Pong. It's A Word.

I. Hate. Housework.

Ha! That was a Freudian slip there. What I meant to say was I. Hate. Yardwork. I’ve been planning to say it in my head for hours. Just like that, too, with the periods and capitals and all. Then I was going to say it again like normal, with all this other writing after, too. It was going to be so funny! But when I finally sat down to type, it came out all poopsie-daisy. So let’s try this again, together, shall we?

I. Hate. Yardword.

(Oh hell. Whatever. Fat lot of good you people are. I tell you what. Screw it. I’m moving on.)

I hate yardwork so much (there we go), I actually believed the Boston Globe last fall when they said you didn’t have to rake your lawn. I know! Right? But it's true. I'd link to it if I were a bit less lazy, but I'm not (as you shall see). Really, though, they said that if you had mostly maple trees (which we do!) and especially if you were expecting a harsh winter (which we had!) then you could leave your leaves all over the damn place and they'd be rotted and absorbed by Eastertime.

Stoopid Globe.

The flaw in this logic didn’t even occur to me until I was bitching about it to my hairdresser the other day. See, the grass started going green this week -- overnight, as a matter of fact, on Wednesday -- and I knew that if I wanted any sort of lawn at all this summer, I could put it off no longer. I had to pick them up this weekend. Now. Now. Now that they were all squishy and pongy after six months of freezing and thawing and freezing and absorbing the brunt of a particularly harsh winter.

So I was sitting in the chair, letting Edward Scissorhands fuck up my hair for the third appointment in a row (he did a good job the first time, but since then it has devolved into what appears to be a sort of modified "O Superman" mullet. Yay. But that’s another story for another time) and suddenly the flaw in the Globe’s logic rang out O Super loud and clear:

If you didn’t have to rake your lawn every year, then nobody would. Doy. What do they think, we all actually care how the neighbors feel about the appearance of our lawns in January? Pong.

Now, the downside of this for me (well, the other downside – in addition to the fact that I had to do the yardword, and that I now had to deal with leaves that had all but turned to pong-ass mud) was that, if we had done it in the fall like you’re supposed to – or, for that matter, if we’d done it a month ago when it first became obvious that the Globe was full of pong – I would have had my husband’s help. He doesn’t like it any more than I do, but he is at least an extra set of hands. An extra rake. And often, when I’m working myself up into a good snit because I have to actually do the things that go along with being a non-wealthy grown-up who has chosen not to breed, he makes me laugh. Which is pretty good of him. Especially considering the fact that, if he were in control of the ovaries around here, we’d have a whole litter of lawn-rakers running around.

But I digress.

The point is this: the yardwork needed done. It needed done immediately. And Johnny has broken ribs. But just as I was contemplating taking my own self out of commission with a strategically-placed slice of tomato or something, I remembered:

Dr. One Friend's coming this weekend!

I emailed her. I told her all about how smart and young and beautiful I thought she was, and I confessed my sorrow at having to report that I'd be occupied for nearly half her visit because of my unfortunately no-long-avoidable obligation to my yard. And then I allowed as how I might see myself treating her to a no-holds-barred calorie-fest at our favorite guilty-pleasure, too-embarrassing-to-name national-chain restaurant, if only she would be kind enough to, I don’t know, sit in the goddamn yard and keep me company while I worked.

She offered to help!

Well, naturally, I was shocked and humbled by her suggestion. But what else could I do besides accept?

And then, also naturally, all the weather guys could talk about was rain.

Seriously, I didn’t know what I would do. I couldn’t even conceive of myself raking that yard alone. I’d already sworn to do it once, while Johnny was away. One hour a day, I told myself, till it was through. And then I heroically failed to even start. If One Friend came and went this weekend in a hail of stormy weather, I might as well park a rusty old van in my yard and have somebody knock out half my teeth.

(Cuz of the pongy-yard image, you see? It's white trash. Oh, never mind.)

But Saturday morning, as it turned out, was free and clear. They predicted rain for afternoon, but this was not supposed to be an all-day job. One Friend and I were awake and dressed and fed and coffeed before nine (but not showered, ‘cause we were only fixing to work up a pong), and we were raring to well-begin. And you know what they say about well-beginning, right?

Yahoo!

