If Only I Were a Diva

There is one aspect of home ownership that I am having a hard time embracing. Yard work. Ucchh. I thought it would be fun to have my own grass that I could mow and my own bushes to trim. As it turns out, there is only one bush I like to trim, and honey, that one does not lose its leaves in October.

I only have about 120 square feet of yard, and even with an old fashioned reel mower, it takes about fifteen minutes to mow, but it takes me about two hours to get up the motivation to do it. This is alien to me because I am usually running around like a blue ass fly, as Nana used to say about me. I love all housework and washing my cars. I even like working on a car. I once spent an entire day in an un-air conditioned garage in August stripping the paint off my 1959 Rambler, and I had a blast.

I always stay busy. I cannot just sit around and do nothing. I even enjoyed water sealing my deck after the sprayer debacle.

But, mention yard work, and I immediately cringe.

I would hire a yard crew, but I am not a diva ... and I am cheap. I am determined to one day embrace this aspect of suburbia.

Yard work has never been a passion. When I was young (was I ever young?), we had the chore of mowing the grass, and with my allergies this consisted of sneezing and zigzagging all over the yard. I would trim the bushes, but my attempts at gardening were never successful. I once tried transplanting radishes, and my family continues to remind me of that disaster.

However, I can grow some mean weeds.  I think dandelions are pretty, and they require little to no care. Mushrooms are lovely, too.

When I bought the house, I thought how cool it would be to have a yard I could landscape with lush bushes and pretty flowers. Being of the gay persuasion and an honorary lesbian, you would think my yard would be the envy of all the neighbors and I would be out there every weekend shoveling and planting and watering.

Think again. If the crepe myrtle was not there when I moved in, I would have no plants. My grass is more clover than blades. Have I seeded? No. Have I fertilized? No. Have I turf built? I don’t even know what the hell that is. Besides, being Jewish, turf building is not in my vocabulary.

And here is the sad part. I don’t care. I mow the grass; I trim the one bush; I even edge around the sidewalk. But, I don’t even water it. We get enough rain. If there is no rain, then there is less grass to mow.

I wish I had the passion for yard work. My neighbors on either side have beautifully landscaped yards with rock gardens and flowers and lush green grass.

Every time I go to Lowe’s, I think about walking into the garden department to see what they have that I could plant to give my yard some character, but instead, I avoid the garden department completely. I am not even drawn to it. I see these people who spend hours outside with their gloves and big floppy hats, weeding and digging and trimming and wiping sweat from their brows, and all I think is that does not look fun at all.

I bought a shovel, a rake and other interesting garden tools, but I have yet to use them.

I do admire a nice lawn, and I tell my neighbors with pretty lawns (and that is just about all of them) that their yards look so nice. I hear in the spring there is a contest to see who has the best looking yard in the community. I won’t be clearing a space on my mantle.  

Now, leaves from the woods behind me are falling over the yard. Do I have to rake them? Can’t I just leave them and call it nature’s mulch?

A friend of mine, who vacationed with me once, said I sleep like the dead. All I need is a flower in my hand, and I look like Lilly Munster. Well, now I have her yard.

The good news is I don’t have to decorate for Halloween.

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