Anyway, normally I wouldn't care about someone's yard, but Baker's mess（混亂） bugged（折磨） my dad big-time, and he channeled（引導(dǎo)，開導(dǎo)） his frustration（挫敗） into our yard. He said it was our neighborly duty to show them what a yard's supposed to look like. So while Mike and Matt are busy plumping up（(使)圓胖） their boa, I'm having to mow and edge（修剪） our yard, then sweep（打掃） the walkways and gutter（小水溝）, which is going a little overboard, if you ask me.
And you'd think Juli's dad---who is a big, strong,brick-laying（砌磚） dude（家伙）---would fix the place up（fix...up 修理）, but no. According to my mom, he spends all his free time painting（繪畫）. His landscapes（風(fēng)景畫） don't seem like anything special to me, but judging（評判，審判，評價） by his price tags（身價）, he thinks quite a lot of them. We see them every year at the Mayfield Country Fairm（梅菲爾德鄉(xiāng)村畫展）, and my parents always say the same thing:"The world have more beauty in it if he'd fix up the yard instead."
Mom and Juli's mom do talk some. I think my mom feels sorry for Mrs. Baker---she says she married a dreamer, and because of that, one of two of them will always be unhappy.
Whatever.? Maybe Juli's aesthetic（審美觀） sensibilities（敏感性，識別力） have been permanently（永久的） screwed up（困惑的；擔(dān)憂的；神經(jīng)質(zhì)的） by her father and none of this is her fault, but Juli has always thought that that sycamore tree was God's gift to our little corner（角落） of the universe（宇宙，環(huán)球）.
簡意：
通常來說，我是不會關(guān)心別人的院子是什么樣的。不過貝克家的混亂折磨了我爸爸很長時間，于是他遷怒于我們自家的院子。他說告訴他們怎么收拾院子，這是作為鄰居的責(zé)任。所以當(dāng)麥克和梅特忙于養(yǎng)他們的寵物蛇時，我就在不停地修剪院子，打掃人行道。
或許你們都會認(rèn)為，朱莉的爸爸會因此去收拾他們自己的院子吧。很遺憾，他大部分空閑時間都在繪畫。對我來說，我覺得他的畫沒什么特別，不過它的價值卻讓我不得不好好審視它，他的畫每年都會參加梅菲爾德鄉(xiāng)村畫展。我的父母也總是跟我說：“如果他收拾收拾院子，世界將更美好”。
我的媽媽和朱莉的媽媽經(jīng)常聊天，我覺得我媽媽應(yīng)該對朱莉媽媽感到很抱歉---她說她嫁給了一個夢想家，因此，他們兩人之中總有一個會經(jīng)常不開心。
或許，朱莉的審美觀是受了她爸爸的影響，跟她一點(diǎn)兒關(guān)系都沒有。朱莉常跟我說，那顆楓樹是上帝給我們的禮物。
