Staycation - Day 4

My main job yesterday was tackling the side yard, that is, the lack of side yard.  We have a small area to one side of our house where the swing set sits under a tree.  Because of the lack of sun (and the lack of effort on my part over the years), most of this area is barren of grass.  The other day, Ben and I raked all the detritus up so that I could lay down some soil and get some grass growing.

I went to Home Depot and picked up 20 bags of soil and came home to spread them.  Twenty bags wasn't enough.  The exposed roots of the tree are too big; there just wasn't enough dirt to cover them sufficiently to plant on top of them.  So,  I'm going to have to return for more dirt today.

Recently, Ben said that he didn't know what 9/11 was.  Last night I found a bunch of videos on YouTube and sat down with him to walk him through what happened.  They apparently talked about it last week at school because he knew some things, but I think it was still eye-opening for him.  He isn't quite mature enough yet to process the images, so he found some of the people's reactions to the events (screaming, crying) funny.  But he watched and I explained, so now he's better aware of the defining event of 21st century America.

I did a lot of video processing yesterday, making my way through a bunch of old videotapes.  That makes me very happy since they are deteriorating rapidly.  I found the tape my father bought with bootleg versions of Star Wars, Empire and Return of the Jedi in all their original, pre-CGI glory.  I watched a few parts to remind myself of what they were before Lucas mangled them.  I was planning on throwing the tape away anyway, but it snapped when I rewound it.  I took that as an editiorial comment on Lucas.