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A Tree No Longer Grows in Hyde Park
Jun. 8th, 2024 11:56 am“I saved you from Bashir,” the tall, gangly Hyde Park Food Pantry guy leaned over to tell me confidentially.
Bashir is in his late 60s with a great reservoir of wounded pride behind his tired eyes. He looks to be a harmless enough fellow, so all I said was, “Oh?”
“I told him he has to hand in his paperwork!” said the gangly guy. “But I’ve been coming for three years, he told me. Doesn’t matter, I told him. Every year you’ve got to fill out fresh paperwork. Rules are rules! And they’re there for a reason.”
“What reason?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t know!” the gangly guy chortled. “But somebody does!”
“Maybe Bashir has language issues,” I said. “Where’s he from?”
“Lebanon, Syria, Egypt. One of those places. Rules are rules! There’s a reason for rules!”
I’ve been introduced to the gangly guy half a dozen times but never can remember his name—which I feel a little bad about because he always remembers mine and even pronounces it correctly.
###
The big news is that Neighbor Ed finally had the Problematic Tree chopped:
You probably can’t tell from this photograph, but that conifer on the right? It’s listing at an angle of about 75°. We live in the Hudson Valley wetlands, sumped and drained, of course, to give the illusion of dry ground most of the time. But suburban lawns revert back to marshland whenever more than an inch of rain falls. The tree was poised to take out the electricity, Buff-Ken-and-Loraine’s house, and my car (since I park near the mailboxes.)
Anyway, the tree was downed this morning. By seasoned professionals.
Ed, Pat, Loraine, & I gathered to watch.
(“The least you could do is supply free popcorn,” I told Ed.)
I was quite impressed by the tree service!
They got the sucker down in just two and a half hours.
I took half an hour of video! I figured I would edit it down into a little three-minute movie—A Tree No Longer Grows in Hyde Park (play on A Tree Grows in Brooklyn) & give it to Pat & Ed as a thank you for their couch.
###
Other than that, I cried hysterically for an hour and a half yesterday—an improvement from the day before when I cried for two.
I Remunerated.
I gardened.
Behold my Swiss chard:
Behold my daisies, which have popped out to keep my foxgloves company:
Also, I started reading Black Narcissus, the novel by Rumer Godden, and it is surprisingly good.
Bashir is in his late 60s with a great reservoir of wounded pride behind his tired eyes. He looks to be a harmless enough fellow, so all I said was, “Oh?”
“I told him he has to hand in his paperwork!” said the gangly guy. “But I’ve been coming for three years, he told me. Doesn’t matter, I told him. Every year you’ve got to fill out fresh paperwork. Rules are rules! And they’re there for a reason.”
“What reason?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t know!” the gangly guy chortled. “But somebody does!”
“Maybe Bashir has language issues,” I said. “Where’s he from?”
“Lebanon, Syria, Egypt. One of those places. Rules are rules! There’s a reason for rules!”
I’ve been introduced to the gangly guy half a dozen times but never can remember his name—which I feel a little bad about because he always remembers mine and even pronounces it correctly.
###
The big news is that Neighbor Ed finally had the Problematic Tree chopped:
You probably can’t tell from this photograph, but that conifer on the right? It’s listing at an angle of about 75°. We live in the Hudson Valley wetlands, sumped and drained, of course, to give the illusion of dry ground most of the time. But suburban lawns revert back to marshland whenever more than an inch of rain falls. The tree was poised to take out the electricity, Buff-Ken-and-Loraine’s house, and my car (since I park near the mailboxes.)
Anyway, the tree was downed this morning. By seasoned professionals.
Ed, Pat, Loraine, & I gathered to watch.
(“The least you could do is supply free popcorn,” I told Ed.)
I was quite impressed by the tree service!
They got the sucker down in just two and a half hours.
I took half an hour of video! I figured I would edit it down into a little three-minute movie—A Tree No Longer Grows in Hyde Park (play on A Tree Grows in Brooklyn) & give it to Pat & Ed as a thank you for their couch.
###
Other than that, I cried hysterically for an hour and a half yesterday—an improvement from the day before when I cried for two.
I Remunerated.
I gardened.
Behold my Swiss chard:
Behold my daisies, which have popped out to keep my foxgloves company:
Also, I started reading Black Narcissus, the novel by Rumer Godden, and it is surprisingly good.
