Would you stop for a girl with a big strap-on?

I don't know what is more surprising about today: the fact the CalTrans was doing work on my road, or the fact that I was doing work in my yard.

Wednesday is normally my day off and today I was at home attempting to regain control of the yard. It's a big yard. Over the past six or seven years I have gone through three lawn mowers and four or five weed whackers. This year I decided to get an industrial strength 4-cycle, needs-a-harness-to-handle-it, brushcutter/weed whacker super deluxe. I should have known better. It only weighs about 35 lbs. and it has a shoulder strap and all that, but it is almost too much for me to handle (keep in mind that I would never admit to anything being too much for me to handle).

So today I strapped the monstrosity on and began whacking away. That sounds more fun than it really is, but keep your mind in that place if it is happier there. I must have been quite a site because someone from CalTrans (highway department) actually stopped to make sure I was okay. I can't imagine what I looked like - all 5'5" of me wielding a 6 foot pole with a motor on one end and a brushcutter on the other. And the whole time those useless goats of mine were just laughing at me. You see, I have the only two goats on the planet that won't eat grass. Actually, it turns out they like cut grass - kind of like people who like sandwiches without the crust. Ridiculous.

All that whacking got me thinking about hiring a gardener. Last year I broke down and hired a pool man because his son works out at my gym and they gave me a heck of a deal. And I absolutely hate cleaning the pool in the off-season. It's like having a convertible in Seattle, you don't want to deal with it unless the weather is perfect and you can play with it. I can justify the pool man, but a gardener? It seems so bourgeois to me. California is full of people who pay other people to do everything for them. I love how people in tract housing communities pay gardeners $200 a month to mow and weed a 10 foot swath of plugged lawn that turns your feet green when you walk on it barefoot. I think those folks just like saying, "My gardener was at the house last week and left the hose off the reel. That darned Juan, I had to go out there and reel it up myself. I don't know what I'm paying him for." Funny, neither do I.

Next time I'll try have some cold beer ready for the CalTrans guys. They are always on break anyhow.