“Remoted” – Day 417 (Friday)

The rain earlier this week resulted in an abundance of growth of the grass and faux grass. It was time to pull out the mower and get busy. Mental energy was invested during the day in an attempt to psych myself up to mow after work. The main argument in the “do it today” column was the general moisture level of the grass in the mornings and the difficulty with mowing wet grass.

After work and supper, I dragged myself outside to the shed and the lawn mower. I added gas, pumped the red button three times, maybe four, and pulled the cord that threatens to dislocate my shoulder every time. Nothing happened. The button pushing and cord pulling were repeated several times with the same absence of result. The cord is always hard to pull, and my deeply set pandemic laziness has me with the upper body strength of an overcooked noodle so it really isn’t a big surprise. It was decision time – be a quitter and face a bigger problem in another day or two, or drag out the old-timey push mower.

The adorable neighbor dogs, Carlos and Harley, were romping in their yard, so I visited them for a moment before returning to the mowing dilemma. The push mower was rolled out for duty. As I pushed along the fence line, Carlos and Harley ran along on the other side of the fence. They would tumble over each other, because the pace was pretty slow with the combined thick growth and crappy mower on my side of the fence. There was more back and forth vacuuming motion happening than steady forward motion. 

Worst first mow ever. 

The mowing was hard. The dense clumps halt the mower, which usually results in an abrupt handle strike to the abdomen when the force of my push meets the blunt stopping power of the greenery. Yard work is a full contact sport at The BungaLowell, and there are possibly some freshly bruised internal organs to prove it.

Despite the effort of 45 minutes and internal injuries, the dreaded first mow of the back yard is not finished. It was too much. The weedy stuff grows thick and full mower width rows were not possible. Progress occurred in strips of a few inches at a time and a ragged path marks the perimeter. Maybe tomorrow the inner field can be completed. Things to look forward to in a glamourous life.

“Remoted” – Day 416 (Thursday)

Since the day she was born, I have known May 6 to be my niece’s birthday. It was not until recently while doing genealogy research that I was aware it was also the birthday of Grandpa Simonds, born in 1906. Dad always referred to my Grandpa / his father, as “The Old Man.” 

We moved to the Simonds family home and lived upstairs from Grandpa after Grandma Olive died when I was four years old. As I understand it now, the plan was that my parents would help take care of my cousin who was being raised by Grandma Olive and The Old Man.

Grandpa and Grandma Simonds with some of my cousins.

I don’t remember much about Grandpa. He was tall and lanky and was a twin. He had a dog named Tippy. He wore plaid shirts and had hearing aids that never seemed to be turned up correctly, requiring lots of loud talking and repeating. He would flip his dentures in his mouth to both horrify and fascinate us kids and we would squeal when he did it. He liked to fish and would harvest night crawlers in the yard with a flashlight at night. Through family research I learned that Grandpa made the newspaper in 1949 for catching a 24-inch, 3.75 pound pickerel in Westminster. 

From the five-plus years we lived upstairs from Grandpa, there is just one specific memory of him from when I was in kindergarten or first grade. In those days, the public school bus didn’t provide curb service at each kid’s driveway and blow the horn until the kid finally emerged from the house. Kids congregated at an assigned bus stop, and if you weren’t there when the bus arrived, you were out of luck. My bus stop was a walk down our dead-end street and one block over to the corner of Main and School Streets in front of Quality Bakery. One morning, I arrived at the bus stop and there were no other kids there. Panic struck, and I ran home crying because I had missed the bus. Grandpa took me by my little hand and walked me back to the bus stop, and when we got there, other kids had arrived. I had just never been the first kid there before,

Most of the years living at Grandpa’s house contain only vague and isolated memories of him. Mom always bought Grandpa a new plaid shirt for Father’s Day and Christmas, and probably his birthday. I remember him driving a station wagon. When my sister was a toddler, she managed to get down the very steep flight of stairs, out the front door, and was walking down our street towards Main Street. Grandpa spotted her, ran outside, and scooped her up before she made it to the busy street.

