Weekend Activities

We are now T-minus 11 days and counting until mini-me makes an appearance. We know this because yesterday we picked a delivery date which is a little like picking a date to burn down your house or to marry a schizophrenic. Typically these things just kind of happen and at least you have the benefit of the surprise. Here, we know full well when life is going to CHANGE in a capital sort of way. Before all the natural birther types in the audience start sending me hate mail, this isn’t a lifestyle choice unless you consider crazy high blood pressure and possible seizures a lifestyle choice. There are extenuating circumstances that require us to bring the demon child future Bambi killer sweet angel into the world. Because we are sympathetic to the natural birth strategy (we did spend every Tuesday night for 8 weeks going to a Bradley birthing class, for heaven’s sake), efforts are underway to avoid or at least mitigate some of the modern miracles of birth science whereupon you show up to the hospital and they convince the previously unwilling uterus of the expectant mother to decide Man actually does know better than Mother Nature using drugs like Pitocin which your natural birthing Bradley teacher thinks is somewhere on the scale of Mexican tar heroin in the drug universe. Some of the aforementioned efforts at convincing said uterus to naturally decide it’s time include borage oil (don’t ask, I didn’t), acupuncture, foot massage and a witch doctor dance we learned down on Elm Street in Deep Ellum one night. I kid. Only partially.

All that is the long way to say life changes are coming so the final todo list is underway. Today’s activities included mowing the jungle and planting two peach trees that had been purchased several weeks ago on a half price sale. The yard was a jungle because I made the mistake of fertilizing two weeks ago right before it rained 3 feet and apparently fertilizer makes grass grow. A lot. Who knew. I did not fertilize last year because I don’t actually like to mow the 8000 acres any more than is necessary according to city code. This year, I guess I looked in the future and thought “Mowing is probably way better than changing a diaper”. Concerning the peach trees, for several weeks in April and May, I had regularly monitored the prices of fruit trees at Lowe’s and Home Depot, knowing that they always had too many trees and that they would have to put them on a half price sale at some point once the hellish temperatures of North Texas became imminent. And they did, right on cue so I picked up two peach trees, a La Feliciana and a June Gold. I’m pretty sure this happened May 14th which by any basic calculations is a month ago. However, it takes me at least two weeks to finish any project so the pressure of a living creature like a peach tree meant it took four weeks to decide where to plant them. Finally I did. Today. So they are out on the edge of the property because peach trees are only pretty about two months out of the year and there is a city owned lot that direction that regularly imitates the Amazon rain forest in growth characteristics. Perhaps the trees will block the view a bit. The June Gold is planted nearest the street which is only mentioned so that I can remember next year when I wonder which is which.

The other main Saturday activity was taking a box of magazines to the library to donate. The funny story behind that is that last year some time, M got a form letter from Delta Airlines saying that she had X number of miles that were about to expire and they weren’t really enough to fly from Dallas to even Fort Worth so maybe she’d like to spend them on some magazine subscriptions. Because we are readers and also because we are idiots, we thought that was a fantastic idea. While we did not have enough points to take a Greyhound to the airport, we did have enough for 5 magazine subscriptions. Note, we already had 3 or 4 magazine subscriptions including Garden & Gun which I love but haven’t read lately (like 4 months) because we have a hoarder’s stack of other magazines to read and Kiplinger’s which is perfect bathroom reading because nothing in it requires any focus. This story reminds of the days of Columbia Music House where you went through the catalog picking out the 12 free albums plus the three bonus albums for a penny more. Probably not worth retelling that one. I’m sure you have had the same experience. So we picked out five subscriptions. While I cautioned strongly against any weekly rags, both Time and the Economist were chosen along with Fortune, Vogue and Western Horseman. One of these things is not like the others. I’ll give you a few minutes to work out which one. However, that one (assuming Western Horseman is the one you chose as the black sheep) is the only one that regularly gets read cover to cover. If I can’t live on a ranch in Montana, I can live vicariously through those who do. Time never gets read and the Economist only barely. Frankly, the pressure of even getting the Economist, knowing the postman delivers it probably thinking someone important lives here, is more than I can stand. It haunts me. I have dreams about throwing away unread issues. There are probably 6 Vogues still in the wrapper and Fortune turns out to be worse than Kiplinger’s when it comes to useless advice. At least Kiplinger’s actually analyzes stocks and stuff.

So right off we knew we had to atone for the small Asian rain forest that was being sacrificed monthly to deliver magazines to our house. I found out that the library took donations and started boxing up the hoarder’s paradise. I envisioned small unfortunate children without the ability to ruin their lives with magazines from Delta finding the Economist and resolving to change the world. The library probably throws them away since it’s a British magazine and we live in Texas. I digress. M said 3 months ago when she was still mobile that she would take the box on Tuesday to the library. I think this may have been in early April only slightly before I bought two peach trees. This morning, as I sat on the couch trying to write code, Picasso the cat started staring intently at the box which always means he is either about to poop or there is an insect close by. Based on the sounds in the box, I knew it was the latter. So once it got light, I dumped the box out on the front step, killed the small baby Kafka-like creature that was stuck in the box and put the box near the back door to take to the library post haste. I traded seven thousand magazines for This Side of Paradise which is what I assume life is about to be about. What side that is, I have no idea.

All this and it’s only Saturday. Maybe tomorrow I’ll cure cancer. Or perhaps even finish the sprinkler project I started three weeks ago. We all need goals.