What Goes Up

What have I been doing lately? Well, not much writing, that's for sure.
Monday night I came home and there was Dave, starting to set up the gazebo. You can't do without a screened-in-something when you live in a Mosquito Motel. It's necessary as death, taxes and American Idol.
So I get home and there's Dave, and so I sigh and dig in to help because it's a two-person job. After that I planted the three trays of impatiens I bought on the weekend and set the Travelocity garden gnome in a place of pride. We had dinner at 8:30 p.m. and then hit the hay.
Oh, check out the lighting fixture I bought last year for the gazebo. A chandelier! Buahahahaha! It makes me laugh, every time I look at it – this fancy crystal (plastic) grandiose light in a screened tent from Walmart. I seriously went to Canadian Tire to buy the cheapest light they had but they were blowing this one out the door for less than a cheap light – so now we have a chandelier in our gazebo.
It's fancy. Like me.
Last night I got home and there was Dave with a shit-ass grin on his face piling up stuff in the backyard for our cheapo above ground pool.
"Get in the car," I ordered him, without stepping out. "I am SO NOT going to help you with that pool until I have something to eat." All I'd had all day was raw vegetables and hummus and there was no way I was waiting until bedtime to eat real food.
Lacking that, I drove his ass to A&W and we used a coupon for papaburgers. Nectar of the gods, I swear.
Then we got home and fought off mosquitoes, blackflies and deerflies while putting up the pool.
See? This is what it really means to live in Canada with all four distinct seasons: winter, winter, precious short summer and bug season. Every time a new season begins we take stuff down and we put stuff up. Away goes the snowblower, the snowmobiles, the snow tires and the snow boots. Out comes the mosquito magnet, the lawn mower, the gazebo, the boat, the swimming pool and the sandals. Our lives are all about finding room for the old crap and putting up the new crap. It doesn't make me happy to think that, a few months from now, I'll be taking down the gazebo and the swimming pool and helping Dave carry the boat.
It's a wonder I don't have muscles in my shit.

Oh. And our cat has a cold. He's been really sick lately. I'm waiting for the vet's office to open so I can call and get him in. He was snoring under the couch and now it's painfully quiet in here. I hope he's not dead under the chesterfield.
I'm afraid to look.