Smoke Gets in my Eyes

Did I mention my landlord is extremely bizarre?

When I went over to his place a few weeks ago to mention I was bringing a new dog home, he kept me in his entranceway talking about the new antique piano he'd just bought.

Like the man needs any more garbage to clutter up his already cluttered back yard, I swear, it looks like a perpetual garage sale that would yield about $5 in total sales.

The man needs to throw stuff out.

Anyway, it was a beautiful day outside, so I debated the merits of raking the front yard to get rid of the soggy old leaves and residual garbage that the neighborhood kids and Wayne so nicely leave scattered around our front yard.

I debated so long and hard, that after playing my 9th game of Solitaire and staring inside the empty cupboard hoping something besides pasta would be discovered, almost 5 hours had passed from the initial thoughts of yardwork.

Bah.. enough procrastinating.

So I hauled my behind outside and stole one of my landlord's rakes.

I forgot how much yardwork sucks!

After raking leaves, garbage, twigs and discarded branches from the very beautiful, albeit very messy, weeping willow out front into neat little piles, I just sort of wanted to climb into bed with a good book and let the wind take care of the rest. Alas, I had come this far and therefore must continue the task and attempt to see it through to entirety.

So out comes the wheelbarrow... Summer tries to help keep me awake and coherent by staging an escape attempt between the wheelbarrow and the gate.. and I start scooping the piles into it.

Ok.. I've got 3 piles picked up so far. This isn't THAT bad..

Oh Lord..

What do I do with all this discarded underbrush now that it's IN the wheelbarrow?

So into the house I go to track down some garbage bags, and realize I REALLY miss living in the country now, as this task could have been much easier by just raking them all into a big pile and setting fire to the lot.

After filling 5 bags, and realizing I still have 5 enormous piles on my front lawn, I take time out for a smoke break.

And then another.

And then.. Oh, the phone.

So an entire hour has now gone by and I still have 5 mostly intact leaf piles on my lawn (well, it was a bit windy).

So I haul the 5 bags to the back to be picked up on whatever day the sanitation department chooses to pick up garbage THIS week, and go back to the mess still in my yard.

Argh.

I heap as much as I can into the wheelbarrow and wheel it into the backyard where I heap discarded wood pieces into the firepit and then dump the whole shebang on top.

Set fire to it, smoke starts billowing and I run into the house to hide from irate neighbours.

Which brings me to the present.. I think I deserve one.