A Place For Your Ass

Yesterday was a throwback. Lisa was doing a per diem, which hasn’t happened in a while, so the early hours were spent having coffee with her while she got ready for work.

After dropping her off at the job, I did some early morning shopping – Claire and Honey were out of crackers and veggies – and then came home and chopped some meal bags.

Now I was going to grab the mower and give the front a trim – because the HOA sent a general email to all members politely pissing and moaning about the tiny saplings growing on everyone’s front property – the official regular whinging is really beginning to annoy me – but instead I just went out and clipped them all by hand, which ended up taking more energy than if I pushed the mower up and down the incline.

However, I’m glad I decided against a fall mowing because I wanted a thicker layer of grass to peak through the snow to provide the bunnies some greens to get through the winter months.

Then I went out back and shifted some mule shit from inside and around the two barns back to Hadrian’s Wall.

I also gave Claire a solid brushing and laid out three separate cracker snack servings. I do not know where Claire and Honey put it. But it’s like crack to them.

I even hand swept the entire first floor to gather the dust elephants that were planning to take over my Serengeti.

However, I must have hit one of those time dilation patches that occur regularly here on the Casa Claire Vortex because when I wrapped all of that up it was just 9:30.

Now, a smart Tommy would have planted his ass in his favorite – but soon to be replaced – recliner and opened a book or binged a new BBC series.

But I knew that one of the first things Lisa would say when I picked her up would be, “So, what did you do today?” And to me – being naturally bone idle lazy – that is a trigger.

So, knowing that I had scheduled a trip to Boulder tomorrow (Sunday) to pick up a third Planter Pot for Lisa and a curved stone bench for the Jack The Spruce Grotto, I reached out to my new, go to Stone Creature Sculptor – Josh Hatch – to see if they were ready a day earlier. They were.

So off I went through the western foot hills to Boulder, arriving about 11:30. There I met Josh’s lovely visiting mother from Michigan – who had just completed painting the new Planter and hour earlier.

Josh explained to me as we both loaded the stone bench (he’s a skinny guy but a lot stronger than he looks) using tubes to roll the actual bench part into the back of my forever Toyota Rav 4 – yes, from TCS – that that piece alone was 175 lbs. We then loaded the also heavy legs and the surprising heavy planter into the back.

He asked if I had someone back home to help me unload it all. I lied. “Sure.”

I then took a walk around the grounds to see if anything caught my impulse fancy and something did.

I noticed a new smaller gargoyle sitting on top of a stump. Didn’t remember him from the last trip. Josh told me he was his most recent creation.

Josh knocked 1/3 off the price. Voila.

Battow, yes there is a story about how European noblemen physically marked their children’s toes so as to always be able to recognize them after a few years of absence should they be kidnapped or captured and then recovered, and Battow is the protector of such noble children. Given the rambunctious nature of my grans, I figured he was a solid investment.

Turns out he was a great conversationalist, which made the trip home pass quickly.

Anyway, I made the trip home fast enough to leave me time to move the bench into place.

Josh had left me a roller to use so, after humping the Planter and both legs of the bench to the spot by the gravel path in the JTS Grotto, I retrieved my faithful hand truck and moving blanket from the garage and slowly slid the 175lb bench top out the back of the Toyota and onto the reclining hand truck. I’m not sure whether it was me or my car that moaned louder when I lifted the last of it off the end of the bumper and slid it onto the hand truck.

I do recall thinking that it was one thing to move it downward in the direction of gravity – and that it was going to be a whole different experience moving it upward again to rest it on the legs without knocking them over. If that happened, I was fucked.

I also had to shift the hand truck with the top on it about 25 feet from car to the new location without lifting the handle of the hand truck more than a few inches off the ground so as not to place the weight of the bench on one end and possibly chip it.

That was the closest I’ve come to touching my toes while moving for many years.

I was definitely channeling Spaghetti. I was certainly cursing like him. Every time I heard one of my joints pop.

I got the hand truck as close as I could to the prearranged legs and without giving myself any time to think, or my now aching back to object, I grabbed one end and lifted it onto one leg and then quickly switched sides and lifted the other end.

Thank you Spaghetti.

I posted a couple of videos on FB memorializing the Fitzcarraldo moment – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzcarraldo

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1YPPvRcfdz

Anyway, I got it done and dusted, and it was worth the handful of Aleve I’ve been living on since.

Note Lisa’s latest Planter in the foreground.

But the pay-off was at night, with the faerie lights. Which was a déjà vu moment,

and it was very good. Genesis 1-31.

I’m going out there this morning with a wide black Sharpie and inscribe underneath the bench seat – “Below here lies Tom’s Testicles.”

Note for the record I had to set the bench legs a little further apart than required.

The feral cats are really enjoying the upgrade to the JTS Grotto.

Oh, and I placed Battow under JTS by Mitten’s Bunker,

Where he and his gargoyle colleague, Emmet – whom he is facing – exchange cleverly whispered bon mots en français toute la nuit. Poor Smaug the dragon will sleep no more. But I did notice Mittens/Mike exiting the bunker this morning when I went out to feed them. I guess he likes the added supernatural security. Smokey was slaloming the faerie lights on the path as she made her way to this morning’s meal. I think she was sleeping in the high grass by Boots the dragon.

Well, Sunday is again upon us but since there is no rest for the wicked, I have to transplant those front planters this morning. Luckily, I have already decided what I will do with those original planters. Stay tuned.

You fine, five readers take a deep and relaxing breath, then go make that bagel and latte run.

Then read a few chapters of a book before football comes on.

I’m going to try and catch some of the CK memorial.

But no matter what else we get up to, let us make today a great one.