So a week that started last Thursday with a day off, fwas ollowed by another day off on Friday, then followed by a trip down Buckley way to our mini-gathering on Saturday, then followed by a terribly lazy-ass Sunday, hit Monday like an egg on concrete, slid across Tuesday like fingernails on a chalkboard, slumped down on Wednesday like a drunk down a staircase and stopped on today, Thursday, like a car wheel on a kitten.

Monday, you've read about. Tuesday I did my morning routine, did my hosing and then Summer Help (SH) showed up. Late. Again.

I won't tell you who SH is but I will tell you that his Dad is important to the owners of my company. I'll also tell you that SH's heart isn't much into working. At least not working for us.

He's young, sure. He's not going to be a blue-collar worker like us, that's true. But I wish he'd put more effort in. That and stop asking if it's OK with me if he leaves early. I'm not the boss, dude.

So since SH filled in for me while I was off, I guess he's going to be at my properties for a while. Although, if Bossman had better sense, he'd stick him someplace where SH's father carries less weight. SH's Dad practically owns everything where I am so the kid has the old, "My Dad owns this place" kind of bravado.

So having SH around has been a bit stressful. Then it rained Wednesday. All day. You might think that's an odd lament to hear from a Seattletarian but rain all day in the summer is an anomaly. We put up with the water for nine months and when it finally breaks on Memorial Day, we bid it adieu and laugh as its puddles evaporate into the blue sky.

But it rained all day. And it threatened on and off all day today. I did my Hosing Part II this AM. I almost went ass-over-tea kettle and I actually do think I strained my right knee by slipping on a portion of wet metal threshold that serves as a transition from the pier to the sidewalk.

The threshold is basically like the metal diamond plate you see on trucks and such. It serves to transition from the pier surface to the sidewalk surface and covers the gap there between the pier and what is literally the top of the seawall (I'll bet people don't know that as they walk down the sidewalk along the Seattle waterfront, they're actually walking on the seawall).

Anyway, I came down flat-footed on the plate and slipped, wrenching my bulk to one side. It was only about four inches of slip but when you ain't suspecting it...

So, I did my hosing, putting up with morons who seem to have become very successful in life in spite of their total inability to grasp that a man with a hose who is spraying water on the sidewalk is someone they should want to walk BEHIND and not IN FRONT OF.

Seriously, I have to put up with Oblivions who never see the reel, the hose, the man with the hose, the water or the wall of wet dirt and cigarette butts sliding across the sidewalk and heading for the gutter.

Then there are the Luke Hosewalkers who either don't see the hose and step on it or don't see it and can't feel it and step on it repeatedly until someone points it out to them which makes them jump back in total surprise, or, worse, those who walk the hose like it's their own personal tight rope.

There are the Full Steamers, those bullheaded citizen pedestrians who are damn well going to walk in front of the hoser because it's their right to traverse any public sidewalk however they please.

Finally, there are the Mincing Ponderers who, when confronted with something as unconscionably odd as someone hosing off a sidewalk in the morning in Seattle, are so fabbershammed that they lose all thought processing capability and all control over their limbs. Thus afflicted, they stand on the edge of the hoser's peripheral vision, their bodies jerking back and forth as they attempt to comprehend the situation before them and then react accordingly. These people are fun and an experienced hoser can keep them right at the edge of his vison for a good thirty seconds. Guilt makes me look at them, cut the water and smile which seems to restore them to their former state.

So, I hosed. And then SH came in two hours late. So I gave him some crap work to do (actually passed it on from Bossman) and I went to my other property to clean a roof.

By the way, roof dirt is nasty.

But tomorrow is another Friday and Bossman is off next week. That means my fave person will be down covering for him and I'll actually get to learn how to do some stuff and have fun while I do it.

So there's that.