Saturday morning, Matt and I got up early (well, early for us on a weekend - 8 and 8:30, respectively) and after we were showered and dressed, drove down to my folks'. Once there, we split up - Matt rode with my dad, and Mom came in my car, and we all went down to McDonald's Nursery in Hampton. (Nothing to do with the fast-food chain, I promise.)
I hadn't been to McDonald's since I was about eight. I found it vastly more interesting this time. Naturally, we managed to pick the weekend they were having a show - we knew we were in trouble when we pulled into the left-turn lane to enter the parking lot and found a guy with an orange vest directing traffic, and another half-dozen orange vests inside the parking lot. The place was packed.
We headed for the sign marked "Trees and Shrubs" and found ourselves back outside, pushing a cart the size of a small car. After deciding that we didn't really want a fruit-bearing tree and that we were still somewhat leery of dogwoods (that being the tree that had died over the winter) we did a leisurely stroll around and decided on a Japanese maple.
Just behind the Japanese maples were a bunch of pots of tall, bushy grass, labeled - I'm not kidding - "Mondo Grass." I'd been looking for ground cover for the mulch that will go around the tree, and the Mondo Grass was on sale at less than $3 per pot, so I grabbed four pots. (A slight miscalculation on my part; the mulched-in area will be triangular. But the way the grass is growing in the pots, I should easily be able to divide each pot into sections and spread the sections out over the triangle.)
Then we made the mistake of going around the corner into the flowers section. Two of every three pots grabbed my eye. I nearly bought about four hundred little bushy flowering plants. I eventually got a grip and just picked up three pots of what the label said was dianthus, strawberry parfait color. (That place is dangerous. And now I know where it is. Must... Resist...)
My folks paid for the tree - they'd promised to buy us a tree as a housewarming present - and some new azalea bushes for their yard, and we paid for our potted plants, and the four of us headed back to my folks' house. We were there only long enough to drop off the azaleas and for Dad to pick up a shovel, a rake, and a wheelbarrow, and then we were on our way back up to Williamsburg.
It only took about an hour and a half to dig up the old tree (its poor little root ball had shriveled up to something about the size of my two fists) and plant the new one. Dad, excited and happy that we'd asked for his help, couldn't just stop there, so he wandered around our yard and eventually decided to work on erosion control in our back yard. (We'd had a couple of bad storms just after we moved in, before the grass had taken root, so there are deep channels where water flowed.) He had us picking rocks out of the earth and building little dams every few feet in the channels, then packing leftover clay from the tree's hole upstream of the dams.
He pushed the idea of terracing our back yard to both of us, but we're not sure we're really ready for that much work just now. At the very least, we've got several other projects we want to take care of, first - clearing the ditch behind the house, planting some bushes along the ditch to begin a privacy hedge, turning over the soil for my garden plot (nothing big; I'm just planning some tomatoes and maybe squash on the sunny side of the house), and keeping the front yard moderately attractive.
While we were at it, we raked up the excess straw left over from the grass seeding in September. (None of my books had said it had to be raked up, or I'd have done it months ago; I assumed it was meant to compost itself into the dirt.) Oh, well, live and learn, and now we have a bag of collected straw to use when we re-seed this week.
We'd wanted to take them out to lunch, to express our gratitude for their help. After Dad and Matt finished building little dams and came in, we tried to decide where to go. I don't know where the idea came from, but I suddenly said, "Did you know the Backfin's re-opened?"
There was immediate interest. The Backfin had been a favorite of my parents' some years ago, before they packed up and moved to a new location out of our reach. A few months ago, I'd noticed the sign at the location of an old farmer's market, but hadn't ever passed along the news. (The Backfin is one of the few seafood restaurants I like to eat at - they make cornbread to die for - but I'm still not a seafood fan, so the thought got somewhat buried.)
I called to make sure they were still open (it was 2 o'clock by the time we'd finished everything) and we went over. The cornbread was just as good as I'd remembered it, and we were all happy with our meals. Dad was so thrilled, he was like a little kid at Christmas. He announced to everyone who would listen that he'd be coming back for lunch at least once a week. (Dad and I work in the same office, only about three miles from the Backfin's new location.)
After that, Matt and I went to K.T. and Kevin's for the weekly game. We managed to arrive early, but it still took us until nearly seven to make our Heroes characters. I decided to go ahead and attempt to play a male character. I've tried that before, and everyone always forgets - but Heroes is over-the-top enough that I think I can keep it in line. Besides, Greg was already playing the token female.
I thought my character would turn out to be a real brick, with all his extraordinary stats, but it didn't work out that way. I guess he's just got a glass jaw, despite being extraordinarily strong and quick. He's an ex-military spy (he used to sneak into the alien enclaves and take pictures and memorize conversations - even the friendly aliens are notoriously close-mouthed) with the mutant ability to control the atmosphere (generate winds, call lightning, affect the weather). He's called The Weatherman. His real name, because I'm terrible at coming up with names, is Geoffrey Jefferson. (His friends call him Jeff-Jeff.)
After we created our characters, we went on our first mission - to collect some renegades who'd stolen a prototype mecha suit. I can tell K.T.'s trying to set us up for moral dilemmas - the person who stole the suit tried to protest that we were slaves (in her universe, supers are by law required to be "sponsored" by normal individuals or organizations) and that we should be helping her escape - even joining her.
We might have been more sympathetic if they'd just have tried to sneak or run past us to the border, but they attacked us first. One of their number, deranged by the results of experiments done on him by his "sponsor," set a small village on fire. We weren't going to be swayed by an unreasonably embittered normal and a few rogues, even if they had been abused by their sponsors. We called our base and turned them all in.
But Greg's character is wondering if there might have been a seed of truth to what she'd said, and mine is thinking of asking for internal ops next time - immoral sponsors who perform experiments on their wards should be exposed and squashed like the bugs they are! (I told you Heroes was a bit over-the-top.)
We spent most of Sunday lounging around the house, doing the laundry, watching videos, reading, and playing on the computer. I've gotten re-hooked on Red Dwarf, and I'm systematically going through all my videos of it. I'm also in the midst of re-reading the Harry Potter books, and making lists of things I want to buy for home projects. (I bought an herb-garden starter kit, for example, and assuming the seeds sprout, I want to transplant them into a window box. And I want to get a generic spring/summer flag so we can put up our flagpole. And... and... and... Like that.)
It looks like it's going to be another gorgeous day today - sunny and mild. I love early spring.
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