Guten morgen.
Quickly, as I have much to do this morning:
Coffee, first cigarette, back porch.
I am feeling nippy, like the weather.
Sky clear, and fresh. Not the slightest hint of a breeze.
A dozen contrails crisscross the heavens, and a sliver of a moon peeks through the blue.
I won't even mention Allied bombers today.
Anymore.
Bella the dog stands on the tiny lawn, wondering what to do with herself.
Dandelions sprout where I cut the grass a week ago.
It took me ten minutes to cut the grass last week with an electric mower.
There was a time though...
Ages ago, back in the old country, America, when we had ourselves an acre of a yard surrounding our little country rancher.
An acre of a field that was supposed to be a lawn.
The neighbors all had their own acre to mow, and they did mow, regularly. The neighbors behind us, their head of the household a country boy named Jack-- I say country boy though he was twenty years older than me-- happily mowed his acre on a riding lawn mower. The neighbors on one side also had a rider mower. The neighbors on the other side had a push mower, but plenty of teenage labor to push it regularly.
We also had a push mower, a cheap one, and I was always late to mow the yard.
By the time I got around to it, I was harvesting the yard, and not mowing it. I'd work during the week, and harvest the yard all weekend, when I got around to harvesting.
It was a real struggle, pushing that cheap little mower through the tall grass, an acre of it. But it was also a real struggle pushing the same mower through shorter grass more frequently.
One day I drove home from work, and half of our acre was burnt to a crisp. There were tire tracks visible from the fire engine that had arrived to extinguish the blaze. The blaze had been put out just short of Clyde the Beagle's dog house.
Clyde had stood there on the unburnt part of the lawn, looking at me looking at him, and wondering what to do.
The story was that the neighbor with the push mower but lots of teenage labor had been smoking, and had thrown a cigarette butt into our field with its tall grass. As it had been dry, the lawn had gone up in flames.
As odd as it may seem, I remember being happy about all of this.
Happy that I'd only have half an acre to harvest that weekend with my cheap push mower, and only half an acre for quite some time thereafter; happy that Clyde the Beagle had come through the event unscathed, and happy that I was never accosted by angry authorities or neighbors regarding the wild nature of our acre.
Not much time for rambling this morning though.
I have a job interview at 2pm in Cologne.
I will be interviewing for a job as a Business English teacher.
Really.
No, but really.
I was once a businessman, and I spent many years teaching English, and I have taught a few business classes as well.
I was advised by those who are going to interview me that I am to give a demo of the beginning of my favorite Business English lesson. I haven't got a favorite one, though, because I haven't taught enough Business English to have a favorite. But I'll think of something.
I'm not nervous or anything.
The CV that I sent them was of the type that only pertains to what is relevant to the job, so those who are going to interview me have no idea what I have been doing the past several years. I am sure they will ask, though.
"For the past two years I have been vagabonding for peace, giving lots of Conversational English practice to people I have met along the way, and prior to that I was a hot dog vendor, that is, a Businessman."
Alas, I must go. I have to mow my beard, and get the dirt out from under my nails.
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