For whatever reasons, after we moved from Grandpa’s house when I was ten, we didn’t see him much. Decades later, he moved to Virginia, where he died in January, 1998. As I recall it, it was after being found unconscious on the ice while ice fishing, but this could be inaccurate and I can’t find any information online.

“Remoted” – Day 415 (Wednesday)

Today, I awoke to the sounds of rain and feeling a million times better than yesterday. On the health front anyway. The psychic pendulum that swings between a joyous “oh hooray, another day!” and a deflated “oh crap, another day,” was at a solidly centered and neutral “oh.” The day progressed as just another monotonous day in not-exactly-paradise.

Deeper Life Church,
Clarksville, TN - May 5, 2010

While today was light years from exciting, it beats this date in 2010. Back then, I lived in Tennessee, we had been flooded, and Cinco de Mayo was clearly Sink-o de Mayo. For a couple days, the few bridges over the two rivers were out and there was no easy way to get to chunks of the city. Crazy times. When I could finally get to the office where I worked, which was two blocks away from the river before the flood, it was nearly waterfront property on the Cumberland River after the flood waters had risen. River water halfway up the doors added new meaning to the Deeper Life Church.

Down the street from my house
 in Tennessee, May 3, 2010

My house, which sat atop a hill across town and closer to the Red River, stayed dry, but houses at the bottom of my street, just a quarter-mile away, were underwater in the most literal sense.

Our recent rainy weather, and pretty much any time it rains, has me skittish, checking the basement regularly, and thanking it for remaining mostly dry. Since I’ve been back in Massachusetts, I don’t think we’ve seen rains like Tennessee in 2010, but my Lowell basement has definitely seen a lot more water than my Tennessee basement saw with the flood. The worst since I’ve been here was less than an inch on most of the floor, but during the Lowell floods in May, 2006 and April 2007, the basement of my current house was an indoor pool. As a result, I get a little antsy when it rains.

“Remoted” – Day 414 (Tuesday)

Today was painful. Yesterday’s vaccine kicked my butt. Getting out of bed this morning was a brutal process, and had the dogs not needed to go outside and eat, there would have been no getting up. I woke up exhausted. There was dizziness, and all-over achiness. The skin on my back felt hypersensitive, which is the symptom that signals I am sick. Ugh. I was cold and hot at the same time.

Today's life raft - couch and pillow.

The Bank’s Annual Meeting was this morning, and during the Internet broadcast, I got so dizzy I laid on the floor, using a dog bed for a pillow. After two hours of work, I caved and went to lay down. In my imagination, I would lay down for 30 to 60 minutes and go back to work. Instead, four hours later, I woke up. Emails were checked, and it was back to bed. Or more accurately, the couch, due to its proximity to the door for when the dogs needed out. The dogs were my loyal companions, matching my energy level and sleeping on the couch with me.

After sleeping all day, the only thing I really want to do is go to bed. Night night.

“Remoted” – Day 413 (Monday)

Monday. Another day in the work level of the Birth, School, Work, Death flow. There were meetings, edits, planning stuff. 

Little backyard bunny.

The very little brown backyard bunny with cure little ears made an appearance outside the shed where the groundhogs lived last summer. It stayed close to the ramp which is excellent camouflage as they are very nearly the same color, sniffed the air, ate some nearby greens and then darted under the ramp and back under the shed. A larger bunny has been seen several times in the front yard and dashing under the fence and across the shared driveway into the neighbor’s yard. 

A groundhog was spotted several days last week on the embankment at the end of the street. when the storm door opens to let out the dogs, it waddle-scurries up the hill. Maybe it is waiting for the sublet to the bunnies to expire before returning to the burrow under the shed, but that is just this human’s guess.

Between the plants and the critters, nature is waking up all around The BungaLowell and it’s fun to see. Nearby homes have had flowering trees and azaleas and pots of cheery yellow flowers. Last week's winds resulted in pink and white and yellow petals scattered all over the driveways like confetti and it was quite festive mixed in amongst the cigarette butts and random windblown trash bits.

Today was my second Moderna shot, which required an afternoon drive on a lovely, sunny day with the recently discovered non-functional automobile A/C. It appears there is another A/C service on the horizon. Dolly Parton donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center which worked with Moderna on the vaccine development, so I’m pretty sure that as a result of this Dolly connection, my rendition of “Jolene” will be immediately improved. It makes sense. Right?

