Hoppy Graduation

The weekend upon us, I slept until 7:30am – my typical weekend rise time. I was ready & eager to begin my Saturday, and hopeful for more nice weather. At first glance, however, it didn’t look so pretty outdoors. The skies were overcast and gray.

I prepped a pot of coffee, exercised, then soon headed out the door with Ykraps. Man, was it sticky! The air was thick, wet and warm, like a wet blanket. And when I checked the actual air temperature I learned that it was 75 degrees with 80% humidity. Again, very sultry. It is summer. Let it be so.

I had about 2 hours to myself before Mindy woke up. I coffee’d, blogged, and surfed the internet. At first, I thought that I might get my run in before 9:00am but got wrapped up in my writing. It was flowing. I didn’t want to stop. Once Mindy was up I spent time with her. This was our first day of nine straight without kids. We spent some time on the deck admiring the yard’s beauty. The only thing that could’ve made it more appealing would’ve been blue skies and sunshine. It was still cloudy, although one could see the dim solar sphere through the thin, gray cloud cover. I took a few pictures before going back inside to scope out the radar. I wanted to check the radar after seeing really dark clouds in the western sky moving our way.

The radar looked bleak. There was a fairly large storm system hovering just west of Dayton stretching back behind Indianapolis. It was moving our way and had lots of red & orange. Heavy rain looked like a sure bet. I was somewhat troubled and/or conflicted. On one hand, it was nice to approach the morning so casually, but on the other hand, I felt that I might’ve squandered an opportunity to get some things done around the yard before the rain. Most notably, I wanted to have fertilizer down before the rain. But before I could realistically do that, I needed to cut the lawn. Having not yet run, that now seemed impossible.

Thinking I had only about 30 minutes before the rains arrived, I hurry scurried into my running uniform and hit the streets. My run went well, and for the first time in maybe 6 or 7 weeks, there wasn’t even a hint of pain in my ass. It felt terrific. I was tempted to go four miles but chose instead to stick with my plan, which was to hold off until tomorrow. Probably the smartest idea. My gait was uninhibited and very high kneed. Boy, was I pleased!

I shared the good news with Mindy upon my return. There must’ve been 50 people out cutting their lawns while I ran. They most likely knew what I knew. Big rain a comin’. Still belly aching about the approaching rain, I checked the radar once more. Oddly, the rain hadn’t seemed to move much at all, yet it still looked like a sure bet. I even commented to Mindy how bad I felt for neighbor Pat, who’d be hosting a graduation party in his yard later in the afternoon. Mindy agreed that I should hurry out and begin cutting the lawn. I wasted little time making that a reality. She also remembered me asking for lemon poppyseed muffins. She asked if that was still so. It was. She asked that I lift the heavy the KitchenAid mixer from the cabinet before heading out as well. It wasn’t for the muffins, but instead for her mother’s birthday cake.

Because of the weather, I skipped wacking and edging and went straight for the push mower. I cut in all the tight spots and slopes in a hurry. Next, I got out the tractor and cut the rest. I was truly surprised that it hadn’t yet rained. By then, my muffins were ready. And boy were they delicious. Mindy made them very large by design. And these were the kind with lemon icing drizzled over top. Yummy!

After woofing down a muffin, I headed back out to get fertilizer down. The sky was still cloudy but looked no worse for the wear. Hmmm? It took me about 20 minutes to fertilize. I felt a sense of accomplishment afterwards, having defied the almost certain storm. Mindy asked that I come in and look at the cake she just completed for her mother. She did a masterful job decorating it, employing her Big Bear bakery skills from back in her college days. It looked like a store bought cake. Nice job, Princess!

Once again, I glanced at the radar amazed that it hadn’t yet begun to rain. Miraculously, the rain now looked to be hitting a wall between Columbus and Dayton. While the massive body of moisture was still trekking westward. It seemed to be drawing back at its most eastern edge. I can say here that I’ve never witnessed such a thing. Very freaky! Shoot, now I even had time to wack and edge!

Meanwhile, the day was slippin’ by. It was already afternoon. More and more it was looking like the once imminent storm was gonna pass us by. And while we really could’ve used the rain, especially given the oppressive heat said to be on the way, I was happy for the backyard party type weather instead.

Mindy and I spent the next hour or two addressing some inside chores. While she vacuumed the downstairs, I began assessing what it will take to get our plasma TV hung and attached to our surround sound system. I moved the new TV stand roughly into place to get a feel for how it will look. And in case I haven’t mentioned, the new stand won’t actually hold the TV, but instead will house all of the accompanying components. It’s going to take some doing. I’ll have to relocate the CATV and speaker wires, which require fishing the insulated wall, and then pretty much do the same thing for the plasma TV’s big bundle of wires. The idea being not see any exposed wires. Plus, there’s the issue of hiding the sub woofer, which now rests behind an armoire that’ll be no more.

I never intended to do more than just eyeball things today. Come 2pm I headed up to the shower to get ready for the graduation party. Mindy & I loaded a cooler then walked to neighbor Pat & Lisa’s for Jake & Max’s graduation party. It was almost exclusively family members, Mindy & I being the lone exceptions. There were plenty of good eats and a lot of friendly faces. We had a really nice time. We stayed until 6pm. We had plans to attend a keg tapping party at Jeremy & Courtney’s in Grandview. We walked home to attend to Ykraps and then headed off for Grandview.

It was a lovely evening, and the threat of rain had all but ended. The sky was now mostly clear with an occasional stiff breeze blowing through. Really quite nice. We hadn’t been to Jeremy & Courtney’s since Labor Day. Bob & Mary Ann were there too. They rode their mountain bikes over, but their just a handful of blocks to the east. As I understood it, this marked the first time that Jeremy brewed with raw grain (hops). Times past, he’s bought it in concentrate form. Over time, he’s taken the process more granular. Like a lot of us, he’s a hop head. So naturally, he brewed an IPA. This was a rather light IPA but still very flavorful, with many of the qualities I crave in an IPA – hoppy, floral, with grapefruit overtones. Great job, Jeremy! In addition to the beer, Jeremy grilled some Omaha burgers. They were delicious too. Later, while we were all out front relaxing, Lee showed up. He’s an ex-server/bartender from Barley’s. We all consider him a close friend. He up and quit about 6 months ago after a squabble over his schedule/assignment. We like him quite a bit. He always took good care of us. In fact, I took Lee to the last Viking Bengals game the day after I met Mindy.

We hung with our friends until about 11pm. We all departed at the same time. Mindy drove home just to be safe. We pretty much went straight to bed. Both of us were beat.