Rotten is the new sour (grapes, that is)

Ahahaha.

All that angst over my inability to get to the cherries, only to discover after fetching the ladder that they are riddled with rot. Well, riddled with cherry fruit fly maggots.

Tree, you win. Next year, I am totally looking into the approved for organic gardening methods of destroying those squirming white things. This year, I'm sticking to store bought. And not angsting about the ones I can't reach for love or money.

Aside from the cherry debacle, it was a productive weekend on both houses. Painted two rooms at Beacon, and put in a raised bed for our daughter (who was told we'd make her a bed with plants she was allowed to munch on weeks ago).

My annual Oops, Missed a Spot! sunburn is in. Two neat and tidy bright red wings of pain below my shoulderblades, right next to the racerback of my tank. Ouch.

Tree 1, me 0.

Dear Self,

Repeat after me:

Birkenstocks were never meant for climbing trees.

Four cherries were probably NOT worth the scratches gained in the effort to get to them.

Patience is a virtue, wait for the blasted ladder already.

Birkenstocks were never meant for climbing trees.

Also, you need to clean the moss off the garage roof.

Things that are not fair, short list

I don't know why I assumed that the cherry trees here were identical. I really don't. I think I just assumed that the one in front was the bastard child of the one in back. Which it's not.

The one in back (growing up against our garage, and somewhat butchered on one side from the recent construction of the neighbor to the rear's own, enormous garage) is your standard Bing or Bing-like tree.

The one in the front? Sour. Red skin, yellow fruit, probably Montmorency, perfect for pies and all sorts of deliciousness.

Neither tree is going to make it easy to get to the fruit, though. Unlike my friend's cherry tree (in the middle of her yard, low sprawling branches), mine are awkwardly placed and, most annoyingly, suffering from a severe case of high branches.

Which brings me to the part about things that fail to be fair: my ladders are at the other house (currently holding up the curtains in the living room, so that Prying Eyes can't tell the place is vacant, well, not unless they open the mailbox and see the lovely "vacant" post it placed there by the mailman). I can't get to my cherries. My finally ripe cherries.

It is to weep. WEEP, I say.

(Other things that fail to be fair include our inability to get the able-bodied people in our theoretical family work crew together for a big push so we can do SOMETHING about getting the other place either off our hands or earning its keep, but somehow, my priorities being about as straight as Portia and Ellen, the inability to access the cherries seem like a vastly greater offense on the part of the universe.)