Catch Up

I need to catch up. Due to the holiday tomorrow (Fourth of July) I have the grace of an extra day to get my grades done. My class had their last test on Friday. Typically in summer, the grades would be due by 10:00 the next Monday. This year I get until Tuesday. I am so accustomed to working weekends, due to my long training as a research scientist, that it did not occur to me until just now, that other people might think it onerous to be expected to work through a weekend as a matter of course.

In fact, I did no grading yesterday, sinking into yard work, then dinner and a long evening with margaritas and fireflies. Today I dallied in the morning, laying about for no good reason. I managed to pull my neck somehow in the process, and it has been sore all day as a result. I finally did a tiny bit of cleaning and headed back into the yard. It was warmer today and the humidity is rising so it was not so perfect as yesterday. Nonetheless, I watered the flowers and veggies, weeded the herb garden, planted a new tri-color sage, moved the French Tarragon, cut back the greedy mint, and put down bark mulch to reduce the weeding later. I also chopped back the huge attractive weed in the back of the herb garden. It grows well over 8 feet, and has huge ovate leaves. It is a lovely plant. At least it is lovely until it flowers it’s tiny purple flowers and goes to seed, producing burrs that stick every where then sprout giant plants in all kinds of awkward places.

When the fireflies lit up it became too dark to see. I came in, showered the mud off, looked at my unkempt house and shrugged. I will catch up with that later. I headed back to catch up on grading. My sore neck was not helping so I rubbed it down with the extra-strength golden Tiger Balm.

So, here I sit, pleasant warmth on my neck, swathed in scent redolent of cloves and menthol, stacks of grading in process. Some day, some day, maybe I will be all caught up.