Getting my goat

I decided to take some time off work. I always thought it would be fun to take off a bunch of time around the Fourth of July and just take things easy.

So yeah, I guess that would be fun, but I wouldn't know, because I've been working my ass off!

Last week, I took a two-day water safety certification course up in Hercules. You have to perform all these water rescues, and they have little 85-pound junior high kids that you can practice your rescue moves on.

Well, turns out junior high kids are a limited resource up there in Hercules, so I had to perform most my rescues on the other grown-ups in the class.

The teacher pointed to this guy who looked like an NFL linebacker and said "I want you two practice your beach drag."

I said "Fine, but there's no way I can make this guy look like Gidget. If you give me a muu muu I can maybe pull off Marjorie Main from 'Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki'."

Yeah, well, turns out I had a lot to learn about water safety.

And weed control. Yes! Weed control!

The area around the community pool there in Hercules it's all this hilly open space, and there were lots of dry weeds growing around there, and there were these goats just munching away all the weeds.

I said "What a great idea! Every year around this time I'm chopping weeds, pulling weeds, stomping weeds, calling down fire from heaven upon the weeds. Then I order a huge pile of mulch and and try to choke out all unauthorized plant life. And still I get weeds."

So next year I'm hiring goats and letting them do all the work while I relax in a hammock with a blender drink and a mystery novel. And if one of them falls in the frog pond, I'll know what to do.

Kurt "big daddy" True
5 july 2007