I’ve got my forbidden coffee, I’ve got my phone in case I want to add pictures, I’m all signed in to the myriad things I have to sign into to use this work laptop (good gravy)…and?
Rain on m’glasses. I can hardly see. Why?
Edsel.
It’s raining, see, (and no, I CAN’T see) and while I know rainy days and Mondays might always get you down, they don’t bother me a bit. It’s just another of the dumb ways I’m not like everyone else.
Like, you know on those rare occasions a man sets up a whole romantic scenario? A nice evening, rose petals, what have you? Or it’s an occasion that you’re supposed to be feeling romantic? Your anniversary, a birthday, Valentine’s Day?
Soft cone. I have absolutely zero desire to ever fornicate at moments like those. Where it’s expected. I did do it on my wedding night but I promise you I didn’t mean it. I was just so dying to lose my virginity.
Now, when we’re dusty in your gramma’s attic and she’s right below us wondering if we found the crock pot up there? Let’s go.
Why I gotta be all weird?
Anyway, I’ve digressed into a whole nother topic for a change when what I meant to do is complain about my dog because I am a magnificent person.
So it’s rainy, and I mean, not a fine mist. The kind of rain you can hear on your roof. Up on the rooftop, raindrops pause.
Is it reindeer pause or reindeer paws? I guess paws makes more sense.
Up on the rooftop, raindrops’ paws.
So when I opened the back door this morning, all the cats said, “Yeah, not so much.”
“Milhous tryin’ to quit.”
“Lily gived at office.”
“Eyeriss can’t see a fekkin tbing.”
That never gets old.
Anyway, Edsel, a creature of habit and a habitable creature, not that I live in Edsel but I practically do, ventured outside.
Now, the thing with Edsel is, sometimes I suspect he doesn’t actually GO his first trip of the day. I let him out and then I do all my things and come back and let him in, then I FEED him and then he instantly wants out again, which means food travels through him like he’s a goose, or maybe the first trip outside he just kind of meanders. I don’t know. I guess I could spy on him but I have shit to do.
But today, after his after-breakfast constitutional outside, he followed me around and led me to the door a third time. Edsel, a creature of habit and a creature I cohabit with, does not usually do this, leading me to come to the conclusion that the rain freaked him out and he was going outside, surveying the situation, and saying, “Edz pee some other time” and then 14 seconds later thinking, “Man, Edz really haff to pee” and heading to the door again.
So, the THIRD time, I let him out but stood at the door. He hesitated, but I encouraged him with my soothing dulcet tones (“Edsel, COME ON.”) and he walked to the grassy portion of our yard. The gassy knoll. You’re welcome.
And then?
C.
C you next Tuesday, when Eds will actually pee.
Oh my GOD he was a C. He C’d helplessly in the yard, rain making him blink, and did nothing but curve at the spine. He was like modern art out there, all curved and making no sense.
“God DAMMIT,” I said, in my soothing tones, and took off m’socks. These are my favorite ones, with rubber stuff on the bottom so I don’t skid. I didn’t want to get them wet and ruined.
So that is how my glasses got wet. I had to walk around with the dog, hoping it would encourage him to go, and he never did and for all I know he’s not gone at all today, which between you and me is giving me the willies.
But speaking of my back yard, I had an incident where I was kind of a Karen, if you’ll forgive me for saying that.
As you know, from your big book of … as you know, I have a pear tree in the back.
And a dog C near my pear tree.
Last summer was the second summer I lived here, and the pear tree went nuts. Branches were on the ground, so weighed down with pears were they. “Oh, you gotta trim your pear tree every year,” the internet told me, but not till it was too late. I mean, it was berserk. Branches got all twisted and broke. It was unpearable.
“Why do I come back day after day for 14 years? Things like ‘unpearable,’ that’s why.”
“Trim your pear tree in the winter, and consider comedy school,” said the internet. So in DECEMBER, I started looking for tree-trimming companies.
“That will be $500,” said the first company. Lily trying to quit.
“That will be $275,” said the second company, and I said OK. They couldn’t come for weeks, though.
“I can do it for $150,” said company three, not three’s company, and he actually physically arrived at my home, which was better than the other two.
“You’re hired,” I said. And then waited.
And waited.
And waited.
I made sure to only call every 10 days or so. “Yes, ma’am, you’re on my list, it’s just …” and every time there was a reason. We’d had ice storms so he was overbooked. Or it had rained and then he was behind. They all seemed fairly legit, but you’re really supposed to cut your pear tree in my zone in January/February, which is why I booked this in December.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed but time has marched on, and it’s March, and the tree looks like it’s fixing to bud. I checked my phone, and I’d last called him February 16, and he had assured me I was on his list for not that week but the week following.
I added it up. That had been 12 days before., meaning once again the week he’d said he’d be there was once again the week he wasn’t there.
Do you ever just go along just fine and then the injustice of the world just gets to you? I was SO TIRED of men disappointing me. So tired of it. Ned, who was nice enough to put up my Ring camera for me this weekend, said HE couldn’t trim the tree because “it’s muddy.”
I thought about the day that second place called and said, “We can come today” and I said, “Oh, no thank you. ANOTHER place is coming for $125 less.” Boy, I showed THEM.
So here’s what I did. I gathered up my clipper and my saw thing and my ladder and I called that company, company three.
“Yes. I just want you to know I’m 55 and have bad knees and I’m going to climb a ladder and cut the damn pear tree myself. I called you multiple times and you always said ‘next week’ but next week never came. I have several large, mature trees I would have used you for when the time came, so you should’ve considered that before you blew me off.”
Then I hung up victoriously and immediately felt bad.
But I pulled on my damn wellies and got my damn clippers and —
I just got bad news on the phone. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.