White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Yeah, right. More to the point, how my parents ever managed to make Sunday seem like less than the frantic ballet of preparation for the upcoming week is a lost art to me. Instead of kicking back after Sunday services in the swivel chair with foot rest and paging leisurely through the various sundry sections of the paper, I find myself going through a mental check-list of critical tasks. Joyce knows what is coming. She decides to cut bait. She shuttles the well coiffed duo out to the car and goes shopping. Not that she will be buying much, but it is much more preferential to be pushing a stroller around a park or mall instead of suffering head trauma from errant bottles or books. As soon as she pulls out of the driveway, I start getting the wall paper ready for the upstairs hallway. This has been an ongoing project for some time now. The hounds used to sleep on the landing at the top of the stair case; they were able to survey the whole domain from there. This resulted in quite a bit of residual grime and, well, dog snot ending up on the wall. After scrubbing and painting those walls one to many times, we decided that washable wall paper for the lower three feet of the walls would do well. That graduated into doing the whole upper floor in the same motif. And you cannot just do the walls, you have to rip up the carpeting and re-finish the wonderful natural wood floor that is there. Oh, and since the carpet is coming up, you might as well do the molding too. In any event, this project has been simmering for about 2 years now. Just as I finish cutting the first few books of paper, the phone rings. It’s my parents calling, as they do every Sunday. They, of course, are interested in how the kids are doing and so forth. I give them a run down of important details and not so important trivia. Our conversations usually go on for an hour or so, but since Joyce was out and about, the conversation took a bit less time. I bid my heroes a quick good bye till they come down next weekend. I fail to mention that Joyce’s father is flying in from out of country next weekend and will probably want to visit along with Austin and Joyce’s mother. It usually happens that way. We also have a children’s birthday party that weekend, so much of the work that needs to get done will lay dormant for a while. All the better reason for me to get cracking on that wall paper! As I work, I notice that I am falling behind. All of the corners and doorways required a bit of slicing or cutting. Needless to say, I get a call from Joyce. She’s coming home and I need to get lunch ready. I’m frantic. I have several books already prepped and six more to go. I kick into overdrive and start slapping the books onto the longest uninterrupted wall just to get them out of the way. I scurry on down to the kitchen and start getting the vittles together. Just as I set the last of the preparations out, Joyce walks in. The hounds do their ‘Happy-happy, mommy is home’ dance. Not quite the same as the ‘Thank God, daddy is home and I gotta pee so bad’ dance, but still a site to see.
We get the kids into their restraining chairs and Joyce tries to ply them with the cornucopia of delectable foods laid out before them as I head back into my home improvement purgatory. Soon enough, it is time to put the slightly cranky duo down for their naps. These are the blissful hours of slumber where we can take a rest ourselves. But no, we shall labor and toil on this day of rest. As Joyce goes out to seek the holy grail of engine air filters, I head outside to do a little lawn work. In the sun, and the humidity, at the hottest hours of the day. I am quickly covered in grime and sweat. The insects see my distress and close in. They feign and try to out flank me. I knock down massive formations of attackers with great strokes of my arms. A few survivors make it through my defenses and complete their mission. Damn. Under enemy fire, I still manage to get the dead azalea dug up and the four new gooseberry bushes into their new homes. For those of you who are not in the know, gooseberry bushes are these devilish contrivances with mile long thorns made mostly of titanium and some sort of toxin to inflict maximum pain. Why do I even have these noxious plants in the first place you ask? They were free. Again, why? Well, they produce these berries that are quite tart but make a wonderful jam. As I finish up tamping the dirt about the base of the four new bushes, I go through my mental checklist. I can get the garden watered and perhaps do a little weeding to boot. Then I hear the complaints over the monitor. My progeny calls, the garden will have to wait.