Mowing my lawn

Being a homeowner is more satisfying than I might have anticipated. I couldn't imagine the difference between renting and owning, in much the same way that I couldn't fathom marriage, an indescribable situation that I'll save for another day. There's the daydreaming to be sure. Not a day goes by that we don't imagine the driveway improvements, paint colors, and zinnia beds that would make such a difference in the value of our home. HGTV has taken on new meaning and Ace Hardware is no longer just a place to buy kitschy retro kitchen gifts.

Today the homeowner activity is grass mowing. My husband has his chores but mowing is mine. 5,000 square feet of mixed-species grass and weeds that are mine and about which I care quite dearly. It's been watered, weeded and fed, and otherwise tended since we moved in and I think it might be paying off. We bought the house from a flipper. It has a new kitchen and a master suite but the landscaping, beyond the first 6 feet away from the front of the house, was ignored and it's about 50 years old. Also, apparently, a drainage line was replaced somewhat recently and the fill dirt was left to be covered with whatever seeds and what not came along. The eastern third of the lawn is the eastern neighbor's zoysia. The western third is the western neighbor's bermuda grass. The middle, where the drainage line was run, is weedy dirt. But, as I said, I think the water and fertilizer and so on are starting to help close the gap. This won't get rid of the lumps and bumps but, well, it will be fine.

So, I left work early to mow. I pulled the mower out from under the house, added gas from the can, pulled five times, and mowed. I think this might be the most zen I have in my life, this coming from a yoga enthusiast. It's so loud that even when I've wanted to wear headphones and listen to music, they have to be turned up to the point of serious ear damage so now I just listen to the hummm, clack clack clack, hummm of the mower as I walk every square foot of my own personal grass patch. From this vantage point, I can see that many of the weeds I observed a few months ago have either gone dormant or fallen victim to Senor Scott. I can also see that many of them have not. I can feel with my feet that much of the grass (eastern third) is so thick that it bears my weight, allowing the bugs and worms to go unmolested beneath. I can smell the differences in the shrubs as I duck beneath them, jostling them soundly with my shoulder, leaving with dead flowers and seed pods in my hair and on my shirt. My hands are numb, my skin itches, and I sneeze and sweat and smell like gasoline and cut grass. It smells and feels like summer. My sister was the one who cut most of the grass growing up. My sister and my dad. We got money for chores and she was older than I was so she was allowed the more dangerous chore first. So, my sister cut most of the grass but sometimes she was at camp and eventually she graduated and left home and then I did some cutting. We had a mower that was much like the one I'm using now but it wasn't a mulcher so we emptied the bag on the back when it filled, which happened three or four times per cutting, the cut grass would be wet and stick in there and you would have to kick the bag with your foot to get it out and, if you filled it too full, tug it out with your hand. We piled it into various places around the yard that were meant, I think, to be compost piles but they got too big and too full and they didn't break down as fast as they grew so we started piling it around a big oak tree in front, then in a corner in the back, and ultimately filled all of the unused portions of the yard. I guess my dad did as much to that grass as I do now. You don't notice these things when you're small. There are neighbors driving by. I wonder if they are thinking negatively about my husband for leaving the mowing to me or positively about me for mowing or if they're noticing me at all. There's one neighbor who's dog is always peeing in our flower bed. She pulls him by because I'm watching but you can see that he recognizes the spot. It's 6pm so the temperature has come down to 92. The hair at the back of my neck is making those pointy spikes that cause me to hate short hair. I'm sneezing like there's no tomorrow. I've been in the air conditioning all day and it waits for me inside but, for now, it's late June and I recognize summer and say, "Hello. I've missed you. You haven't changed a bit."

Kick ball injury

Nothing is more reminiscent of childhood than a rousing game of kickball. Nothing brings back the humbling reality of age like a kickball injury. I kicked too hard and pulled a muscle in my leg. Seriously. This was the second practice of the kickball season with a departmental intramural team. Our first game (out of four) is tomorrow and it will be a real bummer if I'm unable to play due to an injury. I'm the Chipper Jones of kickball. I had such a promising beginning but I'm delicate. One missed stretching session and I'm out of the game. Sigh.

It started out beautifully. Life was tough, work was hard, and we'd all signed up for a summer of childish revelry. I had some doubts but I decided to give it my all and have a good time. Did I ever! The rest of the games and practices may never measure up to that first one. Much like the Pirates of the Carribean movies, my expectations started out low but after the first thrilling experience, I got too hopeful. It's not possible for future events to measure up but, even if it were, well, we'll see. The first practice, no one wanted to go home. Time ticked by and we left reluctantly after two hours of good times. There were blood, sweat, and collisions. I ran as hard as I could from base-to-base, looking down at my legs and imagining that I was running so fast they were blurring like the legs of Road Runner evading Wile E. Coyote. It was an experience that cannot be replicated.

During practice number two, conditions were such that I arrived late, teams had already been assigned and I was on offense. I hadn't warmed up, my muscles were cold. I came up to the plate, gave it my all and *rrrrip*. I attempted to run but my pop-fly had been caught. It was the third out. I limped into the field. The rest of the game went likewise. Three up, three down every inning. The magic was gone. There were few collisions and no blood. After just an hour people started saying things like, "One more inning and I need to go to a basketball game." I limped on to my car and spent the evening icing and heating my ridiculous injury. It's still stiff this morning so I took an Aleve. The curtain has been drawn back. I'm thirty years old and kickball is for the young.