MVP of Grass

When the grass we ordered arrived before dawn yesterday, I confess that I was a little bit concerned.  Instead of a truck full of braceros, there was  only the driver and his daughter, a little girl who was too shy to get to know, but I’m guessing was about eleven or twelve years old.

If you have never tried it, let me assure you that laying sod is extremely hard work.  Honey and I put out two pallets in one day almost thirty years ago and it darn near killed us, so the idea of one person laying five pallets on his own had me worried.

The driver was a handsome and well-spoken black man who was obviously in good physical condition.  He assured me that laying five pallets of grass on his own was no problem  at all.

What he failed to mention was that he was the LeBron James of grass, the MVP of sod.  With the precision of a Joe Montana spiral, he pulled the 12X18 pieces out of the wheelbarrow a tossed them into position.  One tap with his foot on each outside edge  to tighten it up, and he was on to the next piece.

True to his word, he had all five pallets installed, the wheelbarrows and empty pallets tied down, and was pulling out of our driveway by nine a.m.  Five pallets of grass in less than three hours, and he was through for the day – off to enjoy a long weekend.

I am always impressed with anyone who does an outstanding job at whatever they do, but I would pay to watch this man lay grass again.  Actually, I guess that is literally true – we asked him to bring us one more pallet next week.

Grass

Got a call this morning at 5:45.  It was the manager of Ameriscape Outdoor telling me that our grass had arrived. 

The fellow who is installing our grass was in the street in front of our place and needed to know where we wanted him to park. 

By the time the sun was up, he already had the first pallet unloaded and installed, so by the time you read this he might be done and gone.

The grass he is installing is Palmetto St. Augustine, and it was harvested yesterday afternoon.  It really looks great, and I have high hopes that it will do well.  Of course, anything would look better than the big bare patch where the pool used to be.

Six Five

Today is a day of remembrance, a day of bittersweet memories. 

Our beloved daughter Shanna would have been 41 today.

A1c and Me

I never was much of a diabetic. 

I was diagnosed several years ago, but my blood sugar never was very far out of the normal range.  I never had to take insulin – just one Metformin tablet a day seemed to keep things under control.

Now, after maintaining A1c levels of around 6 for the past year, my doctor has taken me off Metformin, too. 

For those who aren’t familiar with the A1c test, it measures the sugar percentage in your hemoglobin. The red blood cells that circulate in the body live for about three months before they die. When sugar sticks to these cells, it gives a picture of how much sugar has been around for the preceding three months.  The American Diabetes Association currently recommends an A1c goal of less than 7.0%, while other groups such as the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists recommend a goal of less than 6.5%.

I haven’t been officially declared to be a former diabetic – I’m still supposed to continue monitoring my blood sugar – but it’s a step in the right direction.

Hurricane

Hurricane season officially began yesterday, and the “Experts” are predicting a slow season. The Weather Channel is expecting five hurricanes – one less than average -  while the team at Colorado State forecasts only three. 

For those of you who are breathing a sigh of relief over these predictions, remember that it only takes one to ruin your day – and quite a few days to follow. 

It doesn’t have to be a huge Cat 5 hurricane, either. Hurricane Celia (1970) was tiny in comparison to Hurricane Carla (1961) and it hit Corpus Christi, a less densely populated area than Carla’s path through Houston.  In spite of that, it was the costliest Hurricane on record in Texas until Alicia came along in 1983.

Actually it doesn’t even have to reach Hurricane strength.  The winds of Tropical Storm Allison, the first named storm of the 2001 season, never got higher than 59 mph, but the 40 plus inches of rain it dumped on Houston led to 55 deaths, 22 of the fatalities in Harris County alone.  Alicia also resulted in 95,000 damaged automobiles and trucks, 73,000 damaged residences, 30,000 residents in shelters, and more than $5 billion in property damage.

We can joke about it, but whether you plan to ride it out or head for the hills, it is important to have a Hurricane Survival Plan in place.  If you don’t already, now is the time.

Western Belles

I really enjoy playing on-line slots, and I’ll admit that I have wasted an awful lot of time playing them in the last year or so. 

Lately, I’ve become hooked on a game called Western Belles.  Not because it pays off all that well - it’s actually pretty typical, and like all slot games, if you play long enough you will lose more than you win.  The real appeal of this one is the graphics – the Belles  are some of the sexiest women on the internet.

My first thought when I opened this game was of the pinup girls of World War II. They somehow manage to look both wholesome and alluring, something you seldom see in modern sex symbols. They do show a lot of leg, but there is no nudity.  The closest they come to that is one cutie in a skimpy vest that almost reveals an imaginary nipple. 

These are some healthy women – if they were real, they would easily weigh 20 or 30 lbs more than what is considered ideal today. That is not to say that they are overweight – I think they are nearly perfect examples of the feminine form.

Maybe it’s because they resemble the ideal woman from my formative years, or the soft spot I’ve always had for cowgirls, or maybe I’ve just become a dirty old man, but I think the Western Belles are delightful.

Gone

In spite of disparaging remarks I may have made over the years, I have a great respect for folks who sell stuff for a living. If I had been forced to support myself as a salesman, I might have gone crazy before I starved to death, but either way, I would have been doomed to failure. 

I’ve known that for a long time – I was the only kid in my Boy Scout troop who could not sell a single ticket to the Scout Circus, and those were tax-deductable and only cost a dollar.  So, after weeks of having my old 8-N tractor listed on Craigslist, I was asking myself  “What the Hell was I thinking?”

The frustration of dealing with people I thought were potential customers is beyond belief!  I had several folks make appointments and not show up.  I had one couple drive up from Dickinson in the rain to see it, but the problem was that’s all they wanted to do – see it.  His family had one when he was a kid, and he thought it would be fun to show it to his wife.  She looked for a minute or two then asked me “Is there any good place to eat around here?”

I suspect it was a horse trading ploy, but I had one guy who tried to turn the engine by turning the fan blade.  When that didn’t work, he announced that the engine was obviously frozen up and wasn’t worth fixing.

I was ready to pull the ad – for the second time – when a young man showed up with a U-Haul trailer and cash in hand on Saturday.  We loaded the old trailer up in the rain and he was on his way.

I have a whole greenhouse full of wire sculpture Christmas decorations we don’t put out anymore.  I probably ought to put them on Craigslist, but after the last two months, it ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.