Max Riffner
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Lawn Pain and Behind Again
I’m stiffer than a guy on prom night. Yesterday, I did lawn work all day; I filled nine bags of yard waste, and they are all heavy as hell. Quincy’s first night with us was great, except for the 7:30 AM wake-up-I-have-to-PEE whine. I got dressed and took him out, then stayed up and tried to unsuccessfully get on the roof with one of those adjustable ladders. I configured it into a step-ladder, but it didn’t get high enough. So, I went and ran errands at the hardware store and Target. I purchased a line trimmer, snow shovels, lawn bags, caulking tips, extension cords, two galvanized (heavy-ass) shelves for my comics (I have to cull the herd here soon because I’m around 14 long boxes), and a Michael Graves laundry sorter. I needed it.
After the shopping, I got home and mowed straight away, bagging it finally to suck up all the loose detritus in the lawn. Next up was my edger/trimmer by Black & Dekker. It is so choice. You can pivot the trimmer head to turn it into an edger, and the lawn so badly needed it. I ripped through the shaggy edges like butter, much to Quincy’s interest as he spied me through the bay window. Next, round two with the ladder; I made it into an inverted ‘L’ shape and got up fine, but the gutters were covered in screwed-tight gutter guards, and it was getting dark, so that will have to wait until next weekend. My neighbors are going to let me borrow their leaf blower, so I’ll take that up there and give it a whirl.
Disappointed, I set out to sweep up all the leaves on our curb, driveway, and sidewalk. I swept up about 18 big piles of wet crap; it was so much that I had to go back out to the store to get more lawn waste bags. I picked up a sixer of Old Style Light tall boy cans while I was there, too. It was dark when I finally got done breaking my back from carrying the lawn waste bags into the garage (the leaves were composting, wet, and heavy under the dry layer). I sat with a beer outside, still warm but delicious, my only light coming from the garage. My brother came over then to see Quincy (since he resembles our old dog so much). Quincy likes Jess (my brother). They played and played, and then Quincy tried to hump his brains out on my brother’s leg. Good times. At least we know now he does more than lay around the couch all day.
Worst of all, no writing this weekend. I’m at 18k, so not bad, but not great. I’ll have to do a catch-up session again. Quincy didn’t take too fondly to his kennel last night, so I was awake most of the night too. Dogs don’t care about NaNoWriMo.
I’m not down with the dog flexing his muscles on my territory (aka, the bed). Quincy seems to be okay with that, he just doesn’t want to be in that kennel at all. I just want him to get used to it is all, so we don’t have these pains later if we leave somewhere for an extended period of time, or at least until after the first week or so when he gets used to our routines.
Why oh why did I put an apostrophe in “cat’s”? NaNo is making me even more anal about punctuation/grammar/spelling.
Yeah, I get ya on the “my territory” stuff. If Poly was any bigger, I’d have to lay the law down on what she gets to sleep between. As she is so small, it doesn’t really matter.
Dogs are a man’s best friend.
Cat’s just pretend to be your friend… but really if they could they’d kill you and take the house for themself.
I’m not down with the dog flexing his muscles on my territory
I warned you. First the bed, then the couch, then you’re watching movies from some round bed on the floor.
-Tim
P.S.>Flowers. Thanks. &#^$%.
Quincy did great in his kennel last night once we started feeding him treats inside it with the door open. He was pretty funny at first – he’d just stretch as far as he could go, making sure to leave his two back feet on the floor outside just in case we pulled a fast one on him. When it was time for bed, we told him to “kennel up” (which is what the Humane Society literature told us to do), and he popped right in, albeit sadly. We didn’t hear a peep from him all night. Moving his kennel out of the bedroom might have been good for both of us!
He was pretty excited to see me this morning for his short morning walk, just happy as could be. Hopefully the worse is behind us.
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Nov 15, 07:20 AM
No, they don’t. Dogs are selfish. Cats are, too, but since cat’s hate humans more than dogs do, they’re interruptions are fewer. Fish could care less about NaNo or people, so they don’t even factor into the picture.
Sorry Quincy isn’t a big fan of his kennel. Why don’t you just let him sleep with you and the Chief? All-natural foot warmer, yo.
Oh, and that brings us to the Misfits… :)