The saga of my weekend

Yesterday was the day of chores. Disassembling the sink was the easy part. Even reassembling it wasn't too bad. I have creaky parts today in my body, presumably from crawling around in the sink cabinet.

What is the deal with that stopper linkage? It isn't bad enough to have to crawl around and get covered with old sink gunk. At the end, you have to solve some kind of money puzzle that is kind of like taking the bent nail off of a horseshoe while blindfolded, contorted into a pretzel, and with your hands behind your back.

I confess that my sink still doesn't have a functional stopper, but I can use it otherwise. I'll probably get it if I keep trying for another few months.

I also managed to fertilize the lawn. Old What's Her Face* bought into a system from Zamzow's this year. We have to put certain bags of stuff on the lawn at certain times to make everything beautiful. I have no idea what their Humagreen product has in it, but it is the dirtiest stuff I've ever seen.

My feet turned black while looking at the bag, and it got worse from there. I bathed immediately afterward, and the black stuff sunk to the bottom and formed a sandbar. I Googled the ingredients, and it contains 10% iron. Iron's heavy enough to act like that.

Blog break: Otto invaded Old What's Her Face's shower. It was my job to dry him off, now he's running around like a crazy dog. Back to the weekend report.

We had date night at The Yardhouse. I had an upscale hamburger, and it was so filling I couldn't finish. I had a couple of wonderful beers, a stout and a Belgian Quad.

I woke up this morning to the sound of sirens. Someone must have decided to run from the cops at 6:00 AM. They must have driven circles around my subdivision.

Good news, we've had rain and thunderstorms all day. Idaho needs the water, but that has to be great for the fertilizer I just spread. I'm taking it as a stroke of luck.

After calling my parents this morning, I decided to tackle writerly things. I worked through my critiques and shaped up The Yak Guy Project. I decided I need to rewrite a character the guys haven't even seen yet. Yak Guy has several mentors, and I find them all talking the same way. This one can be more of an older brother type character to make him distinct. It's going to take some time, but will be well worth it.

I also worked through a wonderful markup of The Experimental Notebook II. This also took some time, but it improved my short stories greatly. Everything is looking good on my publishing schedule for this one.

This afternoon, I assembled another Lisa Burton Radio show, and scheduled a couple of guest posts to this blog. We have several interesting guests this week, so stay tuned.

I never wrote a single new word of fiction, but consider it a very productive weekend. I hope all of you had a great one too.

* Not my wife's actual name.

The day I ruined the planet

Old What's Her Face* wanted to buy into a program one of the local franchises offers. Zamzow's is a store that's part feed store, part nursery, part garden center, and part pet store. If you need goldfish, fertilizer, petunias, or baby chicks they have them.

She likes the idea of seasonal applications of various things to make our yard pretty. (All of which Zamzow's will gleefully email her about at the correct time.) We picked out our Springtime fertilizer pellets. Of course she also needed some metal flower looking things to stick in her flower bed. Oh, and some pre-emergent crabgrass killer, plus some stuff to kill off the clover that's been slowly taking over our yard.

I spent the rest of my day first exchanging the hoses I already placed out. Who knew there was a specific one for the front yard, and a specific one for the back? Obviously not me.

Then I had to turn on our sprinkler system. We finally have water in the ditch, and can start using it instead of the hoses.

My instructions were to spread the granulated fertilizer first. Then spread the pre-emergent crabgrass killer. Don't worry, my wife supervised this complicated operation.

My next job was to run the sprinklers through their cycle and make sure all of this granulation stuff got wet.

Only then was I allowed to hook up the hoses and spray a liquid weed killer over the top of everything. Now it has to dry for a couple of days to make sure the weeds are really angry. Come on, we know it doesn't really kill them.

After I completed my tasks, I took a quick bath and am happy to report the drain pipe didn't explode from all the chemicals.

I make no promises as to what this chemical cocktail is doing to the planet. If my lawn ignites in the next few days, I'll try to get a video for your amusement. A steel lawnmower blade, one tiny spark, a whole bunch of miracle chemicals…

I still remember the good old days when I could top-dress the lawn with manure and it looked great all year long. I still think it works, but I was wrong, just ask my wife.

I haven't written any new fiction in weeks. I feel guilty about leaving the Yak Guy to his own devices, and the short story incomplete, but not guilty enough to jump back in.

I would feel differently if sales were thriving, but that isn't the case. I'll probably jump back in sometime this week, but mostly for my own amusement. I really don't feel the need to get another book out in cyberspace any time soon. That will come eventually, but right now I want to take time to plan some camping trips, go fishing with my son, and probably place some fire extinguishers around the yard. Do they sell lawn insurance?

*Entertaining Stories; protecting my wife's name since 2013.