LOST WEEKEND

IT'S SUNDAY MID-AFTERNOON AND THERE'S STILL ENOUGH DAYLIGHT left to play 9. I question how much resolve I have to refrain from playing. What was the point of this pointless exercise, anyway?

Oh yeah.  To see what I can do with those 10 hours a week I'd otherwise be spending on fairways and greens (which probably wasn't close to 10 hours at all given the amount of time spent in fescue and bunkers and water hazards and somewhere over the rainbow and the out-of-bounds stakes).

So here's how it went. Woke up. Made coffee. Drank three mugs. Did some work. Went for a run. Made breakfast. Did some more work. Went to the bank. Then to Costco. Then borrowed a seen-better-days wheelbarrow from Scully. Tried to repair the thing. Then put on my golf gloves. 

But instead of reaching for a golf club, I reached for a log, and proceeded to unload a pick-up truck overflowing with a cord of wood that I then had to move from my front yard to my back and stack in neat little piles so that we can heat this damn house when I can no longer afford to pay the bills, which could be any day now given the economy. My repair job to the wheelbarrow gave way before the stack of wood did, and I was hard-pressed to get it moved before daylight disappeared and the chilly air of evening set in.

But fortunately I had a cord of neatly stacked freshly cut hardwood that I could build a nice fire from. After bringing a load up to the fireplace, it only took three newspapers and a blowtorch before I could coax it into flames.

My log supplier, The Woodpecker, clearly was not inspired by Gallo's old tagline, "We will serve no wood before its time." Fortunately I had a box of those fake packaged logs in my garage and I conscripted one to serve as nuclear kindling for my reticent hardwood. Before long my bride and I were hunkering down before our stone fireplace with a pizza, a bottle of wine and a chick flick that lulled me to sleep faster than a couple of Ambien.

That was yesterday. Today looked a lot like a repeat, only the wood hauling was replaced with helping my teenage daughter with an essay assignment that would have been considered extreme at Harvard Law. This teacher must have a grudge more sizable than the national debt to bear. This is not how I want to spend my former golf days.

I haven't touched the guitar, looked at the piano or dusted off an old manuscript waiting to be rekindled. But I did get a few miles in on the trail each day, and my knowledge of my daughter's high school government studies is probably at nearly 3rd grade level by now.

And if I hurry, I can still get 9 in. Or head on down to Home Depot and pick up a new wheel and axle and try to repair the borrowed wheelbarrow. Again.

Only 359 more days. But who's counting?