I wonder

Who are the people you hear laughing in the background on TV comedy shows? I mean, are there people who spend their lives being audiences for sit-coms? How do they know when the shows are taping? Is it in the newspaper or can they find out online? Or do they get notices sent to them?

I believe many shows used to use laugh tracks. You know, just turn on the laugh track at the right time. But it sounded like what it was, canned laughter. I think the laughs are from real people these days. Real people for whom, apparently, some very stupid and unfunny things are worth a laugh.

I suppose someone cues them when to laugh. Someone with a script. Someone who knows when something is supposed to be funny, even if it isn't funny.

Are these laughing people paid? Or do they pay to be part of the audience, the laughing crew?

That would be good to know, well, maybe not good. Do they get money for laughing? I guess that would make them professional audiences, professional laughers.  No doubt some folks laugh better than others. And maybe they get paid more. Is there a laughing hierarchy? Can you graduate to advanced laugher status?

Important questions these on a Tuesday morning after Memorial Day.

Just a little history

My mower guys are Hilltop Landscaping, LLC. Carleton's name is on the business card as owner. He's young, early 30s, maybe, slender and handsome, with dark hair and dark eyes, a short beard.

Nick works for Carleton. At least that's what I think they said when I met them last year. And Nick's name is not on the card. He is maybe a little older, late 30s. About the same height, around 6'1" but stockier. Red face, light hair, not as handsome.

When they are here together, Nick acts like he's in charge. He tells me to "talk to your neighbors" about things like the pine trees on one side and the encroaching property on the other. (That last part may not be clear. Oh well.)

Twice Nick has told me he took a picture, a before picture, of my lawn. I suppose some day he'll show it to me, but I can already see the difference between then and now.

Nick moved the rebar and hammered it in more securely for me today--heavy hammering--to hold together the old piece of wood by the chain link fence, the old wood that keeps their property on their side of the line. The fence and the old wood were here when we bought the land and built our house. In those days, the Hessings were our neighbors--their fence, their wood, in place for more than twenty years before we came.

Nick says this fix will last a couple of days. I'm counting on longer than that. Eric Nelson hammered my rebar in about five years ago. I'd like at least another five years. Then, maybe, I'll talk to my neighbors, the Shuells. You know that old saying: good fences make good neighbors. Seems apt here. And I say keeping silent about small matters also makes good neighbors. So far this is a small matter.

I like it here, squirrels and all. Like my house. Like this neighborhood. Get along well with my neighbors. Well, not much to get along with in my new neighbors who live next door. The house Phil Jones built, lived in about ten years then built out in the Meridian area, selling his big house with pool and four garages to the Bakers. They, too, have moved away, and the new neighbors, whose name I don't know, have been here about a year. Pine tree neighbors.

I did speak to him about the trees a couple of weeks ago. Got nowhere.

I have written this because someone might want to know.

It's only a lawn, but . . .

My mower guys are here: Carleton, Nick, and a new kid. I think his name is Trace.

They come every Thursday morning. I like the guys, and I have to say my lawns are looking much better. Much.

But if I told you what I pay them you would think I'm stupid. The one person I told, and I don't remember who it was, was stunned and now does think I'm stupid. Oh yes, it was my neighbor, Janice. Especially the part about signing the contract before I knew the exact dollar amount. Well, I thought $25 per week was it, plus a little extra for the grass seed and fertilizer and such. The extra turned out to be a lot. It's a long story.

I repeat, though, that my lawns are looking good, even lush. And the guys have put down seed and compost, and they fertilize the place, too. As they said they would.

Which the guy I fired last year failed to do. And they don't sit on a big riding mower and gouge out big chunks of earth and make parts of my lawn look like somebody came along and tore up the sod big time.  Which the guy I fired last year did.

Having my place look good is more important to me than you might think. Or, I don't know what you might think, really. But I like it to look like someone lives here.

Everything costs money, as you may know. I'll give them a year and see before I sign another contract. The way I figure it, if they do things right this year I should not need grass seed next year and, well, we'll just see.

