The Musician's Musings

I must start with yesterday. Not only did yesterday bring to a close the last full 5-day school week of the year, but we got to meet up with saiaiko in the Strip District!! Yay!!! We smartly had dinner at Big Mama's House of Soul. And other than the orders being quite a bit backed up, the food was ZOMG-yummy. I cannot adequately describe it in this forum, gentle readers. The BBQ chicken was tangy and exquisite, and I also got the seafood stuffing, which was sweet, bold, and just fishy enough. After driving to the South Side for ice cream, we got to hang with saiaiko back at our house until it was pumpkin time, and she headed back to the folks with whom she's staying for her trip. We were *assured* that we'll get to see her again before taking off back to Buffalo.

Today was quite alright. We got to sleep in gloriously, with both cats pinning us in our beds. The weather was picture perfect, all day. And other than being too much of a jerk to fiannaharpar, things went fine. (I was careless, snippy, 'n cross this morning) A zoo trip was canceled, so our attention turned too.... yard work! Stops at Home Depot and Target first, then to get gas for the car and the 5-gallon tank for the mower (for $60??!?), and it was off to mow. My sweetie mowed the first time, so it was my first time on the tractor this year. I do like how your brain just wanders while doing that kind of work. It's cleansing in a way. While I kind of wished I could think of productive things- my SCA trumpet class, music that I want to write- I mainly thought of random songs, people, and other things that floated to the top of my noggin. It felt like getting a lot of busy-ness out of the way. And I enjoy taking care of the yard. Shoot, I wish I had more time to trim limbs, get more of the fallen tree cut up and moved out, and edge around more of the bloody flower garden before our weed-whacker's electric battery dies pathetically.

I offered to make dinner, and we munched casually on soup and grilled cheese sandwiches in the front room while watching our recent Netflix- VeggieTales' "Gideon the Tuba Warrior." Ok, dude, they took a bible story and managed to work in drum and bugle corps music into it, fer cryin' out loud. I highly approved.

I am so glad that this is a 3-day weekend. Maybe I'll start to feel like I'm catching up on sleep.

Just call me Alan Titchmarsh...

fiannaharpar and I, in the spirit of many other people it seems, accomplished quite the load of garden work this weekend. We went from weeds up to your knees everywhere to just needing a couple more bags of mulch to finish everything up. Here's a short recap- we bought that "30-yr fabric" to cover the plants we didn't want, and while we were putting that down we were chanting "DieDieDie!!" Then we'd put some mulch down from last year to keep it in place and move on. Where we needed to weed we did. We took all the big stones that were just sitting in the garden out, which included quite a bit of coal. Even with 100 ft of the fabric, it wasn't enough, so we had to get more today. Yesterday was all about defining where the garden was and wasn't gonna be. Today was about finishing setting the fabric down, mulching, and planting some things. Oh, we also painted the poles of the outdoor lamp posts hammered copper. They look cool.

So, I'm tired and sore, but we got a bunch done in two days. Tomorrow will be planting the veggies bought (two colors of bell pepper, three tomato plants, and cantaloupe) while I mow the yard, finally. Thank goodness tomorrow is not a work day.

As of 4 minutes ago I'm waiting for the Sears Guy_TM to come and fix our lawn tractor. The silly brake, it won't disengage. The yard currently is offering openings to the Pittsburgh Zoo for natural savannah inhabitants. So, yeah, fortunately the mower is still under warranty and we get away without plunking any more $$ we don't have.

Other things to do besides/before/after mowing of said wildlife habitat:
-scrub out coolers
-laundry
-dishes
-oh yeah, breakfast

Hmmm. Seems like enough of a list for now.

Sears Edit: He's at stop #2, and I'm stop #3.

Job Edit: Just found an open position at a good district, and I've spent the last hour or so calling people who can fill out this "teacher appraisal form" which I've seen needed in no other district. Ah, well, I guess they can get away with it. The important thing is that I will have three forms completed and will get this application turned in, by hand, possibly tomorrow. And damnit, I'll sacrifice days at Pennsic if it means interviews for a better job. *sigh* Here's hoping.

Sears Edit II: Mower's fixed! It was just the idler bolt that was too friggin' tight. I'm assured that our warranty lasts through 5-08 (yay!) and was given a couple other helpful pointers. Off to lawn shearing!!