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5.19.05
Claire and I just finished up Day Two of our Outside Beautification Project. I've been trying to get the backyard, which is full of potential, habitable for summertime. Which, suddenly, it is here in southern California! (Summertime, I mean.) No more of the ambiguous spring stuff, where you start the day in a sweater and sweats and keep stripping until nighttime as it gets warmer and warmer. Nope, it's now officially HOT. And will keep getting hotter. You can start the day out in shorts and strip from there. So we're (Claire and I) working on the tiny, sweet (potentially) backyard that faces north and has cooling shade in the late afternoon.
Yesterday (Day One of the Outside Beautification Project), we went to Target and OSH (Orchard Supply Hardware) and bought a new hose, a pruning saw, some plants, some dirt, a pot, some garden decor items, and a tiny adirondack chair for kids painted in a whimsical bright blue with frogs, that you should JUST KEEP ON WALKING BY if you see it at Target, because you have to assemble it yourself and this will make you say and think some very bad words. Trust me on this. I've assembled a lot of Ikea furniture and similar over the years, but this chair was bad. But that's a different story, and it turned out cute, so if you ignore me, you have no one but yourself to blame, and you'll have a cute chair if you can get to step 5 without smashing it against a wall in frustration.
Today was Day Two. So while Claire was napping this morning, I decided to prune the big tree in the middle of our small patch of grass in the back, to lighten things up. I use "prune" lightly, because I decided to remove a branch the size of a small tree trunk. No kidding. It went up, up, up, higher and higher, until the small branches up top of it touched the power lines in our neighbor's yard.
So, because sometimes I JUST DON'T THINK, I grabbed our razor-toothed pruning knife, put on my flip-flops, climbed up on my kitchen step stool, and started sawing.
That is a remarkably effective little saw, that is. After about fifteen minutes of sawing (I should mention it was 10 a.m. and I was still in my pajamas but had thrown a sweatshirt on over the top in case any neighbors saw me)(why get showered and dressed before you do the dirty work?), something dawned on me. I got down off the step ladder and went and looked up, up, up where the tops touched the power lines. They were actually kind of sticking through the power lines, kind of interwoven with them.
And I realized that when the branch came down, if it moved forward (towards Harry the Neighbor's House) instead of back (towards me), it would probably pull some power lines down into Harry's backyard, and possibly electrocute and kill Harry, who is 82 or similar and so sweet.
And if the branch went back (towards me) instead of forward (towards Harry), and if it happened quickly, it would probably knock me off my stepstool.
But nobody was in Harry's yard, and I had to keep sawing, because I couldn't leave it there to possibly break off and fall on top of my loved ones or Harry's circa 1950 Oldsmobile. So I sawed for about 5 more minutes, and then heard a loud "crack!" So I jumped off my stool and ran away and waited, but it didn't break.
So I jumped back on the stool, did a couple more back-and-forths, heard another crack, jumped quickly off the stool (all the time holding the saw and wearing nothing on my feet but flip-flops and nothing on my body but pajamas and a sweatshirt that was suddenly THE HOTTEST GARMENT IN THE UNIVERSE), and waited. I did this routine one more time, and on the third "crack" it came down, not too slow and not too fast, but of a medium speed.
I am not ashamed to say that I was praying the entire time that no one would be injured by my stupidity. It fell right down out of the power lines, thank goodness, and only the very tips of the tallest branches landed on top of Harry's fence, and I quickly pulled the whole thing back by the fat trunk on my end, and it fell off the fence and completely into my yard, thunk.
And took up the entire grassy area, and was gigantic, and probably took 20 years to grow, and I felt sad, suddenly.
Let me digress to say that our trash service is VERY STRICT and we get one big trashcan per week for "greens" (grass clippings and yard waste and whatever), and I can see this branch is going to take about 8 or 9 weeks to get hauled off completely if I cut it up into small pieces. So I saw and saw and saw, and fill up the green trashcan, and then decide to leave everything else for later, because that is what I do. I leave my messes for later.
Just about then . . . my face is bright red from heat and sweat, but I'm feeling happy and proud that no one was killed . . . Bob, my husband, comes home early. (Sidenote: He injured his back the day before yesterday at the gym (Sidenote within sidenote: pulled his trapezoid, has muscle relaxants and painkillers, and should be okay in a week), and has been in a lot of pain and came home to lay down.) He comes through the back gate, and I am so startled I yell, and he just looks at that pile of branches and looks at me, and heads into the house without saying anything. And I start yelling "I'll do it! I'll clean it up! I'm not leaving it for you! I know you're injured! I just wanted to do it because it was so dark in the backyard and we needed more light! I didn't know you were coming home from work!"
He's all knocked out from the muscle relaxants tonight, but I think I'm forgiven. Day Three of Outdoor Beautification is tomorrow. I'm going to string jaunty little lights over the back pergola, so we can sit under it at night sipping wine and pretending we're in Italy. Wish me luck! :)
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