Midweek, RDC suggested we have happy hour on Friday, and we did, just for the neighbors. RDC stocked the bar and could make martinis, margaritas, and manhattans, plus he bought little plastic mermaids to adorn the edges of the highball glasses. He claimed he could make any drink beginning with m or adorned by m, but I stumped him with milkshakes (my usual) or mojitos, which I was proud of myself for remembering. I had the dining and living rooms ready, but it was so lovely and warm we crowded onto the porch for a long time before reaching maximum density and processing into the back yard.
The drinking succeeded so well a lot more people stayed for eating than we expected. After the toddlers left (one had to be pried away from the buddy cage), we lit the fire pit and sat around it without s'mores, talking for a long while.
And so we didn't get up Saturday until 10 or out the door until 11. But then we worked.
We cleaned out the coal cellar, furnace room, and garage. Lots of boxes to be broken down for recycling. The extra cabinet doors we have (I don't remember why) are now in the garage rafters; lots of stuff that's accumulated inside the garage perimeter is gone; the floor endured its annual sweep. I must remember to call for a hazardous waste pickup: there are a dozen paint cans from as long as six years ago, plus the garage emitted up a vinyl treatment for the Terrapin, especially ridiculous since Cassidy had replaced the Terrapin the year before we bought the house.
The fill on the north side of the house is so clay-ey that nothing is growing under the eaves after two years where there's not groundcloth (the front half). The bishop's weed has spread abundantly along the length of the house from where I planted it down to the property line but ceasing its houseward growth abruptly under the eaves' dripline. (It is not a gossiping plant, apparently). So I exposed the same two feet against the house for the length of the back half in hopes it will remain equally weedless, and, for planting, exposed a swath of earth another five feet toward the back fence. I transplanted a bunch of bishop's weed from the back yard to that spot: tricky, because it's all one plant and hard to separate, and also I hope I didn't mess up the drainage slope. Then I transplanted some vinca from the south easement to the north (I have work up the story about Babushka's daughter).
Also I oiled the patio chairs; they drank it up. Also I washed and line-dried and ironed and re-hung the curtains. Also RDC plumbed the evaporative cooler and I uncovered it (and forgot how to move from roof to ladder: a few scary moments there). From the roof I saw that we are the first household of the half-dozen with such rooftop devices to do so. Also RDC made us new screens for the front and back door. Also he installed new lights over the workbench in the basement and in his new workshop (previously known as the garage). Also I amended one vegetable garden with peat moss and manure, emptying the garden box, barrowing a few cubic feet to some low spots in the yard, blending in the amendments, shoveling it all back in; that was today, and that was enough. After that I might have slept a bit with The Piano Tuner and a tucked buddy, and in the late afternoon we had a tremendous hail storm. Hail spring.