GranolaBox

There’s an old Cheech and Chong skit… Sister Mary Elephant I think, in which the good sister has a student read his essay about what he did over his summer vacation. It begins:

“On the first day of my summer vacation, I woke up.”

Yeah, me too. A couple hours later than usual. I was supposed to go for a boat ride with my friend Jim, who used to be my Department Chair and is one of my role models as a retired dude. The rain moved in and we had to reschedule.

This left me in the ideal position of not having to get in my car and go ANYWHERE today.

I went out to get bagels, and stopped to see my friend Joe, who is rebuilding the home of my new neighbor Mark. This was DOUG’s house, but he’s moved to Canandaigua. Joe and Bill did the interior work and some of the exterior work on our house, and Joe is going nuts on Mark’s house.

I would have missed all this if I’d had to go to work.

So I move on to get bagels. On my way up Mechanic Street I pass by the house once owned by Billy Mark, an abolitionist in the 1840’s, who used the house as part of the Underground Railroad. The house has been empty for a while, with all kinds of junk around it and getting overgrown. It was buzzing with activity this morning as contractors worked in what seemed like every room.

I wouldn’t have been able to thank the contractors for bringing that beautiful house to life again if I’d had to go to work today.

I finished planting the ornamental grass we bought a couple weekends ago, and made a rock garden around it. I’ll have to include a picture.

Then I took out the mighty smashing pole Uncle Mike lent me and went to work on the stump of the former cedar tree in the front yard. Joe and Billy insisted on tearing the tree down, mostly because it obscured Joe’s custom made shutters and Dave’s paint job.

Weezy and her human Jim stopped by just in time for Jim to help me pry the stump out. Jim is a science guy, and by using applied physics and a lot of cursing and a small amount of blood ripped the beast out of the garden. He had to go somewhere, and as he is prone to doing, left Weezy behind.

Lately, I’ve been the dog whisperer or something. Weezy is an Irish Setter, a lovely older lady. Fico, my new neighbhor dog, is trying to establish to other dogs my status as HIS human, and was audibly annoyed when Weezy snuggled next to me while I took a break. Nothing more fun than being in the center of such great positive dog energy.

As I replaced it with the tiny little Hydrangea we bought, it poured.

Nap time, coffee, doing laundry with Queen’s “Sheer Heart Attack” album, followed by Portishead live in NY and finishing with Ben Folds’ incredible collection called Stems and Seeds.

What made the day most wonderful though, was what it DIDN’T involve.

It didn’t involved driving an hour to work and back.

It didn’t involve working for somebody else all day.

It didn’t involve driving at all.

It didn’t involve being any more than a half mile away from the Queen of my Universe at any given time of the day.

It’s gonna be a great vacation.

Filed under: General Observations on June 29th, 2009