Weekend Runaround
I don't like busy weekends. I like weekends that consist of lounging around sleeping and burping and flatulating. Those are nice weekends.
Alas, now that June is upon us and summer is now officially in full swing, such lazy weekends simply can't exist, at least not until November or so. Summer weekends in Minnesota have to be jam packed with fun and frivolity and everything else you vowed you'd do as you hunkered beneath twelve layers of blankets that one week in January when the temperature was just a few degrees shy of absolute zero.
Last weekend was one of those weekends where I was determined to tie up some loose ends and start my summer with a piercing screech of the tires as my summer dragster sped from the starting gate. Unfortunately, my girlfriend's weekend schedule required a whole heck of a lot of driving all over the place so that I might accomplish my weekend goals.
Soooo, Friday night, Mel drove down from the cities to Rochester after work, and we promptly loaded ourselves into my Caddy and drove down to Harmony. We did this because we had big and important plans for the next morning. We were going to go rollerblading! But, not just rollerblading. We were going to go rollerblading from Hamony to Lanesboro, a distance of about 23 miles. We awoke at 10:30 Saturday morning, and I went outside to try to get my father's truck started, because we needed two vehicle so we could leave one in Lanesboro and thus have transport home. This required a jumpstart of the battery, because the truck hadn't seen active use since August.
I don't like jumpstarting vehicles. I've heard one too many horror stories about batteries exploding and acid turning human faces into dripping flesh and gore. I always imagine myself screwing up the whole jumpstarting procedure and spending the rest of my life enduring reconstructive surgery and skin grafts. But, once again, I conducted a flawless vehicle jumpstart, so all that dramatic play up that I just wrote about was really kind of pointless. Then again, you were probably expecting some great tale of me deftly dodging acid and shrapnel as a battery exploded or something. Weren't you? Suckers.
The trail system connecting Harmony and Lanesboro really, truly shouldn't be missed. You want natural beauty, you'll find it there. Melissa and I saw deer and squirrels and chipmunks and alligators and stegasaurus and an occasional unicorn. Okay, we didn't see any of those last three, but we did see a Baltimore Oriole (no, not a baseball player), and that's really rare here in Minnesota.
It was at about the 20th mile that my legs decided they were getting pretty sick and tired of all the standing and rolling. Beautiful scenery or no, exhaustion was setting in. Mel and I forced our legs to carry us the final few miles to my awaiting Cadillac, and we both agreed that a nap was in order when we got back to Harmony. I haven't been that pooped since I can't even remember. All the sun and rollerblading had taken its toll, and we both conked out for two hours as our bodies tried to recuperate. When we woke up at about 7 p.m., we went outside to do some quick yard work. My parents are coming home for the summer next week, and I wanted to get their house as nice as I could. Melissa had bought a bunch of garden borders for my mother's back yard flower garden, so she set about putting those up while I mowed.
Mel bought the garden borders from Restoration Hardware, where she works, a store that excels in the art of selling worthless junk, in my opinion. And my opinion was validated by the iron garden borders that tended to snap and break if you looked at them wrong. Sure they were cute, I suppose, but cute doesn't get you anywhere when the damn things break as you stick them in the ground. There weren't enough borders to go around the flower garden as it was, but after five of the fucking things broke, there definitely weren't enough.
Mel had to work at 8 a.m. on Sunday, so we drove back to Rochester Saturday night after a full day of rollerblading, sleeping, and breaking garden borders. She had to wake up at 6 a.m. on Sunday to drive the rest of the way back to the cities. I slept in until 9 a.m., and then I got up and drove back to. . . .
Harmony, so I could finish mowing the lawn and go golfing with my friend, Troy. The golfing was pleasant and uneventful, and then I went home and started transferring the garden borders from the back yard flower garden to the front yard flower garden, taking extra care not to break any more of the fragile pieces of crap. Thankfully, I didn't break any more, and there were just enough to encircle the front yard flower garden, so I managed to salvage a victory of the Restoration Hardware crap factory.
Then, I dragged the mower back out so I could finish trimming the front lawn. I was pleased, because this would be the last time I would have to mow the parents' lawn this summer. This was it! I pulled the starter once. I pulled the starter twice. I pulled the starter three times. . . Success! The mower roared to life. . . even as the starting rope snapped off in my hand. And, I mean the ENTIRE rope. My mission was clear. I had to mow the lawn in its entirety without stopping. I couldn't let the mower stop or I would never get it started again.
And then a woman pulled up alongside the curb to ask directions. There I stood, unable to leave the mower, because loosening my grip meant stopping the mower. It was an unusual dilemma. I eventually opted to drag the mower with me to the curb and shout directions to the confused woman over the growl of the mower. She seemed perplexed as to why I was so anally tethered to the mower, and I didn't feel like explaining my situation. She drove away, no doubt convinced that I was a small town yokel with four functioning brain cells. But, no matter. I got the lawn mowed, and now it's in my father's court to buy a new fucking mower.
Then I drove back to Rochester. By this time, I had driven back and forth so many times, they officially changed the city signs to read "Welcome To Rochester, Ryan!"
Ugh, my 10 year class reunion is a month away. But, at least I test for my black belt this month. Busy, busy, busy. Welcome to summer, everyone!
Posted by Ryan at June 2, 2003 11:00 AM
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