Tuesday, April 03, 2012

You'd Think That After Four Days, I Would've Explained This

Of course, I totally forgot to explain the origin of the phrase "I've forgotten what normal tired feels like", even though that was the title of four consecutive posts.

I'd like to say that's a rare lapse, but really, it's not. I can forget something walking from my study to the kitchen. Actually, I can forget it, remember it, then forget it again, all in the space of about 20 feet.

So here's where that phrase came from.

On the way home from McAllen (5 1/2 hour drive), we reached South Austin and saw a big theater just off the interstate. The Hunger Games had opened on Friday, and Eli wanted to see it right away, but we couldn't because of the hockey tournament.

It was about 4:45 p.m., we'd been up since 5:00 a.m. (6:30 game, remember), and we were all on fumes at that point.

"Hey, I bet they have a five o'clock showing of The Hunger Games," Eli 10.8 said. "We could see it here and then go home."

"Oh my God," Gloria said, laughing.

"There is not one chance in 10 billion that we're stopping to go see that movie," I said, "but I admire your enthusiasm."

That's not even related to the post title, but it's a story that illustrates Eli in a nutshell. He's always ready for one more thing.

After we got home, I was upstairs with Gloria, and she was unpacking some bags. "I'm so tired I've forgotten what normal tired feels like," she said, and we both laughed.

The next day, I put in a new front yard. Didn't see that coming, did you?

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Gloria asked me the night before. "We could still get somebody to put it in for us."

"I asked those somebody's, and the price quotes were outrageous," I said.

"But there's yard preparation, and laying down topsoil, and--"

"Look," I said. "It's grass. It's not fine china. It's resilient. I'll rake the front yard, slap it down as soon as the truck gets here, and water it every day. I've never laid down turf, but I played a lot of Tetris, and this is just playing Tetris with sod. I'm not paying somebody else to play environmental Tetris."

This was all fairly reasonable, except for one thing: nobody told me how much a palette of grass weighs.

The number, in case you're wondering, is about 2000 pounds. Eli was in school (we tried to do it during Spring Break, but it rained so much that they couldn't cut the grass), and Gloria had a work crisis, so it was just me in versus mode: mano a hierba.

I did get all the grass put down and lined up and watered. It was not easy. Well, the process was easy. The whole "my body has to do all this" was not easy.

It's been a week now, though, and there still have been no deaths. Mine or the grass.

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