Mayhem, mowing and men

The Gypsy has been slacking and apologizes for not posting last week. Life got in the way.

The last few weeks have involved, in no particular order of work/life balance (I figure if I’m still alive and vertical, I must be somewhat balanced): five Fourth of July celebrations; a county fair; a kennel club picnic; a family reunion; another county fair; sleeping on my right arm inappropriately and rendering it useless for about 48 hours (don’t laugh – just wait until you hit middle age); Aussie spa day (Banner was dismayed I put the clean on him); the discovery I can pack for a show weekend in less than 30 minutes (looking back, I wouldn’t recommend it);

Also, Banner’s 9^th UDX leg; Tuesday Taco Summit (very important business luncheon and meeting of the minds with former co-workers); another kennel club event; a fun-filled afternoon with the IRS disputing agricultural exemption for heavy road use tax (the IRS erred in OUR favor, yay, I should go buy a lottery ticket); Mother Nature trying to find out at what temperature human beings will spontaneously combust; challenging the record for how many showers I could take in one day (the record stands at 4); another freakin’ county fair and finding time to train Banner in spite of it being hotter than the surface of the sun (neither humans nor Aussies combust at 5:30 a.m., in case you were wondering).

Everything in the above paragraph wrapped itself into a work-not work-home-travel-deadline stressball that had me going six different directions at once and wondering why I didn’t just get a nice relaxing job like defusing bombs in Afghanistan while being shot at by insurgents.

Plus I’m juggling a few on-going writing projects that are bringing in zero dollars but need to be a high priority in spite of their current lackluster financial state, a manuscript proofing project for a friend and damn it – who the $#@! keeps throwing all their dirty clothes in the basement?

Yeah. It's been kinda like this.

Did I mention the printer broke? And the pipe under the kitchen sink did its own special little thing where it comes unhooked and water goes everywhere? And Banner pulled one of his “I’m going to throw up everything I ate since last Thanksgiving” episodes for no apparent reason except that he could.

So there you go. That pretty much covers July in a nutshell. August is going to be much calmer. Probably because I’ll be sitting in a corner, drinking.

But you know what? Those damned ring gates I pounded into the ground last month are still standing. I had to rush outside in a panicked state last week when I saw my husband headed toward them with the lawn mower, though. He waved me off, thinking I’d come to move them, and yelled, “Don’t worry, I’ll mow around them.” I was waving back like I’d just run through a dozen spider webs, yelling, “Look out for the wire!”

He immediately stopped, looked at the mower’s tires, yelled, “They’re fine!” and took off again.

Of course he couldn’t see the strip of woven wire laying atop the grass to block the left side of the center stanchion to keep Banner from swinging wide on the go out. It was green. It’s green for a purpose – so Bann can’t see it either.

For the exactly three of you who have met my husband (he does exist), you may or may not know he views mowing the lawn as a NASCAR-like event during which he attempts to top his own personal best time each week. Given that we have about five acres of lawn to mow, it’s commendable he doesn’t dawdle but holy crap weasel, the man does not see mowing as a relaxing pastime. 

We’ve had so much rain earlier this summer, mowing the grass was a matter of preventing jungle growth and he’s got it down to a calculated science. The mowing, the mower and the lawn are his domain. I do not mow any more. Do not go there. Just don’t.

Enough said.

Having said that, the man has one speed when it comes to mowing: forward. It would be appropriate to insert a comment involving the damning of torpedoes here but I don’t think even that could do it justice.

Really. There are no words.

But I digress. There he was, barreling straight toward something guaranteed to wrap itself around the mower's blade assembly and result in the end of a relatively happy nearly 30-year marriage and the first murder Iowa County has seen in a good 10 years.

I sprinted across the lawn and snatched up the offending wire only moments before disaster struck. As he sped by, I was the recipient of a WTF look that would have dropped a lesser person in their tracks.

Sigh. Marriage. The struggle is real.