Finally!! Real Life!!

Yes, that’s me!! In my real life!!

Well, I mean, minus all those people. Just the yard work. That’s my real life.

Yes, I spent 4 hours at it yesterday. And I was already at it this morning for two more hours. But at least the backyard is now done.

It filled ten 30-gallon yard waste bags. And, yes, I’m exhausted. And, yes, I can no longer breathe again, and, yes, I’m thinking I will have the residuals of COVID 19 for the rest of my fucking life. But oh well. I can’t just wait around and let the yard just get utterly insane.

And my new lawn care guy came yesterday!! Yay. The old one is no longer even replying to my texts. So I guess that’s that. But I did manage to find a new guy who lives only a few blocks away, and all he does for a living is grounds maintenance, so he’s not gonna disappear on me. And the lawn looks great!!

And all the neighbors were out last evening, celebrating my beautiful lawn!! They were having cookouts, and smoking reefer, and riding their bikes, and walking their many dogs, and playing on their bouncy trampoliney-type things!! And — well, maybe they were just celebrating the awesome weather last evening, plus it was a Saturday night. Maybe it had nothing at all to do with my grass having finally been cut. But still. My at last normal-looking lawn made me feel incredibly happy last evening, and it was just a beautiful night.

I was upstairs collapsed on my bed during all of it, barely able to breathe, but all the windows were open, and there was a warm breeze, and the sounds of the neighborhood and the birds singing were wafting up through the windows. And I was streaming a really great old movie from 1937 — Think Fast, Mr. Moto, starring the inimitable Peter Lorre. So I really was very happy.

And all the weeds out back by the barn and by the old dead tree are gone now. And all that’s left to do around here is get rid of a small amount of dead leaves around the front porch, but I won’t have anymore yard waste bags until Tuesday, so I’m done for now.

And the porch furniture is all washed down and ready for summer. All that’s left to do is buy the flowers and put them in the flower boxes and get them out on the porches and then summer can begin.

Interestingly enough, though, my barn door is now lying down flat on the ground. It finally completely fell off the (extremely old) rollers. I think, in all honestly, the rollers were from the 1930s or so — really old. Rusted. And after Kevin and I struggled with it on Wednesday, the rollers finally gave way completely. So the incredibly HEAVY barn door, was sort of propped up against the opening when Kevin left here on Wednesday.

Here’s what it used to look like when the rollers still worked. Yesterday morning, I discovered the door had fallen backwards and is now lying flat on the ground. Thank god it’s still on my property and not hanging out in the alley, because I cannot budge it. It weighs a ton!

So I have yet another project that needs a chainsaw and no one to do the job, even if/when I buy the chainsaw. So, rather than sell the house and move away, I’m just going to ignore the whole thing for the time being and hope that my neighbors will just continue to bear with me, as little by little and inch by inch, I try to get this place back in shape.

Okay! A quick bird update!! I’ve got one starling still sitting on her nest in the eaves outside my backdoor, but I have three other nests in various places around my roof where the eggs have hatched and now lots of busy mommies are flying back & forth, trying to keep everybody fed. And the nests that have baby starlings in them have those amazingly eerie sounds coming from them — those sounds that hungry baby starlings make, which sound like they come from another planet or something. They definitely do not “cheep” like other baby birds. But it makes me so happy to have so much life around here.

All righty. Well, the COVID 19 business — I did read how Vitamin D was helping people recover more quickly, so I bought a high dosage Vitamin D supplement the other day and it does seem to be helping. (Doing tons of labor-intensive yard work did not seem to help, however. So, luckily, that’s over for now.) But I cannot tell you how sick and tired I am of all this. Except for the continued breathing issues, I feel totally fine. But the breathing issues are unbelievably annoying. So I’m hopeful that the Vitamin D supplements will finally make it just go away for real. It’s been 2 months now that I’ve been dealing with this damn virus.

