Benched, Grilled, Pressure-Washed (illustrated)

[Editor's note. I apologize in advance for some of the photographs in this post. They are not very good photographs -- I press the button and the result is anyone's guess -- but they are essential to the post. Perhaps I should also be apologizing for the sheer number of photographs in this post. Some bloggers post many more, but there are far more than I usually include. I must have been on a roll. --RWP]

A friend of ours, Rosemary L., lived to be 94 years old. During the last 20 years of her life (the period when we knew her) she perplexed and amused her friends by celebrating her birthday every year throughout the entire month of February at multiple restaurants. So it struck me as downright Rosemaryesque when, through no fault of Mrs. Rhymeswithplague's own, her birthday celebration lasted for a whole week this year.

On the Saturday before her birthday, our older son and his wife, along with their daughter who was home for the weekend from summer session at the university, drove over from their town and took us out to eat at a local restaurant. We enjoyed it immensely; we left the place with our tummies full and a take-home box containing a piece of cheesecake. Back at our house, our son pulled a big box out of the back of his vehicle and began assembling something. It turned out to be a bench for our entrance! He had heard his mother mention a while back that she would really like us to get one. Here is the finished product along with Mrs. RWP:

A few seconds later I joined her on our new bench:

But don't look at us or the bench. Instead, notice the concrete. It will be important later in this post.

The next day, on the Sunday before Mrs. RWP's birthday, we were invited to our other son and daughter-in-law's home for a delicious home-cooked, gourmet meal.

Three days later, on Wednesday, Mrs. RWP's actual birthday, she and I went out for another birthday dinner at our favorite fake-Australian place where we enjoyed coconut shrimp, pumpernickel bread, Toowoomba salmon, and baked sweet potato. Once again we had cheesecake for dessert. This was now the third celebration. I gave Mrs. RWP a bouquet of flowers but didn't take a photograph. Our daughter and son-in-law in Alabama also had flowers delivered to our house on Wednesday afternoon:

On Saturday morning, three days after Mrs. RWP's birthday, our daughter called to tell us to eat an early, light lunch because she and our son-in-law were coming to cook dinner for us "for Mom's birthday." True to their word, they showed up with all the food and even the grill on which our son-in-law did the cooking. Unbeknownst to us, they had also invited our two sons and their wives as a further surprise. We kept adding places at the table as each couple joined the group. Much laughter took place, and a great time was had by all that day with eight of us at the dining table. As an additional surprise, the grill was left at our house as a gift to us:

So Mrs. RWP's birthday celebration turned out to be eight days long. Just like Hanukkah.

Once again, don't look at the grill. Look at the concrete.

What do you see?

I saw dirty concrete at our front entrance by the bench and I see dirty concrete on our patio by the grill. Dirty concrete, at least around here, means only one thing: it's time to do pressure washing!

So a couple of days later I hired a man to come and pressure wash our driveway (including the entrance way) and our patio. I don't have a "before" picture of the driveway but here is an "after" picture that includes the tip of my finger:

and here is an "after" picture of the patio:

We have lived in this house for 19 years and this is only the second time we have had our concrete areas pressure-wshed. Some of our neighbors do it much more frequently. Some have it done every year.

There's a word that applies to such people.

Rosemaryesque.