One Friend has never been in my basement before. In fact, she pretends to not believe that it exists. But she came down with me this morning to gather yarkwork implements – and so she was with me when I realized that the leaky pipe I “fixed” last April didn’t hold. There was water everywhere. I didn’t care. That is not the point of this story. That leak was not my problem. I fixed it last year, this year was Johnny’s turn. I put a wee paint pot under it to catch the slow drip that was coming at the very moment, and reminded myself to remember to tell Himself to switch it out.

(Hang on a second... Okay, I told him.)

(Hang on another second... Okay, now he's actually done.)

And then it turned out I’d misremembered the details of our Implement Inventory. All I could find down there was the cheap-ass old rake, the big-ass floppy plastic one I bought last year when I broke the old one, and the metal one we use for ponging corners. Still, though, that was plenty. One Friend could use the big-ass one because she’s bigger, I could use the cheap-ass one because I’m -- well -- and we could fight over the pongy corners.

Go!

Well, didn’t I break the cheap-ass one on my very first rake? Yes. Yes, I did. One Friend says you really should have seen the expression on my face. I wasn’t even all that mad – I am Destructo, after all – but it’s a good thing she stopped me before I went in the house. I was going for my wallet so we could get a new rake at Blowe's, but she noticed just in time that -- in that selfsame inaugural 30-second spurt -- I put my foot in a snow-sogged pile of One Doggy doo.

My god.

Have I mentioned how much I ponging hate yardowke?

It’s done now. We bought a new rake and another little one for corners, the rain held off, we worked our tails off and were done in just over two hours. After that we had a couple beers (well, I did), and a nap and a shower (both of us -- but not together, jeez!), and any minute now we’re off.  To (okay, I'll admit it) Chili’s. For chips and salsa and classic nachos and southwestern cobbs and beer and beer and beer and beer and beer.


And she says she's not even really going to let me pay!

Leave It!

There was an article in the Boston Globe last week giving us permission not to rake our lawn. It said "Seriously, Johnny and Erin, we know you're busy. Just don't worry about it this year. Your neighbors won't mind in the slightest. Trust us."

No. Really what it said was that if you have maple treed (which we do) and you don't care that much about the artificial glory of your lawn (which we don't -- expecially over under the maple trees, where it's mostly moss anyway because it never gets any sun), then you might as well just leave it. It will rot by spring and be good for what grass is actually there. Maybe run it over with the lawn mower to speed up the breakdown process.

See, the thing is, in this yard, for some reason -- and not in any of the other yards on the street, incidentally, our leaves generally refuse to fall. The entire rest of the state will be all bony-looking and prepared for winter, and we're still all lush and thick and yellow. Then we wake up one late November morn and whump, they fall at once.

It's annoying, because by that point we only have about a week and a half before the snow starts, and it's too cold to be out there raking (although not this year, to be honest, it hasn't been too cold this year at all). And god forbid it rains in those nine days, because then we have to rake up wet leaves. And never mind that I'm Destructo and -- I swear to god -- every single year my rake breaks in the middle of the job and I have to go swearing out and buy a new one.

Grr.

A few eyars ago I bought this stupid contraption for two hundred and fifty dollars. You're supposed to push it around and it rakes all the leaves up into a sort of sack, which you then empty into your bag or compost pile. It works, after a fashion. Except it doesn't get any of the dug-in, stubborn leaves, and the goddamn sack gets filled up in three damn square feet of lawn. I used it once, and then I couldn't return it because I had used it, and now it's in our basement, mocking me.

So anyway here we were again, with a leaf-covered lawn and ten days till snowtime, and the Universe up and sent us a message through the Globe. So we're leaving it this year, to see what happens. We've been meaning to do that bit with the lawn mower, though. Any day now, I swear to god.

But then I had a dream last night that I woke up this morning and some old man neighbor (not anyone real, just a dream-neighbor) was out there raking up my yard. I didn't know whether to be pissed at him or grateful -- but either way, I knew I was offended when I saw that he had built a sort of fence to shield the neighborhood from the vision of our crap-filled veranda. Bastard.

I can't begin to tell you how relieved I was when I woke up for real and discovered our yard still reassuringly blanketed with rotting leaves.

And they smell good, too!

The Longest Yard

My yard looks like this:

Except there isn't really a flag at the corner of it. That was a mistake.

My house is here:

My house is blue because my house is blue. It won't be for long. But then, I thought it wouldn't be by now, so who knows. Maybe it will always be this way. And that bump there? Let's just say that it's the chimney.

There are big old silver maples here, here and here:


And a really giant one back here:



It's really giant. That's the one that threw the branch through the roof that made the house rot so we would be the only suckers dumb enough to buy it. I love it anyway. The tree, I mean. It's really giant. As you can see.

