Sexy Lumberjacking

I swear I am unable to think of any other post title.

So yesterday, in the middle of a normal, lovely afternoon, I was sitting in the office chatting with Matt and his partner Lincoln. Hank was playing outside with the foster daughters from next door, Laura was upstairs, having, I suspect, sneaked up there to watch "Cake Boss" on my laptop. The dog was somewhere lolling. Not a cloud in the sky.

Then Laura came running into the room. "You have got to see this!" she said. I figured that the dog had climbed onto a bed or barfed. Or that Laura had figured out a new way to sign her name in cursive. There is just no way to gauge the bigness of an event from Laura saying "You have got to see this."

But good grief, look.

A big oak tree fell across the driveway. Laura heard it from her room. And--I get the shakes even writing this--Hank and the little girls saw it fall from where they were playing, in Conspiracy Guy's front yard, two houses over.

Who expects a tree to fall over in the middle of a calm, sunny day? This tree had a few issues, I guess, because its twin tree had to be taken down last year. That was the time that the tree dude talked me to death and then stole my nuts. And then charged me $750. But this tree was healthy, I thought, because look at it. Look how leafy it was.

As we went out in the front yard, Hank and the girls came running up to the downhill side. Y'all, I had several moments of what I think was shock, and distress, realizing that they could have just as easily been playing in our yard or walking down our driveway when the tree fell. Awful. I could not get that vision out of my head. But there they were, fine and chattering with excitement.

That top picture doesn't show it so well. This was a big ass tree.

The trunk more or less broke off at the ground. The roots were rotten, but I never would have thought it.

Then my thought was, "Okay, we are now marooned in our house forever." Sitting in the office, I had just said, "Matt, is there any reason the kids and I can't go on up to the mountain house right now?" Then, crash, and my reaction was, "Now I can't go to the mountains!" Sometimes in an emergency, I whine.

I need not have worried. Matt borrowed a chainsaw from Conspiracy Guy. Then he and Lincoln set about cutting up the tree. I think it was a nice break from their desk work, actually. A man likes a chance to wear his steel-toed boots.

Plus, Matt + chainsaw = hot!

Yeah, cut it, baby!

Now the driveway is clear, so we're not trapped in our house after all. There is tree crap all over the yard, but I'm leaving town and I am guessing that problem doesn't have my name on it.

I love men.