August 11, 2009

10:27 a.m.

Monday, and Grass

I tried to mow the front lawn. It was my first time ever mowing. I was at a disadvantage. The grass was too high to mow, really; the yard is bumpy and much of it is slanted. The mower came from the dump. Some of the grass goes into the bag; some stays on the ground. Did I mention the mower came from the dump? It works, in a general way, but it kept stalling in the long grass and I had to restart it a dozen times. At three to seven pulls per restart. It�s not a power mower. You have to push, and push hard. I found it was easier to pull it than to push it, so I did a lot of pulling. Marc had left the tractor as promised so I could empty the bag into the tractor bucket. I did this numerous times. I had to rest once; by the time I�d done just over half the front yard, and had just a little triangle in front of the step to cut, it quit again.

I pulled and pulled. My arms were shaking. It was about 90 degrees. I felt faint. I pulled as many times as I thought I could without vomiting, and then pulled twice more.

It didn�t restart.

I said, I�m done for today.

Oh my God, I have to get a better mower. I know I�ll get stronger, but I won�t get strong enough for there to be ANYTHING about that one that doesn�t suck.

So a bunch of the front yard is done, and it looks like a bad haircut, but I burned a lot of calories at least. I waited too long after weed whacking, I know that. Most of those days it was raining. The rest of the days, I was waiting for help with the tractor and basically putting it off.

But just when I thought MY late afternoon was trying, I got a text from Rose saying she was in the emergency room and they were ruling out appendicitis. Her phone battery was low and she couldn�t take a call, but I just called Marc and got his voicemail. Pearl thinks he might be at the hospital with her at this point and maybe she has gallstones. Good grief!

�and just then I heard thunder and remembered how Marc agonizes when he forgets to cover the tractor in the rain, so I took a spare tarp I found and went and covered it in the driveway. It is DARK here with no moon. Spooky dark. I wondered if the black coyote was out there watching me. This morning I saw the two bucks again in the yard, and then a turkey.

Well, I think I�ll do something really unusual and take out my guitar. What else are you going to do on a black, thundery night while waiting for news?