Work and Play

I finally managed to give Mary her shower this morning. I think it may have been a week since her last one—and the same goes for me. Part of it is that she doesn’t want to and part of it is that I don’t want to. Either she’s tired or…well, I guess that’s always her excuse. With me, it’s more finding the time to fit it in. I’ve had so much yard work to do and if I wait, it gets so hot. Or else I’m tired. There’s also the fact that I hate the shower head. There’s a bar so that you can slide the showerhead up and down. This is great because Mary sits and I stand. Also, I can then easily take it out of its holder to get her wet or rinse her off. It’s indispensable for washing her hair. However, the showerhead is too large and heavy, so that it fell forward a lot (I’ve learned to lean it backwards against the wall when not in use.) and the hose sprang a leak. I looked everywhere for a replacement but couldn’t find one. I guess it never occurred to them that their product might need to be replaced! I wrote an email to the company (Waterpik) but never heard anything back from them, so I just bought a sturdy-looking one. The problem is that the end that attaches to the showerhead isn’t shaped properly to fit into the holder, so the problem was multiplied. It’s a royal pain in the ass and makes me dread dealing with the shower. Well, also, there’s the fact that it’s super tiny and cramped and there’s no good place for the soap (There’s a soap dish that attaches to the bar, but that makes the showerhead be up too high for Mary. I wish I’d had the bar put in lower, but I don’t want to make holes all over the place, so I’ve just left it. Why are there so many stupid little decisions to make in life?!), and the fixture to turn the shower on and off is incredibly hard to pull and push on and off. Then there’s the whole routine, practically a ritual, that has to be gone through. I try to have things down to a science to make them most efficient. And after the shower’s over with, there’s the getting dressed part, which wouldn’t be so bad except for the petroleum jelly business. It feels so nasty! I don’t know how Mary stands it. Personally, I think she likes being rubbed all over! But putting her clothes on over top of the stuff is annoying beyond description.

Wow. Where did all that come from? I meant to just write about how I spent the day cleaning up the holly bush branches that I cut off yesterday—I decimated those bushes. Either they’ll be better off and actually start looking nice or they’ll never get over it and keel over. I moved on to a little thorn bush of some sort out front. Luckily, it has berries but no thorns yet. They’re so nasty—they poke right through my gloves. I really don’t know what to do with this little bush. It’s sort of pretty but…I don’t know why they put it there. My next step was to completely (or as much as I was capable of) cut down a wild honeysuckle bush out front. Mary sat out on the front porch, reading Annie’s Mailbox and watching me. I was so glad to see her stay awake for so long! (There really should be some sort of punctuation in between a period and an exclamation point.) I’ve wanted to get rid of this bush for so long. It isn’t pretty and serves no function at all other than to grow like crazy, blocking the sidewalk and making cutting the grass even more difficult. I’d love to have it completely removed but don’t want to waste the money. I’d also love to get rid of the one in the backyard and put an Endless Summer hydrangea there. But at least that one serves a function, sort of—the birds adore it.

Oh, get this—a mini-miracle occurred this afternoon. I was about three quarters of the way done cutting up the branches I’d cut down when a man stopped his pick-up truck, which was loaded with tree branches, in front of the yard. He hopped out and asked me if I wanted to throw everything in his truck. I couldn’t believe my ears. He said he was allowed to dump it in his work’s dumpster. So he took the branches and the bags. Amazing! Just like an angel coming to help me.

I asked Mary if she wanted to go to Serena’s or Angela’s for dinner She said she didn’t care, so I called Mom to see what she was having for dinner ( She said oxtail soup with barley. Ugh! So I said, oh, well, maybe another time. Several minutes later she called back to say she could also offer us sauerkraut and mashed potatoes with pork and a half of a stuffed pepper. She just cracks me up. She acted so nonchalant when I turned her down, but she must have been disappointed. She said we might as well come to her house because we’d only be getting leftovers at Angela’s, too. I was so tired, I didn’t really feel like going anywhere, but I have some old movies checked out from the library and I thought she (or Angie) would enjoy seeing them, too. We went over and ended up watching “It Happened One Night.” We really enjoyed it.

However, we didn’t get home till almost 11:30 PM and I’m so bad for keeping Mary out so late. Sometimes I wonder that she doesn’t just collapse on me. Well, she didn’t have her usual cup of coffee when we got in, so I know she was tired. Speaking of which…good night!