Renovating Mabel's Home

After 9 years in our house, we finally got rid of the overgrown and recently dying junipers that lined both sides of our driveway. When they were completely healthy and green, they offered some visual appeal to our otherwise non-existent landscaping, if you could ignore the way they sprawled onto the cement, making it nearly impossible for someone to get out of their car unless they parked in the middle of the driveway. Not long after we moved in, my dad made a valiant attempt to trim them back. Unfortunately, for the next 5 years, that left one section of the bushes with a gaping hole in it.

At the beginning of the summer, when Mabel (the duck) made a nest and laid her eggs in the section between the big tree and our front door, I was relieved that the gangly junipers finally served a purpose. The camouflage of the dying juniper and last fall’s leaves gave her the perfect hiding place. Unfortunately, the foxes got the best of things, stealing not just her first clutch of eggs, but the second as well, after which she must have decided that a better location was in order.

Before she left, one small section of the bushes was already gasping its last breath, and as the summer progressed, nearby sections soon succumbed to the lack of rain until more than half of the bushes on one side of the driveway were beyond resurrection. So when a handyman recommended by a book club friend came to price the various little problems inside our house in need of attention, I asked if he could get rid of the bushes as well. Turns out that landscaping is actually his primary specialty.

So for a very reasonable price, Phil the Landscaper/Handyman and two of his trusty employees arrived on Thursday morning to rip out those suckers with a fork lift and hatchets and chainsaws, and by Friday afternoon had laid down the mulch, river rock, and some tall-grass bushes on one side, and little rock on the other. In addition, various things in the house were in working order again, and some holes in the outside walls had been repaired. A new door handle and shaved-off door-bottom on our back door meant that we can now go out to the patio, and so can anyone else, without needing he secret password to get the door handle to turn or Herculean strength to yank it open.

Some more projects await our attention (or rather Handyman Phil’s) – the lightning-struck tree stump that is sprouting up new baby trees, the sad wooden gates leading to the back yard - but we’ve made a start. And all summer I’ve been trying to find the motivation to clear out about half the junk in our house that serves no purpose other than taking up space. After sharing living space with me (and my junk) for the past 23 years, I think my husband might just faint on the spot if one day in the near future I were to reveal to him a house full of wide-open spaces.

Misplacing the car

I was convinced it had been stolen. We parked on a residential street near the park where the boy was running his first cross country meet. It took a while to find a place to park, as the streets were packed with the cars of other parents, there to cheer on their teen runners. As we walked toward the park, I noted the number of the house closest to our car, and said it and the street name out loud. Even tried out a pneumonic device - "I'll-be-on Albion." Clever thinking on my part, don't you think? Coming back to the car, son and hubby took a detour to the nearest restroom. "I'll get the car and meet you at the parking lot," I said, expecting to get to the parking lot before they did. Only as I walked down Albion, I didn't see our car. I kept walking. Still didn't see the car. Walked further down the street, turned around, walked back up the street. No car. Woo-hooed to hubby and son in the parking lot, motioning them to come to where I was. Prefaced my statement to assure them I wasn't joking, and told them I couldn't find the car. Yikes. Had it been towed? Had someone stolen it? I knocked on the door of the house across the street, and the woman there was kind enough to look up the number of the police department in the phone book. Only she couldn't find it, so I called 911. Reported that my car had been stolen. Couldn't remember the license plate, but tried. Their records didn't indicate it had been towed. She said they'd send an officer. Did I mention that the boy had been feeling sick to his stomach since mile 2 of his 3-mile race? So here we are, on a quiet street in Boulder, son sick as a dog, and hubby heading down to the very far end of the street just in case the car was further along than we realized. Two dog-walkers stopped to commiserate wtih us. They both mentioned that the next street over looked very similar to Albion, with a little jog to the right in almost the same place. "But no," I said. "We both noted that we were on Albion." One of the dog-walkers said she was making a loop and would check, just in case. When hubby returned. I shared the dog-walker inside information. He headed over to the other street as well, just in case. Then the police officer arrived. Didn't roll his eyes at me when he told me that mini-vans were not a high priority on car thief lists. Noted that it's easy for visitors to get confused about different streets when they park in the neighborhood for cross country meets. Said he would drive around the block to look for the car before he wrote up the stolen car report, just in case. And then who should come walking up the street from one direction, but the dog walker, asking if our license plate had such and such letters. And who should come driving around the corner from the other direction, but my dear hubby, in our stolen car. Only it hadn't been stolen. We had just misplaced it. I thanked the dog-walker. I thanked the police officer - profusely. If he'd been standing outside his car, I just might have hugged him. Fortunately he was sitting in his car. I'm thinking they're a little particular about boundaries and personal space. So. No stolen car. Doug's briefcase, my briefcase and laptop, and all the work we were both bringing home for Labor Day weekend not thrown in some dumpster in Niwot. (Maybe the car thief would have kept the laptop, but everything else would have been tossed.) It gives one pause to be thankful about having reliable transportation to do things like go to your son's first cross country meet. His first race ever. After joining the team just 4 weeks ago. And he finished the race! And we had a car to drive home in. Be thankful for the blessings in life, especially if you have to be reminded of how lucky you are by thinking for 40 minutes that something important is gone forever when in reality it's just around the corner.