On Friday evening, I received a call from grandmother with a summons to report to her home on Saturday. She had just harvested strawberries from her backyard garden, and she had plans for us to make homemade strawberry jam.
Here were my directions: *bring my own sugar (sugar ain't free, you know) *bring my own containers *be ready to WORK
After taking brother home from cross-state journey, I went home to unload Target purchases. I checked the weather and opted to mow my yard before the rain started. I called grandmother, didn't get an answer, and left a message about my plan.
Before I even got started, grandmother calls back and asked me what I wanted and where I was. I said, "Did you listen to the message?" She hesitated and said, "Yes, I listened to it! I just couldn't understand what you said!" I'm not totally convinced that she knows how to operate the message-retrieval function.
I received permission to mow before I came. Evidently, she had had the same idea about mowing before the rain because she had gotten her 89-year-old boyfriend started on mowing her yard before the rain began. Once she got him started, she could come back inside where it was cool.
Since I was going to see her immediately after mowing, I knew it was especially important to wear my protective gloves (I can't relive being questioned about blisters). Then I remembered that I had put my gloves in with my towels to wash. They were wet. I put them on and realized that wouldn't be good. I could just imagine myself with the hand equivalent of athlete's foot, and I couldn't take that kind of criticism and disbelief from grandmother. There wasn't time for them to dry because of the impending storms. Desperate times call for desperate measures, which is why I decided to wear my grape-colored chenille winter gloves. I figured, hand coverings are hand coverings, right?
Not so.
Where my gardening gloves with their suede goodness provide traction on metal of push mower, chenille is considerably more slippery on metal. At least the neighbors enjoyed the show. [Maybe I'll post a photo of said gloves on the alt some time tonight for the full effect.]
After I finished, I got my 5-pound bag of sugar and my containers (both of which were not to be provided, as you recall) and left for my special afternoon.
REGRETFULLY-------TO BE CONTINUED.
Brother just got dropped off here so I could take him to get his 20th iPod repaired at the Apple store. After taking him for the other 19 trips, my father refuses to take him any more. They'd be wise to stop helping him and refuse to repair it. They're losing money on this deal.
