I’m not positive about why it took until the twenty-fourth night of September to transition into the autumn rush-mode, but it did.
Possibly, it’s because I didn’t get nearly enough done yesterday to hit the ever-moving target of a successful, fulfilling day.
When left to my own devices and without a defined job or jobs, I struggle with a bad case of “Wait a minute, where did I put that?”
Off I go, looking for the one thing that I don’t need at that moment, but know I will in the very near future.
It happens a lot with the four or five tape measures I lose and find consistently.
I have a couple that have all the increments clearly written on the tape, and I love them.
Sixteenths, and their tiny little indicator lines, dance in unison in front of my eyes when I stare too long, ciphering. The clear numbering of eighths appears to steady the itty bitty line dancers and allows me to focus better.
There’s nothing worse than having to yell to another mediocre tradesman from your perch on the ladder that they need to cut the board ten inches and the line just shy of the last quarter-inch mark before eleven.
I did no carpentry yesterday. Frankly, I never do carpentry; I’m a hack who has only dipped his toes into the field referred to as the building trades, and it’s only when I have to do it.
Oh, I will build things, but prepare to hear utterances that defy translation as I get halfway through a job and then discover that whatever I’d done at the start demands a do-over.
I did need a tape measure on two occasions yesterday, looking for one after another until I found the third that I keep in the door pocket of the truck.
I digress.
The rush of putting things away before the snow flies was emphasized when I found a gathering of leaves in the entry alcove at my house. I had not called the meeting, so they clearly have another leader who is not following my itinerary.
When I left for the weekly breakfast for schmucks, there were no dead, fallen leaves there. Upon my return, there were thirty in various stages of color, all of them recently released from the maples out in front of the house. I kicked them out of the way, evidently, in a subliminal swipe, an effort to ignore the inevitable.
When I went outside midday, I saw the lawn was littered with them, with more to follow.
I looked over at the aluminum boat, brought home from the camp in the woods to be stored in my buddy’s barn, and I could see that hundreds of leaves from various other trees were holding a conference in recesses of the hull. The free-from-the-tree detritus was piling in like senior vacationers waiting at the still-locked door of a four-thirty pm seafood buffet near The Villages.
It hit me like a ton of autumn, “Holy crap, TC, it’s almost October. You gotta get some of this crap put away!”
I am embarrassed to tell you that I’d just returned from the town office, registering the motorcycle that just came back from Dandy Don’s motorcycle repair facility. It’s been laid up for about three months for several surgeries. While it’s not really motorcycle season in Maine, I have to register it now because Dandy Don emphasized that I must ride it a hundred or so miles to find out if the fix was in.
I considered riding rogue, taking off the plate of the last guy who owned it with a sticker ending in 2015, and riding after dark, only.
I reconsidered, knowing that I don’t have anyone around anymore who would bail me out of jail. I can handle a few hours in the pokey, but I need to get home by four a.m. (or p.m.) to feed Ellie, depending on the time of arrest.
Don said, “Ride it for a while, TC, see if all of the noises stopped. If not, we can put it back on the lift this winter and maybe install another set of cams.”
So, now, with raking to do, I also have a homework assignment to ride one hundred miles on the motorcycle that has become a bit of an albatross. I’ll get it done, but I must also store that away in the same barn before the snow flies, too.
Say nothing of getting my boy down to camp to help me pull the dock out of the water at the lake before the H2O temperatures hit the level where we all sing soprano for the day.
Today, I’m giving in and preparing a punch-list to leave on the counter. A visible representation of my laziness will help with my misadventures, or at least put them in order of which ones to avoid for the longest time without a serious impact on my long-term happiness.
Four seasons are good, but three of the four demand a lot of work. I can’t lie, I really enjoyed the four weeks of summer.
Have a swell Thursday.
From the Jagged Edge of America, I remain,
TC
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