In which Koog goes outside and stays there more than an hour

Right then.

I'm not exactly sure what possessed me to do such a thing as yard work, but today it got done.

My guess is that I was fed up with the weeds in the front yard, which started shooting up when we finally got some rain. (I was sort of into the whole drought thing because it meant that nothing was growing in my front yard.) You have to understand that my front yard is roughly equivalent to a king-sized bedsheet. Now, imagine that size space full of weeds and you've got a good picture of my yard. So today's effort was not about killing the weeds--indeed, there would be only dirt without them--as much as it was about taming them.

So I got out the weed whacker and started whacking. This was my first time ever using a weed whacker, and it was pretty cool until the filament... uh, disappeared. I'm not exactly sure what happened except that I went inside, down to the basement to retrieve the rake and when I came out I couldn't whack any more weeds so I raked, swept and bagged.

Yard work is pretty good exercise, and instead of feeling stupid for doing idiot moves along with some weirdo on a video or in a class, I felt like I was doing something that needed to be done.

As I worked outside, an unusually large number of pale white people walked past. Many of them said hello, which almost never happens in Washington. (White people here are always in a hurry.) After a few minutes I remembered about the pro-Israel demonstration, which I guess was at the Capitol.

A couple of people stopped to chat for a minute or two. A small group of high-school aged boys asked me why D.C. isn't a state. I explained as briefly as I could, which was basically "it's complicated." Another group of older men commented on the cleanliness of my block and asked how long I'd lived here.

I felt so wholesome in my J. Crew shorts and tank, working in my yard and talking to protesters as they made their way back... wherever they came from. So I guess it's a good thing I decided to mow, elsewise they would have said "What a nice block... except for that one place with the weeds."

before - after