Busy Weekend

My, what a hectic two days. And we didn't even really go anywhere!

We decided, along with several of our neighbors independently, that Saturday was leaf day. Our lawns were covered with leaves, the hardware store was having a rake sale ($4.99 a rake!), and the day was clear (though the sky did threaten a bit later). So D. and I went out and had at it with rakes, and our neighbors to the west and across the street were out there with the leaf blowers. I can't say that the leaf blowing was any faster than hand-raking -- especially when it came to transporting large quantities of leafs using a moving pad -- but it likely was not as tiring. My forearms are still aching, aching in a way that is uncomfortably close to the way they felt when I had a brief bout with carpal tunnel syndrome in grad school. Still, I liked watching the piles of leaves get big, and the smell of the greenery underneath as it was scratched by the rakes, and the astringent vegetable scent of the leaves themselves.

What was also cool was that today the leaf-sucker truck came by and slurped up the piles of leaves along the road. SO fun to watch! (And very satisfying.)

Our adjoining neighbor's father must have felt somewhat sorry for us raking leaves the hard way, because he insisted on leaf-blowing the part of our yard that runs into his son's. It did save us some work, so we invited him in for tea, and ended up hearing much of his life story, his philosophy on writing, and I ended up buying one of his novels for my father. (I don't know how good it is, but it's in a genre he likes, and we had an interesting afternoon out of the experience.) It seemed to be my day for people to spill out their life stories to me; earlier a woman in the craft store found herself telling me about her stroke, and her pregnancy, and about how her doctor has told her to avoid stress, and that's why she no longer knits but crochets. I am coming to wonder, as this has happened a lot here, whether it's something about the people of Small Town, or of Red State (since the father isn't from Small Town), or whether I've finally inherited my mother's "listening face." (This is a bit of a family joke, stemming from the fact that everywhere my mother goes, someone ends up telling her their life story, completely unprovoked for the most part.) Perhaps it is a combination of all of the above.

After the leaf-raking I rewarded myself by going to South City (poor D. had to stay home and grade papers) to buy more Japanese books, get a new headlamp, and buy a present for my nephew. I also picked up some carry-out Thai for dinner (so D. wasn't completely deprived). We finished off the day with a few episodes of the Muppet Show. (I love the muppet chickens!)

Then that night a HUGE wind came in, and I bet you can guess what happened. Oh, the pain of new leaves on the newly-raked lawn, plus the additional pain of second-hand leaves (although that pain was well spread around; the only people who got off easy were the ones on the windward side of the block, with no trees or neighbors upwind of them). (At least the bulk of the piles remained in place for the leaf-sucker truck.) The wind also ripped a branch off the neighbor's tree, which make a weird crunchy crashing sound that sent us outside to see what had happened (this was about 1am). Luckily it was not an enormous branch, and even more luckily it managed to avoid their house, our house, the other trees, and any wires. There was also much thunder and lightning throughout the night -- such excitement! -- and it dumped about a centimeter of rain on us (to go by my spankin' new rain gauge).

Yesterday was quieter, though still busy. I went for the Sunday papers (our town is too small for home delivery of the NYT, to D's quiet disappointment), shellacked a couple of pine needle baskets, and studied Japanese until my eyeballs fell out. (Luckily, they soon returned.) I'm continuing to enjoy my studies and the challenge of figuring out what's going on -- indeed, for the earlier chapters, I've turned on the kanji feature because it was too easy with the transliterations. It's weird seeing what I find easy and what I find difficult, and seeing how that changes. For some reason, numbers, which should be difficult, are a breeze. I look forward to the number chapters, because they are a break. On the other hand, the numerical adjectives (as in "two women" or "three men") are frustrating, especially since it seems that there are different sets depending on whether you are talking about people or non-people. (The way the program keeps you engaged is that it never explains anything; it just gives you clustered sets of examples in such a way as to encourage you to notice and learn overall patterns. It's pretty good at this; it will offer four options, for example, that are all alike except for color. Then it will offer ones where two variables will overlap (red ball, red rectangle, green ball, green rectangle). Then it adds a new set (big, little). Then another set (little square, big square, little ball and little square, big ball and big square). Then a combination (little square is green, big square is red...). Then a new concept (green square is bigger than red square, green square is smaller than red square...). And so on.

At first, it was the concepts that were bugging me, and the lack of vocabulary didn't help. But as my vocabulary has grown, and my understanding of how concepts are presented has improved, it's getting easier. I'm pretty good most of the time, with the exceptions of when new vocabulary is provided, or a complicated new concept appears, and the occasional moment when the picture they chose isn't as clear or as simple as they'd like. (It took me a while, for example, to figure out the section where they were offering a choice between "tall person wearing glasses" "short person wearing glasses" "tall person not wearing glasses" and "short person not wearing glasses" because the earlier point when "glasses" was introduced had confused me (I thought the distinguhishing feature of the subject was her hat, not her glasses) and because the glasses were hard to see. Still, I'm seeing progress!

Comments

[KathyR]

A leaf-sucking truck? How cool is that? Why have I never heard of such a thing before?

[Rana]

I don't know -- perhaps you're in an area without many leaves? -- but it is indeed very cool. It's a big truck (the one they use to plow the snow, it looks like) and it pulls this enormous red trailer behind it. A big nozzle (about 1-2 feet across) comes out the front, and one guy swooshes it around to slurp up the leaves while another guy drives the truck slowly forward. I loved watching the swoosh-and-slurp guy; the motions he made were so graceful it was almost like he was dancing. Plus there is something inately appealing about watching a big vaccuum sucking up piles of things, I think.

I had known about the existence of leaf-sucker trucks before this, but this was the first time I'd seen one in action. I was such a goober -- I came bolting out of bed and ran around with my camera taking pictures of it, I was so excited by it.

[Phantom Scribbler]

How cool are you that you watch Muppets for fun on a weekend evening?

I've never really understood leaf-blowers -- they seem like a loud, inefficient way to get the job done. But perhaps that is because I have a yard the size of a postage stamp, and I really need the exercise.

Do you know the Frog and Toad story "The Surprise"?

[Rana]

I hadn't read it -- and now I'm laughing! I guess there are certain universals when it comes to leaves and the raking thereof.

Frog and Toad Are Friends was one of my favorites as a kid -- how nice to encounter them again. :)

[timna]

I hear a fierce wind out there now and imagine all of our unraked leaves flying down the street. and we have the only yellow maple so our neighbors will have clear evidence of where those leaves came from!

[Rana]

Hee! :)