”Her eyes blazed up, and she jumped for him like a wild-cat, and when she was done with him she was rags and he wasn’t anything but an allegory.”
The morning was already hot when I dragged myself out of bed. I flipped on the AC, let the dogs out and grabbed a cup of coffee. My morning had officially begun.
Today will be in the low 80’s. Right now it is both sunny and cloudy with a barely noticeable breeze. Yesterday I watered the deck plants and noticed the spawn had dug up the same flowers in the same clay pot. I reburied the flowers. I’ll check again later.
When I was a kid, my father worked long hours. He was a salesman. His territory was the South Shore, a distance from where we lived. He came home late, well after dinner. Because we didn’t see much of him on the weekdays, I always thought of Saturday as his day. In the summer he’d mow the lawn. My father always had his mower sharpened at the hardware store in the beginning of the summer. I loved the sound of the clicking mower. My father had a technique for mowing, a pattern. It never varied. I remember the side lawn and the lines from the mower. My father never got a power mower. He loved his hand mower.
I am not one for violence except there was a single incident, a never repeated incident. I was a senior in high school. My friends and I were sitting in the grandstand at a Sox game. We were enjoying the game until the guy beside me started yelling at the team and swearing big time swears, not your harmless hells or damns. I asked him nicely to stop. He didn’t. He got worse. I asked him a second time. I got the same result. By this time, I was getting angry. The request wasn’t unreasonable, and his language was way out of bounds. I asked one more time. He kept swearing. He was even smug about it. Without even thinking about it, I punched him on the cheek. I didn’t hold back, and I didn’t think of the consequences. He was the most surprised person I’d ever seen. I was the second most surprised person. Despite my response, I would never advocate violence as a solution, but he stopped swearing. He even offered me popcorn. I took some.
keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
July 22, 2024 at 12:39 pm
Hi Kat,
Today is overcast with a 50% chance of rain along with a high of a cool 86°. Yesterday, at the DFW airport we received just 1.8 inches of rain. My abode is just three miles west so I assume we received that amount.
My father was also a salesman but his territory included Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas. He would depart early Monday morning and return on Friday evenings. Twice yearly he would be gone over a weekend to travel to St. Louis and Kansas City.
My mother had to be both parents during the week. My sister and I figured out that we could misbehave through Thursday. She would yell at us, “Just you wait until your father gets home on Friday, he’s going to give to you”. Usually she would forget by Friday. However if we misbehaved on Thursday or Friday, she would remember.
My father also mowed our lawn and took care of the outside shrubs on Saturdays. Our lawn was huge and he had a powered mower. He still had to push it, he wouldn’t pay to buy a self propelled mower. My father could squeeze a penny so hard that Lincoln would scream. 🙂
I abhor violence as well as avoid verbal confrontation at all costs. Most jerks at sporting events are usually drunk. When my son was young we went to a Dallas Stars hockey game. They were playing the Montreal Canadiens. There were a group of French speaking men sitting behind us who where screaming in French. They were drinking large amounts of beer. Eventually, the vendor cut off their supply. During the intermission I asked them if they had flown here from Quebec. They said that they drove from Louisiana where they worked in the oil industry. Obviously, they were fans of the Canadians.
July 22, 2024 at 9:35 pm
Hi Bob,
We will have rain tomorrow but little rain. It will rain early and stop early. I have had to water the outside plants.
The only time my father was gone all week working was when he was transferred to Presque Isle Maine for what was a promotion. It was in January, and he commuted up on Monday to Maine and back on Friday. We were to move to Presque Isle after school ended for the year. That was the last place I wanted to live as it is so very fun up country. Back then school vacation was in the fall so kids could make money harvesting potatoes. Luckily my father was such a good salesman that his company gave him a promotion to run a far bigger plant in Hyannis. That’s how we ended up on the cape. Our mothers must have chatted with one another as my mother made the same threat to tell our father.
That guy wasn’t drunk, just rude and obnoxious.