Grrr--parents!

Yes, I'm lucky to still have them and to have a good relationship with both of them.

However, sometimes they are, in a lovely Regency phrase, the outside of enough.

Flannel Jammies decided back in August that she and I needed to power-wash my house. Plaid Jammies agreed to let us use the little electric pressure-washer and come over long enough to show us how to use it. After thinking it over for a while, he decided that it wasn't powerful enough and would take to long, so he needed to come along and bring the big gas-powered washer. They were supposed to arrive Saturday morning at 10. At 9:30, FJ called and said there was an oil leak in the pressure-washer, and they'd be coming on Sunday. There followed a short discussion about scheduling, owing to the fact that I had to work Sunday morning at FJ's office.

I spent Saturday under the influence of large amounts of Benadrool, and didn't manage to do any laundry or cleaning because I discovered after I had taken said Benadrool that I was out of salt for the water softener (and was unable to drive to the store and get any). Sunday morning I was up at 6:30, dropped off some boxes at the house Mom & I are slowly cleaning out, went to her office and worked, hit Home Depot for softener salt, mulch and spray paint, and got home about three minutes before my folks arrived.

Pressure-washing is fun but it's work. The worst area of mold and yuck was on the west wall of the house, which gets almost no sunshine. Cleaning that wall took about an hour, after which Plaid Jammies decreed it was time for a lunch break. Over lunch, he just happened to mention that he's having hernia surgery on Thursday.

Hello? Surgery in four days? Were you PLANNING to tell me at all? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I refrained from smacking him and just ate my Sun Chips, but seriously. My parents' secrecy about medical matters drives me bonkers sometimes. Anyone who would care to send some good vibes to the curmudgeon who sired me, the surgery is Thursday morning, outpatient with a sedative and local anesthetic. They can't do it laparoscopically because they need to insert a piece of mesh, apparently, so it's going to be done via incision.

After casually dropping this bombshell, the folks were ready to go back to work. Dad actually let Mom & I do any washing that didn't involve being up on a ladder, and although it is immodest for me to say it, I was much better than Mom. She's too slow and she doesn't get up under the folds in the siding. After hearing about her insufficiences from Dad, she took my ladder and started cleaning the outside of the windows on the walls we had washed. I discovered this morning that she had also washed all the windows of my car--no more dog snot (or as Zayrina prefers to call it, puppy kisses).

We ran out of time owing to the late start, so Dad agreed to leave the little electric washer with me. I did the front of the house all by myself (yay me!) and then had a quick lesson about how to use the little washer, complete with instructions on not getting the plug wet. Right, Dad, I was gonna wash that, too. *eye roll*

Overall, the house looks great (the one wall that didn't get done was the east wall, which no one but me can see anyway), I found out about Dad's upcoming surgery, and we mostly had fun and didn't kill each other.

I will say that as miserable as I was this morning, I would not recommend that anyone with a sinus infection pressure-wash her house on a cold autumn day. I wound up leaving work slightly early to go to the doctor and get a 'script for a Z-pack.

*snork*