Yesterday we each put in twelve hours on the house and garden and bikes: I ripped the sod from, added spent garden soil to, laid groundcloth in, and edged with brick one side of the north front garden, lay a path of stepping stones through it to the north side of the house, clipped cherry sprouts from under their parents, and cleared the last leaf, twig, and mulch debris from the porch and side gardens. RDC swapped the ski for the bike racks on Cassidy, and in the rackless interim, we made a Home Despot run for compost, brick, and the makings of a pegboard. Breaks from my sod-busting and -hauling were holding down the other end of pegboard and 1x3s.
RDC brought the last of the firewood back outside, vacuumed the back basement, emptied the shop vac (discovering a hair clip I'd been missing), and fortified our bike tires with Tuffy strips, of whose worth if not spelling I am certain of. When I scampered to the coal room to get my old Cannondale (where the Tuffies were), I admired the new lightswitch that doesn't spark or buzz or anything.
I was really unenthusiastic about ripping out the last of the front yard. I measured and staked the property line and if anything shortchanged us, but I absolutely don't want to impinge on those neighbors. I'll pull the south neighbor's bindweed when it gets too close to my garden, but not the north neighbors': they might find the bindweed flowers too pretty to kill. They have trodden on our downspouts while mowing our grass, knocked the "Please Do Not Block Gate" sign off our back fence while shoving unbundled, unbagged yard waste into the dumpster (last fall while I hoed out the vegetable garden, listening incredulously through the fence), blocked our gate with unflattened, unrecycled cartons, flouted the watering restrictions all summer long, and are altogether unapproachable. At some point I would like to ask them please to stop throwing water away, first because overwatering is wrong and emptying the clippings directly into the dumpster illegal and immoral, and second because my leaf pile is almost gone (my compost pile is hot! glory be!) and I'll need browns soon.
But I did it. I still have to edge, really delicately along the property line.
As dusk fell we put the bikes and tools away and showered. Mm, shower. RDC's other critical task had been lunch, which we ate around 3:00,* late enough that all we wanted now was dessert. I suggested walking to Licks, and RDC wondered if that was nearer or farther than the gelato place in Cherry Creek North (nearer) but after showering decided the corner store would have all we needed. We scampered out, debating flavors. We got two pints, because we're grown-ups and can, but mostly because he is a heathen who prefers Swiss Almond Vanilla to Mint & [Oreo].
We watched "Road to Perdition," which considering it had Tom Hanks was quite good. He didn't overact (Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan). At the end of this sentence I am going to spoil the endings of both "Perdition" and "Ryan" to explain why it was good: his last words were not "Earn this." Safe now.
Besides ice cream we also bought a Sunday Post. So today, in marked contrast to yesterday, we got up at 10 instead of 7, it is cloudy instead of sunny, I actually read 100 pages of a book (I have ignored Book of Evidence all week because I wanted to read it in a big chunk) instead of browsing through travel guides, and we are slubbering around the living room with bathrobes and newspapers and lattes. Also we might go to the gym.
*Hey, that sentence could easily be misread as using "which" for a conjunction: "Task was lunch, but we didn't eat until three," instead of "task was lunch, which meal we ate at three."