Growing Pains



Amy's lawn thriving under special care.



Around this time of the year, when there’s still frost on the outdoor dog in the morning and air conditioners run like a spider-chased schoolgirl in the afternoon, I like to venture down to the Lawn & Garden department at the local Sow ‘em & Grow ‘em Store.  People who should never own fertilizer are wandering past the bags of peat moss, clutching pots of distressed dahlias, and murmuring, “Wonder if I need manure?”

It’s like Disneyland for clueless people.

All I want is a bird feeder.  Winter and fat Cardinals have not been kind to the little plastic number that hung in my yard all winter, and I need someplace to leave the offerings for the sparrows that exercise the dogs by flitting around just out of Labrador reach.

Here in the South, whimsical lawn ornaments are popular among the population.  By whimsical, I mean ugly and offensive.  By population, I mean my neighbor (you know who you are, Danny) who used to borrow a goat the last week of every month so that he didn’t have to cut the two square inches of grass that grew beside his cultivated kudzu patch.

 



My other neighbor has a patch of lawn decorated by a wishing well, two wooden farmer misses bending over to show polka dot bloomers, a bevy of plastic geese, and a charming white toilet holding a cluster of cheerful daffodils.  These folks may have lawn furniture in the family room, but the porcelain in the front yard holds a place of honor.

Driving back home with my tiny plastic birdfeeder, I can’t help but think about my own yard.  I won’t feel comfortable calling it a lawn until there is something growing in it that wasn’t thrown from the window of a passing car or spontaneously springing to life over the septic tank. Algae doesn’t count as lawn, even the easy-care kind.

I guess everybody celebrates Spring in their own fashion.  In Augusta, the Masters has acres of azaleas, all across Amsterdam we find fields of tulips.  But in my little corner of the country--just below the Bible Belt and just above the Sweet Tea Bag; we have our pottied plants.

Rottery Ticket

When it comes to spring cleaning, I’m more the undercover type than the show and tell type.  I’ll train the Labradors to lie coyly on the coffee stain on the carpet when visitors drop by to avoid having to mount a frontal attack on the living room shag with a shop vac.  But when it comes to cleaning out the refrigerator, there’s nothing to do but roll up your apron strings and confront the leftovers head on. 

Long ago, the Captain of our Compost Heap labeled our vegetable drawer “The Rottery,” a secret place where lettuce goes to die.  So this spring, while everyone else is planting rows of green beans and tomatoes, I’ll be making room in the vault for the new kids in town. Because the dogs might be willing to lend a paw when it comes to the coffee on the carpet, but they have no interest in helping to hide the bodies of the radishes in the refrigerator.

May I Have This Dance?



Not us. Not before. Not during. Definitely not after.


I've heard of stepping on people's toes, but this gives a whole new meaning to the term "toe jam."  The Captain and I have taken up dancing. And cheesecake. For us, all dancing is dirty dancing.  But not in a good way.  Join me at An Army of Ermas and please feel free to cut in.

Many Happy Returns

For Lisa who is competent enough to do taxes, from Amy who can’t figure out her own phone number without a graphing calculator.



“What are you doing?”

“Our taxes. I thought I’d give you a break this year and do them myself.”

“You know you’re not allowed to touch official forms.”

The Captain has been a little skeptical of my ability to fill out forms ever since I took our oldest child to school and registered myself for first grade.

“But these explain everything.”

“Did you read the directions?

“Not exactly. I’ll figure it out as I go along.”

“Like you did with the garden last year?”

“Good grief, I thought those were the kind of tomatoes you’re supposed to grow upside down. Haven’t you seen the commercials?”

“Yep. I've also seen the ones for amazing weight loss and englarged. . .”

“Very funny. But it turns out I’m racking up quite a bit in deductibles.”

“You mean deductions. Deductibles are the things that makes us pay to go to the doctor. They replaced co-pay. Sort of like getting rid of the cat to bring in a cat that costs six times as much to feed.”

“Well, I should have a nice little nest egg to cover that. Kitty litter counts as a deduction, right?”

Judging by his expression, I think I'm going to have to start from scratch.

Ash Wednesday and Beyond!

Today is Ash Wednesday, the period of 40 days of reflection and sacrifice leading up to Easter.

This morning I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth—an action both admirable and encouraged except for a couple of small details.  The first detail was that I had yet to eat breakfast. The second, and perhaps more urgent detail was that I was supposed to be taking a shower.