There are (I think) beech trees here and here:

They are black like death. That's why I'm not sure what kind of trees they are. They have no leaves. No branches, either. Just bare trunks with little tufts of greenery at the very tippy top. Like giant q-tips. Someday those trees are going to have to come down before they fall. And smash the AssVac. God forbid.

There are also two very tiny apple trees, here and here:

We planted them last year. This dogwood, too:

It's red because it's a red dogwood. But not quite as red as an apple. Though the apple trees aren't exactly red their ownselves, either, are they? Especially not this year, seeing as how they didn't bother to bear fruit. Maybe the black-death beeches scared them fruitless.

So those are all the trees I have. Oh, and my clothesline runs here:



Can you see it? I made it grey because I couldn't make it white like it really is. Except for that it's probably, actually, really pretty grey by now. I never checked.

So that's my yard!

Now...

If I used those trees to hang up great big nets -- like so:


And so and so:



And so and so:

Do you think I could get away with not raking the yard?

I think I could.

But how would I get the nets down?

Abhorticulture

I don’t give a hoo about plant life. Seriously. I majored in biology and never took anything approaching botany. The closest I came was a course called Animal & Plant Physiology – which I only took because I had to – and I almost willfully flunked the “plant” half. Just. Don’t. Care.

Yes, we bought this house largely for the yard it came with, but all I wanted was to sit out on a summer night drinking beer, burning wood in the chiminea and watching the wind. I truly would not care if the grass grew up around my ears and dandelions prowled all around. I certainly didn’t want to have to work – with plants, no less.

Oh, it’s a long story how I wound up in charge of mowing the fucking lawn. Let’s leave it at stubbornness on both our parts and call it draw. Point is, I did. For the first three years. But just at the end of last summer Johnny got a mower. Not new, of course, but new to him. And he swears he’s going to mow it from now on. It needs it now, but I’ll be damned.

So fine. It hasn’t been warm enough yet for drinking beer and watching wind blow, so I haven’t been outside.

A few days ago I noticed this little – very little, as in like apple-sized – yellow-green, bushy, definitely plant-type thing out in the yard by the end of the driveway. Wasn’t something I’d seen before, wasn’t in a place even Johnny would have planted, but it seemed to have just sprung up overnight from nowhere. What was it?

I was curious enough to ask people – Johnny, his friends, the girl he gives guitar lessons to. I’d stand at the window and point “You see that yellow-green thing? No, by the – yeah, right there. Do you know what that is?” But I didn’t really care, so I couldn’t make myself remember to look when I went out, and I certainly could not be bothered to go out just to see.

But tonight, when I was pointing it out to the girl’s father, there were suddenly three more of them! Same size, shape, color, all three of them randomly spaced. Just plop, plop, plop – smack dab in the middle of the yard. Girl’s father said they were dandelions, and even though he was drunk that was finally enough to get my ass out there because I knew for sure they weren’t dandelions and I could not just let that go. (I believe I mentioned above about the stubbornness?)

As soon as I got close to it, I knew. Do you? You must care more about botany, gardening, horticulture – whatever you want to call it, and whoever you might be, you must care more about the whole business than I. So do you know what it is?



Not the best picture, I know. But I’ll give you a hint. Look at the leaves…

Oh yeah, you can’t see the leaves because I suck at this. Well, all right then, I’ll tell you:

It’s a freakin’ bud end off a branch of the maple tree right above where I found it. Wind must’ve blown the bastards down. Hauled my sober ass outside for nothing.

You see? I told you I hated plants! Oh, when is it going to be warm enough again for beer and wind-watching?

HA!

Driving home to see the family for Easter the other day, we heard a story on the radio about a woman in Texas who’s getting hassled by the Homeowner’s Association because she tore out her grass lawn and replaced it with naturally-occurring stone and sunflowers. The city (San Antonio, I think it was) has a program set up to encourage things like this – it’s a water conservation thing – and they actually gave her $300 towards the cost of the landscaping. But her neighbors hate it, and they’re taking her to court.

Taking her to court, can you imagine!? For landscaping her yard in the manner she saw fit. The ecologically-sound and politically-correct manner, no less!

Unfortunately, she’s screwed. Because apparently when she bought the house she signed a paper – she wouldn’t have been allowed to buy the house without signing the paper – that said she promised to keep the grass green and cut it every Tuesday and only hang pink curtains in the windows and stand on her tippytoes when she answered the door and whatever else the Homeowners Association decided was befitting their particular cachet.

What would possess a person to go and sign a thing like that?

Oh my god, if there were a Homeowner’s Association in this neighborhood they would have us tarred and feathered. We made a conscious decision when we moved in that we were going to deal with the parts we had to look at first – in other words, the inside – and when (if ever) we get that under control, then we’ll think about the parts that other people see. I mow the lawn, but that’s really about it.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Johnny plants a garden every year but then he doesn’t weed it and it gets all overgrown. I don’t weed it either because it’s not my fucking garden. He also plants things along the whole length of the fence so I can’t mow along it, but then he doesn’t weed them either. And I’m not gonna do it because they’re not —well, you know.

Speaking of the fence… It is not only chain-link, but rusted and disgusting, and it leans over in a couple places where people came around the turn too fast and wound up in the yard. That happened before we were here; it’s been like that since we moved in. A neighbor once offered to pull it up for us for nothing, if we gave him $2600 to take down the only healthy tree in the entire yard, but I said no, thanks, and I haven’t seen him since. We can’t afford a new fence yet, anyway.

Oh, and speaking of trees: There are six of them in the yard. Four silver maples: that big healthy one out back and three along the fence whose roots have bubbled up and cracked the sidewalk, and which are so big and old they threaten to throw branches down on passing cars every time the wind blows. Then two in the middle of the yard that I don’t know what they are because they haven’t any leaves. They’re sick with some kind of festering rot that kills the branches from the bottom up. One of them’s lost all its branches – it’s just a naked trunk blowing precariously in the breeze – and the other oozes brown goo on the picnic table from the branches it has left. The goo hardens up like rubber cement, and the squirrels eat it.

Oh, and speaking of squirrels: Johnny feeds them. Throws whatever’s gone bad in the kitchen out into the yard. Mushy apples, sprouted potatoes, hamburger buns that have been in the freezer since last Fourth-of-July. The squirrels come and eat it all but other things do, too. Starlings, skunks, raccoons. Just this afternoon Johnny saw a big black cat eating the hamburg buns.

Oh, yeah, speaking of cats? I feed the strays. It started with this runty one who only had half a tail and one perpetually swollen ear. I felt bad for her so I started putting a bowl under the porch. Well, of course, you never feed just one stray cat, now do you? The last time I checked there were six – plus a few who actually have owners but still like to come down for a little evening nosh.

Speaking of the porch, it kind of sags. (“Kind of” my ass, the thing’s a goddamn U). We actually were going to take care of that when we first moved in because a friend offered to lend us a set of jacks and all it takes is a week and a couple of cement blocks, but then he decided his mum’s house was uneven, and jacking up a whole house takes much longer than just jacking up a porch, and then his brother thought it looked like a good idea, and, well, blood is thicker than water after all. If our turn doesn’t come round soon we’re going to have to go ahead and rent one, because we have to get it done before we paint, and – oh, yeah, speaking of paint…

We’re not just talking a little mildew or an unfortunate color choice – actually, the color’s not that bad. No, we’re talking peeling you can see from the street at 40 miles an hour. Some windows have different color trim than all the rest. The whole back part that was rotten when we bought it got all new cedar shakes and they never got so much as primed.

Let’s see, did I forget anything? Well, there’s the pile of dirt that Johnny had delivered for the garden that turned out to be more dirt than he needed and what are you supposed to do with extra dirt? There’s the trashcan with the hostas in it over by the fence, which Johnny dug up somewhere and I which I wouldn’t let him plant because I hate hostas, so they’ve sat in trashcan-stalemate in the yard for going on three years. There’s the composter that all the veggie scraps go into but never get turned or treated or used. The fenced-in section in the corner where the leaves go every fall so that they, too, can never actually get composted. Oh, and then there’s the back porch, where Johnny puts paint buckets that he doesn’t feel like washing out, and where they sit until they’re full of rusty rainwater that probably really oughtn’t to be washed into the watershed.

In other words, our house would give any Homeowner’s Association fits of St. Vitus’ Dance. It’s a blight. It’s an eyesore. It’s a stain. And I don’t care what the neighbors think about it. I’ll get out there when I’m good and ready. And when I am, if I decide I want to fill the yard with rocks and plant sunflowers then, dammit, that’s what I’ll do.

Actually, I did plant sunflowers last year, all along the chain-link fence. They didn’t come up, not a single one.