One of these days, I'm going to fall through my kitchen window. I just know it. My own clumsiness won't allow me to go on teetering on a stepstool, day after day, yanking the kitchen curtains open and closed every morning and night. Sooner or later I'll lose my balance, as I've done a few times, and not be able to find a sill or a wall to catch myself. I'll tumble into the glass and land in the shrubbery outside.

Why do I have to stand on a stool to deal with the curtains? They are hung on wooden rollers, which have to be pushed or pulled along a wooden rod. They stick. It's impossible to get the right leverage to move the rollers from one end of the rod to the other, unless I'm at the same level or pushing down from above.

Opening is easier, because I just have to push. But when I try to close the curtains at night, I have to move the rollers one at a time, trying to space them evenly so that the whole window is covered. It's one of those skills that fall somewhere between art and mechanics, and I'm inept at both. I've stumbled and slipped enough times already to know to a certainty that one day I'll go through the glass.

The only reason I mention this is that it almost happened tonight. I managed to catch myself on the metal cross-piece (I'm sure it's called something technical), just avoiding a bloody demise in the bushes. Maybe I'll continue to have that kind of luck, but my history doesn't lend itself to that kind of faith.

I'm starting to like being a gardener. Not that I consider myself one, in any positive sense of the word. All I do is water everything in sight and pull up everything that looks like a weed. But I don't mind it as much as I thought I would.

In fact, I actually looked forward to it today. I can't really spend a lot of time outside during the day, because I have to be available to answer the phone (even though it's a wrong number about half the time, and a creditor I don't want to talk to most of the rest). But today while I was working, I was thinking about being out in the fresh air getting my hands dirty.

So at five tonight I put my gloves on and started digging up the unsightly growth along the side of the house. I worked for an hour, until I filled up the only available container, and then I quit and watered for another half hour.

There's still way more ugliness in my yard than a real gardener would tolerate. But I blew off a chance to have someone do it for me today. There was a knock on my door around noon, and a man was standing outside with his dog. He asked if I needed any work done, and I said what I always say to a stranger who wants to hang around my house. I said no.

He introduced himself to me as Rick, my neighbor from down the road. He seemed a decent enough fellow, but I wanted him to go away. This is not the way I expand my circle of acquaintances, by bonding with random uninvited visitors. I don't think I've ever made a friend on my own, without either being introduced by someone I already know or being thrown together in a work environment.

Besides, I didn't want anyone to clean up my yard until I'm more fully convinced that I can't do it myself.

Mom sent me a message this morning to let me know that she'd heard on the radio that my street is closed to through traffic for pipeline installation. There was no notice given to residents by the city or the county or whoever's doing this work. (Half the street is inside the Santa Rosa city limits, but my end is outside it).

Since most of the roads around my house have been or are still under construction, I decided to bag my daily trip to the post office. My mail will have to wait for tomorrow, even though the road will probably still be closed.

I'm getting tired of having to drive three or four extra miles every day for what should be a quick outing. I don't know why all the roads in the same neighborhood have to be under repair at the same time.