How much green
can a green thumb green
if a green thumb
just ain't
green?


I spent the morning wiping O's nose, making soup, reading Olive Kitteridge. It wasn't the easiest read for me, and Orin was busy w/Legos. Come afternoon, regardless of the last 12 pages I have left to read, I decided to venture outside. Miraculously, his nose stopped dripping, we found the hedge clipper in the new back shed (duh, took me a while), and hopped to it. I hadn't gotten two bushes in, before the neighbor's lawn care professional showed up - possibly 19 years old - donned his mask, poured, walked, sprayed. I could smell it from across the street. So could Orin. Send him inside? Hope the wind blows? Resent? Leave a note? It was all so overwhelmingly disgusting to me that I sort of panicked and cut a little deep into the third bush.

Hard decisions are not normally a part of daily life. If we decide to get the chemo, it's not a big debate, usually. If we switch banks or buy a new window, it's not huge. Even the car buying grief I endured three years ago seems trivial next to the future health of my children, and their own progeny. Possibly prodigy. Not likely if we commit them to an earth filled with poison, worms who endure toxic spray multiple times per lifetime. We put up with the voles and moles, quite happily; they don't actually DO much beside tunnel and eat insects. What's not to like? Why do they need to inject poison to be rid of them? What are those people doing on their lawn that they can't have moles co-exist? There is only one old man, maybe beyond his 80's now. I am in disbelief.

It's not that I didn't know that my own neighbors were doing this all along - those bright yellow flags, undated, stick around for days and weeks after a spray. We can't walk the dog much for a few days. And I can really smell the stench of chemicals, like being back in the Greeley lab about a week before end of term. The flags are good - they let the unwary neighborhood traveler know not to get too close, especially those with canine companions. They let kids know that they shouldn't retrieve that football, just go play some tennis. They should be dated, they should be removed with some regularity. But it's better to have them than not. Except that they seriously raise my ire, bright spots of disgust in a world, currently, filled with scarlet maple leaves, scurrying squirrels, and clear blue skies. How to wreck a perfectly good afternoon? Watch that kid dump a bag full of nasties right in front of your lawn, in front of your preschooler, dribbling it into the street and onto your own lawn, while knowing that it is a truly unnecessary evil.