After a slow start, the day picked up its pace as Matt and I took my truck to Fredonia to get a trenching machine for the electric line he planned to run from the house to his shop. Needing to ferry his kids to a birthday party in town, he wasn't able to get started till about 1:00 pm, at which time things really took off. We stopped at my house to pick up my ramps, unloaded the trencher, and got to work. And work it was! You would think a machine designed to cut a trench in the ground would make the work easier, and I suppose it does beat digging it by hand with a pickaxe, but running that thing was like trying to hold onto a jackhammer on steroids. A trencher is essentially a beefed up chain saw that bounces and bucks every time it hit a rock, which was every few inches. Every couple feet, a rock would get stuck in the chain, seizing up the works until we got it stopped, took it out of gear and shook or hammered the rock loose. He told me that he could have rented it for all day or just four hours. He chose the latter. We got the trench dug in a little over an hour. I can't imagine running that thing nonstop for four hours, let alone all day!
Linda had asked me to pick up some birdseed she had ordered at Peterson's on Fluvanna, which I was glad to do, except that Matt had rented the trencher from the Home Depot in Fredonia. Peterson's is a half hour south of us, and Fredonia twenty minutes north. Apparently, the Lakewood store doesn't do rentals. I didn't know that until we had left the house. It was here that I made my first mistake. I didn't think to call Linda to let her know I couldn't pick up the birdseed. I figured I could pick it up on Monday. To further complicate matters, the Meachams were moving into Bob and Bri's house in the afternoon, and we had hoped to help. I had noticed the moving van in the driveway when we passed the house just before pulling into Matt's with the trencher, but again, failed to call to let Linda know they were there. It wasn't until we were done with the trencher that it dawned on me that I might want to call and let her know about the birdseed and the moving van. By then, there wasn't enough time for her to do both, and I guess today was the only day she could get the seed. Things weren't going too well by now.
We returned the trencher, picked up a few things Matt needed for the wiring project, and started home when I got the call from Linda wondering where we were. We had a dinner engagement with her sisters at six, it was 4:30, it was a 45 minute drive from our house to dinner, I was still fifteen minutes from home, and needed to get cleaned up. Linda hates to be late for anything. She wasn't any too happy with me.
As we left for dinner, she was quiet, and I made the mistake of asking if she intended to talk to me at all. Let's just say she took me up on my offer, much to my chagrin. Suffice it to say, by then we both were pretty hot, and drove most of the rest of the way in silence. The little she did say to me was to the effect that I could at least have said I was sorry.
We had dinner with the sisters and their husbands, and it went pretty well. I'm glad her sister Penny offered to say the mealtime grace; it would have been pretty hypocritical for me to have done it. During dinner, I did reach for Linda's hand under the table, and she returned my squeeze. The time with her sisters did its work, giving us a little breathing space. We talked on the drive home, and are both grateful that when these things happen, like a summer cloudburst, they don't last too long before the sun peeks through the clouds, and we are happy together once more. I know many people who would let something like this fester for days. Linda is a very forgiving person, and though my concept of time hasn't improved much with age, she loves me still. I am grateful that tonight we go to bed in peace because I was willing to say I'm sorry, and she was willing to forgive.
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