Saturday, April 12, 2014

The planned activities for this day

Dear diary . . .  No, I guess one should only pen, and thereby immortalize them, after having conducted the activities - lest one should fail. As a precautionary measure, I will instead announce my intent!

At 9:00 am, I will, yet again, be outstanding in my field. Well, it is not MY field - but rather, it belongs to one of the local schools. I shall be officiating a pair of youth soccer (that's what the Yanks call 'football'*) matches.

* In their 'football', not too much use is made of the feet to propel the ball - far less even than in rugby football. At least in the latter, virtually anybody on the field (except the referee of course) may (and is usually adept at it) kick the ball - in some manner or other. In the Yanks' version though, it seemingly requires a specialist to undertake the orchestrated (VERY little in their version is spontaneous) act of kicking the bloody ball.

Pardon that digression - it is one of my favorite narration ploys; now back to the plans for the day:

Not wishing to tempt fate, but I must note that it was during such an activity - officiating, not kicking - 14 years, 1 month, and 9 days ago - that I suffered a heart attack. I thought I was having indigestion from a banana sandwich I had eaten earlier in the day. [No-one that I informed of my self diagnosis had ever heard of (much less could they envisage) what a banana sandwich is. Seems fairly straight forward to me - if you know what a sandwich is and what a banana is!] That was also the last time I smoked a cigarette - never had the 'urge' since - and yet am not 'bothered' by smell of the things - only by the sight of their discarded remains. Why, oh why must people flick those damned things onto my lawn, driveway and paths? [Hint to relatives and visitors alike, who may visit or pass my abode].

Second digression now over.

So - IF I survive 'the Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune', by noon, or just thereafter, I will head off to my daughter's house to undertake a little 'yard-work'. She has a patch - about 3 feet by 12 feet - of ground that is currently occupied by one prickly rose bush, a lot of 'icky' dirt, a couple of 'child-made' puddles and is surrounded by a dozen or so lop-sided ornamental stones. The plan is remove all said offensive articles, level the soil and install a more appealing surface - sod. The latter task, including the acquisition of said pieces of sod, I shall leave for my son-in-law to enjoy - tomorrow. Today's manual labor will be a joint effort by my wife and I. I shall be making a great effort during the process to ensure that she carefully places the stones into the wheel-barrow, transports them safely to another part of the yard and that she adequately levels the soil after digging out the rose bush. After all, one of us has to be wary of the exertions of that day 14 years, 1 month . . . !

I think I'll wait until next weekend before suggesting to my wife and we go look at our other daughter's lawn - it needs a LOT of raking to remove the thatch - and I'll be 7 days older and will have celebrated another birthday by then - but who is counting, eh?

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