I can feel
my wife Mona's double eye roll on the back of my neck a mili-second after I hear the
pop!; that very distinct circuit breaker
snap!followed by a whiff of ozone that
crackles! everytime I cut the extension cord with my electric hedge clippers. Silent darkness in the front rooms of our house always immediately follows. Clocks stop, digital plasmas get reset and
blink!, animals whine and bark. The Lord's name, usually in vain, passes through my lips in a clumsy whisper. I've been doing this for years...
I did it twice this past weekend; Once on Sunday. Once on Memorial Day. I've already matched my previous season high in the summer of 2008 with a score of
two. Including the one I'm buying today on my way home, that makes
seven 50ft extension cords I've accidently biten through while trying to cut a path through the
Forest Glen jungle we call our yard. And the rainy season is still the proverbial young lion in Chicago during these last days of May.
Now, I'm either gas or battery powered for all my other garage kept machinery; lawn mower, various trimmers, leaf blower, compressor. Only my power washer and my hedge clippers are electric. (I haven't found a way to mess up the power washer yet although my attempt to blast a half foot of snow from my porch and front steps last winter when the wind chill was 10 below zero
almost ended in disaster.) I swing a pretty mean sickle as well, and have the scars to prove it. On a positive home improvement note, I did manage to pull a missing silver baby spoon from the bowels of my garbage disposal this morning so at least
that annoying noise is gone.
You see, I'm usually the
Realtor hired to buy and sell Chicago real estate, not maintain it. Having an oversized 80 x 120 foot lot to care for along with all the other loafing around I do on a daily basis is a little too much to expect from someone who has lived in one condo or another for the past 10 years. I'm wearing my single family home ownership like a loose garment (ok, boxer shorts) these days. I just need to remind myself to not get it chewed up by my hedge clippers while I'm still in it...the loose garment, that is.
Geno Petro
follow me on twitter@genopetro
If there was ever a man who could find a way to alienate himself in a crowd of 40,000 it's Chicago Cub, Milton Bradley. I was sitting in the bleachers yesterday when the gravity of the right fielder's contrarian attitude caught my eyePhone. Actually, I kind of like this guy just because he doesn't play nice (or particularly well ) while still finding a way to also get paid $7 million. (I just may start being a smartass to the lady who sells me my Lotto tickets.) 'So sue me...'
I can feel my wife Mona's double eye roll on the back of my neck a mili-second after I hear the pop!; that very distinct circuit breaker snap!followed by a whiff of ozone that crackles! everytime I cut the extension cord with my electric hedge clippers. Silent darkness in the front rooms of our house always immediately follows. Clocks stop, digital plasmas get reset and blink!, animals whine and bark. The Lord's name, usually in vain, passes through my lips in a clumsy whisper. I've been doing this for years...
If you Google my name on any given day, 25,000 or so entries pop up saying pretty much the same thing; Chicago, blah blah blah: Realtor, blah blah blah; Writer/Weblog Commentor, yada yada yada. By simply placing two " "s around the name, the number instantly gets whacked by 66%. Click on the last number at the bottom of the search page and the total amount of entries under "Geno Petro" gets trimmed to either side of 100 after all the 'duplicate' articles and threads get filtered out. Google 'Chicago Real Estate Blogger' and this site can usually be found on Page One, First Position; but by adding a simple 's' to the word 'Blogger,' I fall down below the fold if not off of Page One completely. ("wtf?" he whispers under his breath.)
