I remember when we bought this swing, Der Bingle and I; it was when we lived in West Chester, Ohio and I was in my mid-40’s. It hung from a tree in our backyard where we would swing our grandson. That was a long time ago. That yard was a huge hill in front, and a narrow level strip right behind the house which turned into a slope and woods. We played croquet out there in back on a modified course which included “Dead Man’s Wicket.” It was on the steepest part of the slope and was right at the woods’ edge. Getting through it could take more strokes than the whole rest of the game required.

The swing is now dirty and in a shed out back, one of my croquet buddies is all the way down in Texas and part of my heart is on that spot where Dead Man’s Wicket stood.

I have been trying to rescue part of the hedge from a grapevine – little did I know when I started that grapevines can be as much like a forest as a hedgerow. I believe I am going to set up a support a bit away from (what is left of) the hedge and let the vines I left have at it.  I’ll tell you one thing: grape vines are sneaky little critters.

I should set up a wreath-making project to recycle all this grapevine, but it reminds me too much of basket-weaving at the funny farm, which is undoubtedly politically incorrect, but never you mind.

I have a band-aid on my little finger from when the pruning saw slipped and I registered an “Ouch” and then no more pain, but did notice red spots on the ground where I was walking. There are superficial cuts on my third and second finger, so this is probably in the running with scissors category and makes me wary of using a chain saw.

Der Bingle had some excitement last night when a Cousin Vinny’s Pizza deliveryman pounded on his door at a quarter to one. It turns out the fellow in the apartment below, B as opposed to Der Bingle’s D, had ordered it and eventually he ran out to prevent it from being hijacked. To go from sleeping to trying to go back to sleep with the lingering aroma of pepperoni is traumatic.

I have downloaded a couple of Kindle Unlimited books and think I will start relaxing and take a break from my walking schedule. It is a little after five; in the winter it would be dark and I know I should be out doing something in the summer’s light, but . . . never you mind.

I have take a certain medicine for 40 years. It was on Wal-Mart’s $4 list and so I didn’t use insurance. Now, Wal-Mart cannot offer it for that price, but rather wanted to charge $183. Why, because the drug manufacturer’s have raised the price – a lot. I am going to cite an article HERE about another drug that has been affected. It is digoxin and has been around since 1785. In the article, you will read how profits soared for the manufacturer and how an 85 year old lady went from spending  $1.15 for a three-month supply to $30 dollars for one month.

Why, it’s almost like getting someone hooked on drugs at corner by the schoolyard.

Yeah, that recitation of all the outdoor work I’ve been doing in the last post . . . and Rose’s comment about taking me to task for my pride? Well, Rose sent me up to Lagrange county to work in the yard there. It was in the 70’s and the humidity was 80%; we have had so much rain that the end effect has been tropical forest with big weird weeds. Rose had me mow all the grass, some places twice because it had grown sooo tall. She had me weedeat and wade into green growth that no doubt included poison ivy; she had me prune and snip branches and all she gave me was a can of bug spray and some bottles of water.  And the past two days have just been starters – she’s sending me back this week, with black mesh to cover some areas, weed killer for others, more spools of weedeater string, clippers, trimmers – you name it.

She’s a taskmaster, that Rose. I saw a least one snake, which may have been a baby which I may have stepped on. There was another possible snake sighting when a long thing fell out of some vines on a tree. Quentin suggested that these may have been babies with a big mother. Oh.

I used the Off Dry insect repellent and so far, I have not seen any bites, nor does any skin seem irritated by a poison, even thought the weedeater was whacking my legs pretty good with debris. We shall see. I will say it goes on dry and you don’t feel like a greased pig the way we did back when I was little and   6-12 was the goo they spread on me.

I did get a scare when I looked down and saw a part of a black tube in the overgrowth; fortunately I was almost done in that area and made myself man up and go back in for a couple of minutes. Then I thought, “Oh, that’s good enough.”  I don’t “man up” too well.

Between Fairborn and the nursing home, not to mention Lagrange, I have not been spending much time with the Kendallville yard. Driving in after dark made it hard to see and the garage is in the back . . . so it went from bad to really bad.  I have pruned, I have mowed, I have edged and trimmed and used weed poison and I have started to thatch. Oh, yeah, grass seed went down, not because it was wise to do so, but because it made me feel psychologically better.  I swept the long driveway. Jeez. I’m just so perfect! Maybe I shouldn’t go that far . . .

NOTE FROM ROSE: We’ll be smacking that smart mouth of hers, don’t worry.

