Weekend? What weekend?
It kicked off on Friday afternoon with a 2-hour round trip out to Arlington to see our accountant and get our tax paperwork (yes, it's a long drive -- we hired this guy when I was working in Irving and Arlington wasn't that far away from the office. We kept him because he does superb work, as evinced by this year's tax return). That evening I indulged in one of my hobbies shamelessly and got some nice feedback, which inspired me to get out in the yard and get the pending yardwork done so that I could continue to indulge shamelessly.
Saturday morning was dedicated to the pool pump, which had been acting flaky and not turning on for the last couple of days. Personally I blame my sister, who was here two weeks ago and bore the Technological Anti-Christ, so she obviously possesses some of his talent to bollix up anything more complicated than an incline (I'm not kidding -- the first time she came to visit us, we had a toilet flake out on us. The second time, the refrigerator died. This time, the pool pump went on the fritz. I ask you). When the repair guy showed up, it turned out we just had a blown capacitor, which was an easy fix (and cheap -- take THAT, Stacy!), so the filter was back on and working by noon.
Unfortunately, having the filter working again was a very subtle form of torture, because it meant I had a lovely pool full of warm, shimmering blue water tempting me. And oh, it was hard to resist, especially after I borrowed the Bodacious Brit's pickup truck and headed to Home Depot, loaded a bottle of lawn patch and eight bags of mulch into the back, then unloaded same at the house. Each bag of moist mulch weighs around 40 pounds, and I heaved each one into the truck at HD, then carried each one into the yard at home -- you do the math. There are times when I'm grateful I lift weights...
The original plan was to weed out the horrendous side flower bed and spread mulch on all three backyard beds. After unloading all of the mulch, however, my muscles informed me in no uncertain terms that if I did such a silly thing, I would regret it for some time to come. I decided that my muscles had a point, and convinced them to spread just one bag of mulch on the breakfast nook and garage beds (really thought I was going to need more, but obviously not). And since I've already heard, "Why wasn't the Bodacious Brit out there helping you?" I must say in his defense that he WOULD have cheerfully helped him if I'd asked. I didn't ask -- I knew I could move the mulch by myself, and it would save me going to the gym later on.
After mulching the two beds, spreading lawn patch and watering everything, I decided enough was enough for the day, and went in to shower and primp for a friend's birthday party. Said friend is a member of my writers' group, so the party was pretty much writers and writer's spouses -- all I will say is that when you gather a bunch of SF/fantasy writers together and feed them birthday cake and alcohol, it's only natural that they come up with a screenplay to be filmed on camera phones called ATTACK OF THE MAN-SIZED LUTEFISK. AotMSL follows the cautionary tale of a radioactive Norwegian delicacy (thanks to secret warhead testing in the 1940s) emerging from the sewers of Plano due to an unfortunate decision on the city's part to flush the drains. Only an artifact from the Mongol exhibit at the Kimball in Ft. Worth can stop the Man-Sized Lutefisk from ravaging Plano (because the Mongols were the enemies of the Norwegians, or something like that), and somewhere along the line a plucky British engineer who is a member of the rescue party and doubles as the narrator will be killed (because plucky British engineers always die in these sorts of movies. Also, plucky British engineers shouldn't get their wives lynched during a game of Werewolf. Ahem).
What?
Anyway, Sunday morning dawned as it usually does after Saturday night, and I knew I couldn't put off the side bed any longer. Although God knows I tried, with a stop at Saltgrass for some steak and a trip to Home Depot for a new hose, hose hangers and associated hardware, tomato and strawberry Topsy-Turvey planters, a sprinkler, and a base for the patio umbrella. Um.
But I had to come home eventually, and after donning my Gardening Hat of doom iPod and gloves, proceeded to spend four hours disimpacting, weeding, trimming, and mulching the 12' side bed. Said procedure also included giving five grassy bushes the vegetative equivalent of a buzz cut (necessary to get rid of all the old growth and trim down the actual spread of the plant) and pruning two badly overgrown rose buses. Yes, I know trimming rose bushes is supposed to be done in winter when they're dormant, but I wasn't about to let these wannabe Triffids continue on their merry way any longer. As it was, I had to cut one pretty much back to canes just to clear out all the deadwood, which was annoying because it was the one with really pretty tiny orange roses.
After raking up the clippings and filling 1.5 refuse bags with the detritus, my leg muscles announced the onset of hostilities. I decided to put off watering until Monday, stacked the gardening implements next to the patio table with the excuse that I could use them later, and staggered into the house just in time to take a fast shower and record an episode of Terminally Single (the host has Patrick and me on the show regularly to discuss Doctor Who). This morning...well, let's just say that three ibuprofen and a Darvocet are my friends.
So that was my weekend -- how was yours?