“Remoted” – Day 412 (Sunday)

Lilac!

Moose let us sleep until 7:20 this morning. It was restful and refreshing, but it also felt like the morning was half over when we got up. During the day, it was the usual solitary stuff – suspenseful and disturbing movies, comedy shows, and laundry and other household tasks woven in.

The weather pendulum has swung and temperatures were in the 70s again. The powerful wind died down to a tolerable breeze. The pleasant conditions allowed for the trimming of the half-dozen random faux grass clumps in the backyard, which had grown to nearly a foot tall with the recent rain. The lawn mower has trouble dealing with them when they are that tall, so the big giant yard scissors were used. There is most certainly a proper yard tool name for them, but I don’t know what it is. What matters is knowing what can be done with them. The clippings from the big clumps were gathered in the yard waste barrel for pickup tomorrow.

Transplanted bleeding heart.

The plants were visited, which can take about an entire minute if done at a casual pace. The lilacs are making great progress in the approach to their first flowering. The bleeding heart plant out front is huge again, even after being cut back last month, and four of the transplants from the big plant are doing well and ready to flower.  

The lilies of the valley are popping up, creeping beyond the boundaries of the flower bed, and the rhododendron has lots of buds because last year it was trimmed back correctly. So far, the violets are largely MIA, but it’s likely they’ll be along soon. The dandelions are sprouting and are left for the bees. Pansies were bought a couple weeks ago, but haven’t been planted in the yard yet. Maybe in a couple weeks. A flower pot from last summer that wintered in the enclosed porch is sprouting new mint plants which was a surprise. Last summer’s mint was successfully rooted from a bunch of cut mint in a  Whole Foods grocery order. 

“Remoted” – Day 411 (Saturday)

Here is the 4-1-1 on day 411 of remoted life. And that, for any younglings in the audience, was the number to call for “Information,” back in the prehistoric days before the internet and Google. It was possible to get the time, temperature, someone’s phone number (as long as it wasn’t unlisted), or maybe even a brief conversation.

This morning, while opening the kitchen curtains in the window over the sink, the outdoor rug from the deck was spotted in the middle of the back yard. The crazy wind had blown it, and the chairs that had been set upon it, clear off the deck and into the yard. They were retrieved and replaced on the deck, and within an hour, one of the chairs had again blown into the yard. Those poor deck chairs are going to be beaten to crap in no time.

Anyway. There was a loose and tentative plan for this morning to maybe meet Mom to attend the flea market at the Finnish club in Fitchburg. The ongoing wind (and life in general) is sucking the life out of me, and Mom and I share an appreciation for having options for activities but not necessarily acting on them. This meant that the cancellation option was exercised, for the maybe going plan. There was still an errand on my day, and if I hadn’t committed to it, it would likely have been skipped.

A few days ago, someone posted in a Facebook group that they had found in their walls several issues of Raivaaja, the Finnish language newspaper that was published in Fitchburg from 1905 to 2009. Instead of just being chucked into the trash, the papers were offered to anyone who wanted them and I spoke up. If nothing else, I could try and practice my Duolingo Finnish lessons with reading the paper. 

Raivaaja = "Pioneer"

There were a couple text messages in recent days to confirm the pickup, and this morning to firm up the time.  This evening, the newspapers were removed from the brown paper shopping sack labeled “Newspapers.” The bag had been hung on the front door of the pickup site, a small red house at the end of a very long street that ended in a dead end. The papers are from May 3, 4, 5, 8, and 12 of 1945. They had been rolled, probably to stuff them in the space in the wall, and a couple seem to have a clean hole through them, likely from a nail. Hopefully, they will soon flatten out enough to handle.  

Beyond drinking coffee, feeding myself, and fetching the papers, the rest of the day revolved around the Xfinity “Watchathon,” clearly designed to showcase the many additional cost subscription channels. It’s been going on since Tuesday, but I didn’t know about it until Friday, and Acorn, the channel with British shows is in the free Watchathon. There are shows to see and time is short, because this free viewing gig ends on Monday.