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Bouncing, Moving Stuff and Amateur Day

   Written by on February 15, 2018 at 3:47 pm
The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

The first thing that impressed me when I met my bride Management was that she bounced. She was filled with energy. She was the second woman I’d ever met who walked as fast as I and she was cute.

Now 33 years later she still bounces and she’s still cute. On the other hand, I am now 62 (she’s still ten years younger than I) and I am slowing down.

Tonight she isn’t bouncing. She had a day off and decided to dig a ditch beside a flower bed so it wouldn’t wash. As usual there were sequences. There was some firewood in the way so she decided to split it and stack it.  Now, some of these blocks of wood were heavier than she is but she split a load anyway. Then she dug a ditch. By then her bounce was gone.

I got home after a day of being verbally beaten up and also had no bounce but each year my bounce is less bouncy anyway.

My position is that Management worked hard all day while I loafed and drank coffee. I did make her stew for supper.  In the interest of accuracy making stew means I took a package of my friend Melvin’s stew out of the freezer, thawed it in the microwave and heated it. In addition to making stew I put it in a bowl and added a few crackers with it.

I did think I was going to have to feed it to her since her hands were so sore she could barely pick up a spoon but as usual, she toughed it out.

Last week I bragged that after picking up one trailer this weekend all of my stuff that I am responsible for moving would be home for the first time in thirty years. Well, I was wrong again.  As I was picking up the trailer at a friend’s house he said, “Have you forgotten you have some stuff left in my backyard?”

As a matter of fact I had.  You would think he could have waited a few weeks before reminding me.

This friend lives in a city where they have rules and regulations on stuff in yards and on how long stuff can stay in a yard. If I didn’t already have a long list of why I don’t want to live in a city that would be a deal breaker if I decided I wanted to live in one.

That city, which will remain unnamed, even writes tickets for yard stuff. More importantly they don’t consider lawn art as art. If I hadn’t sold my collection of VW busses I would move there and build my Bus-Henge and fight them for being anti-art.

Management’s daffodil bed is filled with buds but no blooms yet. Unless you are a new reader you already know I planted 30,000 daffodil bulbs for Management many years ago and I add a few hundred each year.

I always try to have at least one bloom by Valentine’s Day. For years I tried all sorts of things to speed one bloom up and usually failed.  I warmed them with my breath and watered them with tears. I covered them and even begged.  Now I just wait and see if one pops open on its own.

This year they should be extra pretty. I raked out, meaning I paid someone to rake, the leaves and put in mulch.

If they look as good as they should I’ll include a picture. If they don’t I’ll pretend they did.

By the way, I consider Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and so forth Amateur Days. If you are only romantic one day a year you failed. If you only take your mother to lunch one day a year you fail. One day a year is for amateurs.

I think I’ll follow that with some advice. Unless you have sent flowers and done sweet things all year long, DON’T neglect Valentines.  In other words if you are an amateur romantic, Valentine flowers are required.

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