My Poor Old Shoulder

Today I was a Worker. I worked, and I worked, and I worked. And now I am a Hurter. I hurt, and I hurt, and I hurt. Not as in someone who hurts, but someone who IS hurting. The weather being perfect, I decided to FINALLY work in my gardens, cleaning up edging, pulling out weeds, cutting back my monstrous herbs that think they own the place, mowing the lawn. Our neighbor’s across the street just got a little yellow kitten a few weeks ago. They are besotted with him, but I don’t think they understand cats that well. They think he will just stay in his own yard.

Yeah. Ok.

 Anyways, today, as I was wondering aloud if I should cut back my cilantro or just leave it, I saw him bouncing around my front yard, all small and golden and adorable. He led me a merry chase around the driveway, and I finally convinced him to let me pick him up. We went back across the street to a very grateful old man.

Then I came inside, drank a gallon of iced-tea, and realized that those people who tell you to wear closed-toe shoes to mow the lawn are pretty smart. When you wear flip-flops, your toes turn all green and nasty. I took a shower, but the toes are still green and nasty.

I sat down and tried to figure out what to do next. Reading was out, because the book I am reading, Ahab’s Wife, is worrying me. (The main character just did something SO stupid and foolish and dangerous, and I am TOO INVOLVED here. I’m just not ready to face the chaos that is about to ensue. So I’m taking a break.) And Sudoku was out, because I haven’t been able to solve anything lately, and I Don’t Like Feeling Stupid.

“I will clean and scrape that wall!” I declared in my most confident voice. We have a very old house with very crumbly plaster walls, and our kitchen is ugly. I peeled off the wallpaper the day we got the keys, and underneath was this awful, peeling, cracked, terrible surface. We couldn’t paint that, and so, in typical Voller fashion, it has remained. Some first-time guests think it’s some kind of daring faux finish, which is nice of them, I think. We have learned that if we get all the old wallpaper paste, latex skim coat, and other grossness off the wall, a friend of ours will fix the plaster work. YAY! So, today, I worked on it. Came off with a razor blade like a dream! And I scraped that thing for three hours. That is why my title is “My Poor Old Shoulder,” and that is what I did on my summer vacation.

Oh, and if you want a hilarious old movie to watch, check out The Awful Truth, with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne.