I've been writing this blog for almost a decade (who knew?). It's always been delightful and I've enjoyed every minute. (It's also been therapeutic--I hope none of you ever decide to send me a bill for all that free therapy I'm getting from you.) That said, I've been feeling much less creative in the blogging department over the past many months and haven't been able to figure out why. I pondered this while eating a ginormous BK ice cream cone today. Then, it came to me.
Dang it! It's the scourge of the earth interfering with my blogging......Facebook! The evil darling of social media has me in its grips and it is there where I spew spontaneous babbling. It's the ultimate in instant gratification. What I used to say in a blog, I now say in one week's worth of status updates. Those I-think-are-witty Facebook Statuses (stati?) fall out of me without thought, consuming my fodder there instead of here. I've been accidentally impinging on my blog.
As Bad Wolf would tell the War Doctor, "No more." I spit on you, Book de la Face. I'll repeat myself if I have to but you won't defeat me. The Addiverse will always come first.(Kudos to ANYONE who knows what the hell I'm talking about when I say, "NO MORE.")
Today, I decided to do some gardening while the wife is hanging with her family in the Cheddarlands. (I should probably do NOTHING when she goes out of town because something always happens.) I'm on weed patrol and that's usually safe, no matter where the wife might be, so I pulled out a few gardening tools (none of which use engines or power) and got to work. As I was pulling weeds, I noticed how bad the forsythia looked. They've struggled through a couple of hard winters and have morphed into more dead branches than anything else. They barely produce a handful of yellow flowers--very disappointing. I've been talking about pruning them for the past year or two but somehow have never gotten that far. So, as I'm standing there, I notice that what I think is some-hopeful growth is the start of a weed tree--one overzealous weed is taking over one of the bushes. (No wonder that one looked the greenest and healthiest!). That was the impetus I needed. One cannot let a weed tree win. With loppers in hand, I started lopping. And, lopping. I lopped like there was no tomorrow.
Trimming hedges and bushes is a lot like cutting bangs. You cut some, step back, and then cut more. You step back again and think, "Hmmmm, I've got to straighten that out." That's when the madness begins. Cut, straighten, cut, straighten. We all know what happens with bangs--they end up way too short and they remain crooked. Same thing with the forsythia....they were whittled down and thinned out like the worst case of bangs.
For the record, I stopped and left bushes of them tall and scraggly, just so I can show the wife how bad it really looks. I also saved the weed tree so I can show her how big that sucker was--we're talking six feet.
I did get a word of encouragement from the neighbor, so that was reassuring. As I'm lopping, I hear her yell, "you're doing a great job!" I must have looked skeptical as she added, "They really needed to be cut down. They'll come back in no time."
Let's hope the wife is okay with crooked bangs.
After lopping, I did a loop around the gardens, pulling out the bigger weeds. As I perused the various flower beds, I noticed one of the wife's ceramic ducks was beheaded. The duck had fallen over and had broken. I picked up the pieces and noted it was a clean break, easy to fix. I remembered I have super glue in my car and thought I'd fix the issue and move on.
Well, the super glue gave me a run for the money. Of course it did. The top didn't want to come off and when it finally did, the glue wouldn't flow. Oh, it eventually worked and the duck is as good as new but I ended up having more super glue on my fingers than on the duck. This made me chuckle, as it brought back memories of gluing my fingers together (purposely) in high school. We all did that at one time or another....
I shouldn't have chuckled so soon. I wasn't chuckling when I realized my wedding ring was glued to my finger.
The glue had run down my finger and sealed the deal. It wasn't fully stuck to my finger, so it wasn't too terrifying but there was no way that ring was gonna spin around or come off without taking some skin with it. What to do, what to do?
Go get ice cream. That's what to do.
I loaded Freckles into the car and did just that--I went and got the biggest vat of ice cream seventy five cents can buy. When life gives you lemons, forget the lemonade--go get ice cream. It clears the mind and soothes the soul.
I'm here to say that everything turned out just fine, skin in tack and ring removed. It did not require a trip to the ER, the use of a caustic chemical, or a metal cutter, so you know I'm pleased with the result. Talk about a sigh of relief.
I'm glad this was resolved before the wife crossed the state line and returned home. It's hard to explain these things to her. She just shakes her head and gives me "the teacher look." I'd like to think she's amused by my antics but I'm pretty sure she is not. That "teacher look" says it all.
I got rid of the super glue. I don't want the wife to tell me I need to super glue some of the pruned forsythia branches back on....and, I don't want her super-gluing me to anything. Call me prudently cautious.
Prune-dently cautious, indeed.
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