Mower, Mower, Mower...

My chilluns got me an old fashioned non-gas-powered push mower for Father's Day. I begged for it, but it was still a nice surprise to actually get it. Took it out for a run today. Verdict: Eh. Seems to do great on the short stuff. Sadly, I got a mini-jungle out there. Looks like I'll have to borrow a power mower again to get the party started. It was still a pretty neat present.

Thanks, John, for reminding me to put in the video.

Re-Cycling

No, not that kind...

...not that one...

Yep, that's the one.

I've never been a recycler. Never. I remember visiting Sister Mom and the utter sisters in Eureka, and getting some schooling in the matter. These nuns were amazingly tolerant of everything. A church they visited had both a cross and a yin-yang symbol. I kid you not. Tried to argue that the whole good/evil in all things seems kind of inconsistent with the whole God/devil duality. Try to understand, they'd say. Capital punishment is cruel, and we should respect the sanctity of life in all things, they'd say. But two things really got their goat. I learned the hard way. First of all, I made the mistake of jay-walking in downtown Eureka. Jay-walking. As in, crossing the street not at an intersection. No cars in either direction. I start to cross the road. Hey, now! Get back here! That's jay-walking! I started to look for the host of the Tonight Show. No, they were talking to me. Jay-walk in MY town? I don't think so, Scooter!

The other mortal sin? Well, we'd had one of those family-size frozen lasagnas. Stouffer's, I think. I was helping to clean up (Really. I was. Stop laughing), and started to throw the foil container in the garbage can. "What do you think you're doing?", asked Sister Theresa. "I was throwing this empty foil pan in the garbage", I responded (reasonably, I thought). "Ahem. We do not throw foil containers in the garbage", She retorted. "Really?". "We recycle", she haughtily answered. So, I pull it out of the garbage can, and start to throw it into the "Recycling. Aluminum." bin. "Ahem". "What?" (clearly, I don't understand California's ways). "You have to wash it before you put it in there". "Let me get this straight: I can believe or practice pretty much any sort of philosophy that strikes my fancy, and you're okay with that, but jay-walking and failing to wash my garbage is high treason?". "Well, not exactly. Treason, given the current Administration, is understandable. Failing to recycle is not."

SpongeBobMobile

Funny things happen to normally sane men when they fall head-long out of their fourth decade of living and into... the decades that follow. In 2000, the fortieth anniversary of the birth of Bill and Lydia's oldest son (er, that would be me), I quit a secure (if somewhat dull) job as County Attorney advising a small county on ordinances and doing a little bit of trial and appellate work, to go into solo private practice, ran for the Statehouse (I lost by about 150 votes out of about 15,000 cast), and got separated after about 14 years of marriage, and later divorced. 2001 I mostly pouted. In 2002, within the span of six or seven months following the 42nd anniversary of my birth, I, in order: ripped the tendon in my right biceps off of the bone while playing flag-football, bought a yellow mustang convertible, ran the Jacksonville marathon with my friend Cathy, and had surgery to re-attach my biceps.

My amazing Ultra-Runner brother, AndyMan met me in Jax. I asked him what he thought of my ride. He looked at me the way you are supposed to look at a 42 year old dude who has just bought a car marketed for 18 year old Marine recruits, and told me it was the ugliest car he'd ever seen. I told him its name was SpongeBob, owing to its color, and the SpongeBob airfreshener I had hanging from my mirror (We finished the marathon, by the way, though they timed me with a calendar). I went back home and got the surgery that I might should've gotten before the marathon. After my surgery, I asked the surgeon if I could play football again. He looked at me like you are supposed to look at a 42 year old dude who asks if he can still play football, and recommended golf. I don't think he liked the SpongeBobMobile either. But they love it at the Waffle House.