I answer my own question

What's next?

Mr and Mrs Duck on my front lawn this morning. Apparently bleach does not bother them.

Yes, they're beautiful. But, really.

Wild, indeed

So Ron saw a big fox jogging across my lawn, coming from the new neighbors' place, across my yard, and over the fence into Shuells'. A big fox, said Ron, big enough to leave a large "dog log" on my lawn. Like the one I had to clean up yesterday.

Today I will go out and spray bleach around and hope that can deter the animal(s). As Janice says, "Who needs to move to Wilderness Ranch?"

As I say, "What the heck is going on?"

And all this time I have thought this was my place. Silly me.

What's next?

It's only a word

No doubt you've heard how folks combine words to make new words. The word I'm thinking of is ginormous, a pairing of gigantic and enormous. It's kind of fun, and we all know what it means: huge.

Last week I overheard two excited young women discussing something, which I can guess was huge, but I'm not sure, because the word was new to me and left me puzzled.

Ginormal.

Do you know it? Know what it means? Is it just a new and even more playful bending of the same word/idea?

End, I hope, of the rattle snake episode.

Dave, the Orkin expert--but not a snake man--came yesterday. He traversed my property, and he found no rattle snakes or evidence of such. Good. I say.

He said that after our telephone conversation last week he called his mother, "Since you played the mother card on me." His mother lives in Lewiston and in 20 years has seen two rattle snakes on her land, about ten years between sitings.

I liked Dave because he called his mother and no doubt spoke to her about me.

After his outdoor inspection, he went to his truck and put on his coveralls so he could crawl into my crawl space. I told him we built this house 23 years ago and in that time I have never been in that crawl space. "No reason for you to," said Dave. Yep, I like this guy.

Getting into the crawl space was not easy for him, but once in he made a thorough inspection. No sankes there. That's snakes, if you're particular about spelling.

When he had to come out, I said, "I won't watch, but when you're out, see that big black spider there in the corner?"  He thanked me for not watching, saying it would not be pretty and saying he'd take care of the spider.

Which he did.

He also told me when to open and shut the vents in the foundation, actually, to have the Orkin guys who come quarterly to do it for me.

What's not to like about Dave?

Pre-Mother's Day Miscellany

My daughters sent me earrings for Mother's Day. They all have them, too. Beautiful silver filigree teardrops. I love them and like very much that we all have them.

 *     *     *

The snake guy, who is not a snake guy, didn't come yesterday. Now he says Monday. So far no more snakes. But I'm kind of spooked.

*     *     *

Alyce celebrates her first Mother's Day tomorrow. I am happy for her.

 *     *     *

Richard called to chat and wish me happy Mother's Day.

 *     *     *

Lola was just here with a bouquet of flowers for me. We had this conversation as she left.

Lola: Clayton made me a Mother's Day card and wrote a poem.
Me: Sweet kid.
Lola: The poem said   Roses are red
                                 Violets are blue
                                 I love you more than
                                 Corn and carrot stew.
Me: Duh.
Lola: Exactly.

The Wild Kingdom

• Sure. I have trees and, therefore, squirrels. They've been dashing around my yard and roof for 20 years. I don't like them, but I'm used to them. I tolerate them and sometimes, not often, enjoy watching their little . . . whatever you call their activities.
• Birds I have also. Sparrows are nesting again in the house Paul built on my upstairs deck, and a mourning dove is trying hang around up there--the sparrows don't like it. Finches are just outside my writing room window. And the other day a duck was sitting on my back fence. Crows, quail, robins, and so on.
• And my favorites, the raccoons.
• About snakes. I see the grass snakes in the summer. I don't like them and have killed one or two, but my neighbor says not to kill them because they eat mice. I don't see how a snake that small could eat a mouse, but what do I know.

