Mulched

I’m a firm believer in paying for what life sends you so I knew a hefty bill would come due based on the extraordinarily excellent weekend in Portsmouth. We did get our last shots in yesterday morning as a truly spectacular spring day dawned in the port city. Without the benefit of my trusty Alka Seltzer the morning was not being all it could be until I walked outside and truly felt the final death of the winter from hell. We happened into my excellent boss as we walked through the hotel lobby and he and his wife joined us for breakfast back at the Friendly Toast.

The Toast must be really friendly because it was even more packed on this bright Sunday morning than we experienced the day before. My son filled in the history of the Toast for us as the go to place for he and his gang of friends after late night Portsmouth carousing. Apparently that tradition is alive and well as someone had “gifted” the next door store with two fairly remarkable technicolor yawns.

Inside the Friendly Toast

Bidding a dejected farewell to Portsmouth and all the fun encountered while there we returned home to find the driveway dominated by a huge pile of mulch. This was pre-arranged for the annual festival at our house known as the “spreading of the mulch”. My wife’s vast and ever increasing gardens have a voracious appetite for the stuff and it is my sad duty each year to christen them with a new covering of mulch.

So This Was Waiting For Me at Home

My wife threw a serious breaking pitch this year by declaring that all the old mulch had to be removed before I started spreading the new stuff. While I believed this to be patently unfair I’m not allowed to contradict she of the green thumb about anything garden related (and I had heard this should be done). One of the joys of getting older is the almost immediate pain even simple chores like raking up some aged mulch create.  At least when I finished that onerous task and transported the remnants to the back wood line I faced the unenviable task of repeated loading of my trusty lawn tractor trailer with several hundred shovel fulls.

It was however such a gorgeous day outside and after our winter of severe discontent it was almost liberating to be able to spend the entire day working comfortably (well semi-comfortably) in the fresh air. Even with old mulch removal operations I was able to reduce the pile almost by half and hope to kill it off tonight if the weather holds. Working until sunset meant a very late dinner but this worked out well for another reason – the imminent arrival of the Maine Musquetera and her family.

End of the Day Reduction

They were returning north after retrieving their daughter who completed her freshman year in a Pennsylvania college for which our house serves as a readymade way house. Any opportunity to spend time with these people is welcome, even with a severely depleted back after my mulching experience. They were late in arriving so my wife didn’t even fire up the grill until well after dark but the wait was worth it.

Great Late Night Dinner Companions

My wife and the musquetera were soon latched on to each other for one of their patented non-stop conversations that didn’t end until the wee hours of this morning. Her husband joined me to watch my weekly addiction to Game of Thrones. He’d never seen the show so I was pausing and trying to explain who everybody was. So this gal is the queen who bore several children with her twin brother who lost his hand while the midget is probably the best character in the whole series, meanwhile this other guy is the bastard son of the main family who’s guarding this mile high ice wall. After a while he simply said, very wisely, “Kind of complicated isn’t it”. A more understated description is impossible to conceive. Their presence went a long way in lifting the day’s labor from an aching body and spirit.

We're Not In Paris Anymore

I caught the news today that the terrorists learned yesterday that it’s an entirely different prospect attacking cartoonists in Texas than in Paris. The heavily armed idiots managed to wound a school security guard in the ankle before they were hammered by Texas’ finest. It looks like they made it a whole four to five feet from their car before they were sent to pay for their sins. Nice to see some police ammo productively spent, well done Texas. 

Okay, Maybe Seven Feet From Their Car