Wilmington Weekend Update #3

Y’all

I’d have to say the weekend began Thursday after my haircut when Jonathan my hairdresser (his term; I don’t think you can “dress” hair this short) lent me the keys to his Honda S2000 convertible. It’s a lot like the Honda I usually drive, but minus six seats and a roof. Oh, and it does zero to sixty in around five seconds. But I have, like 17 more cup holders than him, so there! I might not have brought it back, but I wanted to surprise Abby and Sellers by taking them to the pool, and they wouldn’t have fit, even in the trunk.

Friday Sellers had a field trip to the Cameron Art Museum, and Margaret came along and brought Abby. You might wonder what sort of groundbreaking art exhibits tour Wilmington. Last year we had Warhol. This year, in a similar vein, we had the costumes of Siegfried and Roy. No, the jokes are later. That really was the exhibit, along with costumes worn by the supporting human cast (the Siberian tigers apparently work in the nude). The kids were fascinated, but they missed out on the sexually explicit video installment the Older Preschool class accidentally wandered into Monday.

The Amish have barn raisings. Here in Turtle Hall we had a tree-falling (see photos). Our next-door neighbor Jeff Weaver is a real-estate appraiser, and he has undertaken the task of renovating not only his house but our entire cul-de-sac. He rented a pneumatic lift (we paid, but he drove) and spent all weekend with a chainsaw trimming and cutting down trees. We had several of stands of smallish oaks and a few pines, and Jeff took out the small trees to let the larger ones flourish. I lost count, but I think we’re down about 15 trees on our lot, and he did his own, the Klein’s across the street, and Ian’s next door as well (Ian brought his own chain saw to the party and drove the lift as well).

I got in the lift briefly – it was like one of those carnival rides where you’re way too high up on some metal thing that wobbles a little too much for comfort. I let Jeff, Ian, and Jeff’s workers run the saws while I piled logs onto a hornet’s nest. The hornets, apparently angered at being pummeled with pine, stung me on the left ear, at which point I entertained the neighborhood with my mad dash around the lawn. Thanks to Ortho Chemical I ultimately won the war, but with a large red ear to show for it. With the trees down the change in the view from our house is so dramatic as to be frightening. Now Josh down the street can look out his window and tell if I’m on time for our morning run.

It seems our ninth anniversary is in three days. Apparently this is the Shingles-and-Paint anniversary. We intended to celebrate by leaving the kids and seeing an early showing of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but our sitter had to be in a radio-station prize drawing at 3:30 (she lost) so we instead saw the 7:00 show (the 5:40 being sold out). We did love the movie (a foregone conclusion) and we reviewed our favorite parts over dinner on Wrightsville Beach. The seafood was over-seasoned and heavy; at least we had entertainment from a loud bachelorette party and an under-stocked fish tank. But the key lime pie was awesome, and my dinner companion was delightful.

Today I was on call, but the hospital was light, so I made it out in time to meet Margaret and the kids at The Home Depot. This is not the kids’ favorite errand, but they’ve whined a lot less since we started allowing them to climb on the bags of potting soil. In the flower section Sellers decided he could communicate with the bumblebees. I only wish he spoke Hornet.

From there Margaret went home to start planting flower boxes and ornamental grasses while I decided it would be fun to take the kids out to lunch. My definition of fun, by the way, includes cleaning up a half-liter of Sprite on the floor of the College Deli. From there we detoured to Mott’s Channel Seafood (known to the kids as The Stinky Fish Store). Then it was groceries, dragging branches across the lawn, and digging holes for ornamental grasses, followed by baths and dinner (chicken and shrimp for the kids, flounder caught this morning for the grown-ups).

This week Abby will be at Shady Paddocks riding horses and Margaret will be on the radio (The Big Talker, FM and AM) explaining hypertension and why she knows more about it than anyone else this side of Duke. I will be in the office begging people to use the new electronic medical record properly. Now I’m still on call, so I’d best wrap it up! Next week I hope to write about our adventures at the Harry Potter book release party and costume contest at Barnes & Noble.

David