“Adventure on the rooftop’

ROOFTOP – Quick, sit down! Everybody sit! There’s safety in numbers. I read that somewhere.

You just missed a couple of hawks. Big ol’ bubbas. Might’ve been eagles. Hugemongous. And, yes, I know the difference between a buzzard and an eagle hawk.

They sat in the big oak over there. Made all kinds of noise, and then flew over to the pine tree. No, don’t look! Don’t wanna attract attention. Did I mention they were big? I’d duplicate their call, but one of ‘em might come over here and do the eagle hawk mating dance on my head. No way could that come out good.

Some of you move in a little closer, would ya? That’s better. That’s what mullets do before the dolphins come. Hey, I’ve seen ‘em.

Okay, we didn’t come up here to be bullied by Rodan and his sister, so let’s talk about my lip. Look at the inside of my lip. Just a second. See? It’s a blister. I burned it on my first sip of coffee this morning.

I’ve burned my tongue, my nose, my neck and ear lobe, just not on coffee and not in the same incident. But, this is the first time I scorched my lip. I was too impatient. You’re not supposed to pour boiling water into your French Press. It said so in the instructions. It also said you’re supposed to wait four minutes before pressing the plunger down.

Well, I boiled the water and waited two minutes. See what I got? You over there by the edge of the roof! Harold? Hey, wanna see this? Well, I’ll show you later. No, I don’t mind. Really.

Anyway, now my lip is burned and I’ve got a couple of Pterodactyls waiting to pounce. The good news is I bought a new weedeater. Uh, a new grass trimmer. That’s what you’re supposed to call it. “Weed Eater” is a brand of grass trimmer. I believe it was the first, so everything after that pretty much caught the name. ]

Same thing happened with Coke, Popsicle, Band-Aid and Jungle Gym. Did you ever hear anyone say, “Hey, let’s go play on the menagerie of wood and/or metal that you climb on thing?” Jungle Gym, so much easier.

Speaking of which, I can’t believe my wooden Jungle Gym is still standing. I fully intended to dismantle it this winter. I’m always afraid Kay is gonna hurt herself on it.

But, I hated to call on the brothers for help. They get here and immediately want to eat. After they’re fed, we sit around and gab for a couple of hours, then throw the Nerf football around, take a nap and then eat supper. After that, all they want to do is go home. Didn’t used to be that way. They’re just getting old, you ask me.

But, let’s forget about the brothers. They’re always getting me off the subject. I was talking about my new grass trimmer. It’s battery powered. I got it because my gas powered one won’t start. Well, it probably will start, just not for me.

My battery-powered trimmer doesn’t cut very well, but it’s easy to start. Just wish it had more muscle. It purrs like a cell phone on vibrate. The dainty fish line slaps at the grass. I can do the whole yard in about 20 minutes. It’d take me longer if I actually waited for the line to slap the grass in two. As it is I just kind of rough it up. Leave the weeds laughing at me.

But, the thing starts. Did I mention that? By the way, does anyone want my old trimmer? Anybody? It still looks great. Just has a cracked rubber bulb thing that you’re supposed to push before you try to start it. I suppose it cracked from over mashing. I did a lot mashing.

If a few of you walk down to the edge of the roof behind us and look down, you’ll see where Kay and I mulched in front of the hedge. Kay’s got this wild idea to plant flowers in front of the yaupon hedge next fall. She wants the mulch to kill the grass, so she can more easily plant.

If I could get the neighbor’s cats organized, they could kill the grass for us. But, you can’t organize cats. The Soviet Union tried it back in ’87. Look where it got them.

Have you ever picked out mulch with your spouse? You need to do that. They’ve got all kinds of mulch. Cypress, pine, cedar… Even rubber. They also have “red mulch.” That’s the name of it. Red. What kind of material is red? Is somebody too scared to tell you what it really is? “Oh, you need the red mulch. It’s over there. It’s made from, uh… red.”

Kay decided on cedar because it was the only kind I’d load into the Highlander. All the others had a smell that didn’t agree with car interiors. The cedar smelled great. If I still had my pickup, I would’ve bought any kind of mulch Kay wanted. Within reason. I think they injected some platinum into the rubber mulch. Way too expensive.

The cedar wasn’t cheap, but it did give the car a nice cedar smell. When I roll down the windows, the moths stay clear.

And, I can now call an “all clear” for us. Seems the raptors have left their roost and it’s time for us to leave ours. It’s been a super outing. Full of adventure and, uh, other stuff. Oh, and my lip!

Harold, before you climb down, I’ve got to show you where I burned my lip. No, get over here! The coffee was boiling, I’m telling you! Like sippin’ on a hot coal. Most men would’ve cried. Not me. Not all that much, anyway.

END

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