The patio umbrella is open for the first time in two years. The weather today is perfect.
Also, the mangled bird feeder pole has been replaced. I’d say upgraded, but it feels a little flimsy.
Let’s see if the birds start visiting while I cook lunch on the grill for the first time this year!
We are likely going to have our first cookout of the summer today. Highly appropriate for Memorial Day.
I’m just prepping the patio for now. Setting up the furniture and making sure the umbrella still works and cleaning the grill.
Hope it doesn’t rain, right?
Twice now I have had trouble opening up the patio umbrella. The boom arm thingie won’t slide into place correctly. Last time I was able to do it but today it didn’t quite open all the way.
Shit.
I was able to refill the line in the weed wacker, but it doesn’t quite auto-fill as it’s running. I can work around that, but still…
Shit.
The grass is 10 feet tall. Today is the only day I have to cut it. It looks like it poured rain last night and it’s starting to rain again.
Shit.
We all knew it would happen eventually. Welcome to the first working-from-home-lunch-break-on-the-patio of the quarantine.
I have a conference call in 25 minutes, and I have everything I need in order to join it out here with me. Do I take the call out here or do I go back to my desk?
Probably go back to my desk.
Hello and welcome to the first patio furniture sitting of the year. Ahhhhh
The date was August 9, 2010. My beloved wife and I were house hunting. Given that I am a total Masshole, we were looking at houses in towns that bordered New Hampshire, as the kids’ dad lived in Salem and we wanted the drive time between houses to be manageable.
We were looking at a house in Methuen that was out of the way and kind of in the woods, which is odd for a city like Methuen. It had a nice little back yard that I was kind of taken with, and a little patio area that reminded me a little bit of the house I grew up in. They had nice looking patio furniture, and a fire pit, and a gas grill. I was really taken with the scene.
I took this picture with my phone during that first viewing.
Long story short, we moved in a couple months later. Every year when the weather starts getting nice I announce to the family, This is the Year We Buy Patio Furniture… and every year we don’t do it.
Or do we? I am not going to give out any spoilers or anything, but this might be the year. No promises, of course… but this might be the year.
Cross your fingers and hope it happens. Hopefully we’ll be having cookouts on the patio. I’ll let you all know when I get more information.
Inside the Red Head's Head 