Late Summer Vacation 2011, Part 2

Tuesday

Tuesday afternoon I took my cat Thyme to the vet … after a fifteen-minute chase around the house. Even though I wore thick vinyl kitchen gloves, I have three small wounds to my hands and arms from grabbing Thyme and carrying her to the pet carrier. The rest of the visit was uneventful: Thyme behaved herself when the vet examined her and gave her shots. I also asked for her claws to be clipped.

I had a take-out lunch from the Giant Bar and Grill, which is under new management by another family of Justuses. The menu is much simpler (mostly because it has no advertising on it yet) with fewer food items. I got my usual, cheeseburger with hot cheese, fries and mushrooms. I was hot and sweaty for hours afterwards (making my chase of the cat harder). This has happened after eating the carry-out the past couple of times. I have realized that the problem is the burgers: Digesting them has become a chore for my body to handle. This never happened after eating the cheeseburgers Anna Justus, the previous owner, made because the burgers did not use so much meat. (That was for the double cheeseburgers.) I may have to stop eating there, at least until they diversify their menu. I hate to do that, but the sweats and the high blood sugar (more than 11 mmol/L the morning after eating one of those burgers) are not a good thing for someone at my age.

I decided to burn off that burger that evening by mowing the lawn of my sister the editor. She had been complaining about how high her grass was, and that with all the editing work she had, she did not have time to mow it. I did not quite believe it at first, because my lawn is so brown and stunted from the lack of rain. But when I drove by this afternoon ... yow! So I decided to contribute my time. I got the back yard (bigger than mine) mowed faster than she could, because I do not tire as fast and it was not as hot. Between she and I the lawn was finished within an hour.

Wednesday

I mowed part of my own lawn this morning. It did not really need it, but I needed the exercise.

I was talking with my neighbor Danny, back from Texas and spending all day cleaning his truck (inside and out). He is back from his Texas job for a couple of weeks or so. With some help from him (after asking him where he got the gravel and the landscape fabric for his side of the driveway), I decided to regravel the driveway on my end. I called Nautilus Aggregates for eight tons of driveway gravel (enough for my side) to be delivered tomorrow morning; then went to Big R in Marion for the landscape fabric, which I laid down this evening.

After last winter, where I had found that parking the car in the driveway lets me dig out easier than parking in the basketball court (where I would have to dig out a third of the alleyway), I decided it was a good idea to keep the driveway. And that means regraveling, since much of the driveway has become overgrown. I had sprayed the worst of the driveway with Roundup, but in the end landscape fabric is better, since I know the fabric will be compressed with gravel within a day of it being laid down.