Summer Day Nineteen: Tag Team

Oh my gosh, I have some kind of brain defect that A) makes me forget EVERY TIME that popcorn gets stuck in my teeth and B) makes me leap up with vigor and enthusiasm and run out of doors to crank the mower on the hottest day of the week and the hottest time of the day. 

Yesterday, we had an ortho appt and hung out at Katy's all afternoon, I lost a Ben while I was there, but on the way home (after the LIBRARY!!) we picked up another mower!  It was free, I have this huge list of things we need more than a second mower, but I am not about to turn down 4 horsepowers of 22 inches.  Or...something that sounds better, use your imagination.  Anyway, not having to shell out for it made it suddenly seem like a great idea that we have a second mower.

Today, I imagine you can imagine what happened.  It was the hottest moment of the ENTIRE MONTH at 2:15, right when I leapt out the front door, slid on my sexy red Crocs and straw hat and yanked the new mower cord.  After tinkering with it a while, I got it to crank and my back-up dancer, Jake, and I did a boogie around the yard.  Half an hour (maybe 45 minutes) later, it was nearly all done!  Chan went out and did the hill, Ben can do by the pine trees when he gets in and we will be done!  2 mowers is awesome! 

Also, I settled an internal argument my brain and I have been having for about 3 years.  The difference between buttload, boatload and shitload.  Luckily, there is the interweb and Andrew has already pondered this one and typed it all up nicely: http://blog.andrewallingham.info/2011/06/the-difference-between-a-buttload-boatload-and-shitload/.  Thanks, Andrew, that was WAY more technical than I would ever have gotten and I loved the infographic, even if it was not Photoshopped to scale.  I can't make infographics myself. 

Crash!

We spent the whole of yesterday getting the AC repaired, which will help with the electric bills over the course of time, but killed our plans of getting anything else done.

Today, Matt took the van because he has a gig tonight-if I ever get married again, the person will either be non-musically inclined or just REALLY into something small and portable that has no hardware at all.  Like...a ukelele.  Neil Gaiman, you have one-upped me yet again.  His new wife was just arrested in Amsterdam for playing one on the street.  You can get a hooker or smoke pot, but not...twang a tiny guitarette.

At any rate, today I was in my room fighting off a wild case of the stupids from being so groggy tired.  I could not read the words 'mall cop'.  It just would NOT arrange itself into a coherent phrase.  So, while I was reading about a call mop, it suddenly got super bright! 

"Great," my brain says, "I am having a stroke, first word confusion, now it's really super bright.  This is probably it for me, so sorry I never really lived up to my potential, I hope the whole adult diaper thing is not too terrible, I won't really know because it appears I am checking out."  Then Zephyr started barking like mad, which for 99% of small dogs is not news, but my small dog is not a barker.  My brain quietly ticked on 'auditory hallucinations' to its list of symptoms and proceeded to try to shut down.

I stood up, hoping to see the kids one last time before the dimness set in and realized the sky was very white.  This, too, was something my brain woefully added as more proof.  You can't SEE the sky from inside the house, there are trees in every direction.

You can, however, see the sky if a tree decides to split in half and fall over just outside your window.  Which is what happened today around 4:15.  I was suddenly VERY awake and alert and my brain wanted badly to see the split tree, so we went outside and found the kids climbing on it like Lilliputians on Gulliver and Zeppie giving it the evil eye. 

I came in and called Matt, who was very interested to know about the roof, which, in case you are interested about the roof, is undamaged.  I am partially glad as it would be a PITA to deal with getting it fixed, but insurance would probably kick in some of the cost, which would be okay for sure. 

 

Here are the few shots I fired off to send him before he left work.  The boys have already stripped the limbs and stacked them off to the side in prep for cutting it into firewood.  Matt plans to spend next week after work cutting down 2 of the remaining 4 large branches still on the tree to remove the one that would, if it fell down like this one, go through the roof over where we sleep.  Which is something my brain has shown me in stop-motion from 4 different angles already. 

I think it's being a bit dramatic myself.  I don't think just one part of the tree is heavy enough to crunch through the whole roof, attic space and through the ceiling, but then again, I don't really want to find out.  This chunk fell off on a day with no wind at all.  I don't know what that means as to the safety of the tree being above our heads any more.  I am so bummed.