Adventures in Suburbia

So, it's been two weeks since my birthday, and even though I say I don't feel any older, I find myself spending money on fertilizer and weed-killer. I just had two days off in a row (very, very rare for me), and I spent it doing yard-work and getting the pool swim-ready. I remember the days when I would purposely screw up the yard so Dad would do it, and now I don't want my kids to help because they'll fuck it up and I'll just have to do it over.

The pool is a mess. I've never had a pool before. I guess it's normal to uncover 10,000 gallons of swamp water at the beginning of spring. After two days I can finally see how filthy the bottom of the pool is, at least on the shallow end, and it's actually starting to smell like a pool.

The first thing I did when trying to start the filtration system was fail to realize that the jets for pumping the water back into the pool were plugged. In my defense, I couldn't see them through the Great Dismal Swamp. Then, the booster pump was missing a plug, so it flooded my backyard and lowered the water-level too much. I had to run the garden hose in the pool for nearly four hours to raise the water an inch.

The trees in my backyard are a huge pain-in-the-ass. As soon as I scoop everything out of the pool, the wind blows more crap off the trees. I'm going to cut everyone of them down. With scissors if I have to. I hate them.

A duck started coming around and decided the pool would be a good place for a swim. Not much later, she was joined by a male companion, and then another (slut!). I'm pretty sure I witnessed duck-rape today. One of the males tried to get it on today, but she was have none of it. After she freed herself from him, she chased him away, then bitched about it very loudly in the backyard for about an hour. She pisses the cats off. Later on in the evening, both males were back, joined by a second female. The ducks have decided that I'm no threat, so when I go out back, they just swim to the other side of the pool and yell at me. I'm going to hit them with rocks until they stop coming back.

There are people everywhere now that the weather has warmed up (it was 85 today!). They walk together, they walk their dogs, they ride bikes, they push their babies in strollers, and they wave and say hi if you happen to be out in the yard when they pass. Is this what people do? It's okay, I suppose, but if any of those little fuckers on skateboards fails to move out of the street when I'm driving again, I'm just going to run him over.

I've realized that while I hate my job and the business in general, I like being outside and doing yardwork. I'm going to quit soon.

By the way, duck poop floats.