Good afternoon to all of my faithful readers. I’m looking at my cat sleeping and I can’t think of anything that fills my heart with happiness and contentment like seeing a cat curled up and sleeping near me. They trust me, love me and are too busy sleeping to cry for attention or rub themselves against my leg. And I swear, the next time one of them runs under my feet I’m just going to step on them, which will probably kill the both of us.
I was telling my cousin Myrna the other day that I think it’s getting hot now. I don’t think we’ve hit a hundred degrees yet, but it’s pretty close. Besides, it so humid it may as well be a hundred and ten. These are the days you’re glad they invented Shower to Shower. Just walking to the mailbox is enough to make me want to change my clothes. All I can do is stay inside and drink iced tea, with maybe something else in it to make it into an adult beverage. It is Friday, after all.
Can somebody please tell Bobbie Jean that the toilet in her front yard has fallen over and the flowers in it are going to die.
As if I don’t have enough on my plate without having to police the neighbors’ yards as well. It’s a labor of love, though, and somebody’s got to do it. I’ve more or less given up on ever winning the Garden Club’s Yard of the Month. I have a nice yard, but doing all of that landscaping is a lot of work and I just don’t have the time or fortitude for it. I admire those who do, though. I just love walking around town (or driving during the most horrific of the summer heat) and looking at the pretty yards with all the flower beds and statues. It just makes me happy to live in a small town.
But, this heat has got to go. By August last year I had lost a red oak tree because I didn’t have a hose long enough to soak it. About ten years ago one of our elm trees fell. It just gave up, called it a day and fell on our new pickup truck. Never mind that there was a heap-of-junk pickup sitting not two feet away that it could have fallen on. No, it had to put a major dent in the tailgate and cab of the good truck. And, the elm wasn’t even dead. We had green leaves in the bed of the truck. I had told my cousin Jackson to hire somebody to trim these trees, but he said they didn’t need it. What does he know? If I was counting on him knowing what he was doing I would have had him trim the trees himself. These men don’t listen to anything we say. I don’t know how his wife puts up with him, but that’s her problem.
I shouldn’t say that, she’s as sweet as she can be. She just chose to marry a hammerhead. He’s a good man, though. There’s almost nothing he wouldn’t do for me—except arrange to have my trees trimmed, apparently. He always helped us look after Granny, and he kept her yard mowed. He always comes around to change the filters in my house and he did find somebody to mow my lawn, so I shouldn’t complain too much.
Losing that elm tree sure showed me how much good they do, though. I could barely keep the house below eighty degrees inside after the elm fell. I had to have Jackson hire somebody to come redo the insulation in the attic. And I’ll tell you what, I didn’t let him squirrel out of it that time. After helping me clean that tree off of my truck I don’t think he dared argue with me about anything for two years.
I think i might just go sit on the front porch like we used to do before central air. We’d all sit on the porch, fan ourselves and drink tea. It seemed simpler then. Before air conditioning, it was cooler on the covered porch than it was in the house, so that’s where we’d be. Back then we didn’t need neighborhood watch organizations either; we just had neighbors who watched. It may seem a little nosy now, but back in the day if a stranger came up to my house when I was shopping, I’d know about it when I got home. Now the police have to come around and train people how to look out for each other, and put up signs with a shadowy figure in a hat and trench coat. Nobody’s going to walk around in a coat and hat in this heat, but they didn’t ask me. Anyway, I always look out and see my neighbor sitting on her porch and it makes me homesick. And really, in the shade it’s not that hot. You just have to get used to it.
I’ll talk with you later. Maybe I’ll get out onto the porch before the neighbors up the road ride by on their horses. I caught one of them texting and riding once, and I almost called their mama. But, the horse knew what he was doing, so no harm done.
Goodbye, and stay cool.