The One Where Rachel deliberately breaks grammar rules

Don't give me shit for using a Friends-inspired title. I didn't even put it in title case! Hah! Warning: lame grammar references within.

I happened to wake up around 3:30 a.m. Insomnia is my good pal when I am under high amounts of stress. And, well, uh. The unimaginative title of this stream-of-consciousness blog entry is a result of high stress and very little sleep. Spelling and grammar errors may occur deliberately. Or they may appear accidentally. Only the writer knows which is which. And I AIN'T TELLIN'!! 

And now for my story.

Our house had this dead cypress in the backyard when we bought it. Wisteria had intertwined and climbed all the way to the top. A few weeks ago, we cut through the wisteria vines so we could save the main wisteria and let them die off. I realized just now that we don't have a photo of it when the wisteria was alive. That kind of makes me sad. (And I can't figure out how to uncenter this paragraph. Even though there is a hard carriage return above it. I could go change the html coding, but nah.) 

Then my dad died, and this damn heatwave struck. Whenever I sat on my back porch (usually very early morning or late evening right now) I pictured it bursting into flames, igniting our fence, and destroying our home. 

After an early breakfast ride with Brooks to Rockwall, we came home and I went outside planning to pull a few weeds. All of the sudden, a saw was in my hand! I'm not quite sure how that happened, but sometimes I just need to do a project RIGHT NOW. I clean and do projects when I am experiencing difficult emotions, and, well, I am grieving. And trying to determine what new normal is for me, my mom, and my sister. And the rest of our families. I think I just needed to do a physically difficult task today, and get physically tired instead of just emotionally and mentally tired.

I figured I'd cut a few of the smaller branches and vines before it got too hot. We could do the larger trunk later, or we could hire someone to do it professionally. Before I knew it, I'd cut through half the trunk. Not really. I took 16 breaks to guzzle water and Gatorade in the shade. And jump.in the pool in my clothes. Eventually, Brooks walked by inside the house and saw me sawing outside. With a handsaw. How many times can i say, "saw"? In 89 degrees. Don't worry, I DID apply sunscreen. My wonderful husband stepped in and offered to help. The support system I invented (i strapped two bungee cords around the tree to the fence. It would gently fall alongside the pool without dropping a single needle in the pool. It would have worked. Would too.) didn't hold the tree against the fence, so it half landed in the pool. As he made the final cut, Brooks managed to leap backward, avoiding knocking me into the pool or onto the cement decking. He avoided HIMSELF falling in the pool or on the decking. He landed gracefully on his feet. I know, right?

Tens of thousands of dry, brittle needles, wisteria leaves, branches, vines, a huge wasp nest full of wasps (I drowned them), and who knows what else landed in the pool. It was 106 here today, I think. It's been like this for, I don't know, 2 weeks? 7 months? my LIFETIME? No rain or cooldown in sight.

Brooks, Anders, and I pulled the tree out of the pool, broke it down into a manageable chunks, scooped out all the debris, swept up the decking, and Brooks dove over and over to scoop leaves from the pool floor. We shocked the pool and are running the filter 24 hours (don't worry, I only THOUGHT about shocking it when Brooks was still diving. Yuk yuk. I'm TIRED, y'all.). We took a break from about noon until 6 to do some other activities that involved air conditioning...we aren’t insane! 

At one point I was trying to hoist the tree out of the pool. By myself. And nobody outside with me at that moment. Not either of their fault. Or faults? Nah, my writing is flowing way too freely for me to interrupt myself to consult my office full of grammar style guides. I wasn't hungry for lunch yet, dammit! I was going to keep working just a little bit longer. (and my sisters always said I was a brat. or spoiled. Spoiled brat. Whatever. I'm the baby, and I'm dang stubborn. Just like BOTH of my parents. I'm sorry, Brooks.) Barefoot...because in the pool, duh. I fell backward hard on my bad hip on the cement decking against the fence, the tree landing on me. Fortunately, it was very dead and not all that heavy. The tree, not my hip. My legs look just like my arms and hands in these pics. You can't see all the cuts on my hands, but I ALSO hate wearing gloves. I was hauling hunks of dead cypress and wet leaves around. And sawing. And chopping the longer tree sections into smaller ones. Why the hell do I not have blisters on my hands today? I bet it's the salt water in the pool. Sure, I am not a science expert, but it sounds good to me. 

(Want to hear a funny? I am deliberately IGNORING the red squiggly lines under typos, and I'm not going to do a spellcheck before I post it either!)

Tonight the pool looks just as good as before, and we have a huge pile of wood to deal with later. I didn't take any after photos because exhausted. See? That's not a grammatically correct sentence, and I AM NOT FIXING IT. That's right, folks. Deliberate incorrect sentence. There are a few here, folks. Sue me! I'm not writing for work here! 

Showers all around, some food, Tylenol (because that's all my rheumatologist will give me for rheumatoid arthritis pain because I shouldn't need anything stronger. And also because I am sober almost 5 years. I don't want to risk a synthetic pill pushing me toward abusing it. ESPECIALLY not right now when I'm teetering on the edge of worklifeselffamilypetsfriendshobbieshealth (I get this ability to mooosh words together from the German side of my family)), and an ice pack on my hip are this evening's activities (did you notice I am overusing parentheticals? It's true, but it's how how my brain is churning right now. My thoughts interrupt my thoughts, but they always seem to come back to the original thought. My brain is very organized, although you might not believe it by reading this blog post. That is a useful skill most of the time, but sometimes...well...).

(But then, right now I am editing my blog, and I had to take an after pic. I don't know all the features smartphone cameras have, but I did rememberit had night mode. (Wow, that sounded old, huh? (And more parentheticals in parentheticals.) You're welcome.)) I am surprised at how good it looks! This is without my porch light on because Brooks is already sleeping, and our bedroom has French doors out to the porch. Yes, the time is now 11:45 in the p.m. He's asleep like a normal person would be after a day like ours. OK, not reviewing anymore, so count up them errors for me!

(Did I get all the parentheses in the paragraph above correct? (See, I kind of AM working. I can't turn this off!))

Nobody was badly sunburned or dehydrated. Except for the fall, it was actually fun. And we all felt quite accomplished. I believe it's time to slumber.

Thank you immensely to my husband and son for rescuing me from a fate much worse than more pain in the hip that I already have more pain in! I appreciate your hard work SO very much. I love you bunches! It was a good day.