Car 54, Where Are You?

This weekend I attended my first auction. It was at this amazing nursery/landscaping place in Ennis called Tex-scapes Greenery. In spite of my absolute lack of a poker face (Matt said you could almost imagine me jumping up and down and shouting, "Ooh, me! Sell it to me! I must have that!"), we walked away with some really great stuff at prices I doubt we'll see again. This is partly because we like old-fashioned, non-trendy plants like Bridal Wreath spirea (we now have nine big ones...for 50 bucks!) and 2 pom pom ligustrum, which will provide ideal camouflage for our rain barrels some day. We also scored a super cheap pallet of flagstone for a path in the back yard, a huge lot of creeping roses, and--best of all--the beautifully well established Japanese Maple that I was dying to get, so obviously dying to get that the two older gentlemen who were bidding against me dropped out because they didn't have the heart to take it from me.

Fact: Our home improvement projects generally get going after the kids are all in bed. We have painted, removed a rather unattractrive hedgerow, tiled bathrooms, laid laminate flooring, constructed windowboxes, and done most of our landscaping at the time of night/morning when sane people have already completed several REM cycles.

So there we were tonight in the moonlight, out in the front yard digging a gigantic kidney-shaped flower bed that will be home to our nifty new roses when a squad car drove past and lingered at the stop sign in front of our house. The passenger window rolled down, and we were greeted by one of Corsicana's finest.

"Uh...you guys aren't hiding a body, are you?"

"No, officer. We are preparing to plant roses."

"Oh." He sounded disappointed.

"Slow night?" I asked.

"Yep."

"If you stick around, you could probably catch a speeding teenager. That'd be fun to watch. Oh, and somebody egged the Clampetts' cars a few weeks ago." I pointed to the house across the street.

"Thanks for the tip."

"You're welcome. And if we do decide to murder someone in cold blood and then bury them in the front yard, you'll be the first one we call."

"I'd appreciate that."

The officers went on their way. I found myself wishing we had a copy of Rear Window, the great old Hitchcock movie with Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly. If you've never seen it, you should rent it.