random mutterings of a lawn ranger, week 1.

Rex is sore, Kittens and cats. I got up at five a.m. last Saturday to help my brother-in-law pour concrete and then had a short and Titan aggravation filled Sunday before starting my three or four month stint as a landscaping professional. Luckily, I will have a week off here and there to travel for one of my other, less manual labor involved half-jobs.

But today I landscaped until I got caught in the rain, which is good and bad. It ended my workday by a few hours, but those hours will also be absent from my first paycheck. Also, I had to drive from West Meade back to Murfreesboro soaking wet, and in dire need of exchanging my attire for a dry martini.

I ended up going with coffee though, as my morning coffee intake has had to be shortened quite a bit with this job. There is nowhere on the worksite to relieve myself where I am not in the view of passersby or outside the window of some Bell Meade trophy bride, a nanny, or Al Gore.

Sure, I could stop somewhere on the way, but it is always a hassle.

The good thing about this job is that it should sufficiently diminish my burgeoning beergut. If it does not, then the beergut is meant to be and should therefore be left alone.

I am usually not the hard working type when it comes to actual work, but I have come home everyday this week with my clothes completely drenched in sweat. My arms are tanned and the hair on them is turning blonde. Muscles that I don’t even use are sore, perhaps for sympathy. My legs are bleeding from rosebush thorns, scratching at mosquito bites, or getting too near a drunken and disheveled former U.S. senator and vice president.

Katherine Coble actually drove by and took a picture to document my labor. She then opened and unloaded quite a few garbage bags full of empty malt liquor bottles just so I would have to pick them up.