Ahhhh Springtime

Springtime used to feature trips to the botanical gardens and raising much needed funding for causes like the Give Back Yoga Foundation, having your winter wardrobe picked up for storage and throwing on the aviator shades to protect your botox cheeks from catching on fire.  

That was then.  That was in New York.  

Now that we’re out in the burbs, the scene is much less glamorous.  Let’s see.  My backyard has become the botanical gardens and I’m the groundskeeper.  I’ve manhandled mulch.  My winter clothes and summer clothes are pretty much the same thing, so no need to weed things out for space.  Plus I’ve got at least eight closets and a garage for storage, yet can’t find a thing.  And tulip shows?  Not the same when you’re the host and have just eight of ’em.  

But what I have instead is a daily reminder of allergies I once had as a child, and shed when living in the city and now coat my car in green pollen crap.  I can’t breathe steadily until mid-June.  I react to neighborhood gardening expectations.  If one neighbor has their lawn professionally treated, you must too. If one neighbor does touch up painting, I’m off to Sherwin Williams.  Not Home Depot.  People around here don’t know of its existence, much like they have no idea that cars don’t wash themselves.  The coming of spring means you have to look like you’re doing something 24/7 and I hate it.  

My lower back is a stiff as my “you know what” used to get.  My fingernails are full of cuts and scratches and of course dirt.  This wasn’t what I pictured.  And let’s not even let weeding enter the conversation.  If a cat has nine lives, weeds have eternal and everlasting lives.  They’ll outlive everything on the planet.  

Here’s where I have a huge problem.  There’s no weeds in the Middle East.  It’s just sand and rocks.  So they’re not wasting battle time to pick weeds.  Maybe that’s why they’re bombing the F outta each other. They’ve got nothing better to do.  So I say instead of shipping them money and artillery, send them a ton of weeds and they’ll never see the battlefield again.  Ladies, take off your burkas and throw on some overalls and a straw hat.  Gents, kneel down not as a sign of surrender but in the name of preserving God’s green earth.  You don’t believe in God, you say?  

Then pick a cause more suitable, like the Give Back Yoga Foundation.