friday night

We come home tonight, after dinner out, and I walk the dog around the front garden. It rained briefly earlier, and while the sky was puffy gray, the muffled moon still broke through it as if the clouds were a scrim on a stage muting and separating light. Visible but fuzzy.

Franklin smells at things, and I drift in and out, looking, looking, comparing plants to the last time that I looked at them. It is dark, but I squint, catching the reflection of the porch light and the driveway light on the plants. Is it unexplainable, this looking and comparing? It's what gardeners do.

Fridays are the time in the week when I physically feel like the air is let out of the tires. I hold up fine during the week, but come Friday evening, I have no energy. Since rain was in the forecast, I decided on the drive home from work that I would get the lawnmower out and cut the grass this evening. The rain looked like it would wait.

I resent mowing. It takes too much time. It is time spent on grass and not on my garden beds. Later, in the summer, when it is hot, and the bugs are bad, I will spend time sweating my way across the yard, cutting the grass, the lawnmower's smoke and noise reminding me that this is not a pleasant chore, taking what little energy I have for yard work.

But it is still cool, and the grass right now, high on the fertilizer I put down a few weeks ago, is at that point in spring where it triples in size within three or four days from the last cutting. So I start mowing, thinking that it won't be hanging over my head all weekend. I see the Colonel's wife. They are driving north next week to visit their Irish wolfhound puppies that will eventually come to the Townlet to live. The Colonel has almost finished his project to erect chain linked fence around their backyard.

About the time that I start to finish the front yard, partner comes out to tell me that friends would like to meet us for dinner. I will do the backyard later.

We meet our friends at a Greek restaurant. In Indy, on Friday nights, Greek restaurants have belly dancers. I am glad we missed the show. We eat outside on sidewalk tables, and then drift across the street to the Ben & Jerry's and eat the low-carb ice cream. I forget that it is Friday and enjoy catching up with our friends.