May weekend, 2006
May 20 & 21, 2006

SATURDAY
Mirage and I got up and went for our walk around 6, and found a warm day waiting. We walked a good long distance, and she was pretty worn out by the end.

When we got home, Spouse had the coffee brewing, and a pan of cinnamon rolls in the oven. Burning in the oven. He�d forgotten to set the damn thing from pre-heat to bake, and managed to scorch the tops. Meh. We ate them anyway. They weren�t too bad.

After we had our coffee and rolls, we got cleaned up and headed to Gurnee Mills to do some shopping. We went to Best Buy for new Norton Anti-Virus, and I picked up a couple of movies, too. I got another all-time fave, �The Odd Couple�, and Matt and Trey�s puppet movie, "Team America: World Police". Which is lame, brilliant, stupid- funny, and typical of their work. Spouse and I both laughed our asses off at it when it was on HBO, so we decided to pop for the DVD.

After we got done there, we ran over to the pool store for some accessories Spouse wanted, and then, since we were in the area, we popped into the mall to have lunch at Al�s Italian Beef. They have great beef, and fabulous, freshly cut fries. Yum.

When we were coming in, we�d noticed a used bookstore had opened up in the mall. So naturally, I had to spend some time poring over the spines of second-hand reading materials. The books were a buck apiece, no matter what they were�except for romances. They only command 50�.

Anyway�I got a 50-year-old helpful hints book for my collection, several mystery short story anthologies, a good clean copy of Arthur Hailey�s �Airport�, and the prize catch�one of the Dell Shannon omnibus volumes from the sixties. One I didn�t have, in good condition, containing four Luis Mendoza mysteries I haven�t read, for one little old buck.

Sweet.

And I only spent $7.50 total, with tax. Extra-sweet!

We had a discussion about the flowerbed plans, wherein I tried to get him grounded once again. Spouse tends to build elaborate castles in the air, and when it comes time to translate them to this mortal plane, he gets overwhelmed, and so nothing gets done. It�s apparently my lot in life to rope him in and drag him back to earth after he�s done this.

I explained that I had never envisioned the elaborate, multi-tiered stone garden with a water feature that he�d put together in his mind. All I wanted was a corner, a border, some dirt and some plants.

Inexpensive, simple, do-able, and pretty.

We chewed on that till it was time to get dinner, and got it pretty well mapped out.
Then I popped a couple of bakers into the oven, threw together a tossed salad, and made garlic Texas Toast, while Spouse grilled pork loin chops over cowboy charcoal and basted them in Sweet Baby Ray�s. A nice simple meal, but we enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, I crash-landed shortly after I ate, and ended up spending most of the night asleep in the recliner.

And once Spouse got up, we got ready to go to Nephew�s Pancake Breakfast (Boy Scouts). We got roped into taking Spouse�s mother, as JR was still feeling sick, and didn�t want to go. So we get there about 8:45, and there is Niece, her mom, her step-dad, and her other grandma, all of them hard at work.

But no nephew.
Seems he�d been at a sleepover party Saturday night, and wasn�t able to make it.

GAARGH! WTF? Okay, okay�he came in later and worked a shift at the clean-up end. But still. I really expected to see him, and I was disappointed that he missed all his relatives that came early.

After the pancake breakfast, we were stuck with the old lady for the day. So we did what we�d planned to do on Mother�s day�we gardened. We showed her the area we wanted to plant, then we took her to the garden center. Two garden centers, actually. One had better edging and trellis, the other had better plants.

She picked out a gorgeous rose as a focal point, and we got salmon and pink geraniums, polka-dot plant, Dusty Millers, and salvias to fill the rest of the space.

We decided to go with annuals, because Spouse will probably want to add more roses to the space as time goes by. Every plant I got was on sale if with the Garden Club discount card, which I remembered to bring along, for once. I also remembered to pick up some Preen�n-Green, to help keep the weeds out.

And of course, we got lots of black dirt, manure, and peat to beef up and level out the soil.

Oh-and I nearly broke my leg on the angle-iron wagon Spouse snuck up behind me with. I turned around with a large potted plant in my arms, and proceeded to catch my leg on the wagony-carty thing they provide for hauling bags of soil and gravel. And nearly going ass over appetite in the process. I�ve got one seriously nasty contusion on my right shin, and that sucker is sore beyond belief.

Once I got the rose in, the smaller plants only took about 15 minutes. Then Spouse set up the sprinkler, and we all took a break and relaxed for a while.

Until we were too hungry to sit still anymore. Then we scrubbed off the mud and ran over to the Italian Deli for grilled sausages at the sidewalk stand. I had my usual Italian with eggplant salad and sweet peppers, and Spouse had a hot dog. So did his mom, which really surprised me. She ate a pretty good breakfast, so I figured I wouldn�t be able to get any lunch into her. The fresh air must have worked some magic. We spent a while inside the deli, too, getting stuff for dinner.

We ran her home around three, with a pit-stop at the grocery store, to get her some bread. And the gas station, to pick up soda for JR, who called right after I came out of the grocery store, and asked us to get him Seven-Up. And at Jelly Belly to get her some beans. She�s never been to the outlet store, so we figured that would kill a little more time before we took her back.

I ended up spending eight hours with the old bat yesterday. No time to get anything done I wanted to get done, like dye my hair, or to finish my beading project, or talk to my own parents.

I thank my lucky stars that he has to work next weekend, because I seriously need some off-time with him out of my hair.

Well, I put my foot down. I refuse to spend any more time with his mom unless he spends some with mine. Period. WE go visit my parents, or when it comes to his mom, he�s strictly on his own.

After we finally got rid of her, we came home and decompressed, replaced that godforsaken McAffee anti-virus software that we�ve spent the last year hating, and putzed around. Dinner was steamed hot dogs and tamales, potato salad and coleslaw.

I gathered what little oomph I had left, and got things set up for this morning. And was in bed before it was dark.