Concentrating the Mind

Numbers whir on the analog water meter, buried
by the curb due to separated indoor and outdoor pipes.

Leaving town, even for a one-week trip, concentrates the mind. All the to-do list items that had been continually rolling forward ran into the wall of the departure date.

And so it was that I finally rewired the outdoor sprinkler system, which had been operated manually since the electronics stopped working in April.

A second and related task was to determine that there wasn't a leak in the system. I read the water meter after a 4-hour interval with all faucets turned off; the dial didn't move. Good, the grass won't die in my absence.

Now, off to Hawaii, where more implacable family-related deadlines await. Well, none of them are as bad as doing a tax return.