Home ownership? Sucks. Poochie as a brother? Awesome.

My darling brother is visiting this weekend ... and even took Monday off of work. The occasion? Cha Cha needs to scrape and repaint her garage.

For some reason, the garage - and only the garage - is peeling. So, today, Poochie and I scraped the shit out of the front of the garage. Mercifully, it was mostly cloudy and a lovely 75 degrees. We listed to Car Talk and What Do You Know, and then when NPR failed us, we worked in happy silence, or we spontaneously sang TV show theme songs together.

Yes, we both know all of the words to the theme from The Love Boat. Also? We are both wondering why Lego hasn't yet made Golden Girls playsets. We know that theme song, too.

There's a chance of rain tonight and tomorrow, so we entertained my neighbors by priming the garage by the headlights of my Honda. White trash, thy name is Cha Cha.

And while we worked outside, Foxie Doxie and Lil' Frankfurter created their own society inside, a la Lord of the Flies. They aren't allowed in the backyard unattended - there's another dead squirrel. Poochie and I keep running errands and forgetting to take the squirrel with us, because I'll be damned if I stick another decomposing carcass in my garage trashcan. It still smells. Really. Bad.

But we are covered, come rain or shine. I have primer in my hair. We've eaten barbecue three meals in a row. We are exhausted. And we have a new understanding and appreciation of people whose houses look like crap.