DAY 211
11.01.07
TREE 135
I had to get up at 5:30 in the morning for my first day at Greenhaven Tree Care. I put on my uniform and headed out in the dark of night. Then I worked for nine hours. I was exhausted by the end. This job is not glamorous. We worked at the Stumpery at a house off Newburg Road. We did more landscaping work than anything else. After work I just wanted to sleep but I knew I needed to climb now before it got too dark. I stopped off at the rest stop on I-71 before I got home. I sat in my truck and waited, trying to gather some energy and wait for these kids and their dad to stop playing ball by the tree I wanted to climb. After five or ten minutes I got tired of waiting and just walked up to the tree and started to climb. Some spots were a little difficult but nothing bad. I did have a slip that freaked me out. It’s these new work boots.
They are stiff and the soles aren’t Stealth Rubber like my Fivetens.
I got to the top, real nice view on another pretty, clear evening.
The leaves of this tree were turning a deep red.
I didn’t tie a ribbon because I forgot to get a new color for November. I can remember which tree this is though. Today was rough. Fitting these climbs in after work could be challenging. I hope this job works out.
11-2-08: At first I was trying to do a 40 hour week in four day weeks. 10 hour days did not work out at all. Everyone else just wanted to get the hell home leaving me by myself with no clue what to do to pass those last two hours.
And for clarification, the Stumpery was named by the people who owned the place. They had Greenhaven take all these tree stumps and put them around their yard. That first day I worked with Aaron. He is a good ol’ country boy who was one year younger than me but looked ten years older. He was one of the nice ones to work with. (there were few)
Halloween day. I had been planning my costume for a little while and MaryLiz decided to make an appointment at the MAC counter at the mall. Since I was going to be Avril Lavigne I needed some dark eye make-up. The thing is… she made the appointment for noon. I picked her up and we got their to all these freaky looking women. They did their make-up to look like dolls, but weird looking dolls. They sat me in the make-over chair and I explained the situation. She wanted to do a whole face thing, and I said, no no no, just the eyes. Then she says my eyebrows are thicker than Avril’s. Well, duh, but no thanks. MaryLiz said, do it do it, let her do whatever. So I said fine, do the brows. The make-over began.
Looked how she totally screwed up my brows. No wait, look how stupid I look with make-up. I will never do this again.
As I sat their I looked over and another guy had showed up to get makeup done. I thought, good I am not the only guy here. I turn to him and asked him who he was going to be. He said, "a Victoria’s Secret Angel…" real effeminately.
When I was done we walked around the mall to get curtain rods, duct tape, black spray paint, and a black hat (for Drew since he was going to be Wayne from Wayne’s World.) Maybe I would have just been looked at as goth but since I was wearing just regular clothes that wasn’t the case.
So I went home and had some shit to do. I made Julio a 80’s boombox out of a cardboard box and duct tape and figured out how to get my iPod to play out of a bra with a speaker I tore out of a computer speaker.
At some point I climbed a tree. I was just going to pick a tree in my yard that I had already climbed. I did not feel like traveling around today. But I found a tree out back that I realized I could climb.
The first limb isn’t for 20 feet or so but it’s a Hackberry tree and a good trunk thickness for shimmying. I went up pretty quickly. You can see a bump in the trunk about half way up… that helped and provided a resting point along the way. Once in the branches it was a typical climb to the top. The sun was bright and I had a pretty great view of downtown and other surrounding areas.
Looking down it was kinda hard to see my truck and Drew’s Jetta, and difficult to see our house. I got higher than I expected in this tree.
Also at the top, I figured I should get one picture of me in a tree with make-up on.
That just looks weird. Well get ready for more weirdness. I got all dressed up with Charlotte as Edward Scissorhands. She looked good, I just looked creepy.
I did have Avril’s music coming from one of my boobs, though. That was pretty cool. I went over to Julio’s on my bike with my blond hair flying in the wind and music pumping out of my chest. I got a few looks.