Friday the girls came to pick me up from the station and we stopped for dinner in scenic Arbutus for Hawaiian barbecue. Arbutus is a two-light burgh next to the train tracks and Route 1, with its own movie theater, a pizza restaurant, three hookah bars, and not much else, so a Hawaiian restaurant is a bit of an outlier. I’d been told it was worth a try, so we gave it a shot. While the ambiance in the dining area was a bit lacking, the food didn’t disappoint, and I’ll definitely go back for their pulled chicken and pork.

Saturday we spent the day chopping and sawing and trimming and pruning. Trees encroach on our gardens, choke out our lawn, and kill our herbs, so we fight back with saw and clippers. I hauled three truckloads of brush to the dump, along with all of the pallets we used to make our mulch piles, the box our grille came in, and multiple bags of yard debris. I hung two of my old Pottery Barn shelves in Finn’s room and started on her light fixture, but started winding down after five or so. After dinner, we got a text from the neighbors to join them in the playground across the street. Originally the plan was to get some dessert, so we put the question to Finn: friends or ice cream. Her reply:

“I have a stronger heart than my love of candy.”

So we let the kids run around until dusk while we sipped beer from Solo cups on the picnic bench. Then we watched them catch fireflies in the backyard until it was way past bedtime.

My neighbor and I were discussing the large variety of varmints in our yards and he gave me a present, a cardboard tube filled with chemicals designed to make smoke and kill burrowing animals. He’s also convinced me that trapping is too slow and time consuming, and that more direct action is warranted given our situation: our backyard is like the Serengeti, with herds of bunnies migrating through packs of squirrels, accompanied by circling flocks of starlings and ravens and catbirds. So I will buy a pellet gun and lie in wait and kill these invading pests before they eat all of our herbs and Jen’s flowers and dig more holes in our shitty lawn.

Sunday the girls went to church while I got back to work. Finn’s fixture needed some specialty adapters so I hit the store and came back in time for a Farmer’s Market run. Then we got a text from Christi and Glenn about looking at a house on the other side of the beltway, so I drove over and looked at it with them while Finn napped.

After a strategy session with them (it’s a beautiful house), I got the light fixture hung and the lawn edged before stopping to straighten up, and then we had the neighbors over for pizza and beers and more fireflies and grape popsicles and laughing.

Things I didn’t get done today:

• Kegging the beer
• Spraying the yard with Cutter insect-kill-um
• Filling the sandbox with sand
• Humping baby gear back up into the attic
• Spraying the driveway with Round-Up
• Shoring up the playset with some new lumber

Fuck it. The Fourth will be what it will be, and our friends will be here. The house won’t be perfect, and that will be fine.