Tuesday this and that

Tuesday, 5:26 pm

By Kate

Jul

03

2007

Today my new clothesline is installed and it works very well. I attached 4 eye bolts to the deck railings and strung clothesline through them so that I ended up with two lines. They are only deck railing height, obviously, but as long as I pull the line tightly, it manages to hold quite a load of wet stuff without sagging in the middle too much. In other words, nothing drags on the deck floor. The laundry dries faster on the lines than it does on the wooden laundry rack. When the laundry was dry, I just took the clothesline down and everything was back to normal. I’m pretty pleased.

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I’m less pleased with having to water the lawn again. I don’t even want to think how many gallons of water I’ve dumped out there today. There has been no rain nor is there any in the forecast for the next two weeks. The grass and my poor trees were gasping for water. I didn’t have a sprinkler, so stopped at Kmart on the way back from taking the lad to work. They had only one style. It’s called a sled base impulse sprinkler. The water dispensing part twirls in a circle, sending out spurts of water. Covers a pretty fair distance and it took some tinkering to keep it from watering the road and the driveway. In the process it drenched me. From head to toe. I’ve effectively had my shower out in the front yard today. I hope the learning curve on this thing is short. Getting a face full of cold water isn’t the most pleasant thing I can think of. I was even moved to invent curious dances in order to hop over the water stream...sort of like a jump rope. Didn’t help much, though. I was still soaked to the bone.

I suppose I’m just going to have to accept the idea of watering the lawn once in a while. I haven’t reached the point where I can just let it all die and not care. The lawn was mighty brown and sad looking this morning, but worse, the baby Redbuds were very wilted. I’ll do just about anything to keep them from curling up their toes. The one that I thought wasn’t going to make it, incidentally, is looking quite robust and healthy now. I have a hunch it will turn into more of a huge bush than a tree, but I can live with that.

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I read on the internet yesterday that the president commuted Scooter Libby’s prison sentence. I’d like to say that I was as outraged as the comments I saw during my stroll through the internet. But I couldn’t muster much outrage. I think that I am out of outrage. The well is dry. It just doesn’t seem to matter what anyone thinks, says, or does. These people will do what they want and nothing seems to be able to stop them. Not that Congress is trying too hard. They don’t pay much attention to us anyway, so I don’t know what it would take to make them DO SOMETHING. What a country this has turned into. Not much enthusiasm for the 4th of July this year.

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Early this morning the military helicopters flew back south. Or southwest-ish. Right over the top of my house at a fairly low level. Very, very loud. So loud that my heart was racing before my eyes were fully opened. So loud that the house shook. I don’t like it when they do that. At least I was awake enough so that I didn’t have to peel myself off the ceiling. I presume that the president and Mr. Putin are back where they belong this afternoon. The skies have been quiet.