More Random Thoughts of an Old (Weird)
Geezer
Chapter 8
I Like Nice People
Just because of who I am, I feel a connection with – and a love for – every other human being on this planet. No exceptions. But I really enjoy being around the “nicer” ones – the folks who generally have a positive outlook on life, who face their problems without complaint and who are quick to smile and joke around. I just don’t relate well to the gripers, whiners, piss & moaners. They’re too draining for my liking. I don’t think they are happy or enjoying life – and that’s too bad, but that’s their choice. My choice is to be happy and hang around with nice people. It makes life easier and a hell of a lot more fun!
Ahhh, Fresh Veggies
I thought it seemed like a great idea – fresh vegetables straight out of my back–yard garden. I thought back to all the fresh goodies I had enjoyed growing up on the farm and figured, why not? I know how to do this – with or without the chicken crap – so I’ll pick out a medium-sized spot, till it up and get set to enjoy those tasty carrots, radishes, lettuce, tomatoes… Yeah! In fact, I’d plan ahead and create a raised garden area so as I got older I wouldn’t have to bend over as far to do the weeding and harvesting of my wonderful produce. That’s what I did. I constructed three neat raised areas, filled them with top soil, and planted the seeds. This was going to be great!
As it turns out, great was not the right descriptive word. A more appropriate four-word phrase comes to mind. Pain in the ass. Somehow over the past fifty or so years, I had lost the memories of how much damned work a garden can be. Weeding, watering, fertilizing, weeding, thinning, watering, weeding, watering, weeding… Whew! At least every other day, my butt was out in the back yard tending to the frickin garden. On top of that, I was not getting the results I had expected. Instead of big, juicy, tasty bunches of produce, I was harvesting miniature veggies that were only marginally suitable for tossing to the chickens. Only we didn’t have any chickens. What the hell?
I turned to my handy-dandy quick reference guide on all things great and small – the Internet. I learned three things. One – I should have checked this out sooner. Two – just because I’m getting older doesn’t mean I’m getting smarter. Three – never use old railroad ties as retaining lumber for raised garden areas. Seems that the creosote used to treat the ties will totally screw up the soil making it impossible to raise anything that remotely resembles palatable produce. Damn.
Fast forward to the present. The raised areas in the back yard now are home to a variety of flowering shrubs and bushes who don’t seem to be a bit bothered by any yucky chemicals leeching from the railroad ties. My source for juicy, tasty veggies? The local market located within a five minute drive of the house. No more watering… no more weeding… no more thinning… just a short, comfortable cruise in the old van. Yeah – maybe I am getting smarter.
Related to That
I really like my yard. Not so much when I was putzing with the stupid garden. Now the yard is my friend. It is filled with trees, bushes, flowers and grass. No, it’s not one of those fastidiously manicured showpieces of “House and Home Beautiful” or whatever that magazine is. The lawn is not smooth. It is shaped by the bumps and dips of old tree roots, below-surface rocks and whatever else may be lurking under the soil. Maybe the remains of old, frustrated gardeners for all I know. The lawn is also home for a variety of grasses, baby trees and an assortment of other strange plants including wild strawberries. I figure if it’s green, it’s lawn. The yard is my friend…
Land Mines
Part of our yard has the designation of “dog pen”. It is easily accessible from the house through a doggie door (and no, I get to use the real door), it gives the dogs a good area to run, play and bark – and keeps them from running off across the yards to terrorize the neighbors. And of course, it also serves as the doggie poop repository. Being a conscientious homeowner – and a good neighbor – periodically I’ll truck my buns out to the dog pen to scoop up the deposits (land mines). After 40-some years of poop scooping, here’s what I know. Ten pounds of dog food will produce fifteen pounds of poop. Dog poop is lousy fertilizer. A dog that eats Christmas tree tinsel will produce decorated poop. Any chewed toys, balls, plastic bottle caps or slippers will eventually show up in the poop. No matter how painstakingly you try to scoop up every bit of poop in the yard, you will always miss at least two piles. As soon as you have the yard clean, your dog will need to poop. If you walk out into the yard after dark, you will always step in the freshest poop pile. If you try to mow without scooping poop, you will always run the wheels over the freshest pile. Poop will frequently cement itself to the grass which will result in the destruction of a square yard of lawn if you try to scoop it. Attempting to scoop any single pile will result in the escape of at least two turds from that pile. It may take three or four tries to capture them. (OK, this may be totally a personal coordination problem…) When using a plastic supermarket bag as a receptacle, one handle will always fold over and get contaminated with poop. A plastic bag will hold ten pounds of poop. Don’t drop the plastic bag. A gushy poop pile can never be completely hosed off of anything. The cement-based part of it will stay firmly attached to wherever it was deposited. A rotary mower is incapable of sucking up and pulverizing all of a petrified poop pile no matter how many times you run over it. Once a lawn is seeded with dog poop, you will always have more poop piles to scoop even after you no longer have a dog. (I haven’t actually experienced this one, I am just expecting it to happen – like a poop curse.) During inclement weather (raining, snowing, etc.) the poop piles will appear closer to the door. You will step in one of them. There is no good, practical use for dog poop. None.
