house stuff

As you know, I was all excited and proud of having mowed my own lawn. Well, not the actually having done it, perhaps. But I was pretty happy about having found the impetus to do it.

Push mowers, if you don’t know, aren’t the most efficient mowers. Especially if the grass is long, it seems.

What I didn’t write below, because I didn’t think it mattered, was that when I finished mowing the lawn, it was appreciably shorter, but still longish. And it wasn’t the even velvet that a gas or electric mower leaves behind. It was a bit uneven, and some of the tougher weeds remained proudly unscathed.

Looked fine by me. It was a bit wild still, but I liked it.

When I got home from work the next day, it was to the velvet nap of a power-mowed lawn.

My neighbour, whose 4 feet of very short grass under the lilac bush joins our sun-kissed and wilder 12 feet, had mowed the whole damn thing.

Again.

I stood agape for a few minutes, thought about knocking on his door, then moved on up my own front steps instead.

Early early Monday morning, even before Freya had started her nightly yowls, there was a huge crash from outside. A booming crash that rung out for a while. A loud crash that had my heart pounding and my limbs stiff. It sounded like it was in my house, but since I missed the first part of it, I wasn't sure. And there was nothing more after the echo died down. So I breathed some deep breaths and went back to sleep.

In the morning, I poked around the house a bit, but didn't find anything.

It was garbage night, I said to myself. It was windy. Probably someone's garbage can blew into someone's house.

My neighbour must have been waiting for me last night. Because as soon as I'd flipped open my mailbox, after trudging home through the late afternoon gloom and spitty sky, I heard a throat-clearing harrumph.

"Oh!" I jumped. "Hi! Sorry, didn't see you there."

"Hello. Sorry to scare you. I was wondering if you noticed this." And he pointed between our houses.

There's a narrow gap between our houses. The edges of our roofs almost touch. It's on the other side of my front porch, and it's just pavement and no light, so I never look down there.

I looked. Looked down where he was pointing. At the twisted metal of god knows-

"My brother," he said, "Heard a huge crash around 3 am on Monday"

"3:14," I mumbled. It's what Shelley's clock had said when we compared notes.

"And when I came out in the morning, I saw this. It's the eavestrough, the soffit and the fascia. All the way nearly to the back."

"Oh! The fascia." I nodded and pursed my lips like I knew what he was talking about. The furrow in my brow was genuine, however, because whatever those twisted bits were down there, they were long and they were varied.

"I wondered if you hadn't seen it."

"No. I forget about this side of the house sometimes."

My poor neighbour. He must think we are completely hapless. Our garden was a disaster. Our driveway is a disaster. I haven't once mowed the lawn: my neighbour always breaks early, about when I'm thinking it might be time in a week or two. The house falls apart and we don't notice.