And speaking of annoying things — I did finally unfollow the Keanu hashtag on Instagram and my feed hasn’t changed all that much. The only difference is that I no longer get 700 million photos of Keanu all day long. (Even though some of those photos were really nice.) But perhaps, over time, other more interesting things will now have room to make their ways into my feed. We shall see!

And as for non-annoying things! This little village of Crazeysburg is a really nice place to live. It honestly is. And even though the village is tiny, and only about 1300 people live here, and even though we seem to be lost in some long ago time warp (or perhaps because of that), when a house goes up for sale or up for rent now, in a heartbeat, the house is once again occupied. Even during this pandemic, where life, in general, is supposed to stop. A house on my street went up for rent on Thursday and I noticed last evening, that someone was already moving in. It’s kind of incredible, really. Especially since nobody I know has ever even heard of this place…

Other than that — well, I guess that’s it. If I can regain some energy here, I will hopefully get some more editing done on The Guitar Hero Goes Home. If I can’t regain my energy, I guess I’ll just hang out in bed for awhile and stream some more Mr. Moto movies on YouTube. I love those movies. Peter Lorre was such an incredibly watchable actor. And when those run out, I’ll switch over to Bad Seed TeeVee !! (There does seem to be a lot of new content in that stream, btw.)

It is such an amazingly beautiful day here today that whatever I end up doing or not doing, I know I’m going to be really happy.

Thanks for visiting, gang. I hope your Sunday is just as lovely for you, wherever you are in the world. I leave you with my breakfast-listening music from today. Another very old song, and another very favorite song of mine from my wee bonny teenage-girlhood, growing up in Ohio (also known as Bruce Springsteen country).

This song still breaks my heart — it is just so American. But it is nearly 50 years old already. I’m guessing parts of America (certainly Ohio is) are still like this, what this song depicts — especially in the summertime. I listened to it this morning and could not believe how old it already was. Where the fuck did the time go??!!

All righty. Well, I leave you with “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)”, by Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, from their now legendary album, The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle (1973). Enjoy, gang, and have a wonder-filled day!! I love you guys. See ya.

“4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)”

Sandy the fireworks are hailin’
Over Little Eden tonight
Forcin’ a light into all those stony faces
Left stranded on this warm July

Down in the town the circuit’s
Full of switchblade lovers
So fast so shiny so sharp
As the wizards play
Down on Pinball Way
On the boardwalk way past dark

And the boys from the casino dance with their shirts open
Like Latin lovers on the shore
Chasin’ all them silly New York virgins by the score

And Sandy the Aurora is risin’ behind us
Its pier lights our carnival life forever
Oh, love me tonight for I may never
See you again
Hey Sandy girl
Na na baby

Now the greasers
Ah they tramp the streets or get busted
For sleeping on the beach all night
Them boys in their high heels
Ah Sandy their skins are so white

And me I just got tired of hangin’ in them dusty arcades
Bangin’ them pleasure machines
Chasin’ the factory girls underneath the boardwalk
Where they all promise to unsnap their jeans

You know that tilt-a-whirl down on the south beach drag
I got on it last night and my shirt got caught
And they kept me spinnin’
Didn’t think I’d ever get off

Oh Sandy the Aurora is risin’ behind us
Its pier lights our carnival life on the water
Runnin’ underneath the boardwalk oh with the boss’s daughter
I remember Sandy girl
Na na na na na baby

Sandy that waitress I was seeing lost her desire for me
I spoke with her last night
She said she won’t set herself on fire for me anymore

She worked that joint under the boardwalk
She was always the girl you saw bopping down the beach with the radio
The kids say last night she was dressed like a star
In one of them cheap little seaside bars
And I saw her parked with lover boy out on the Kokomo

Did you hear the cops finally busted Madame Marie
For tellin’ fortunes better than they do
For me this boardwalk life’s through
Babe you oughta quit this scene too

Sandy the Aurora’s rising behind us
Its pier lights our carnival life forever
Oh love me tonight and I promise I’ll love you forever

Oh I mean it Sandy girl! Na nah na nah na na baby
Yeah, I promise Sandy girl, sha la la la la baby