Display by Label: Lawn

Brawny Doesn't Live Here Anymore (He was Taken Down by a Hyperactive Dog)

Monday, November 10, 2008 | comments (7)

One way to relax after a Sunday afternoon herding leaves is to have a couple of beers and sit on the couch with your hand under your belt and watch some football and feel good and fine and strong—and downright brawny, damnit, like the guy on the paper towel rolls—for having worked hard and for having cuts on your hands and dirt under your nails and an easy sort of pain in your muscles. Another way is to swallow two indomethacin and four tylenol and lay flat on your back feeling anything but easy, anything but strong, and cursing your tendency to overdo it and waiting for your kidneys to give out from all the pills. Yesterday, I chose the latter option. I still got in that football thing, though, watching the Giants come back against the Eagles as I faded in and out of consciousness. But it weren't fun. And I didn't feel strong ... or anything resembling "brawny."

The AS has been flaring for the last week, I think due to the weird weather, and I haven't been listening to him. Instead, I've been swallowing extra pills and deliberately taunting him with all sorts of names. And I could feel his temper getting hot, but I kept at it. And yesterday, just as I was wrapping up for the evening he hauled back and punished me something good for not taking him seriously, the bastard.

I had started out the afternoon with some roof climbing and gutter cleaning, then moved on to some pruning. Then I blew out the beds and raked the grass in the back yard, rounding the leaves into piles and then transferring them to front curb in batches using a big rubber trash can. And all the while I grunted and strutted and did a great deal of chest thumping and I think while I was on the roof I may have even let out a Tarzan-like howl. And all was good; or rather, okay. I was just teetering on the edge of something, but it was mild and I laughed at it and I said, Is that all you have for me, pussy!

And then I decided to play a game of tug-o-war with Honey. And holy crap she's gotten strong, and so as I bent over and pulled at the deflated soccer ball and started to lift her up off the ground, doing that dance that we do. And she did one of her crazy, possessed head-jerking-side-to-side things, which caused my body to twist in a direction it wasn't prepared to go, and I heard it quietly object with a little "whoopsie-daisy" (I hate when my body sounds like Hugh Grant in Knotting Hill) and then—then, I believed. And I stopped, because I knew I had about ten minutes to get someplace warm where I could collapse.

The rest of the night was all about holding on to countertops and railings to stay upright and cat stretches on my hands and knees in the hot, hot shower. And curses in my sleep every time I had to roll over. And this morning I walked Honey at the pace of an 85-year-old man and I squatted to pick things up by holding desperately on to my knees and I implored God, Please, please, God...let me get back up. Don't let my neighbors find me lying in the street. God understands that when he hears from me, most likely my back is shattered. And I think now he just laughs at me for being his rainy-day friend.

And I've been down this road before. And I've bored you with the details of the aftermath. And I kind of hate having you see me like this. So I'll stop now. Otherwise, I'll be tempted to go on with the whine. And besides, I think it's time for another hot shower.

link to this | comments (7) | File: Weekend Oogah Lawn Ho_Hum AS

I'll Take My Shirt Off, But Only If It's Warm

Tuesday, May 13, 2008 | comments (5)

When my dad and my grandpa used to mow the lawn, they would do it "bare-chested." That's what my dad would call it. And, as a boy of four or five, I was intrigued by this concept, that of bare-chestedness. Because I was keenly aware that while being in this state was something the two model men in my life seemed to do whenever they wanted, the women never did—my mom, my grandmother, my sister. Clearly, being in this state of bare-chestedness was one of those things only boys could do, along with the awesome faculty to pee while standing up. Damn we were lucky.

Of course, as soon as I discovered this, I too went bare-chested whenever I got the chance, because it was profoundly important to me to be like my dad. And even though I couldn't actually mow the lawn yet, I used to follow behind him with a plastic Fisher-Price model. And there I would be: jean-shorts, cowboy boots (which you had to pry off of me when I went to bed) and a bare-chest which, unlike my dad's, had no "fur" on it.

Just to be clear, my dad didn't wear cowboy boots when he mowed the lawn, so I'm not sure where that came from. I've since substituted the boots for New Balance or Merrell which I suppose in some ways is a real tragedy, but the rest of the outfit is pretty much the same: shorts and a bare chest—grunt. That is until recently. Because Jersey's weather isn't reliably warm in April, or even May. This year, the warm spring days have been few, and have been bookmarked by bouts of cold, wet rain.

So this weekend, as the clouds and wind gathered for another onslaught of the wetness, I sliced blades of grass in a long-sleeved cotton shirt and a red fleece sweater-vest.

Dad never told me there'd be days like this.

link to this | comments (5) | File: Oogah Lawn Family Childhood

The Short Happy Life of a Toro Lawn Mower

Thursday, April 24, 2008 | comments (11)

You'd think that on its second mow, a brand new mower would be hungry to eat some grass. You'd think it would just be getting warmed up.

Apparently, my mower decided it had had enough of this grass-cutting shit. It died on me yesterday.

My neighbor, Ax (not his real name), was outside later that evening and I walked over to our fence to tell him my bad news. He and I are establishing a relationship not unlike the one between Tim and Wilson on Home Improvement. I'm Tim. Things tend to break when I get my hands on them. I go to him seeking consolation and advice. He's Wilson. He's older and wiser and he just knows shit. And dammit he's got a great freakin' lawn.

Ax also owns a classic muscle car, which he showed me the first day we met. I have to admit, it's pretty sweet. And shiny. Ax works on it in his free time. Also, he drives a Ford F-350 4x4, a truck that continually lobs taunts over at Remington from Ax's driveway. Damn bully trucks. The only thing that's a little pansy-ass about Ax is he's got two Dachshunds. I mean one would be unfortunate. But two is tragic.

As I walked over to Ax, the two "dogs"—a term I use loosely—greeted me as they always do, with furious barking and yipping. Have you ever seen a Dachshund when he's furious? It's kind of like when real dogs are being playful. Because of the commotion, Ax didn't hear me too well when I said, "My mower died." I could tell by the expression on his face and the way he said, "I'm so sorry" that he had misunderstood me. So I bent down and offered the dogs my hand to sniff, which shut them up. Then I said, no not my mother, my mower. God, who walks up to his neighbor, who he's only known for a couple of months, and says with a sort of flabbergasted, aw-shucks, can-you-believe-it atttitude, "guess what, my mother died." Nice weather we're having, isn't it? He must have thought I was crazy. Oh well, it won't be the last time for that. He'd better get used to it.

So I'm not sure if I set a record for killing a lawn mower, but I was going to look into it. I brought it back to Fred, who doesn't seem like so much of an angel to me anymore. He went to start the thing, only to find that the pull-chord wouldn't budge. Like I said, it was fed up. He admitted that this definitely seemed a little fishy. "But don't worry about a thing!" he said. He would figure out what was going on and I wouldn't have to pay for a thing. He's damn right I'm not paying for a thing. It's a Toro. And I bought it last week, remember? I wasn't worried about paying for things. But I do want to get up all this thatch I raked up the other day so that I can get some seed and fertilizer on the lawn before it rains this weekend. I'm on a time crunch, here Fred. I can't deal with mowers that die on me on the second mow, brother.

So if I find out more bad news today, and I can't get my mower back, I'm going to ask Fred for a replacement. And if that one dies, then I'll know God is pissed at me for last week's post. Maybe I should go ahead and apologize now.

link to this | comments (11) | File: Oogah Lawn House Grunt Remington