I wasn’t. Really. I was assisting with the proper drainage to prevent a potentially hazardous puddle extending out into the street! You see the ice and snow is all melting and in some spots it’s not draining very well along the curb. There are little pools building up where there are still leaves and other obstructions. I was just doing my civic duty by clearing the blockage and watching the puddle go woooooosh down along the curb into the storm drain. Really I was. So what if I would’ve floated a popsicle stick down the stream if I had one?
So…um…did you float said popsicle stick? Cause…I’d have had to make some leaf canoe or something.
You should invest in a little toy ship.
LOUNE is right. It doesn’t count unless there are leaves to be pretend ships.
With little teeny oarsmen.
And provisions for sixty days, but then…
And little really tiny chests of treasure, and…
where was I?
No, of course you weren’t playing.
I didn’t have a popsicle stick. But thanks for the toy boat idea! I’ll just have to pretend it’s a gift for a child or something. There’s going to be lots of freeze and thaw as per usual in Calgary so I have some time to find a suitable pocket sized boat. Whoops, I mean pocket sized obstruction clearing device. Arrr! Avast! Anchors away!
Ridiculous. Frivolous, even. Why, I’ve never done such a thing in my life.
Of course, we don’t get enough melted snow to actually float a popsicle stick in… :rolleyes:
The best thing about having children in my forties is that it gives me the perfect excuse to do stuff like this. By the time they’re grown, most people my age will be having their second childhood. I’ll be having my third. 
Make that ‘by the time my children are grown…’.
I’m the King of Ambiguous Pronouns. :rolleyes:
I do not play in the stream of water alongside the driveway. I am merely clearing the area of debris so it won’t run into the carport. The fact that it is fascinating to watch the water run, and see which paths it takes, and how one can change them is irrelevant.
And I am not playing with rocks and dirt in the backyard. I am landscaping, damn it. I am not trying to resculpt a hillside just because it’s fun, I am…
Trying to resculpt a hillside just because it’s fun. I confess.
I came in today, after raking, which turned into rock-moving, which turned into earth moving, wet, filthy and sweaty–and feeling very, very good.
Playing outside is fun!
I don’t like stomping on the ice-crusted former-puddles. I’m merely breaking them open so pedestrians behind me can see there’s a depression and avoid stumbling into them because they mistook the ice as solid. It’s dangerous stuff, that. Wouldn’t want anyone hurting themselves.
Neither do I enjoy kicking abrupt snow drifts. They obscure one’s ability to see what’s beyond them. Kicking them into a great flurry of debris clears a line of sight for people. The explosion noises I make are just my warning to anyone in the vicinity to clear the area.
And stop looking at me funny if you see me take a running shoeboard along the ice. I’m just determining whether I should inform the local property manager that he needs to ice the walkway.
I do not go out of my way to step on every crunchy leaf I see on the sidewalk. That would just be silly. I also do not play in melted snow streams or mud puddles or bang the snow off chainlink fences. Silly, all of it.
All right, but if you get to the sewer and see Tim Curry down there just turn around and walk away.
featherlou that’s really frightning I was just about to deny crunching leaves myself.
Which I don’t. I’m…gardening.
Oh dear. Ice the walkway? Well that would certainly be something, though definitely not something fun like making a big ol’ skating rink or something, no sir. Salt the walkway, now that would be far more sensible and much more the sort of thing I’d be aiming for if I determine that the length of my speed-skating strides carry me too far.
Did I mention that I have a tendency to test the snow for its packing consistency by making snowballs and throwing them at walls? The amount of snow that sticks to said walls will tell me if I should be wary of oncoming snowballs from less civic-minded individuals.
There wasn’t a clown in the sewer, was there?
With a ballon?
:eek:
Of course you weren’t playing. Just like you won’t be playing in the puddles and streams when the chinooks come around in December.
It’s pouring. POURING. Been pouring for two days.
And I have to go to work. Dang. Because there’s a mini-flood in the back yard to play with. And I need to work on it. 'Cause, you see, the back yard, it gets a delightful little stream running through it, and I wanted to see if I could make the stream skirt the flower bed, and go around the ferns, and…
I don’t want to go to work! I want to put on yellow rubber boots and perform water maintenance gardening tasks in the back yard.
And then come in and eat a toasted cheese sandwich and some soup.
It’s really no fun being a grownup.
Ah, the fun I had as a kid on a rainy day floating “boats” down the curb gutter, then running down to get them, running back uphill to do it again! Sigh.
Rosebudism.
What you really need is this little ice breaker
I don’t go hopping on the white stripes on the street when crossing it. Not at all, as it’d be dreadful to break an ankle or wrist slipping on wet road enamel, wouldn’t it?
Mosquitos breed in standing water. I am not having any kind of fun at all jumping in those puddles getting my sneakers and the bottoms of my jeans all wet. I am dispersing the water to prevent the mosquitos and thereby preventing the further spreading of the West Nile virus.
You should all be thanking me.
It’s small enough to fit in a pocket and big enough to clear light obstructions like a leaf jam or something. Crappy camera phone pics here. It’s snowing again so when it melts I’ll have to go about my civic duty now that I’m properly equipped.
Hey! No fair! You can’t go – er – doing your civic duty with premeditation like that. It has to be spur of the moment, as-you-encounter-it with makeshift … uh … tools that are handy. Dammit, you’ll make a paper boat and like it!