This is my day today, Reader:
Picture-Pretty.
Now, I know for a fact that some of you live in pretty all year round, but we celebrate days like today up north, because we get so much crap we truly appreciate the pretty. Not saying you don’t, oh, not at all. It’s just … you have to experience the sour to truly appreciate the sweet.
With this kinda day sprawled out in front of me, coupled with the fact that it’s the weekend and I’ve been on the go since 8:30 a.m. – yes, you read that right, IN THE MORNING – well, I’ve got a lot of pretty day in front of me with many projects that need tackled. Namely, washing the house and the concrete walkway, and cleaning out the garage because I’m going to need to park the old Volkswagen just in case of rain because of the window not participating in the Up position.
And, oh, by the way, I had a quote on that from a repair place this morning and after I choked on my coffee I kindly went over and picked up the car with the window still not working and we’re getting a second opinion tomorrow. I think they saw “dumb blond female” walk in this morning, and now not only does the window need fixed, they said I was driving around in a death trap that needed another thousand dollars worth of brake-fixin’s. So I took my man-friend Ravishing Randy with me for the retrieval process, he knows about car stuff, and suddenly the brakes weren’t quite as dire and I’d make it home without killing myself or anyone else. And then they were suddenly good for at least 3000 more miles or so before we were in a critical place.
So yeah, second opinion on all of it coming tomorrow. Ravishing knows a guy. We’re going to see what the guy has to say.
That’s why I’ve been up since the crack of 8 a.m. And why I need to clean out the garage. And that naturally led to the cleaning of the outside of the house and all the windows, and some minor tidying up of the front yard.
While I was busying doing all that, I threw in a load of laundry of towels and whatnot that had gathered in the garage, mostly from last year’s garage sale. First step was getting those washed and folded up.
Then I had the bright idea, because I saw a rope in the garage, to string up a clothesline to get that line-dried smell and and use the sun on this batch of laundry. I happened to find a semi-okay spot near the back of the yard, but in a spot where the sun shines, too, and there are two trees that might make a good distance apart for rope hanging.
I was busy working there on the side yard with the rope, getting out a mothereffer of a knot, and tossing it up to a higher branch to secure one end when the neighbor walks by with his doggies.
He stops on the sidewalk, watching my rope-hanging, and begins engaging me in filler conversation. “Hey, did you see that group of deer bedding down under the pines on the other side of the creek? They look really cute, you should go see ’em.”
“No, I haven’t seen them yet, I’ll have to go take a look,” all the while still working on hanging my rope.
“So, uh, where’s The Mister at? Is he in the house?”
“No, he went to the movies with his friend.”
“Huh. I see you’re doing a lot of work out here today. It’s looking nice. How ya been feeling? Me, my arthritis is really acting up lately.”
And on it went, for a good five minutes or more, while he stood on the sidewalk watching me. And I didn’t stop what I was doing and walk over, I was still furiously working on my rope knot and just looking up every now and then to politely pay attention.
“So, uh, what are you doing back here?”
“This? Oh, I found some rope, am going to try to improvise a clothes line so I can hang up a bunch of towels and whatnot that I have in the washing machine.”
He, with a relieved look on his face, “Oh, yeah, that’s a good idea! Just want to make sure you’re not going to hang yourself or something.”
Then we laughed and hahaha’d and I assured him I’m not to that point yet, and he and his dogs walked back home.
I’m not altogether sure of his level of serious concern, but it’s nice to know I can’t just string myself up in the yard in broad daylight without anyone being concerned. Because I have nice neighbors, or because it would probably drag down the street value. Either way, it’s comforting to know they’re on the lookout for me over here.