I’m a bit of a pyromaniac (really, who isn’t?), so my eyes twirled and glittered like Beavis’, and I had to restrain the urge to yell “Fire! Fire! Fire!”
We left the house around 4 on Friday – earlier than usual – because I had to box up the foster kittens and take them to the pet store. I didn’t want to, but it was that or adopt them, and like I’ve said in the recent past, ten cats running around the house is just too freakin’ many cats.
Christina and Izzie adjusted pretty well to being put in a cage (though Christina gave me the “What the-? Lady, get over here and get me out of here!” look), but Meredith Grey didn’t care for the new situation at ALL, and immediately went to hide in the litter box. O’Malley seemed pretty calm, just stood and looked around at all the people walking by his cage.
I know they’ll go to a good home, I know they’ll go to a good home, I know they’ll go to a good home… I thought this was supposed to be easier, the more I did it!
(As of this morning, Christina and Izzie had been adopted, both by the same person, and O’Malley and Meredith Grey are still at the pet store. Naturally, I let them out to play first, and gave them lots of lurve.)
Saturday we got up and going early, stopped for breakfast on the way to the house, and then when we got to the house, Fred headed back to the back fourty to start the BIG fire. There’s a big-ass pile of crap that was there when we bought the house, and we’ve hated seeing it back there and planned to burn it at some point. After our successful burning of the day before, Fred decided that the time had come.
I watched him start it burning and helpfully added a few things to the pile, then went off to do my own thing. My own thing, I’d decided the night before, was going to be to finish clearing out the ditch FINALLY, even if it took all day.
It took close to all day, because this is what it looked like before:
For a couple of hours I went along the ditch, using the hedge trimmer to cut down the overgrown weeds and grass on the sides and bottom of the ditch then switching to the chainsaw to cut down the bigger bushes and saplings. Things were going well until I hit a particularly thick section of weeds while using the hedgehog and I came across the metal frame that had been holding the political sign I’d thrown away earlier, and it bent the goddamn motherfucking FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING blade of the hedge trimmer.
(Third from the top, on the left)
I trudged out to the burn pile where Fred was reorganizing things, moving wood from one section to another, trying to get everything burned up.
“Can you talk me through fixing this?” I asked, because I had bent the hedge trimmer blade before, and he’d had to take it apart somehow and hammer it straight.
He talked for about three minutes straight about how it was going to take a couple of hours and I had to use the (something) to do the (something) and the (something something something something) and I finally just shook my head and walked away, saying “Nevermind.”
I was going to give up and just say FUCK IT THE FUCKING DITCH CAN JUST FUCKING STAY OVERGROWN ASK ME IF I GIVE A FUCKING FUCK, but after a break and some kitty-petting*, I got my second wind and said FUCK
YOU, YOU FUCKING DITCH, YOU WILL NOT CONQUER
ME,
I WILL CONQUER
YOU AND I WILL KICK YOUR OVERGROWN FUCKING
ASS.
So I went back to the ditch, and I used the chainsaw to cut down the rest of the overgrown weeds and saplings and then used the push mower to cut the grass growing along the sides and I kicked that ditch’s ASS. And after I kicked that ditch’s ass, I raked all the weeds and leaves into five big piles, and I burned three of those piles.
AND THAT WILL TEACH THAT FUCKING DITCH TO GET ALL OVERGROWN AGAIN, DAMNIT.
Then I spent the rest of the afternoon raking the side yard and the other end of the ditch (the already-cleared section), and ended up with several fairly large piles of leaves.
At one point I went back to check on Fred’s fire, and he pointed to the middle of the burn pile.
“I don’t think this is going to burn,” he said.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Because it’s DIRT,” he said.
“You are SHITTING me,” I said, and shook my head and then we cursed the names of the family who’d sold us the Smallville house, as we are wont to do at least once every weekend.
Not only was there a huge pile of dirt in the burn pile (they were the ones who’d told us that it WAS a burn pile, it’s not like they told us they were tossing garbage out in a pile with no intention of burning it), there was wire fencing, big pieces of tin, and various and sundry other things that – at least on OUR planet – aren’t known for burning easily. Or at all.
We didn’t leave the house ’til 5:30 on Saturday (I usually prefer to leave by 5 at the latest), and when I got home I realized I smelled very strongly of smoke, so I hopped into the shower, put on my way-oversized sweatsuit, and spent the evening on the couch ignoring the movie Fred was watching (Slither) and reading.
Sunday we left for Smallville fairly early again, and again spent most of the day burning shit, which is starting to be my favorite way to spend a day in Smallville. Fred got the big burn pile going again and I started burning the rest of the piles I’d made the day before. I think I had four piles going at once, but I was keeping a close eye on them, and had the hose close at hand, and they burned down nicely.
I spent the rest of the day doing various things – checking on Fred’s fire, raking leaves over by the house (and burning them), painting a door inside the house, and painting the cat house.
Okay, so it’s not the most gorgeous, professionally done house. Someone report us to
Ty! Not badly built for a man who’d never built anything before AND didn’t have a table saw, and not badly painted for someone who’d never painted before we bought this house, I think. (It’s not the
finished finished product, actually – I need to put a second coat on it, and sand down the edges of the roof.) It serves its purpose nicely, though, and Maxi and Newt seem to really like it.
We left Smallville a little after 3:00, because we’d run out of things to do outside and we’d been working hard all weekend, so decided that we deserved a bit of a break.
And that was our exciting weekend!
*Not a euphemism for sex.
* * *
Oh, and the spud’s surgery went just fine on Wednesday. I finally understand why it is that Fred always laughs at me when I’m in Recovery and they bring him back to see me. Because I was sitting by the spud’s bed after she’d had surgery and I’d ask her a question and there’d be silence… silence… silence… silence… and I’d decide she’d gone to sleep when she’d answer my question.
“Spud? Do you want some more apple juice?”
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
“Yeah….”
She didn’t have much pain (in fact, I think she only took the one hydrocodone from the prescription the doctor gave us because both Fred and I told her she should before she went to sleep that night), and she was fine at Thanksgiving the next day, and what’d she do Friday? Went SHOPPING.
I guess we’ll save that hydrocodone for a rainy day (ie: it’ll sit in the cupboard for a couple of years until I clean out the cupboard, note the date the prescription was filled, and toss it).
* * *
Evil Momma Maxi kicks Newt’s butt. She does that a lot.
Fred has taken to calling Maxi “Mom Cullen” because she looks and sounds so much like Tommy.
***************************************
“Bob! Hey BOB! I hear you’re the guy to know!”
* * *
Previously
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: You were always what I needed. I thought you always would be.
2002: Then I snorted. “But *I* am not going to do ANYTHING with the turkey, ’cause it’s not MY job!”
2001: Thankyajeezus for hooking me up with a geek.
2000: I’m going crazy with wanting you, and crazier still to know that I can never have you.
1999: spud: Momma let her go into heat!]]>