Ordinary folk might ask why this should disturb me, other than the obvious need to replace said mower with something compatible, something green with the running stag on the side that always evoked a thrill. �Look, there�s Outfoxed out on his lawn with that bloody great mower again. Doesn�t he ever quit?�

I don�t. But the machine thought it a convenient time to off itself. And right in the middle of a bag dump, too. There�s a metaphor hiding in there somewhere with its finger firmly between teeth, just hoping I let it out for air.

It died in a noble way, just petering off to nothing, and all attempts at revival by oil and muttered oaths were for naught. The lawn of the Dwarf House called to me, �You�re not going to get all these leaves and dead grass swept away quite so easily now, are ye?�, and I muttered some more. The property manager had written, all such tasteful landscaping was to be done by the end of the month or else, and the gutters swept clean and so on and so forth. She wrote explaining all this to me as if I were 4 years old and she was being patient, but there was a spanking to be had if I did not comply.

Hell, I just had an old friend pass away that predates my children. Can we at least allow time for mourning?

Then it was the laptops turn. Hardly old, it seems to have caught itself in an infinite loop which allows me to start and run it only in Safe Mode. The land of Safe Mode, where things are giant, and you swirl around the laptop screen seeking sense in a world where stuff is magnified. For a while there I thought the machine had bit the dust entirely. So having it in Safe seemed (seems, actually) to be a good thing. That, and having the feeling that a couple years worth of digital pictures and files and rantings were still on there, just much BIGGER than before, you know?

I bought a new mower, and it�s red and expensive and entirely without soul. But it surely yokes the leaves and grass from the lawn. I kept the old mower over Ally�s protests. Not quite ready to let it go, I guess. I�m not sure what to do with the laptop.

And we sit here awaiting a closing on the house in the Swamp, the woman and the daughter and the Grandson and the dogs. If the third shoe is about to drop and break, I�d just as soon it be something cheaper and less personal than a mower. Or a laptop.

I got a pair of work boots on their last leg. How �bout them?

UPDATE!I need final grading on the lot tomorrow, which requires dry weather and subsequently dry soil - it's raining like Rangoon! All day! All night!

UPDATE!The Bills! They broke! (which is street jargon for - they've been broken for quite some time, but this time they done broke for sure).

UPDATE!The store was out of my cigarettes, all I have is warm beer (since I just got back from said store, and the longnecks is warmish from the cart) and there's a grandson hollering in the next room! Broke, I tell ye!

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