Pretending About the Future

Pretending About the Future

Once I had finished renovating the garage and building the side Bonsai Garden, I needed a new project. If you think its optional you don’t understand the nature of retirement. The key lessons of retirement are the subject of many old jokes and include never passing up a bathroom and never trusting a fart. But there is really only one lesson and that is to always stay occupied. A body in motion tends to stay in motion. If that sounds familiar, congratulations, you were awake in twelfth grade physics class when you got to the part about the Newtonian Laws that start with the law of inertia. Inertia may be the retired person’s best friend for many reasons. Stasis can be a beautiful thing if you find that you are in a good place that you enjoy. I think it is fair to say that I like our little hilltop out here in California, so I am OK with the whole program. But inertia sounds like you’re supposed to be standing still when it really just means that you are staying the same, whether still or in motion. Trust me, I can very easily stay still. It is probably my preferred posture, but I know enough to know that I will regret it if I do. The one thing I consistently see in others who are of an age is that they wish they could do more, move more. That doesn’t get missed by me. I figure I will one day wish I had chosen motion over stillness, so perpetual motion is the name of the game.

As I have looked around my property I have found the logical next spot to renovate. I have found my next project. Eight years ago when we were sprucing up our newly acquired house with what I would call “necessary” improvements, Kim was of a mind to spend more time out here than I knew I would likely be able to. She had visions of spending the summers out here and that meant bringing Cecil. Since Cecil weighed in at over twenty pounds and that is the limit for taking a well-behaved dog onboard an airplane. The fact that Cecil would never be well-behaved enough to fly was also at issue. So, that meant two things. First, it meant that we would have to drive across country to get Cecil back and forth from New York to California. Try as we might, we could never find an acceptable alternative way to get the dog back and forth. The second thing it meant was that the whole drive program made it so that Kim and Cecil would have to stay out in California for a long enough time to make the trip worthwhile, something like two months or more.

During that length of stay and given the lovely cactus garden setting of our little hilltop, Kim felt that Cecil needed a dog run to allow Cecil to pursue his favorite sport, which was running back and forth chasing small tennis balls. So, what’s a man to do, but have the contractor doing all our house work put in a dog run in the big meadow down on the front “forty”. It was like the meadow was made for a dog run. Since I had no interest in dealing with a real lawn in this high chaparral climate, I had him put in an artificial grass dog run with boards at both ends that resemble cacti (compliments of nephew Alex). I think Cecil used the damn thing twice, so there it has sat. Like all the old ghost towns out this way, the dry weather keeps things in tact, even if a bit brittle around the edges. All-in-all, its in decent shape and ready for a make-over.

But Blind Betty, even if the dog ophthalmologist can restore some sight, is not likely to be a ball chaser. So, the thought came to me that what we desperately needed was an outdoor games area for the grandkids and grandnieces and nephews. I have decided that a 15×60 foot dog run can easily be transformed into four holes of mini-golf. And if you’re going to have mini-golf, you need a few other games like cornhole (its popularity is anathema to me, but there it is).

So here is the plan. I lay in some pavers from the driveway over past the Nëw Crepe Myrtle, where I put in an eight-foot Japanese-style arched bridge over the dry creek bed (not a real creek, but a long-ago installed landscaping feature), a path cut through the thick succulents (compliments of gardener Juventino) to a refashioned Games Extravaganza Area. Handy Brad will freshen up the cactus backboards. He will order a truckload of decomposed granite to lay down around the putting surface. I’ve ordered some nice red wooden benches and red umbrellas so the adults in the crowd can sit and watch. And today, Handy Brad and I determined that the artificial turf, while in good condition, is more fit for dog running than putting. In other words, I need to replace the surface with a shorter putting surface. I’ve already bought eight large ceramic pots that will have lovely Desert Steel blooms of various sorts in them. I’ve also bought four large steel cacti (two agave and two saguaro) and several steel critters to use as putting obstacles (the zerascape version of a windmill). I have found a British company (I’m thinking the proprietor probably has crooked buck teeth and a goofy laugh) that sells mini-golf loop-de-loops and interesting ramps and spiral tracks. I plan to make this a fabulous and fun course for the kids.

As we enter our seventh month of COVID quarantine, you might ask when I think my grandkids might come out here to enjoy the Games Extravaganza Area. The Grandnieces and nephews are local and they can certainly make use of such an attraction, but what I really want is the kids and grandkids to come out again and I guess I’m taking the Kevin Costner path. Maybe if I build it, they will come. This has caused me to wonder how wise it is to be pretending about the future. I think the only answer to that question is that we must always dream about and pretend about the future. This seems especially the case when it comes to being able to see and spend time with our loved ones. Our road-trip East in October is intended to be a pump-primer. I will build it next month (with the help of Handy Brad) and I just know they will come at some time soon.