Might As Well Be Walking On The Sun

There is no doubt that I am from Maine. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come from the story I am going to relate. I can’t recall where the Dickens I heard that…oh, yeah! Gonzo the Great.

Anyway, the thing to remember about Maine is that it’s not Florida. The average temperature for August in Maine is 64.3 degrees. The average temperature for August in Florida hovers somewhere between “hot enough to melt lead” and the vaporization point of concrete. And that’s before humidity…

Needless to say, the last thing you want to do at noon on a Saturday is mow your lawn. But the other thing about Florida is that it is wet. In spite of the last couple of years of drought, we are semi-tropical down here. And the rains have returned with a vengeance. So, the window of opportunity for mowing is limited to just after the morning sun has dried out the dew and just before the afternoon torrential downpour. When you’re out of town for a week, and you skip a weekend to re-paint your daughter’s bedroom, the happy lawn of two weeks ago becomes the foot high jungle of today.

It all started out so well…

I set my alarm for 6am (don’t laugh), hoping to be semi-lucid before operating a machine that involves gasoline and high-speed, whirring blades. The alarm went off, and I performed my patented “smack the frigging clock till it shuts up” maneuver. Fortunately for my plans, my cat, China, insisted she be let outside. So, I dragged my carcass out of bed, ready to face the day.

Side note: When I said we spent last weekend painting Pepperkat