Yesterday was one of those action-packed non-adventure days. It was my day off, so of course I was twice as busy as if I were working, right?
I woke up in the dead of the night realizing that it was already May, it’s been raining like The Deluge, and I haven’t been over to the old house to mow since before we went on our tour last fall. Visions of furious neighbors and tickets from the City danced in my head. Niiiiice.
I’d had other plans for my day off, but I figured staying in the reasonable good graces of my ex-neighbors and on the right side of City ordinance was probably more important than doing laundry and making hats. Also, I needed to get groceries, so I figured I’d just hitch up the BOB trailer and go to my old house, do the mowing, tidy up a little bit, and swing by the Price Chopper in my old neighborhood & stock up. It was one of those trips, where I was out of pretty much everything, including many heavy staple items like flour, bleach, and canned tomatoes. Hence the trailer.
Anyway, I went over to the old house, and things were indeed looking jungley. Also, my one next door neighbor’s yard was in similarly overgrown condition. She’s an older woman with really severe arthritis, and she doesn’t have anyone who’ll do her yard for her regularly. Both her yard and mine are adjoining (no fence) so I just went back and forth across lots and knocked it out. She’s got a couple of nephews who by rights ought to be doing her yard for her, but they’re lousy little punkasses. I tried to browbeat one of them into maintaining her yard for her, and he allowed as how he should, but came up with some big ol’ sob story about how he was recovering from being stabbed in a hold-up. Mmm-hmm, whatever. I noticed he was feeling good enough to be hooning around the neighborhood on some sort of ATV the whole time I was there and mowing the yards.
After I got done with the yards and put everything up, I went to the store and took care of my shopping. You’d think I wouldn’t allow shortages to happen at home now that I’m working at a grocery store, but you’d be thinking wrong. In fact, I am particularly bad about ending shift, clocking out, hopping on my bike, and gettin’ gone. You’d think that since I spend most days in at a grocery store, that I’d be opposed to going grocery shopping on my day off, and you’d be kind of right. I don’t necessarily feel like going shopping, but it beats trying to make a dinner out of carrots, cornstarch, and a dubious jar of marmelade. The pleasure of having a well-stocked refrigerator and cupboards overrides the “do I gotta?” feeling I have about errand running.
So after I mowed two lawns and schlepped about 50lb of groceries from the east-side to KCK, I set out on a recreational ride with a couple of friends. It was darn fortunate for me that both of them were kind of tired last night, too, or I’d be hurtin-hurtin-hurtin’ today. We just did a nice little loop from midtown to Northeast, out 18th toward Van Brunt, up Van Brunt to Gladstone, Gladstone to Cliff Drive, Cliff Drive to Paseo, and Paseo back on down to 31st where we started. It was quite a relaxing way to wind up a day like that.
ROFL man. I got shot in a hold up and still did my lawn care and my dad’s. Pansy! (And you can tell ’em *I* called him that. Stab? Pshaw! It may have been a .25 at over 10 feet but it was a gun).
Sounds like the day off wasn’t too bad, and yeah I totally get the whole leaving thing. I work on the phones and I don’t use them out of work, to the point I was going to get a cell, and decided against it. At least you got a great ride!
Yep. I got some fresh air, got some stuff accomplished, so in all, not a bad day. Plus I got in a couple of good photos at the end of the day. I’m getting back in the habit of keeping my camera with me for when I see something that really needs to be photographed.