Most of the Kindle books offer you a free sample, which lets you explore totally bland books without paying the $4.99 being asked. Why such authors set a price at $4.99, I have no idea, unless it is to get dedicated friends to buy the book and leave good reviews and just maybe entice someone else to cough up the $4.99. That might be criminal since the customer would then be tempted to bang his/her head against the wall out of frustration. I doubt the person would worry about causing stupidity, seeing that $5 has already been handed over for an ebook of incredible ghastly storytelling, based, I suppose, on six positive reviews. After all, any book worth its salt has the occasional reviewer who will write, “Sucks!” or “Blinded me.”

Now, I am not talking about those books that are not proofread, let alone not edited; I am not talking about those books in which the author believes the story should emerge from dialogue minus any narration; I am talking about something that is grammatically okay, but, Oh God, something that is akin to paint-by-numbers writing. Try to imagine it – it’s more stimulating than looking at these novels. I say novel, because the short, old-fashioned Churchillian word “book” is far too good for them.

Am I in a bad mood? No, I am not. I can’t carry a tune, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like to sing by myself. Just because someone has no flair for words does not mean they shouldn’t write, but, shouldn’t they offer their efforts for “free” and with a warning?

Those words is that post title sum up the past few days. However, I pulled myself together and put on my walking shoes and went out into the 86% humidity – yes, I’m proud of myself, I won’t deny it. My clothes are sticking to me, my hair is dripping sweat and tepid tea tastes so refreshing. It takes a little while to want the iced stuff again. Few things are as pleasurable as getting the job done and, then pacing slowly around with a mouthful of water being sloshed from one cheek to the other before being swallowed, while wiping sweat from your face with your shirt. It just doesn’t get much better than that.

I should carry a ball so I can spike it when I get home. Ah, endorphins, got to love them.

The part of Indiana in which I live is fairly flat, not like the Great Miami River Valley or the Ohio River Valley which include both Dayton and Cincinnati where I have lived.  Those places have hills and winding roads; you go up and you come down – not like a mountain, more like up, down, up again, down again, a bit of a flat stretch then up at a slight but very perceptible grade . . . and back down.  Maybe you come to a creek area with no culvert and you go back; it is easy to get turned around. I experimented with a walking route in Fairborn in our apartment complex. I did this one repeated up and down thing for what looked like a fair stretch of the legs, but it only took 12 minutes, so I did it again – and again, adding detours into cul de sacs and sidewalks out to a main road and back.  That didn’t have me dripping with sweat because I did not push myself, so I walked up another way, almost lost my bearings, got back to my court, walked around it a couple of times and finally went in and drank iced tea on the balcony.

The problem with doing this is daydreaming and knowing the long, long incline on the north boundary of my path is going to have to be repeated. I need to have a psychologically acceptable route; this is not impossible, but with apartment complexes  blending together in a rolling hill area with woods, it is going to take planning. One thing, though: I believe once I get a feel for the area, if I get tired or hurt my foot, I’m pretty certain there is across country (read across grass) back to my starting point. Everything is not unlike a looping river; in one place, I figured I could lie down on the grass and roll down a hill to our building which by sidewalk was some distance away.

Of course, with well tended, manicured green areas, I might be picked up by the local security for grass smashing and derelict behavior. This is where the little old lady act comes in handy. What is disturbing is that I find I don’t have to act the part so much anymore . . .

Well, I’ve been to Fairborn and back – including sitting at a dead stop on I-75 after an accident in a construction zone on the way there, and heavy rain on the way back. Do you know people tend to drive very fast in a mob-like formation after a highway is re-0pened. I went with the flow? Do you know that after a series of accidents in a construction zone, the police are out in force on Monday mornings? But I was okay; I went slow and the summer no-snow GPS brought be back to this small town in Indiana over backroads that shortened the trip. However, when you put yourself in GPS hands, you often have the feeling of just stepping off a cliff and assuming there will be an Indiana Jones type invisible bridge beneath your feet.

Well, this is an impulsive bit of a mess. I got irritated the other day and proclaimed to none other than the person who can remember everything you said and does not hesitate to remind you of it . . . and often mock.

I said, “Lose weight? I’ll show you lose weight.” I went off and weighed myself and came back and blurted, “Twenty pounds off by my birthday.” And my face was all scrunched up in that really pissed off, determined look of death that I have been known to sport on occasion. This may turn out to be a real trial – either I eat very little or I eat crow.