Sunday, 30 September 2012
Yesterday, Jennifer’s parents invited the family over for a barbecue and bonfire. I decided to load up the trunk with lots of tree roots that I have extracted from the yard over the past month. They’ve been sitting in a pile drying out and, what with there being no rain and all, were plenty dry by yesterday morning. I unloaded them in my parents-in-law’s backyard and we cremated them that evening.
So, this morning, the car’s trunk was very dirty. Dirtier, even, then just filling the trunk with firewood because, remember, this was wood that had been underground. The rattling of the car ride shook all the dirt loose.
Damn if Owen doesn’t like to vacuum.
He vacuumed the inside of the trunk so efficiently and gleefully, that it behooved me to remove the cover over the spare tire (Owen asked, “Hey, what’s that tire for?”) and remove said tire so Owen could vacuum in the darkest recesses of the trunk.
But I didn’t stop there. Oh no. I didn’t stop there. I next opened all four doors and extracted the floor mats. I shook them out and Owen then vacuumed all of them and the floor around them. He even got in between the seats and around the door frames.
The bottom one inch of our car is now quite immaculate.
Monday, 01 October 2012
Today I perfomed my first of two public readings from my work in The 2012 St. Paul Almanac. This reading took place at the Fresh Grounds Coffee Shop, which is close enough to our home so that we rode our bikes. Well, Jennifer, Owen, and I rode our bikes. Isla freeloaded in a trailer on the back of my bike.
We ordered some snacks, and then took a table far from the microphone. We’re not exactly the quietest people (especially isnce Isla decided to wear a pair of ruby tap shoes). Then we waited until it was my turn. The crowd was only about about 15 people, which Kimberly, the moderator, said was one of the smallest so far (some readings have had 40-50 people).
A couple of people who were signed-up to read didn’t show up, so my name came up quicker than I thought. Kimberly introduced me by reading the short bio I’d submitted for the almanac. Owen came and sat closer while I read, which was cool, since he is the main character in both of my essays.
I chose to read my essay “Park Two,” because I thought that was the funner of the two essays. After that, the moderator asked me to read my other essay. This kind of surprised me, and I stumbled for a moment wondering if I’d heard her correctly. She said, yeah, please read the other essay since we are short on readers tonight. So I ended up reading both essays.
As we got up to leave, two more readers showed up. They thought the event started at 7:00, I guess since a couple of earlier events were at 7:00. But no, tonight’s event was at 6:30. Kimberly let them read their pieces. Jennifer and I stayed because I thought that was the polite thing to do, and every once in a while I like to be polite. After shaking a few hands, including one guy who really liked my essays, we took off and got home right before sunset.
I’ll be participating in a second reading on Monday, November 19th at 7:00 at Claddaugh Coffee, in case you’d like to come support me. The complete schedule is HERE AT THIS LINK.