Rambling Road

I guess that last posting of a photo and a pithy statement do not a blog entry make.

Ok I have totally neglected this blog the last few weeks. I guess it is a case of bloggers block or something. I thought that with the end of classes a few weeks ago that I would have more time on my hands, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I keep thinking that the weekend will be the time to collect my thoughts and do an up date, instead the weekends are fuller that the weekdays.

For example last weekend went like this:

Friday night: 3:00 Pick up boy after school. 5:30 bring boy back to school along with Mrs. for school play. Work on makeup crew before show. 7:30; watch school play. 10:00 clean up make room then proceed to JP Licks for ice cream for impromptu cast party 11:30 home again boy to bed and a tall glass of bourbon before bed.

Saturday rise 7:30, throw some clothes into the wash. 9:15 leave for karate class. (Boy skips karate to rest up for school play.) 11:00 class over, stop at CVS for makeup supplies on the way home. 11:30 arrive home prod boy into activity, switch loads of laundry. 12:15 leave house to return to boy’s school for matinee performance of school play. Again work on make up crew before show. 2:00 show time. 4:30 clean up after show and head home. More laundry. 6:00 head to work for benefit show at the theatre. (Mrs. and the boy attend graduation party for friend while I am at work.) 11:30 return home, more laundry, a glass of bourbon and bed.

Sunday: Sleep ‘til 8:30 more laundry, coffee and newspaper ‘til 9:30. Followed by shower and breakfast. Noon, help desk duty until 2:00 while folding laundry. 2:30 to 3:30, domestic chores. 3:30 to 5:30, Mow triangle and backyard, and clean street side planter box to prepare for planting. 5:30, rack a beer. 6:00 attend online meeting. 6:45 assist with dinner preparations. Following dinner at approximately 8:30pm, clean kitchen while Mrs. assists boy finishing his ‘anthology project’. 10:00pm watch a little TV before bed at 11.

I don’t recall seeing any entry for ‘sit back and meditate on the meaning of life’ in there.

So as you can see I have managed to fill the time with out too much trouble at all. It hasn’t been all hustle and bustle, but it seems like it at times. We have managed to put in an expanded plot in the community garden, that has been a lot of work but very satisfying. In the past we have had trouble finding the time to get up to the garden and tend to it. It is now nearly double in size, but the time available for it hasn’t doubled. We share the plot with out neighbors, but like us, they both work and they have two adolescents in the house.

In addition to the community garden there is the triangle across the street to tend to. This is another community space; it is in fact a vacant lot that the neighbors have kept up for the better part of 30 years. That up keep is pretty intermittent, so I have taken it upon myself to at least keep it mowed. Another neighbor own a power more, so once a week of so I traipse over to his place grab the mower. I own a rechargeable weed-eater that I take to the edges, and in an hour or so I can get the place looking pretty good. Later in the summer as the weather warms the neighborhood gathers of the community cook outs. I am looking forward to that and showing off the new grill this year.

Did I mention that I bought a new grill? My old one finally rusted thru on the bottom. It had put in 8 years of service while spending the four seasons out doors. Not bad for a $50 grill huh? I am a bit of a purist, as I prefer a good old charcoal grill. I just think that if you are gonna char a hunk of dead cow; charcoal is best for flavor and carcinogens.

I have managed to fill my time with other things, many of them revolving around the boy’s and his social, academic and athletic life. I posted a picture of the karate exhibition so you are up on that. The following week he got his senior belt in class. He swears that he will be black belt by this time next year. I am not going to hold him to that, but it is great to see him with. Finding a decent charcoal grill however proved to be a challenge. Going into one of the popular big box hardware stores, the majority of what I could find were the console like propane grills with prices starting at over $200 and going to $500 or more. Costco had a set up that was bigger than my kitchen and was priced at $6000! In the charcoal category, All they seemed to have was a flimsy collapsible clamshell affair, or enormous grill smoker combination that seem to be made from a 55 gallon oil drum sawed in half. (I have never been a Webber fan, in that you can’t adjust the height of the grilling surface over the coals.) That hardly seems suitable for my postage stamp back yard. Eventually after many stops at different store Target, Lowe’s, Home Depot, I found one in my neighborhood grocery store. For the princely price of $100, it is a smoker style grill, but a compact version that fits in the yard and can easily be rolled down the street for the neighborhood cookouts. Best of all it had a large cast iron cooking surface the distance between the colas and the grill is adjustable and there is a warming rack. It is quite the little gem. I have managed to season the grill and have done a couple of test runs on it, but I can’t wait to really fire it up and give it a good run.
My new baby; don't phone cameras take great pictures?

The back yard is providing a little satisfaction, it is in the process of bursting forth into height of its bloom. It has passed thru the blue phase, which was the grape hyacinth and the violets, and has moved into the fuchsia stage with the peonies and dianthus bursting forth. The colors are by chance we just planted liked and Mother Nature did the rest. The yard has reached the point that we need to do little to it other than basic maintenance; every available space is filled with annuals. Maybe this is why I have been expending effort on the other gardens, I need more raw materials.
Backyard 4/6/09

Backyard 6/1/09


Amazing the difference that two months makes.


I guess I should mention the school play. As usual the boy chose drama rather than any of the other daily activities for the post class period from 2:45 to 4:30. This time they were performing a trifle of a play called Ax of Murder. It is a murder mystery comedy set in a theatre, and takes place in the course of a rehearsal in front of a live audience. The boy played a stagehand called Phil Jenkins, and is repeatedly called upon to fix the lights after a number of mysterious blackouts. When all is said and done the production values were pretty low but we are talking about a middle school show, so I will with hold judgment there. I do have to say that he boy has an easy relaxed manner of stage, while others are on stage, acting their butts off, he has the ability to walk out onstage and do his business like he belongs there. I over heard one of his teachers say to some one. ‘There is everyone onstage and then there is Padraig’. I have watched him grow and develop over the last 3 years in shows, and I am beginning to think that there is something there. He seems to have the ability to find the ‘moment’. When everyone else onstage is trying to ‘show’ the audience, he just goes out on stage and ‘does’. He is a bit shy by nature, and perhaps it is that quality that causes him to underplay enough to make the moment real. Maybe there is some real talent there, at any rate, he seems to have tapped something that gives him stage presence without having to overact Admittedly I am NOT a unbiased observer, but I have also seen enough acting over the years to know when it feels real. Ok he is only 14 – almost, who know where this will go, but if he is serious about it as a craft and an art, he may be able to make something of it.

Ok Enough! ..

Flower shots from the back yard: