The number 839.
That's 839 tomatoes so far and at least another 300 still yet to ripen.
I've turned red.
And juicy.
And tasty.
Well, at least that's what Wifey-Poo says!
I also realise that some of you are waiting to see some alien pictures I have in my possession. I was going to make you wait until I arrived on the spaceship with my sledgehammer, but I think now I'll give you a closeup of one of them...
Are
you
ready?
Of course you are...
And now, back to the story! When we last left our hero he was laying facedown in the pool dead from a horrible shaving accident involving a meat cleaver.
Wifey-Poo will now take you through the burial!
Writing a eulogy is something I've always wanted to do. Writing the eulogy for one's husband, however, is something one doesn't(normally) think about. Or, not often. Unless he's deciding to ride his bike up a hill in 45 degrees C, in which case eulogizing is never far from the mind. And when he's deciding to shave in the pool, with a meat cleaver.
Now, it's altogether true that very few males of any species would seriously consider such a ludicrously hazardous endeavor, but Alaskan Dave is ... well, Alaskan. And the denizens of that state are not the normal male of any species, much less homo sapiens. So when he informed me that he was about to undertake an exercise in monumental foolishness, I responded with my usual, indulgence: "Yes, dear." And went about my own pasttimes, which include WORKING while I have a little peace and quiet, both items which can be sorely lacking in an environment where someone is emulating Red Green and his marginally suicidal associate, Bill.
However ... as minutes became hours (or at least too many minutes) at last it percolated through to the more responsive centers in my brain that things were, perhaps, a little too peaceful, too quiet ... and had been so for some time. With this on my mind, along with a deep and abiding sense of foreboding, I grabbed a coffee, hunted for my sunglasses, deliberated between four or five assorted pairs of shoes and sandals, set the coffee cup to wash, fed the cat and raced breathlessly outside to see what had become of my husband.
Erstwhile husband.
Oh ... dear.
Imagine my surprise to discover the pool water growing ... well, red is such a harsh word, and beside, when red mixes with blue it doesn't stay red for long, and the pool liner is extremely blue. So, imagine my surprise to find the pool water a curious shade of mauve, or perhaps purple, or violet. Coming closer, I saw the reason, and I raced back into the house for the camera. The insurance company would need pictures, I thought feverishly; and besides, this has GOT to be worth a blog post or two.
And there was Dave: positively perished and permanently perpendicular in the pool, unfortunately but fearlessly floating face-down in his favorite, familiar environment ... limp, looking largely lifeless and less than a candidate for reliable resuscitation routines...
All I could do was give him the Viking burial of which he has always dreamed, crossed with a burial at sea. Because he weighs about 180lbs, and no way could I get him out of the water. And so...
Bury him, thought I, with his faithful sledge hammer. Bury him with beer, and floral tributes, and plenty of duct tape to sustain him in that Great Workshop in the Sky (the one around the back of the Halls of Asgard, where the Valkyries bring in their helmets and armor to have the dents beaten out after they've been brawling again down at the tavern). Bury him with his loyal Crocs, and all the accoutrements of the intrepid handyman for whom life has been a grand tale of mashing hammers and tech screws -- a tale such as might be sung for a thousand years. Or at least till next week.
And so he lay buried at sea, in the pool, surrounded by his loyal and faithful minions, and I stood on the poolside, groaning softly as I tried to work out what I'd done to my lumbar region in the course of getting him and that damned sledge hammer arranged on a tippy little air mattress.
But as readers of this blog know already, the story has barely begun...
{Insert cool narrator voice here}
Wifey-Poo had not, however, known that a strange lightning storm was fast approaching Yours Truly's final resting place...
{turn off cool narrator voice here}
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Just in case some of you are wondering: Yes, I still can make dinner!
And how's abouts a closeup of that 15 inch long strip of ultra thin-sliced Tasmanian smoked salmon that I tied in a knot for the centrepiece:
Stay tuned to this channel for Alien Abduction Act IV.
