Dear Kid,

I didn’t do a very good job of documenting the cement pouring yesterday. Allow me to correct that.

First of all, our side of the planet is now heavier by 150 pounds and none of it has anything to do with my enjoyment of Oreos. Yup, Dad and Pi poured 150 lbs of cement.

Then someone got the bright idea (insert sparkling light bulb icon) of putting our hand prints in the cement before it dried. There were several reasons this might not have been the best idea of the day:

1. You people are no longer in single digits with adorably small paw prints. You now have impossibly large handprints that require you to squish your digits to fit in the cement-y space.
2. When everyone was available in the morning, we didn’t have enough cement. Once enough cement had been procured, everyone had scattered on various shopping and napping projects, meaning that the only time for immortalizing our prints was after dinner. Do you know who else is out after dinner? Mosquitoes. Large, ravenous mosquitoes. Large, aggressive, ravenous, unkind, biting mosquitoes who believe that with only one or two (or perhaps three) more meals they will be large enough to compete with helicopters for airspace.
3. Doggies do not get the concept of sticking their paws into squishy cement for human amusement. And washing off that little paw with cold water? Talk about adding insult to injury.
4. The cement didn’t really like the idea of holding hand (or paw) prints which made the whole thing even more difficult.

Did I mention the cement is going to be covered with several inches of soil once it’s dry?

The longest lasting imprint is going to be the bite the King of the Bloody Mosquitoes managed to land right in the center of my back.

I do not even want to contemplate exactly how that happened.

This is another reason I believe wildlife should be outside and not in our house. If yesterday’s spider had been out doing his job eating mosquitoes, I might not currently be yearning for a bucket of anti-itch cream.

A little to the left, please.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

The English Language. It may not be perfect (ever think about the way the word “cough” is spelled?), it may be a little confusing (your, you’re, ur), but it’s ours.

Oh, English, English, English.

In a new comic,  Maria Scrivan shows four words that have taken on new meaning. The first is green which at one time referred to the color and now means environmentally friendly. I’ll leave it to you to click through to see the rest (my prediction is you’ll like the fourth one the best—let me know).

In other news, today is unofficially Take Your Gun to Starbucks Day. I kid you not. Go elsewhere for caffeine.

We didn’t watch the Persied Meteor Shower this weekend (at least this part of the ‘we’ didn’t—can’t swear that no one got up to view it). As expected, the inconvenient time (when will Mother Nature learn to check our schedules before planning a big event?) and the jam packed weekend meant we were more interested in the inside of our eyelids than the outside of the heavens. I have it on great authority that if you were somewhere without cloud cover (and you were looking in the right place), it was quite a glorious site. If you are so inclined, there are several more crazy early morning watchings available.

We also didn’t build a retaining wall this weekend. Turns out that Dad and I had a misunderstanding of what the wall was supposed to do. When he understood what I thought he meant (follow that?), he clarified. When I understood what he meant, I vetoed. No wall right now. But he and Pi did an excellent job pouring cement around the sewer drain to try to put a stop to the erosion problem. Even without a Blue Ox, Paul Bunyan did a Most Excellent Job of starting the planting bed for the Great Iris Expansion.

We did a fair amount of weeding yesterday. Booker spent most of the time basking in the sun. Note to self: Teach puppy to identify weeds and dig them up. Response to note to self: Ha!

There is an upside-down glass on the floor in our kitchen. This—as you well know—is the international signal for There Is A Bug Trapped Here That We Intend To Release Into The Wild But Has A 50/50 Chance of Dying Before We Get Around To It. Remember the saying in Animal Farm: Four legs good, two legs better? My version is: Four legs good, more legs outside. As in, Wildlife Belongs In the Wild Not In My Kitchen. Booker was no help at all. When the spider went scurrying across the floor he stared at me hopefully. I’m guessing the hopeful was for food and not permission to play with the spider since I was shrieking “Where is the spider??? Booker, get the spider!!!!” at the time.

Hope your (not you’re or ur) day is filled with the appropriate number of legs.

Love, Mom