The day started out funny, anyway.

I dreamed I'd been written into an episode of Frasier. Or wandered into it from the frozen-foods section of a small market, as it were.

In any event, Frasier, Niles, and another character or two were hosting a small gathering in Frasier's apartment, and Martin, for reasons established earlier in the plot, couldn't serve enough coffee to make himself happy. He kept swinging the hot carafe around, offering to fill anyone's cup, but everyone dodging him declined.

Meantime, in the midst of all the commotion, I announced my intention to mix myself a martini. Frasier half-turned to Niles and muttered, "This ought to end well."

I started snickering so hard, we had to retake.

That's the biggest hazard of putting a nonprofessional actor into the middle of a top-rated comedy production. Here the Charles/Burrows/Charles company was paying thousands of dollars a minute for the best talent working every aspect of its taping—caterers included—and here this n00b Rittenhouse can't hold his laughter. David Hyde-Pierce could be excused for muffing a take, because he brings in a fourth of the Nielsen numbers; the rookie, however, will not be invited back.

if a dream is all i have to report today, I am not serving you well.

So: I mowed the lawn.

Unless you're from the Gulf Coast, you may not know that St. Augustine grows in vines along the surface, its wide blades sticking up at all angles. My own patch of it is, best I can tell, 50 years old; the roots run deep and the vines form thickets that crisscross and choke off most anything that tries to germinate amid them.

Three weeks of more-or-less constant rain prevented me from mowing while promoting a growth rate more characteristic of 1950s radiation experiments gone wrong. Another couple of days and I'd have had to rent a brush hog. As it was, I could only use half the mower's swath at a time.

Still, it felt as if I were processing a giant salad. The edge trimmer left wet spots as it sliced through runners creeping out onto the sidewalk. As for the soil, if it had a dipstick, it would read full. Water is standing over the city meter, a foot deep. The curb weeps.

We are having a wet one in North Texas. And that's all I gots today. 

Posted by: Michael Rittenhouse at 05:04 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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