Someone once told me I had legs that could hold up a piano. In fact, before I married Pete, I had to have my wedding garter specially made to fit my thigh.
Store-bought versions didn’t fit. They were made for women with chicken legs.
I’ll admit I wasn’t born with the likes of Betty Grable, the World War Two pin-up girl. 20th Century-Fox once insured her gorgeous gams with Lloyd’s of London for $1.25 million.
So what? Mine have million-dollar strength—piano legs that championed the multi-tasking warrior I became on the weekend.
And pardon me, folks, but I was a force to be reckoned with.
I was on my own, free of “man” kind for two whole glorious days that fell on my days off. What are the odds of that?
And to triple the joy, for once it looked like the sun was going to stick around.
Needless to say, I spent my weekend outdoors. And no, I didn’t go to the lake. I stayed on the home front.
I am a sun creature. Always have been and always will be. Having admitted this, I also should heed the warnings of my mother and Baz Luhrman on wearing sunscreen because all too often I do not.
I also am a “nightmare of the grandest kind” when I make up my mind to get something done. Everybody had best get out of the way.
Let’s face it. Without anyone around to make suggestions about another way to do things, everything I put my hands to was done according to a woman’s prerogative.
Just the way the universe intended, right?
My piano legs took me from one end of the property to the other and back again raking, weed-eating, weed-pulling, running after dogs chasing rabbits and motorcycles, shovelling dirt, planting flowers, trimming trees, and hauling dead grass.
Without a word of a lie, I must have spent two-12 hour shifts in yard maintenance mode (then closely followed by Vodka cooler mode).
I also hauled away all manner of stray outdoor projects left in limbo by Pete. Everything that I could lift, pull, or carry is no longer there (if I could only remember where I put them).
Everything except Pete’s shed project. That scheme was abandoned after flood waters carried away some of the mammoth railroad ties hauled by Hercules and sidekick “yours truly” from another part of the yard back in April.
Plans for development have since been scrapped and blueprints for something “larger than life” are in the works for someplace else. In the meantime, the tall grass multiplying inside the abandoned square of ties looks like the dilapidated remnants of a century’s old barn.
Maybe it could be a garden?
My piano legs also came in handy when I needed to make a fast dash after hearing what sounded like a rabid dog hiding in the bushes near the house.
I should have got the heads up when my own two canine cougars didn’t flinch—lying prone in the hot sun.
But no. I sprinted indoors to grab the broom as a weapon, bypassing the six-tined pitchfork I bought for $3 at a garage sale in Minnesota.
I then bolted back outside ready to swat the vicious creature.
I stopped, looked, and listened. Alas, the growling noise I had heard was coming from the water hose as it channelled out the last morsels of water from the sump pump in the crawl space.
For Pete’s sake.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
