Gazebo project

Since my blog will never rule the blogosphere if I don't update it daily with blazing wit and self-depracating introspection, let me tell you about my new gazebo project.

My parents have a gazebo in their backyard. Once upon a time, the gazebo was lovely -- it was screened in, bug free, stained and water-sealed, and just an overall great place to sit with a glass of iced tea and watch the sun set. But my family has a way of not taking care of things, especially if said things are outdoors. Our patio is a graveyard of abandoned lawn furniture. The hammock on the hill is rusted, shredded, and rotted. And the gazebo, until yesterday, was home to three years' worth of seasonal debris -- mountains of leaves, caterpillar husks, creepy crawlies with more legs than I have fingers and toes combined, and, of course, wiener-dog shit.

I'd been spending a lot of time in there regardless because I'm addicted to the outdoors because lately my mood is directly correlated to the weather. When it is sunny outside, I am sunny inside; and when it rains I'm a crying-on-the-inside clown. But after gorging myself at the Chinese food buffet the other night, I realized that my need to be outdoors was merging with my need for beauty, which meant that even while outside, I couldn't enjoy myself in a place that reminded me of The Trash Heap.

So I Shanghaied my little sister (who is 20 and about to graduate from college, but I can still say things to her like, "I'll give you five dollars if you'll let me pick your nose," and she'll still say, "Sure!") and we grabbed some rakes and brooms and garbage bags and the hose and we hit the gazebo like motherfucking Delta Force. Thus, after years of oppression, the gazebo has been liberated from winter's tyranny.

That was yesterday. Today we went to the Home Despot and bought crap to re-screen all the screens and to clean all the wood, which is what we'll do tomorrow (and which we would have done today if it hadn't been half-drizzling all afternoon before I had to go to work -- make up your freakin' mind, weather!).

After that, we're going to plant cactus around the gazebo's perimeter, and then we're going to raid this local statuary place for these totally sweet seahorses they've got there.

We also bought an antenna to boost the house's wireless Internet signal so it will once again work in the gazebo, and, if we've got money left over, I'm going to buy an outdoor fridge. I also want to buy a wiener-dog costume so I can run around the backyard barking at all the joggers and cyclists who pass by, but that'll probably have to wait.

But the best part is, once everything is together, I'm going to throw Gazebo Gras 2006, complete with Christmas lights, fireworks, a slip 'n' slide, BBQ, and booze -- and you're all invited, so get psyched!