Open Dirt Box Art! Or, I Hurt Property Values!
2003-05-12
9:50 a.m.

There goes the neighborhood.

I live in what may very well be the cutest house ever. Or at least in the top 10. Or maybe 10,000. There are a lot of houses.

Anyway, I suck at decorating or, you know, cleaning. Also yard work. To these things I say: Landlord? And also, how?

There are some things I know how to do. On Saturday I went out into the yard and tore up some dandelions and poured some water on things and cut down some plants that look dead. Then I surveyed the front yard, which is filled with tulips that I planted in the fall (at night, by candlelight, the absolute last night before the frost, ha) and decided to tackle our sad looking flower box. They're wood, and they're rotting, and I tried to buy replacements last week but I couldn't find anything big enough and had to make a mental note to have some custom made and then move on. So I tore the dead plants out of them, and while doing that, the front fell off. Ha? Haha? Now it's like an Open Dirt Box. Conceptual art in my front yard!

Once again I have to remind myself that at least I'm not the people down the hill who parked a shopping cart in their front yard for over three weeks, or the people who left a washing machine on the curb for the entire winter. Usually I hide my shame. But this window box problem is complex, and involves rebuilding the rotten supports and custom mixing paint and all sorts of things that involve tools and skill. I have, like, a hammer. And the ability to say that "I need TP for my bunghole" in 13 different languages. These things will not help much in the solving of the window box problem.

All By Myself. For, like, ever.

Not forever. But: Three Weeks! To this I submit a statement that reads, "No, thank you. Thank you for the offer, but I respectfully decline."

I can't believe he has to go for three weeks straight. I guess it's his own fault for being so competent that they demand that he stay for long stretches of make their lives easier time. But, damn. I want my husband to live in the same state as me. Yes, please.

The good news, I guess, is that I'm going to fly out there to hang out with him on one of his days off. I love that I'm doing a 12 hour round trip flight to hang out with him for 24 hours, but whatever. El A! (PS In-n-Out Burger! Kick ass.)

And at the end of it all, we have Paris waiting for us to arrive, and that's fun. Also, overtime = extra money = the accidental vacation overspend caused by me forgetting that pounds are not dollars not being a big problem.

The end.