September 4, 1992
Dear Everyone:
Autumn approaches. Actually,
judging by the number of dead leaves on my patio, I'd say Autumn snuck
in early this year. And it's not
just my patio; I noticed last week when I was in Company Park that about
half the trees were already dropping their leaves.
Do they know something we don't?
A couple of weekends ago, I decided, "This is it!
I am going to clean off this
patio!" And not just sweep around
stuff, either. So I pulled on
some work gloves and started throwing away the scraps of wood left over
from a project that I finished just after I moved in five years ago.
Now, it must be that "waste-not-want-not" mentality
that tells you to save scraps of lumber that you can't possibly use.
If I had a fireplace, I could've
used them for kindling. But I
don't have a fireplace. And if I
did, it would probably be one of those marked "Do not burn wood in
here", meaning not real wood,
just "Presto-logs",
because real wood would get too hot for the chimney.
It's just like saving that last ½-cup of whatever
from dinner. As if you're really
going to use it. When you know
that it's just going to sit in the back of the refrigerator until you
either need the dish it’s occupying or, worse, you find it all green and
fuzzy and then it goes into the garbage disposal and the container goes
into the dishwasher.
Why not cut out the middleman?
Why not just throw it away at the
start? Because it would be
"wasteful". Just like saving the
little bits of lumber for five years. Until
the space they're taking up becomes more valuable than they are.
Not unlike cleaning out the
clothes closet, now that I think of it.)
The little pieces of wood fit into the dumpsters
just fine. And I spread them
around so as not to fill up just any one dumpster and not too close to
my building (we're not supposed to put large cardboard boxes or
"furniture" into the dumpsters--lumber could fall into this category,
too). However, there is no way
that a 12’ board was going to fit into a 6‘ dumpster.
So I found the little yellow
whatsit that makes the table saw work (safety feature) and fired up the
saw and started cutting boards down to (dumpster) size, no doubt
violating all those pesky little safety rules in the process.
After about an hour or so of wrestling with the saw
(not to mention annoying the neighbors with that "rRRRRRrrrrr..."),
I'd succeeded in cutting the boards down without lopping off any fingers
or toes and without sending any
exceptionally large chunks of wood flying through the air.
And took the pieces out to
various dumpsters.
Having now cleared most of the impediments out of
the way, I was able to sweep the patio, filling one yard bag with
leftover clay pots, bark chips, potting soil, used birdseed, and just
about everything else except
the Christmas Tree Stand (which, once assembled, no one in their right
mind would take apart again) and another yard bag with dead leaves (of
course).
By this time, it was high noon and approaching 90°
in the shade, of which there was none; but I was not about to stop now.
I was on a roll.
One by one, I brought in all of
the silk plants (except the 6 foot fichus tree) and washed them off in
the kitchen sink. Contra Costa is
such a dusty County. Must have
something to do with living on the edge of the desert.
That and a 6-year drought.
On the plus side, we haven't had
mosquitoes in years.
At the end of all this effort, the patio looks
great, although it was too
hot to go outside and enjoy it. Now,
two weeks later, it's covered with dead leaves again, like something out
of Stephen King. (First, it was
Nightmare on Elm Street;
now, The Elm Leaves That Won't Stay Dead.)
In other news…
“Jeannie” and I went to see
The Will
Rogers Follies last Saturday. For
the record, “Jeannie” has paid for parking the last two times that we've
been to the theater. But I paid
for the drinks (one each), so she comes out ahead.
The musical is really just a sort
of review, with
Keith Carradine making semi-political jokes in a prairie dog
Oklahoma accent "while those girls get changed from wearing nothing to
wearing nothing". No memorable
songs. Lots of T&A.
One patron, walking behind us
after the show, muttered loudly, "It sure wasn't worth $32."
Good thing he didn't know how
much we paid for it.
Love, as always,
Pete
PS. “Jeannie’s”
dinosaur pictures came out remarkably well, considering they were taken
with a camera-in-a-box. We’re
sending one set to Mother, to forward to “Frankie” and “Alice”; and one
set to “Marshall” to forward to “Richard” and “Marge”.
P.
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