It will be Monday morning. You will be mowing your lawn and weeding. Because you were too busy reassembling the house Saturday and cooking, doing laundry and dealing with a vomiting kid on Sunday (Happy Father’s Day! Arf.) to mow over the weekend. Also, you wanted your husband to have the weekend off, but instead you worked him like a dog and put him in charge of vomiting kid.

You might feel a little bad about this. Or you might not.

“No, you can’t have mac and cheese. Let’s see if you can keep the toast down, first.” (Moments like that I adore my husband. I had no idea what love was until the first time one of the kids caught the flu and he took care of them.)

The neighbor dog will be yipping at you. You will be a little concerned that the crazy door-to-door salesman (“Ma’am! I’m not selling anything!”) who came by last week and refused to leave your porch will return.

Salesman-Who-Is-Not-Salesman: “This is my job.”

You will be wearing your husband’s sweats and a stinky v-neck white T-shirt (Hanes) and the lawnmower will start smoking and there will be four guys from the City of Portland (“The City That Works!” The city that works my frickin’ nerves, make that) and they will be parked on their fat asses on the neighbors retaining wall at the end of the street, checking you out.

You will ignore them.

They will continue to take a break and stare. For 20 minutes they sit there, bs’ing and staring.

Apparently sweaty housewives cussing at their lawnmowers are all the rage.

My husband — you may know him as Hockey God — did a nice photo essay on his blog. You should go check it out. And yes, I did say that about the Catholic church. Because I’m sick of all my snobby friends saying, “Well, at Cathedral/Holy Cross/Madeleine School/Holy Redeemer… etc. We don’t have those kind of problems.” (Lice, sex abuse, child abuse, meth monkeys, teachers who abuse kids…) Liars! You do so. You just cover it up better. Only, not always.

And from Whoorl and Snackie’s World (“Where Everybody is Bitchy and Nobody is Getting Licked!”), today’s meme:

1. Hey baby, what’s your sign? More importantly, do you believe in astrology? Why or why not?
Cancer, on the cusp of Gemini, with Sagittarius rising. Really, I think this explains it all. Yeah, and I was born in Year of the Dragon. Wacky Girl is Virgo and Perfect, Wacky Boy is Aries and Insane, Hockey God is double Sag with Scorpio Rising or something and Trouble. Of course I believe in astrology.

2. If you were offered a million dollars to never wear lip gloss again, would you take it?
Yes, because “chapstick” is not “lip gloss.” Ditto “lipstick” is not “lip gloss.”

3. Which blogger would you like to trade lives with for just one day and why?
Nothing But Bonfires, because geez, who wouldn’t want to be Holly?

4. Do you want to have more children or have you not thought that far ahead yet?
Ha, ha, ha! You’re funny! Yeah, they’re cute until they bring home lice. Then they’re not that damn cute anymore. No, we’re done. No more kids, no more dogs, no more lice.

5. And finally, the most important question of the day: mayonnaise or Miracle Whip?
Mayo. But only on our hair.

PS — Whoorl was much more imaginative about this than I was. I’m just in a hurry. Laundry and all. Week Two of the Louse: More Cetaphil on hair; bed pillows, quilts, blankets on hot cycle in dryer for half an hour; sheets, towels and coats through laundry; entire house vacuumed again; and me, oh my! I even found time to plant cosmos, pansies and hollyhocks with the kids. (My husband is doing the vacuuming. With our new fancy purple Dyson vacuum cleaner. The man is a saint.)

re: The Community Garden at our school. People, it is not enough to merely plant the garden, you must harvest it, too.

Also, tomatoes need to be staked.

Also, sunflowers? Pretty and all, but they suck. I mean suck. All. The. Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife out of the soil, sluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurp… yep, there it goes. Nutrients, water, compost — vanished. So don’t be planting ten sunflowers in with lettuce, herbs, cabbages, all hippie-happy, “Oh! How I love to garden! It’s so fun and easy!” and what-have-you and expecting anything to grow except the sunflowers. They will eat the garden, believe me.

Then they will say, “I look so beautiful, don’t I? I deserved it all.” They’re vain that way.

That’s all I have to say about any of that.

A guide to flowers:

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