Fifty150
Call Me a Cab
- Messages
- 2,147
- Location
- The Barbary Coast
The loquat at my Dad's house was "overgrown". In reality, it was just doing whatever a tree is suppose to do. Grow. It's 30 feet tall. Loaded with fruit. Some of the fruit is the size of limes.
I have a pole saw from Harbor Freight. Not what a professional would use. I did some "Chinese Math". Cut all the branches that look like they are growing into the top of the tree. It's a six foot pole. Somehow, I was still left with branches going up to 15 feet. Chinese Math says I cut the tree in half. The fruit clusters had 6 - 10 fruit per cluster. I must have taken out almost 200 fruit. 200 pieces of useless fruit. All too high to pick. If I can't reach it by taking 2 or 3 steps up from a folding ladder; no fruit is worth falling off a higher ladder.
My Dad's house. I've got a lot of tools here. He's got a lot of tools here. A lot of tools collected over the course of his lifetime, and mine. I've got a wood chipper. Cuts branches and leaves down to tiny slivers. I bought it because renting one for the day would have cost about half the retail price. If you rent it twice, you might as well buy it. I've already lost track of how many times I've used it. So it has already paid for itself. The fruit came out about the size of a slice of jalapeno. Between the leaves and the fruit being processed, the air smelled like I was boiling a pot of loquat tea.
I'm standing in the middle of the yard, with a light breeze. The scent of loquat was suddenly replaced by Issey Miyake. I knew the scent well. Once upon a time, my jackets were scented with it. She marked her territory that way. Just a little spritz. So that when some other girl got close enough, her scent was on me. The same way a dog pees on a fire hydrant.
She said hello. Her voice was still the same as I remembered it. What was she doing here?
"I still live across the road. I saw you pull up on your bike. I thought I'd come say hello." She hands me a can of beer. Pabst Blue Ribbon. My dad's beer.
"Oh, yeah. Your Dad let me in. He told me to bring you a beer."
She still looks good. She should. She is about a dozen years younger than me. I still haven't said anything. I just sort stare at her. Long enough to hold her gaze. Then slightly tilt my lead, the way a dog looks when it's confused. She reached out, stroked my cheek, and her hand sort of trailed down to my chest, where it sort of lingered.
"Come over, later. When you're done with this." I was trying to figure out if her hand on my chest was a bad-touch. She slid her hand a little lower, and sort of hooked a finger into the belt loop of my Levis. She leans in. Kisses me on the cheek. For a second, it looked like she was blushing. All within a split second, she turned and left.
I finish the beer, then go over to pee on the base of an avocado tree. I've heard that urine is a good fertilizer.
I have a pole saw from Harbor Freight. Not what a professional would use. I did some "Chinese Math". Cut all the branches that look like they are growing into the top of the tree. It's a six foot pole. Somehow, I was still left with branches going up to 15 feet. Chinese Math says I cut the tree in half. The fruit clusters had 6 - 10 fruit per cluster. I must have taken out almost 200 fruit. 200 pieces of useless fruit. All too high to pick. If I can't reach it by taking 2 or 3 steps up from a folding ladder; no fruit is worth falling off a higher ladder.
My Dad's house. I've got a lot of tools here. He's got a lot of tools here. A lot of tools collected over the course of his lifetime, and mine. I've got a wood chipper. Cuts branches and leaves down to tiny slivers. I bought it because renting one for the day would have cost about half the retail price. If you rent it twice, you might as well buy it. I've already lost track of how many times I've used it. So it has already paid for itself. The fruit came out about the size of a slice of jalapeno. Between the leaves and the fruit being processed, the air smelled like I was boiling a pot of loquat tea.
I'm standing in the middle of the yard, with a light breeze. The scent of loquat was suddenly replaced by Issey Miyake. I knew the scent well. Once upon a time, my jackets were scented with it. She marked her territory that way. Just a little spritz. So that when some other girl got close enough, her scent was on me. The same way a dog pees on a fire hydrant.
She said hello. Her voice was still the same as I remembered it. What was she doing here?
"I still live across the road. I saw you pull up on your bike. I thought I'd come say hello." She hands me a can of beer. Pabst Blue Ribbon. My dad's beer.
"Oh, yeah. Your Dad let me in. He told me to bring you a beer."
She still looks good. She should. She is about a dozen years younger than me. I still haven't said anything. I just sort stare at her. Long enough to hold her gaze. Then slightly tilt my lead, the way a dog looks when it's confused. She reached out, stroked my cheek, and her hand sort of trailed down to my chest, where it sort of lingered.
"Come over, later. When you're done with this." I was trying to figure out if her hand on my chest was a bad-touch. She slid her hand a little lower, and sort of hooked a finger into the belt loop of my Levis. She leans in. Kisses me on the cheek. For a second, it looked like she was blushing. All within a split second, she turned and left.
I finish the beer, then go over to pee on the base of an avocado tree. I've heard that urine is a good fertilizer.
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