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I spent Saturday morning working on the lawn. How suburban. I had reserved a lawn aerator at a rental place but when I showed up to get it the guy just laughed when he saw my Toyota Corolla. This machine was much larger than I had anticipated, much larger and much heavier. They delivered it (and picked it up) for me -- and didn't add a delivery charge because they had not told me in advance just how big it was. So I spent about three hours punching holes in my lawn -- I went back and forth and up and down and zig-zag -- lots of holes in the ground. It was tiring work -- hey, I'm used to using computers -- the machine kept wanting to leap ahead and I had to put a lot of effort into controlling it. When I had finished, I got busy with cutting back the spring jungle growth, the thorn-covered climbing vines that want to encroach on our yard. (There's a border of trees and undergrowth separating our yard from the neighboring yards; it's only five to twenty feet wide between us and our neighbors to either side of us, but more like thirty to forty feet deep between us and the neighbor behind us. I've been attempting to control the undergrowth in an attempt to reduce the mosquito and gnat and tick populations.) While I did that, Nancy took our spreader and broadcast grass seed all over the lawn. Later on I watered the lawn (and, while I had the hose out, washed all three cars). I had planned on spreading lawn food on Sunday and then watering again , but it was raining Sunday morning. Well, at least the lawn got some water. I don't know if Nancy or the kids will have time to spread any lawn food during the week. (Note that I left myself off that chore list; I'm writing this in Pittsburgh and won't be back home until Friday night.) Sunday morning was spent on various assorted chores and errands, including packing for my trip. I had a 3:20 flight out of Providence... Nancy drove me to the airport, where I got to stand in line for more than forty-five minutes at the U.S.Air counter waiting to check-in. I had meant to pick up a novel or two but had never found time to do that so I picked up a copy of N is for Noose, one of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone novels. Then went to the boarding gate to wait while the passengers from wherever got off the plane and then go through the slow process of boarding. Since I was in row 8 that meant I was among the last to board. [Hey, AmEx Travel, my profile says always book aisle seats but 8F on a U.S.Air 737 is a window seat. At least it's only an hour and a half from Providence to Pittsburgh, but you've stuck me in non-aisle seats on longer flights as well... It's supposed to be an MD-80 for my return on Friday and I want an aisle seat... well, actually, I would prefer business class or first class...] Hey, what's up with this winter weather? I was wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt on Saturday and now there's snow on the ground as I look out the window... all across Connecticut and New York and Pennsylvania, whenever a gap in the clouds lets me see the ground I see a white covering of snow. So here I am at a Marriott in Pittsburgh. I've eaten dinner in the hotel, watched The Sopranos on tv, and now I'm typing away on my laptop. I put a note on my index page that I would be very busy and might not have an update posted until Saturday. Obviously it is not due to lack of computer access... nor is it due to lack of Internet access (I can get to the web from the hotel, but mostly just to check e-mail, not to surf... cable access has spoiled me for phone line speeds)... but I don't like the idea of announcing my absence from home on the Internet for any weirdo to read. (No, not you good folk, I trust you, but I mean the strange ones...) So although I'm writing this now in Notepad and will probably move it to my Geocities directory later in the week, I won't link to it on my index or journal pages until the end of the week. |