A Bit of Dietary
Advice
Never eat more than you can lift. – Miss Piggy
Brain Farts
Quite a while back, I learned that how we think and what we think about is probably the main determining factor in our “success”, our happiness and how much we truly enjoy life. I learned to generally control my thoughts so I could get the most personal benefit from the use of that amazing organ tucked away neatly inside my noggin. Overall, it has worked out quite well. And for the most part, it still is. Every once in a while though, the old thinker will act up and either lose that little scrap of information that I would like to retrieve – or it will get momentarily diverted from its assigned task. Yep… brain farts. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems as though I’ve been experiencing this mental flatus more than I used to – or maybe I’m just becoming more aware of these strange goings on. I dunno. I am adapting however. I have learned that if I need to pick up more than three items at the grocery store, I’d better write them down. Otherwise, something ain’t gonna get got. If there is a little project I need to take care of around the house, I’d better write it down or unless it’s really important it will drift away into the mental ozone. That’s just the way it is.
I’ve also found there are quite a few life segments that have become damned near impossible to retrieve. Sort of like outtakes that I’ve tossed in the back of the very bottom drawer of the file cabinet. I realize I’ve likely caused much of this problem myself because of my focus on living in the “now”. To me the past is just history and not really all that important other than knowing that all the events and situations in my past have brought me to my “now”. Now is good. Therefore, I’m not all that surprised that a bunch of the history stuff in no longer accessible. And yeah, some of it wasn’t all that comfortable so there’s a good chance I’ve tossed that garbage into the compost pile. Doing so I think has helped to make my “now” just that much better. Works for me.
It helps being basically an organized person, too. I always know the location of the car keys, my wallet, my watch, my shoes, my tools, etc. As the years go by, I’ll probably be even more thankful for this habit. The only other farty thing I occasionally experience is my walking from one room into another to do something – then getting to the other room and wondering “What the hell was I going to do?” Sometimes the answer is immediately accessible while other times I’ll need to retrace my steps to see if I can find a memory jogger. Once in a while, I’ll find the jogger has fallen off a cliff so there’s not much I can do about it. Oh well, if it’s important, I’ll remember eventually.
So I guess when you get right down to it, I’m not in such bad shape after all. Yeah, my brain is weird but that’s pretty much by choice – or at least by implied permission. And I still can remember to get dressed, go potty and feed myself. Hell, what else matters? We’ll just cruise on from here and see what happens. Life is good…
Related to “the
Watch”
All of my life, I have been chronologically challenged. Dates of significant events such as birthdays, when I was where doing what, and what I’m supposed to do when just don’t stick with me. I don’t know why, they just don’t. I’ve found that the really important dates (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.) must be written on the calendar. Otherwise, the dates are not mentally accessible – and I’m toast. Everything else is tucked away in the “history” file and not really that important to me anyway. (The focus on “now” is alive and well.)
On to the watch. In my younger years, I was absolutely terrible at keeping appointments on time. Yes, I did know how to tell time but I guess it never really dawned on me how my tardiness was negatively impacting other folks – and myself for that matter. By the grace of God, I survived those years reasonably intact, held jobs, went to school and graduated. Then came my wake-up call compliments of Uncle Sam. Damn! I actually had to start planning so I could be exactly where I need to be at exactly the designated time. Early is OK, late would be painful in some way. I became extremely time conscious. And it stuck with me. Now if I need to be somewhere at a certain time, I’m early. I’ll even wear my watch just to make sure I’m on track and everything is going according to my plan. Now here’s the part I like. Those times – which realistically is most of the time – when I don’t have a specific schedule to keep, my watch is resting comfortably in its assigned spot on the shelf of my desk. I really don’t care what time it is. Hell, most of the time I don’t even care what day it is and I’ll have to check the little date/time doohickey at the bottom of the computer screen to find out. This is really cool! After having to keep track of this silly stuff for forty-plus years, it no longer matters. What a great liberating feeling. No time constraints whatsoever. Yeah! I really like this. Oh,oh… I wonder if that watch is still ticking. I probably should check sometime, huh? I’ll do that… later… if I remember…
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