Sunday, October 14, 2012.
The Hamburger Urge Is Dispensed With. It Started, And So It Ends.
Mary Ann continued to insist that my repeated failure over the past few weeks to get the lawn tractor moving would continue. It sure looked that way. Two attempts this morning didn't do it. I have to recharge the portable battery after each attempt to jump-start it, and that takes hours. Everything I've done to get the machine going in the past has failed. My trusty old Father's Day present of--when was it? 2002?--may have already trimmed our lawn for the last time.
I was ready to cook the pretty pork chops I bought yesterday, but Mary Ann said she didn't want to eat a heavy meal at all today. The next thing we knew we were at Zea again. She doesn't get the entire blame for that. During the days we spent in New York the week before last, I could barely keep up with the Marys as they ran to joints with alleged credentials as grilling The Best Hamburger In America. None of them really did. In fact, all were below the goodness of the hamburgers we make at home.
I derided the Marys' mania as a perfectly ridiculous eating program for two days in New York City, the greatest restaurant city in the world. But now a strange side effect revealed itself. I had a hunger for a good hamburger, to make up for the bad ones we chased after in NYC.
I would like to have made them at home, but ML is off doing something else, and MA doesn't want to eat a hamburger (she says). But Zea's hamburger is a contender. She got a house salad and I glommed onto Zea's hamburger, whose only serious flaws are that it's too big, and that the bun is even more too big.
And now I have had my hamburger quota for October.
As I took my daily low-power walk around the Cool Water Ranch, an idea occurred. Maybe the lawn tractor wasn't starting because no electricity was getting to the fuel pump. I hooked up a charger to the on-board battery, and at around five--with the charger still connected--I jumped the starter one more time. Vrrooom! I climbed aboard and raced the sunset, my fingers crossed that I had enough gas to cut all the parts of the ranch that we mow--about two acres. It was just getting dark when I finished. If the tractor never runs again, it went out with a surge of glory.
