Bought a lawnmower ...

Gee, nearly two weeks since my last post. You'd think I'd have run out of things to say, with respect to losing Frank and forging a life on my own now.

Nope. Frank is in my thoughts and in my heart every single minute.

Like, last weekend. Campobello was holding its first-ever, island-wide yard sale, with 27 families taking part. I justified my going by saying, "If Frank were here, he'd want to go, too."

The best thing I bought (only thing, besides a coffeemaker, which I needed to replace because my coffeemaker went missing in all the packing) was a lawnmower. A great, big, fancy push mower with bells and whistles. The retail price was $340 in the store (the old man told me), and I got it for $150.

I have to laugh, because Frank had a very strange history with lawnmowers. He was never a friend of yards and gardens, I don't think. I believe that during his 20 years in the Franklin farmhouse, he let his lawn grow high, "prairie-style." But -- once I met him and moved in, not my style.

I got him to buy a mower right before our wedding in June 2003. Actually, because it was the cheapest model you could buy, I don't think it lasted into the next summer, when we had moved into the Machias house.

So for all those Machias years, our lawn didn't get properly mowed much. We'd borrow the neighbor's lawnmower, or Frank would use the weed-whacker lawnmower-style. Or we would pay the neighbor to mow our yard. I kept threatening to go buy a proper lawnmower, but Frank would always say we didn't need one, or we didn't have the money for one.

Naturally, at the first sighting of a good lawnmower at a yard sale (last Saturday), I grabbed onto it. It's not here, yet, because I'm waiting for our friend Mike Shannon to turn up here with his pick-up truck, so we can go pick it up. But once I get it, my plan is to use it. Regularly, too, Frank. Just watch me!