Four for the price of one: Landscape our house (the reveal); The demonic door salesman; Where's Scurkey?; and Is Boscoe still crapping in the house?

I'll start with the last one first:

4.) No!!! Yay!!! After three straight days of my coming home to a big stinky mess and having to wash the porch floor (remember; we can't get him in nor out of the basement), and two straight nights of getting up every hour to let him outside, he has suddenly improved.

Thank you, slippery elm. Thank you even more, pharmaceuticals. (Dr. Kent Hrbek refilled Boscoe's prescription for metronidazole, which I cannot pronounce but which also did the trick last October.)

It was wonderful on Thursday night to open the back door, tentatively sniff the air, and smell nothing but lemon wax and floor polish. And the odd dog hair, of course.

(In the picture above, Boscoe is clearly thinking, I'm feeling much better now. You'd better give me whatever that is wrapped in foil. Especially if it's garlic bread.)

1.) OK, I don't exactly have a reveal for you because nothing has yet been planted. But the landscaper has come and submitted a design and a bid, and after a bit of back and forth we accepted it, and they are supposed to plant in June.

It involves a little bit of everything, so that makes just about all of you winners: rhododendrons, and azaleas, and hostas, and mock orange, and a dwarf magnolia tree, and gosh I can't remember everything but I think it's going to look gorgeous. The best part is, our only maintenance will be watering it.

You will get pictures just as soon as there is something to photograph. You know me. I always deliver. In the meantime, above is a picture of my huge and healthy bleeding heart, which they will incorporate into the new design.

3.) I wish I knew! I have driven past Secure Computing every evening for a week, and on Thursday evening I even drove slowly into the parking lot, looking, no doubt, like I was casing the joint, but I can't find him anywhere.

If anyone knows, please post a comment. You can do so anonymously. (Hell, you're Secure Computing folk; you probably know how to hack into my blog and completely rewrite this posting. But please don't.) Until I can track Scurkey down and take a new picture, here's a picture from late April. (He appears to be admiring his own noble reflection in someone's bumper.)

Doug's theory, by the way, is that someone read the blog, drove over there, nabbed him, and ate him for dinner. But you all know Doug by now, and how he thinks.

2.) And now, what you've all been waiting for...the demonic door salesman!

The appointed time came and went. No doorman. Doug walked the dogs. I took my turn in three games of online scrabble, and was challenged to Word Twist. No doorman. Doug returned from the walk. No doorman. We started planning what the blog entry would say. We decided on multiple choice--the doorman (a) chased us around the house with a butcher knife; (b) didn't have any of the right material; (c) never showed up...

And then a car pulled up out front. And out hopped the cheery salesman. He had a clipboard, a file folder with a very nice fountain pen clipped to it, and a big-ass measuring tape.

The first thing he said when he walked in was, "That's a spendy door."

He apologized for being late, said he was held up by a train. (Or maybe he was holding up a train?)

"How spendy?" I said.

He measured our door and admired the peeling veneer. He told us the Marvins door was $5,000.

We said, "OK, we don't want it." At least we have good taste.

He said there were other options for nice wooden doors with six panes of glass. He said he'd scope them out for us and get back to us in a week.

Then he left. The whole visit didn't take more than five minutes.

He left his file folder and very nice fountain pen behind on a porch chair; I had to fly down the sidewalk after him.

We'll see what next week brings...