Zero Gravity Chair

My old tube-framed, woven-plastic folding porch lawn chair finally gave out and I gracefully let it go, taking it to the recycling place, and then, because I spend so much time lounging on the screened porch, sought a new one and saw for sale absolutely nothing like those familiar tube-framed, woven-plastic patio chairs, as hard as I looked. So how to replace the chair I used to work in, doze in, carry to the meadow and sun myself in? That kind simply isn't sold any longer.

Instead, I saw folding "director's" chairs (don't need one) and "zero-gravity" lounge chairs, and there being nothing else, I chose the highest-starred one on Amazon, chose between burgundy and black, and in two days a box half as high as I and three times as wide appears on my porch and has to be dragged into the carpeted living room, where the item won't be scratched in case I want to return it, I'm that skeptical. With the box sliced open, I dump out and unfold a well-wrapped chair ALREADY ASSEMBLED, ready to sit in, a situation so knock-me-over-with-a-feather that in my confusion I actually looked at the instruction sheet, and from it learned how to lock the chair into position with handy little tabs beneath the armrests, and how to attach the utility tray (holding drinks, phones, and right now the tablet I took this photo with). The attached sun-shade is adjustable and folds away, over the chair back. Looks like they came on the market in 2015 and everyone was wise to them but me.

I was curious: What is so zero-gravity about it? Then I got in the chair, stretched it out, and locked it into position with the little pull tabs, and lounged. What a difference from the former chair that like those dreadful wooden "Adirondack"chairs had you seated with knees above butt level, pressuring the lower spine. I've about decided to keep this rather handsome chair as my living-room lounge chair and buy another for the porch. The white dot on the chair back is a reflection from the sun.

Happy 15th Anniversary

Today, October 1, I've lived on the Divine Property for 15 consecutive years. So much has gone on here, from deadly despair to stellar ecstasy. But it's trending toward ecstasy. Especially when the sun sets early these days and I enjoy an evening on the porch on my pillowed lounge chair alongside an oil lamp and a pink-camouflage wineglass filled and refilled with Three-Buck-Chuck Chardonnay, 2011. After several years of avoiding my Three-Buck-Chuck I reached the rock-bottom of my wine pile and had nothing else to drink. Aging has improved it! I could say that about a lot of things. Don't laugh at the pillowcase. I bet you too have pillowcases from the days your taste was different. Oh--you were laughing at the wineglass? It makes me laugh, too.

My biker brother-in-law (everybody has one!) collects oil lamps, and I got this one.

I'd envy me something awful if I wasn't me.

Reasons Not to Rake This

While convalescing I sat out in the sun, on a folding seat on the stoop, and took a nice long look at the work I had to do, like, to properly shove the door open and enter and leave the house: oak leaves, twigs, hickory leaves, acorns, hickory nutshells. I enjoy looking at work I can put off until later, when ALL the leaves have finished falling. Why rake twice? Why rush things? Why not enjoy the riches some people don't have -- trees and autumn leaves around their front stoop? Why not imagine each leaf is a dollar bill?

Happy Earth Day

So I'm noticing bird doo splashed on my front screen door, unable to figure out how it got there and accumulated because birds can't sit or  fly above the front door because there's a gable-like shelter over it, a "porch roof" I guess it's called, with floodlights installed beneath. Yet one night, bothered because the floodlights hadn't been working correctly, I lifted my eyes and -- surprise! -- saw that barn swallows had started on a nest, mainly mud blended with a little dry grass, and tightly molded to the floodlight, requiring a broomstick to break it up and knock it off. This was the first time such a nest has appeared. There were no eggs in it. Now I think I should have left it there, because the usual summer tenants just above the front door are paper wasps, and if you knock at their nest with a broomstick you'll do it only once.

These Skinks Had Better Learn

Looking up from my work I saw a skink climbing a screen on the porch. At first I couldn't tell if the skink was inside or outside. If it's inside, it's an emergency--for the skink. Often these lizards can find their ways indoors, but I've had a few visiting skinks who seemed unable to find their ways out and required my assistance.

This skink was inside looking out. Of course it shied when I approached, and tried to flee, but could only crawl madly across and around the edges of the screen, so close to but so far from the great green universe it wanted to escape to. And here came this gigantic hairy bag of salt water hundreds of times larger than the skink. I knew I looked to it like a monster, and spoke kindly to it, unhooking the screen on both sides and laying it down so it made a nice ramp to the outdoors. Still the skink clung to the screen. I tapped the screen. I shook the frame a little. No dice. I said, like my mother, "In or out. One or the other. Make up your mind. I don't have all day." This did it. It scrambled off.

These skinks have to understand that I run a tight ship here with no room for slackers or nervous Nellys.

The True Meaning of Summer

Fishin rods waitin' on my porch, bought last summer by David. Pink for me, blue for him. He's that kind of guy. They're waiting for a good fishing day and for David. I re-did the terminal tackle on all of em using a knot he taught me. Yes, I bait my own hooks, with minnows too.