Apr. 13, 2002 - 20:31 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

The Usual Thing

Up early for a Saturday, sitting soaking my head in a cup of coffee, thinking, "Ooh nice, a whole day of doing nothing but a whole buncha' nothing."

Then the alarm sounded, sirens blew out my eardrums from inside and this voice began screaming, "Dummy, dummy, the kids will be here tomorrow. You just have to clean our patio as the temperature is supposed to be close to eighty degrees tomorrow and everyone will want to sit outside. Stat, Stat !" Police Academy, "Move it, mooove it !" Drat that strident inner voice.

Our Patio, laughably called a patio by us, I really don't know what they call them on the floors above us. The patio is a big slab of concrete with a divider wall between our apartment and the next one. The floors above have railings around them but ours is better, we can step off and go walking without elevator or stairs being used. I've never measured it but think it is as long as our living room is wide or nearly so.

From early fall when stuff started drifting down from the trees and blowing in from where ever until today, everything on our slab was victim to the drift except our stack chairs which we covered early on in late 2001.

Sounds simple and easy. Artificial turf on the concrete. The divider wall entire and a tad of wall before the big glass door and some after that, but the amount of stuff pressed in there, wow. Every year I gawk in disbelief at the amazing mixture of stuff that has been tucked in between articles that belong there. Guess it is a good thing there is somewhere to put it, stuffed gives me a just a little walk around room.

The operation is laborious to put it mildly. Start with the side that has the least to move, move it and then vacuum the phony grass. 'Tain't easy as little grains of rock, fluff and seed are embedded and hard to get up. Next move, put back what was moved and then move the stacked mass of (what's a good word for junk ? You know the stuff your wife wants and you don't ?) detritus to the cleaned side and gnaw on the astrocrap some more and this side is the side where all the dry leaves have blown into the crevices too. Then the sweeping job done, putting it all back together as it was is burdensome.

This guy is definitely getting old. It used to take me a half day to do the whole operation, today it took the whole day. Tomorrow morning I will wash the stack chairs and the fancy little metal table and chairs and wash both sides of the big glass door. About that time it will be time to shower and dress for company. In a remote corner of my mind there is a jabbering nincompoop screaming, "This is going to be your birthday party ? Ha ha ha, you dope !"

I will kick the little turkey in the pants and say, "Damn right --- wanna make something of it ?" One way or another the needful is taken care of, whatever the excuse, it is The Usual Thing . . . . . . . .

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