All on a sunny afternoon

I wasted way too much time chit chatting again today and I spent way too much bandwidth sparring with my co-blogger in Detroit over Michelle Malkin's insane fatwah.

It wasn't a total loss. I had a couple of interesting coversations. I cut my hair -- a lot -- and it came out great. My head feels lighter and it's got some bounce. I don't know why I didn't start cutting my hair myself a long time ago. I've been doing it for about three years now and every cut has been better than anything I paid fifty dollars for. It's such a quirky mop. Nobody understands it like I do.

But the best thing is Ortega showed up at my door today. I've been sending him subliminal messages for the the last three days as I was out there diligently raking the yard. My back is so screwed up I can only do it for an hour and a half a day. You don't get far at that rate and meanwhile what passes for a lawn has started growing like crazy. There's places where it's just too long to rake anymore. Most of it's not even grass. It's moss and wildflowers of various sorts and lots of onion grass. It's the onion grass that makes it look so messy, well besides the branches and the remaining leaves.

Anyway, as long time readers know, I don't have Ortega's phone number. The young girl who used to work at the convenience hooked me up with him and after the first time, he just showed last summer whenever the grass got long. I was wondering how I was going to find him again since Jeannie doesn't work there anymore. And there he was, my yard work angel. I could almost see the halo around him. He's going to come and make it all nice and tidy again.

He's a slight guy but wiry, smaller than me, with close cropped hair and skin the color of rich choclate. He's really pleasant. He has a wide smile with slightly yellowed teeth. He's certainly not poor, he drives a nice car and he's got a good truck and trailer to carry his mower. And he's clearly hardworking. He mows on the side. He always shows up in a clean work uniform from the furniture company. He does a great job on the lawn too.

I imagine him as being married with a bunch of kids but I'm not sure. He sort of subtly flirts with me, in a respectful sort of way. He doesn't press the point when I ignore it. And I've seen the women really bat their eyes at him when I've run into him at the store. It's hard to say. Sometimes I'm half tempted to invite him on the porch for beer when he's done mowing because I'm curious about his story. I've known him for over a year but we've never exchanged more than a few sentences when I hand him the cash. This summer I may just do it.