Several unrelated thoughts that occurred to me while I was mowing the lawn this morning – the longest stretch of time I’ve been outside in at least two months.
- When my daughter was 10, I offered her 25¢ for every pine cone she picked up from the yard. She declined but later realized what a deal she had passed up on. Today she could have made $100 easily. Back then, we had a mechanical push mower and pine cones were my nemeses.
- Now my daughter has a nearly four-year old daughter and, as of yesterday, a newborn son. Where has the time gone?
- I wish I knew as much about the inner lives of squirrels as Jack London did about wolf-dogs. There’s a White Fang to be written from the point of view of these entertaining creatures.
- My wife was upstairs working while I mowed. I stumbled upon three unexpected flowers: a deep-red rose on a bush we’d long thought dead, a single azalea flower on a bush that had fully flowered over six weeks ago, and a hydrangea flower on what was once a house plant that has blossomed into an enormous shrub after we transplanted it outside. I texted her photographs of each of them as I discovered them.
- I haven’t been among people in over two months. I’ve gone to the post office to drop off packages in the early morning hours to avoid encounters, and I picked up a to-go order in my car once. That’s it. However, once it becomes necessary to be among people again, I plan to cultivate the skill of coughing raucously and/or sneezing on demand if those around me are non-compliant with social distancing.
