Well, I'd have to say the low point of my week was giving an ambulance the bird. This clearly sends a warning signal to me that I must be stressed. But I figured this weekend would help since I'd have some time to myself and could relax.
I figured this before I remembered I had to watch 4 dogs, help a guy move and do some house cleaning. That wasn't too bad, but I decided to add more pain as well. Saturday morning I'm waiting for the phone guy to come out and fix the wires. Some annoying loud humming noise in our lines. He fixed that and I was glad.
Which for early in the morning says something because I'm not a morning person. Especially when I have dogs waking me up at 4am for no reason. Or how about our possessed thermostat that thinks "cool" is 86 degrees. Dammit.
But now I figured I had some time that morning to help my neighbor dig a few holes for his new swingset. This was a nice big, manly wooden construction. He already had that built, now he was looking to just support it in the ground. It's been raining like crazy all month so I figured the ground would be easy.
After 2 minutes of that crap, I remembered the golden rule - digging sucks ass. One of the four holes actually did have easy clay to get through. For those not native to NC, notice I said clay and not soil - we don't have dirt here, just clay and rock. The next hole had a live cable line running through it. The 3rd hole was clear of stuff, but harder clay. The last hole had an entire tree in it, growing up from the center. Fucking roots.
Well, this digging went on for hours. I was using a small handsaw on some of the roots they were so thick. And he was babbling something about setting it in 18-24 inches?! Dammit. Eventually we got all the holes to the 18-20 inch range. Then we stuck the set in. Yep, unlevel in all directions. Dammit. So now I have to brace up each foot while he rechecks. Finally we get close enough. Time for the concrete.
Oh, and looky here, 10 cubic yards of mulch. WTF?! That just got dumped on my driveway and now we have to move that from there to the back of his front yard. More shoveling. Ugh.
Oh yeah, and it was hot. Damn hot. But I promised the dog (Neo) I'd take him to the lake, so I shoved some leftover pizza down my throat and we were off. The lake was actually good. He once again proved he was one of Jerry's Kids and chased the water and kept forgetting how to swim. After a long time of this, the rain that was now coming down and finally the lightning, I drug him out of there. We were both wet, dirty and tired.
Which means bathtime. He hates that, but there you are. Then I showered up, got some more food and prepared to help a friend move.
Luckily it was only furniture and there were other, bigger guys there. This went on for hours. And of course getting from one place to the other, we got lost. So then we played the "Six Degrees from JJ" game to finally get his cell phone number. Some unloading there and back to the house to find out what the dogs had destroyed.
Friends show up for the pre-season game and we grab some dinner. Finally get to relax? No. Get a strange, annoying and mentally taxing phone call at halftime. Won't even go into details. This lasted about an hour though.
Eventually the game ended and so did my resolve. I passed out shortly thereafter.
Why do people "live for the weekends"?
Clay