Drunkard's Path

I deserve the Wife of the Week Award. I nominate myself, second myself, and accept it on behalf of myself. Why?

I volunteered to cut the grass today since D has a sinus infection.

Our outside to-do list had been written for awhile, just waiting to get done. But it kept warming up, and we always wait for somewhat consistent really cold nighttime November weather to tell us that we really need to close up shop now.

I had already cleaned and put away all the kids' toys. We needed to turn off the outside faucets, pull in the hoses, open the faucets (don't want frozen pipes), put all the outdoor furniture on the patio (to cover with a tarp at some time TBA), and cut the grass one last time.

Given how much D has been drexin' around with this sinus infection, I knew that cutting the grass would only make him that much more pathetic. So I did it.

It took an hour and was quite a workout.

But while I was cutting, it occurred to me that most men would have a conniption over the way I cut grass.

You see, our yard is anything but flat. It is lumpy, humpy and hilly. And I have virtually no upper body strength of which to speak, despite lugging around 26 lbs of G. So I start mowing in one direction (like vertical) and then switch (to diagonal or horizontal) whenever I have to go down a hill, resulting in grass cutting lines that go all over. No one would ever hire me to landscape a golfcourse. And if I can't push the mower up, I pull it backwards. And I hate dodging tree limbs, so I maneuver this way and that to get the grass cut under the tree without losing an eye.

It gets the job done, but it ain't pretty. There is a quilting pattern I've seen my mom do, and which I attempted once, called Drunkard's Path, and I thought that was a most fitting description of my rare ventures in lawn maintenance.