6/2/09

It’s going to be a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong summer…have I mentioned that? Six boring, sweaty hours pushing a lawn mower. And I didn’t get any faster today. In fact, my arms and legs are getting sore. Mowing is hard work, I tell you. Today, I did 2 small yards and 1 big one. The big one took me two and a half hours by itself. Dad is a total slave master. The breaks I get are when we’re driving from one job to another and a half hour for lunch. Did I say that it’s hard, hot and sweaty work? Well, it is. It got up to 89 today…I feel every degree of it…I have been drinking water like a freakin’ camel. I asked Dad if I could learn to use the edger and the leaf blower at least, just to break up the monotony. He said, “We’ll see.” I mean, if I have to do this stuff all summer I should at least get to learn other stuff besides just pushing a mower, right? Who knows, it might pay my way through college or something!  Dad has a couple of 6-man crews that do bigger jobs like Office building landscaping and maintenance and apartment complexes and stuff, and they have riding mowers and those totally cool ones that you stand on and ride. I wonder when I’ll get to use one of those! I’m not about to ask……yet. The ONLY thing I like about pushing a mower for 6 hours is wearing headphones and zoning out…I have lots of time to think about Gray and stuff (which I do plenty of).

Anyway, I got done at 3, took a quick shower and took the bus to the lake (oh yeah, that was the other thing my parents gave me at graduation, a summer bus pass and a pass to the lake……..sweet!). Trout Lake isn’t  much of a lake exactly, it’s more like a really big pond. The swimming area is separated from the rest of the lake by kind of a rock wall, and is bigger than a swimming pool, more like a small pond by itself. It has the big dock out in the middle and that’s about 15′ deep, so you can dive off of it. There are those cute lifeguard that are on duty till the park closes at dark, and they give swim lessons to little kids in the morning and late afternoon. There are always moms there with their screaming brats, but the beach is big enough that the MUCH older kids, like me, can get on the other side away from them and hang out. There are lots of trees at the edge of the sand, a couple of volleyball nets, a snack bar (like I mentioned before, I know). Away from the beach is a big grassy area  where you can play Frisbee or football, and there’s a big covered picnic area for parties and stuff. On the other side of the parking lot are basketball courts and tennis courts (where they also give lessons). There’s a walking/jogging/biking path all the way around the lake, and the city keeps the lake stocked with several kinds of fish (like trout, duh) so people can fish off the banks (no boats allowed). There ARE little pedal-boats that look like swans that you can rent and take out on the lake…that’s kind of fun…especially with a guy, I’ll bet (of course I found out last summer that you get in trouble if you try to use them like bumper cars). It’s a pretty cool place and most of our little town hangs out there at one time or other all summer. Like, it’s THE place to have little kids’ birthday parties, and we’ve had several big church BBQ’s there…at least one every summer, like on the Fourth of July. Oh yeah! Speaking of that, every year they have a REALLY cool fireworks display over the lake and almost the whole town (several surrounding ones) turns out for that. Totally fun. Soooooo…

Well, I got to the lake at about 4, so I only had an hour to hang out (I have that appointment at 5:30)…bummer. I think I’ll ask Dad if I could work a couple of shorter days during the week, and longer ones the rest. I wonder if he’ll go for that. Otherwise, I’ll know not to come on Tuesdays! Sophie and Heather were already there, and so was Tessa Prince (big surprise there). I think she has appointed herself Heather’s bodyguard. She seems pretty protective of her. I guess I can understand that though. If Sophie had gone through anything like Heather has (whatever that is, specifically), I would want to shield her from stupid people asking a bunch of stupid nosy questions too. Anyway, they were all lying in the shade (thank goodness), so I spread my towel out next to Sophie. I didn’t bother taking off my shorts and tanktop….what’s the point, right? I sat cross-legged on my towel and we all talked about nothing in particular…movies mostly. We all want to see “Up” since we heard it was good (I LOVE 3-D), and none of us can WAIT for Harry Potter 6 in July. Then we switched to books and Heather was telling us about “Twilight”. She read all four of those books while she was gone (she said she didn’t have much to do), and loved them. She also read another book by Stephenie Meyer called “The Host” and she love that one too. I said that my Mom won’t let me read “Twilight” until she has read it first (Sophie’s mom said the same thing of course), and I can’t get her to start it! She only knows what other parents have told her, and you know how parents are!! Totally unreasonable and mistrusting that we can read something without being “influenced” by it! Sheesh. That would be a great series to read this summer…I’ll have to work on her some more. By the time we had dissected a couple of Meg Cabot books, I had to leave and go meet Mom at the gate. Ugh. We said we’d get together again in a few days. I hope we do. I liked hanging out with Heather and Tessa….Tessa wasn’t near as snotty as I thought she’d be.

Not much to tell about my appointment with Headcase. She just wanted me to tell her some more about when I was little, the things I remember the most. I accidentally let it slip about my obsession over having a job where I wear gloves, so she gave me the assignment to come up with careers where I DON”T touch people. Great, summer’s just started and I have homework…