Thursday Three
This week, I'll try to count all the way to three since Terry gets down right testy when you don't or can't as the case may be.
1. First love. Happened during my the Fall semester of my freshman year in college and was a girl I had known for several years. She was a year behind me in school and I had never really talked to her altough I knew her family well. I was home one weekend and somehow we went out on a date. I was smitten and spent the next few months longing for her. It was not to be because I was in college and working weekends to make ends meet and didn't get home again until Christmas by which time she was dating someone else. Weirdly, the day I met my wife, she and I walked to downtown Jacksonville and I bought a birthday card for the first love. I didn't speak to her again until a couple of years ago. She is a very nice lady and has reared several children who are good citizens and she still looks nice, but I'm not sorry the romance failed.
2. My wife is one of those people who do what needs to be done without being asked. If she sees something that needs to be done, she does it. She is really frugal, but if she hears someone needs something, she takes care of it, but she still won't buy the Gibson ES135 hollow body electric guitar for me and I really need it.
3. Attachment to inanimate object: I think my Martin D28 guitar is as close to perfection as anything made by man can be. I have played much more expensive instruments but none that I feel compare favorably and that includes tens of D28s.
posted by Larry at 8:44 AM
Trees. My house is surrounded by trees. We wanted trees and we got trees. Unfortunately, our trees act like trees. They drop their leaves and limbs all over the yard and whenever we have very much wind, large portions of the trees end up in our yard and need to be removed. Still, I love trees. My wife loves trees even more than I do except for pines and cedars. She thinks every pine and cedar needs to be eliminated as soon as possible. We have several large pines and cedars in the yard and she wants them removed. I am not sure we should cut the trees and so far I have prevailed. We'll see.
We have a landscape guy designing a layout for our yard. I guess we are looking for "curb appeal". My basic requirement is low maintenance so I lean toward artificial turf. My wife agrees on low maintenance but not the turf. I really like hydrangia and she tolerates it. We do agree that we want the treed areas front and back to look fairly natural with ferns and other typical forest undergrowth.
I guess this Fall will be filled with yard work.
posted by Larry at 10:38 AM
I spent the weekend hanging wallpaper. I am a good wall paper hanger, only slightly slower than molasses in Antarctica in July. On top of being slow, I am a bit of a perfectionist. I can't stand to see the seams and misalignment on the pattern drive me crazy. I managed to hang three walls out of four in only 12 hours in an eleven by fourteen room in only 12 hours. Of course, I am only hanging above the chair rail so it isn't as much as it seems. I figure I would have to charge $100 per roll to make minimum wage. I'm not sure anyone would pay me that although they would be getting really high quality wallpaper hanging.
I played Country and Bluegrass twice last week. Thursday was one of those nights where everyone was on and anything we tried just came out good. Saturday was a night better forgotten.
I am borrowing my Dad's mandolin from my baby brother (okay, he is 45 but he is still the baby) and plan on (note the Southernism) taking some lessons to see if I have any chance of ever playing mandolin. I know I can do the trills but am not sure about the left hand. It may be too much for a person of my limited musical talent.
I spent this morning filling out a form to to get my government security form updated. Seemed like I had to list everyone I have ever come in contact with.
We have a bunch of limbs down in our yard from the storm last Wednesday including a good portion of a large sweetgum. I am really looking forward to cutting the big ones up and hauling them away come Saturday.
We are trying to hire a college student from a disavantaged area and it has been interesting. Saturday, we interviewed a recent HS graduate and asked him about his grades. "A's, B's and couple of C's." What was your favorite subject? "Math." That we were looking for. Did you take The Calculus in HS? (note my Math major background in that construction) "No." What did you like best about Math? No kidding, the answer was: " The plusses and minuses and the times tables."
God help us!
posted by Larry at 2:57 PM
