weird thing though…he was mowing in the dark. Pitch dark, without a flashlight, outside light, or even a street light.

But he was running his power mower all over the lawn. I’m wondering if he was doing it in the dark as a silent protest. As in, “The crazy wife wants me to mow even though the grass isn’t growing anymore. I’ll show that obsessive lunatic and mow in the dark. Ha, ha.” I’m looking forward to seeing their yard this morning. I can’t imagine how it will look. It’s got to be a completely random trim with patches of cut and uncut grass. I wonder if it will get left that way all winter. If so, I’m going to smile every time I see it. 

Yuck.

This morning I went to get our dog Jezebel and give her breakfast. (She sleeps in the boys’ bedroom.) When I opened the door, I was assaulted by a horrid smell—though “horrid” barely scratches the surface of humidity + closed doors + really sick dog. I have no doubt Jez tried to wake the boys up when she knew she was getting sick. But they’re 16 and 18—and nothing wakes them. I’m convinced a mariachi band playing in the center of their room wouldn’t cause them to twitch. I’ve even found my 18 year old sitting up sound asleep because he was reading when he fell asleep and didn’t move during the intervening 8 hours.

In any case, even though my eyes were watering, I saw well enough to notice that Jez greeted me with her I’m-so-ashamed-I-wish-I-could-fix-this sad Labrador retriever eyes. I wished she could too. But she couldn’t. So I turned to the next best thing. My husband.

It was 6 am and he was already working at his desk, but I said, “Uh, the dog puked and had diarrhea during the night…” Cal stood up, gathered a trash bag, paper towels, and cleaned the floor. Then, he mopped it with bleach and soapy water. And me? Wimp that I am…I held the flashlight—though turning on the light probably would not have woken the boys from late adolescence-induced slumber—because, you know, I had to try to “help.”

Now I know what you’re thinking, Cal is working hard to get serious “good husband” points before we go to Paris. And he did. I told him so.

I’ve always said I’d rather have a husband who’d clean up vomit without complaining than one who’d make big romantic gestures. Apparently, I got both. Hmm…I wonder if he’s up for defrosting the freezer on his day-off. That’s the next nasty chore on my to-do list.

No photos today because…well, yuck.

Walter Update

Today my chances of coming up with a creative post on something new and delightful are almost nil because I have post-migraine brain. Late Saturday night (i.e., early Sunday morning) a sort of neighbor called. She was upset about something. She didn’t want comfort or encouragement. She wanted to whine. Now if she were a friend, I’d have listened semi-patiently to her whine (even though it was the middle of the night). But I barely know this woman. If that wasn’t bad enough, she called back a second time to whine. It was the second call that gave me the prickle in my brain, which said, “Migraine.”

Anyway all that to say that today is a Walter update. (Click here if you don’t know/remember who Walter is.)  In the last Walter post, Cal had gotten a humane trap to put up in the attic for Walter. Ariel was very concerned because the trap had been in the attic for several days and she was worried that Walter was starving to death in the trap. Cal reminded her that we could still hear Walter playing in the attic so he wasn’t “caught.” But he went to check.

Getting into our attic is an athletic acheievment. There is no pull down ladder. Instead a wall in the pantry has a small “door in the wall.” You open the door, hoist yourself into opening, which doesn’t have a flat bottom but slopes toward the ceiling. Then you grab the ceiling rafters and pull yourself up. (This becomes important later on.)

So Cal went to check the trap. When we’d tried the humand trap the first time, we discovered that Walter had bumped the trap enough that the bait dish moved and he could pick it clean from outside the trap. This time, Cal wedged the trap so that Walter couldn’t bump it. (Yes, Walter has a very high IQ. We grow smart squirrels in Tennesssee.) Since Walter couldn’t bump the trap, he ignored it. The trap bait was untouched. So Cal moved the trap closer to Walter’s nest. Maybe the smell would overwhelm his squirrely wisdom.

When Cal was finished, he decided to leave the attic. Except there was a problem. Even though Cal told me that he was going into the attic, I forgot. In the meanwhile, I saw the open “door in the wall,” decided that one of the kids must have left it open (shame on them), and I shut it. And locked it. Fifteen minutes later, Cal was stuck in the netherworld of the attic chute. Eventually, I heard him kicking the door—he couldn’t reach it with his hands. He was very nice about it. He even smiled. But the smile was one of you-see-I’m-right-about-you and added weight to his You-clean-up-before-I-even-start complaint—I’ve been known to put his tools away before he starts a project. I’m very blessed in my choice of spouse. He even talked to crazed, whiney woman the second time she called. He was very nice, but I don’t think she’ll be calling to whine during the middle of the night any time soon.