Perhaps it was the lack of a shower that reminded me that I was out of anti-perspirant.   Sharing is a worthwhile quality to develop, so I borrowed some from the boys; my teenaged sons who are given to trusting clever commercials to influence their buying  habits.  Now I smelled like toothpaste and the Old Spice Guy.   I’ll admit that at the time I wasn’t really interested on reflecting on the whole thing, but I’m pretty sure there was sacrifice involved.

The next hurtle of the day:  getting dressed.  The pants I wanted to wear were covered in animal hair, which also counts as sacrifice because I’ve given a bed and breakfast to many animals wandering about in the wild searching for a Bed and Breakfast Inn that allowed shedding as a form of payment. 

I threw the pants in the dryer to see if that would help the problem. Turns out the dryer was full of towels.  Now my pants were covered in animal hair and lint.  I reflected that I was lucky because this is the season of Lent, although most people don’t spell it with an “i” and celebrate it by wearing dirty pants covered in hairballs to work.

For breakfast, I generally dish up a bowl of soggy cereal because long ago I sacrificed the teeth I need to deal with any foods of real character.  However, the whole “what to wear” episode put the cereal plan right out of my head and I forgot to prepare the stuff in time to soften sufficiently.  I don’t see why the Cream of Wheat people don’t institute a Meals on Wheels program for the dentally impaired.

Casting about in the kitchen for something to eat, I discovered a faded box of soft vanilla wafers that had long ago rallied past their life expectancy.  Not exactly the Breakfast of Champions, but if I added a little peanut butter to the equation, all should go well.

As replaced  all the boxes of unused cereal back in the cupboard and added peanut butter to the shopping list, I reflected that hummus on cookies was probably a delicacy in some Mediterranean countries.  Mediterranean countries full of aborigines with bad teeth. Perhaps that would make a suitable vacation destination some day.

Time to take the Labradors for a romp to sacrifice several ounces of surprises that I did not want to find on my carpet when I came home from work.  As I watched them play, I was surprised at how self-reflective dogs can be.  I was also surprised to see them greet the neighbor, who was nattily dressed for the office and was now nattily dressed in muddy paw prints. You’d think people would be more forgiving during Lent, no matter how they spelled it. The neighbor spells it S-T-U-P-I-D.  I sacrificed listening after that.

The Captain called and asked what we were having for supper.  I reflected that we were going out.  He likes home-cooked meals, but after all, this is the period of sacrifice.  I’ve already given up my shower, my Shredded Wheat, and my sanity.

It’s his turn to suffer.

Left. Right?

I can tell by the jungle of homemade signs germinating in my front yard that election time is just around the breaking news story. Either that or somebody at my house is having a yard sale. Since by some quirk of government both my sons are eligible to vote, I’ve taken it upon myself to teach them the basic jargon of our political system.

Conservative: Washing your hands in the restroom even when nobody’s looking. Listing your correct weight on your driver’s license.

Liberal: Wearing lipstick and nail polish that doesn’t match. Or white shoes after Labor Day.

Voting booth: The little room with the half curtain where you make your choices for leaders of the most powerful nation in the world. Not to be confused with the dressing room at the mall where the curtain is short enough to determine who wore clean underwear on the first day of bathing suit shopping season, at which time you also determine who will have their pool privileges restricted.

Electoral College: A special college that holds classes only once every four years and offers no grants, scholarships, or Bowl-worthy football team. Its mascot is the Mayfly.

Lobbyists: A group of people who hang around the lobby of government buildings handing out free samples and telling lawmakers what to do. Not to be confused with terrorists, but I’m not sure why.

Vice-President: The Vice-President is kind of like a kid brother for the president. He always hangs around listening to things that aren’t his business and threatening to tell. You’d think that would make him the Speaker of the House, but they hire somebody with special skills for that job. The special skills are a secret.

President: The individual who is the head of the executive branch of government who works in an Oval Office so that he or she can’t get backed into a corner.

My sons didn’t seem to appreciate my help. They wandered off, mumbling something about conscience and issues. But that’s okay. I’ve tagged all their video games. I’ll make enough at the yard sale to buy their vote.

Hammer Time!

The "After" picture

Add a closet, subtract a finger or two.  As long as I get to use the term "nail gun" in an essay, I'm happy.  Join me at Stage of Life to see what sort of  Don't let this happen to me" moment I'm into now.