This week I am house sitting, since Rock and the family (no stone) have left for Vancouver. (By the way, Vancouver is much more polite than NYC, no matter what any stupid-ass, unscientific Reader's Digest survey says.) Actually, it’s not really house sitting; it’s more dog-cats-garden-grandpa sitting. It’s pretty fun. Mrs. McLeod maintains an apocalypse-ready pantry (a whole room, actually), so I am well fed. I have eaten an entire box of Buffalo wings, half a box of chicken nuggets, and about 12 cans of iced tea (well, those I drank). There is also a level-40 garden, just in case I feel the urge to eat healthily. I don’t actually know if it is level 40; I don’t know how gardens are graded at all, for that matter. But it seems big to me, and the number 40—being the biggest number I know—is the best way I can convey that. Actually, I have eaten some of this garden food: strawberries (less strawy than you’d expect), huckleberries (surprisingly twainy), and radishes, at least a rasher of them, if radishes come in rashers. Oh wait, that’s bacon, isn’t it? Well, they should change that. A “rasher of radishes” sounds much better. In fact, I think I'll make that my motto. Yes, I know it is not a complete sentence, but mottos are so much easier to live up to when they don't contain verbs.

Gardening is pretty fun when you don’t have to do the hard parts, like weeding, hoeing, and spraying DDT out of crop-dusters. Mostly I just run sprinklers and spray with the hose for an hour or so each day. The best part about this is spraying animals—don’t worry, they like it, probably. So far I have sprayed 2 toads, a robin, a squirrel, and a fish. It’s usually from a distance, so the water pressure is minimal. The animals mostly just hop about confusedly (story of my life). I don’t know if the fish really counts, since it was pretty wet to begin with. Oh well, who's counting? A neighbour said there was a bear in the neighbourhood yesterday. Lucky thing it didn’t come by this yard. I was ready. It would have gotten a face full of hose water. I was even prepared to yell: “That’ll learn ya! Bear!” Not that such yelling requires extensive preparation. Still …