A day for the dog that cleaned house

I’ve made good on the “Jumpstart to Summer” theme. At this moment, I am more tired than the most tired person on the planet, but I feel like a million bucks.

I sucked the marrow out of a three-day weekend and every used-up muscle and aching joint is a reminder that I love living a whole life (even if my million bucks feels run over by a truck.)

I had my first experience this weekend in being of assistance in the launch of a certain sailboat; now back to the lake for the season, including raising of the mast. I can add “Little Miss Mast Helper” to my list of essential skills.

I also made good on a couple of big chores I had on my list here in my neck of the woods, including digging a new 12 sq. ft. addition to my garden, and cleaning up yet another pile of old junk iron, cast off from yesteryear when this place was a working farm.

There isn’t enough room in the back of a half ton for what I dug out from alongside the barn during this latest and dare I say—final—mission to neaten up this farmyard so that it reflects my chi. It’s taken me nearly seven years to get to this point and yet something tells me the process is likely to continue.

I love my grandparents, however I am now convinced there may be hoarding DNA in my gene pool. (Chances are good though that I rewired the inherency with my land-clearing drive.)

I’ve discovered that digging a garden is a great way to solve the problems of the world, lash out at personal beefs, and fold up head laundry that has been strewn about in discarded, unorganized piles.

During the hours it took me to kick in the shovel, remove the sod, and haul it away, I dealt with the ridiculous price of gasoline, Monsanto’s seed monopoly, Toronto’s mayoral crisis, and last but not least hashed out a plan to repair the road to town, which has slumped into a below-grade donkey trail out here.

In a heightened moment of self-empowered problem-solving, I marched across the yard from the garden to the tool shed to find a pitchfork and upon stepping into the building came face to face with a fat, buck-toothed, ugly groundhog. 

Both alphas were bug-eyed for a moment, surprised and unsure of who was more dangerous. The groundhog’s bullish nature led to me to it too had just finished digging a hole somewhere and had become incensed by the unfixed problems of the world and was in the shed looking for the same pitchfork.

We glared at each other for a moment and then both of us made a beeline for the back corner of the shed where the pitchfork stood. I shouted, “This is my shed, get out!” The groundhog fired back a chortle of teeth-gnashing sounds somewhere around my feet as it scurried under the shelving and out of sight.

I grabbed the pitchfork and did a 180-degree turnabout, expecting to meet the rodent of my worst nightmare standing on its hind legs and holding the “Sawzall.” Instead the loser made a fast dash for the door and was gone in a flash of fuzzy tail.

I now suspect I have an unwelcome guest living under the tool shed. I wish you were here “Dot.”  I need you for that dog versus varmint “Jumpstart to Summer” sideshow.

Shaking my head at the family circus

 “SMH.” 

For those of you who have not yet been sucked into the vortex of cell phone texting and Internet acronyms, the three consonants stand for “Shake My Head.”

The letters also represent an Australian newspaper known as the Sunday Morning Herald, and likely also are a short form for other places or things in the world.

In my neck of the woods SMH is plain and simple. Shake my head. A lot. Sometimes SMH is accompanied by the closing of eyes, the gnashing of teeth, a sigh, a groan, a guffaw, or an expletive uttered both above and below the decibels detected by the human ear, a stomping of feet, and/or a throwing up of hands and arms in a gesture of surrender to the moment at hand.

I’m upgrading from a double to a queen-size bed and decided to mess with my bedroom chi in light of the change. 

I have wasted more time standing in the middle of the room contemplating redesign of the overcrowded space than I care to admit. Given that I only have 120 sq ft to work with, there are only so many options at my disposal. Leave it to me, though, to spend innumerable hours of my spare time fine tooth contemplating every inch. SMH.

Miss “Smartie Pants,” who is home from University for the summer, has suddenly become the expert on counseling me, akin to a reality show about hoarders. “You don’t need a bigger house Mom, you need to get rid of some stuff,” she said, chuckling.

SMH. (The peanut gallery comments came from the one whose heavy suitcase required an airplane of its own to fly it here last month.)

Nonetheless I probably could downsize. Moving my stuff from one room to the other isn’t exactly working.

Every time I put something in the “donate” pile I can hear my brother’s voice of reason whispering to me, “But you might find a use for that.”

Come to think of it, I have a pile of stuff my brother bought for himself at a garage sale in 2007 still stored in my shed. SMH.

As an aside, I did clean a bit of financial house recently when I decided to cancel my term life insurance policy—you know—the one you buy when you’re 25 years old that at the time cost peanuts.

I don’t know where the time went but I do know the monthly insurance payment skyrocketed at a recent renewal term, so I canceled it.

You should have seen the look on two of my offspring’s faces when I told them there was no pot of gold after I kicked the bucket.

“Now what are we supposed to do!” one of them blurted out, as if I was going to vanish into the mystic upon my next breath. Obviously they have forgotten that I am going to live until I’m 110.

I couldn’t help but laugh (followed by SMH) at the honest panic in the response to my tell-all.

I wonder if I should also tell the kids that I’m going to take all my “stuff” with me when I go. 

After all, maybe my brother is right. I might find a use for that.