We all have our little foibles. It's just that some people have more than others. Take this past weekend for instance.

After months of excruciating planning, delays, wedding interruptions, graduation interruptions, and other such nagging interruptions of everyday life it finally happened. Stick and Ball Guy, Cheesehead Craig, Shane of the Greet Machine, and myself finally got together and met face-to-face.

And yes, there was a small parade in our honor.

We dined at the Chipotle Mexican Grill in Hopkins. In typical old man fashion, I arrived first followed by SBG. We talked about the weather, the Twins, honeymoons, and traffic before the apologetic CC and Shane arrived late...as is the fashion with today’s youth. You can't keep old men waiting. We have so many things to do and in a much shorter time that the youngsters, you see.

After stuffing ourselves full of Mexican food, CC took off to meet an old friend. It was then down to the three amigos who headed off to Canterbury Park to bet on the ponies.

In between one of the races, Shane reminded me of a very earlier piece I had written about a neighbor of mine...a Packer fan...that he and Cheesehead Craig had found very humorous. This leads me to the guts of today’s entry.

Now, people who know me say that I am the archetypal image of a married man at home. A calm and placid sort of being who has infinite patience, boundless good humor and who is generally at ease with the world. But as anyone who has ever seen me after the Vikes lose to say, the Packers, there are moments when a calm frame of mind deserts me, and where tempers fray to the point of unraveling.

The reason for this temporary lapse in equilibrium can be attributed to all manner of causes. As I said, a loss to the Packers can reduce my sunny soul to a gibbering wreck; a playoff lose can do the same. But from time to time the spur is simply the activities of the aforementioned Packer neighbor.

Home owners, you see, are as territorial as any one. Within our own patch we can be as happy as a clam, but let someone nearby do something stupid and I turn from easy-going into a malevolent force for retribution. If the source for this aggravation comes from someone directly next to my home, I am likely to find it hard to curb my discontent.

The trouble this weekend was that no two home owners do a job in the same way. Take mowing. Which way to you like your stripes? Or which bit of grass do you cut first, and which last? How long or how short do you cut your grass?

For me, this is like shaving. I always start underneath my left ear. Nothing in the world would induce me to start under my right. Similarly, in the patch of lawn left in my backyard is where I begin the mowing operation, finishing off in the front by going round and round the front garden beds until I disappear into the garage.

I could no more start with the front and end in the back than I could cheer for Brett Favre. Crazy? Yes. Unreasonable? You bet, but if it's all the same to you that's the way it should be done.

Then there is the length at which to cut the grass. I like a deep, thick, lush lawn. I own two dogs so I have to work extra hard at it. To keep it thick, one must cut only a 1/4" off the blade of grass which means you may have to cut two or even three times a week. This also means my grass retain moisture so that when the eventual summer drought happens, my lawn can take the heat pounding down on it. It stays green....which is the one time I'm happy seeing green!

Now take the Packer neighbor. His idea of cutting the lawn means to drop the lawnmower to its absolute lowest setting. Mow those blades to within a millimeter of the soil. Know what happens to grass when you cut it that short? It means you only have to cut it twice....once in the spring and once in the fall because it between IT'S DEAD! It's BURNT TO A FRIGGIN' CRISP YOU MORON!

So, here I sit with a luscious lawn with beautiful gardens next to a brown landscape upon which NASA does Mars rover testing. Even the so-called frozen tundra of Lambeau field looks better than this Cheeser's lawn!

You could be forgiven for assuming, from this little tirade, that I am a hard man to please. But you'd be wrong. I am as reasonable as the next home owner, provided things are done the way I like them. Funny how other people don't always see it that way.

Posted by maasx003 at June 13, 2005 08:27 PM | TrackBack