A Hectic Second Week of April: A Sunday Reflection

When did my days become shorter? When did my life crawl between when I'm driving to school and when I'm driving from school? When did relaxing mean reading my history book?

Last week was an out of control frenzy of midterms and assignments. Though there's no need to go into detail, here are some of the highlights:

--History midterm on Monday
--Tom Sawyer due Tuesday
--Number the Stars due, plus studying a lot of literature notes for Tuesday
--Questions answered for American Beauty
--5 poems due for Thursday
--Driving out to Chino Hills for golf

And yesterday, I helped my dad put down new sod at my cousin Frank's house. He lives with his wife and three kids in a upper-middle class neighborhood. We rarely see him because: 1. his job drains a lot of his time; 2. he lives somewhat far away; and 3. he's from my dad's side of the family, the side we rarely see anyways. Combine all three, and you'll know why I haven't seen him in about 8 or 9 years.

Putting down that sod was dirty, flesh-peeling work. First we had to remove about 500 square feet of dry, weed-infested grass. Luckily for me, my dad and my cousin did most of the work by shoveling and pure muscles. Unfortunately for me, I had to shake the excess dirt from the pieces of grass; otherwise, the yard waste bucket would be too heavy to roll. After an few hours of inhaling dirt, we finished and my dad began to level the area. My cousin brought lunch and we spent a half hour in the shade. Afterward, I started to haul the sod from the front yard to the back in a wheel barrow while my dad and cousin began to position it. Only able to comfortably lug four pieces per trip with each piece an easy 20 to 25 pounds, it took me some time to transport all 500 square feet from the pallet to the back yard. Towards the end, we discovered we didn't have enough, so my dad and I went to the Home Depot a freeway exit away while my cousin prepared to go to his son's baseball game.

When we came home, I immediately showered, and within half an hour, I was sleeping like I'd been knocked in the head by bowling ball. My joints and lower back were stiff as uncooked spaghetti when I woke up this morning. But helping my dad out and getting some endurance exercise felt fantastic. Plus, the lawn looked a lot nicer after we laid down the sod.


There's nothing much I'll add except to say I played nine holes with Leo on Thursday. He beat me by four strokes and won our bet of $1. The experience wasn't a total loss; I've gotten much more confidence in my driving. I'll probably be playing a full 18 holes with Leo and his dad (and his dad's friend) next Friday; hopefully I won't make an ass out of myself.