Vacation

My dear hubby is off this week. He always takes off the first week of September because, ahem, it is my birthday week. HE will tell you it's because of the major holiday this week that allows an extra day to be thrown in with the five days and two weekends...making it about 11 days before he goes back. I will tell you it's my birthday WEEK. Yes, a week in which all my desires are met, my needs are fulfilled, my wants are okayed and I don't do a dish for seven days. It's how I was raised, and while mr. herewegoagain would rather I wasn't like this, after 25 years, he is "getting it". So, now he takes off all week.

The problem is defining my needs, wants and desires. Somehow, we come to different conclusions. For example, I think a fun vacation would be a week at the coast. Possibly a trip to the Grand Canyon. Maybe, even, zipping out to San Diego to visit family and eat fish tacos at Rubio's. HIS idea of a fun vacation is "getting to all those jobs that need doing around the place". So, in other words, once his vacation is over, he'll need to go back to work to get some rest.

Right now, he and rowdy son are dismantling a deck that wraps around our house. I have mixed emotions seeing it go, because I remember all too well when my dad had it built 13 years ago. I think that was before the way-cool stuff that doesn't rot existed, or maybe the fact that we basically ignored it instead of pressure-washing and sealing it--but, whatever the cause, it's in bad shape and has to go. Rowdy son has been itching to take the sledge-hammer to it. He's been pestering us to do "the deck job" out of the three most pressing ones (paint the house trim, rip out kitchen cabinets, or deck) since he saw "vacation" penciled in for September. Other kids are packing their swimsuits for vacation, but MY son is charging his screwdriver and checking his tool supply. He couldn't wait. It was a little sad when he came in after his first go-round with the sledgehammer and shyly admitted, "I couldn't lift it". Well, he is only 11. He's done wonders out there banging around with his hammer. Maybe if he is a good boy, Santa will bring him a kid-sized sledgehammer for Christmas. Won't he have fun with that?

We are keeping part of our deck. That's the part with all the furniture, the grill and my pretty potted plants. Oh wait, my dead, dying and eaten potted plants. This dratted Texas. It's hard enough to keep things alive through a drought, but two days ago I went out and found EVERYTHING eaten to the ground. Those deer! I do hate them. They have caused more monetary damage to my cars than their book value and now they seem to have no problem prancing across my deck in the middle of the night to eat my bouganvillea. I mean, that's exactly what they did...they walked across the deck. What I would like to know is what my three dogs were doing. They certainly stand guard if any dear friend whom I've invited comes over. They completely go ballistic if one of my children knocks on the door. Their eyesight isn't too great so if I (me, the one who feeds them and pulls porcupine quills out of their mouths at midnight) am trotting across the pasture with a shovel, they come growling. But, apparently they are just FINE with 1,000 pound eating machines clip-clopping across my deck.

I bought something to foil the deer. This is what my life has become....a constant fight against rotting decks and marauding wildlife, not to mention large utility companies--just trying to carve out a peaceful place to sit and relax. Today I actually walked all over my flower beds spraying, "putrescent egg solids" mixed with garlic. Also mixed, so I've heard, with coyote and bear urine. Yum. I actually was going to buy the coyote "crystals", but I decided sprinkling those on the ground was way too much of an invitation to my dogs to roll in it. This stuff sprays on. You better be upwind. You better not breathe while you do it. Or after you do it. Or possibly for the rest of summer if you are in the garden.

We're thinking after we take down the old deck, we'll put in a lovely patio. Just one problem with the picture in my head...in California or Florida, people sit on their patios enjoying the look and scent of the lovely flowering roses, bouganvillea, hibsicus and more. In Texas, if you want to SEE the flowers unmolested by Bambi and friends , you have to smell putrescent egg solids.

'Nuff said.