However,

My lawn mower guy's report yesterday shook me up. Last week he knocked on my door to show me the RATTLE SNAKE he and Nick had trapped and killed--not far from my front door. I was out of town. I'm home now and I'm scared. You see one rattle snake--he said it was a young one--and you know there are others.

Now what to do? Lola said to call my pest people. Good idea, I thought.

So I called Orkin. I pay them big money to keep my property pest free. They had their expert, Dave, call me.

Dave told me he deals with bugs, not snakes.

He said, "I'm not going into your crawl space if there are rattle snakes." I said, "Well, I don't blame you, but what do you think I should do?" That's when he said the part about being an entomologist, not a snake person and then, "I don't think there's much you can do."

A lot of help.

I said, "Pretend I'm your mother. Is that what you would tell her?"
"Oh boy," he said. "You play the mother card, and it's Mother's Day coming up. Okay. I'll come. Where's the entrance to the crawl space?"

I told him, "in the basement, but if you're a really big guy, it will be hard for you to get in."

"I can probably get in," he said.

"Brad got in," I told him.

"Oh," he said, "you're a customer? Nobody told me you were a customer. Of course I'll come." And so on. That's supposed to be today.

• And then there's this morning's encounter as I attempted to load my washing machine. A large wolf spider was running around inside the washer. Very hard to catch--like I love catching spiders--so I drowned him and then had to fish him out. I mean, I do not want to find dead spider remains in my washed undergarments.

Yeah, speaking of Orkin. I may have to mention the spider to Dave.

What do you make of this?

Not much sleep. Awake and disgusted about it. So I got up at 3:45, came down to make bread and read. Here's one thing I read.

“‘Words do not convey meanings; they call them forth.’ I speak out of the context of my experience, and you listen out of the context of yours, and that is why communication is difficult” (David O. McKay).

David O. McKay was not a linguistic authority, at least not to my knowledge, but what he says here is true. We know--one would hope--what we say, what we want to convey, but we cannot know what our hearer takes from it.

You say something. Your listener may know all the words you use, or he may not. Or he may get caught on a word and let his thoughts carom off of things already in his head, his experience, and take him far away; he stops listening; you're done. Besides, you can't make someone listen to you.

Even if he listens to every word, you cannot know if the words mean to him what they mean to you.

And the written word? I say the matter is similar, if not the same. In the first place, you can't make someone read what you have written. If he reads, will what you wrote mix with his experience and turn into something not quite like what you meant? If I had a nickel for every time that has happened, well, you know.

Many years ago I took a poem I had written to a workshop where a well-know poet held classes and gave us of her knowledge and experience. I thought I'd be reading my poem to the class, but she assigned another student to read it. Afterward, I said he didn't read it right; he didn't convey the meaning of it. Our visiting poet said, "All your reader has is what you put on paper. You can't expect him to know your thoughts unless you have put them down for him to read." Words to that effect.

Obviously, I never forgot that criticism. It has helped me in my own writing and was always part of what I taught my students at Boise State. Even so, well, no need to say again what I've already said.

Is it me? my house? or what?

Wow. The minute I crossed the state line into Idaho my allergies attacked me.

I was--and this was a surprise to me--perfectly fine in Utah. Like a regular, normal person.

But now my eyes are itching again. And watering mercilessly. I'm sneezing, blowing my nose, clearing my throat. The whole bag.

But life must go on. At least, I hope so.

Maybe it's my trees.

Home again, home again, jiggety jog

I'm searching for another way, a better way, to say I'm tired. Better than I'm really tired.

Whatever. I am really tired.

Drove home today from Provo, worst part being Provo to Bountiful, longest part being the rest of the way home. I've filled up with gasoline and washed my car, done one load of laundry, and surveyed the water in my garage. Long story, involving my freezer out there and Lola and the GFI switch.

Haven't the energy or desire to clean up the garage, Lola having done the hardest part--cleaning out the freezer and chucking the spoiled everything.

Because. I haven't unpacked yet. Haven't even got all the stuff upstairs.

I need a little sympathy.

And some sleep.