Saturday, October 25, 2008

The grass is always greener

...At the house of the unemployed. In an earlier post I mentioned Mr.Mr. and I are the proud new owners of a small dirt patch behind our apartment. Having relocated from the land of third-floor apartments, the seemingly limitless potential for a green space of our own couldn't be passed up, and within a couple weeks we purchased a bag of grass seed and I began a sowin.' Or, mostly tossing, more accurately. For about thirteen bucks I didn't expect great results, especially after reading on the bag that the manufacturer expected me to rake, fertilize, and water non-stop our budding lawn. (I know, I was like, "for real?" too.) But lo and behold,* after a week of watering the lawn using the water we'd normally waste waiting for the shower to heat up, grass sprang forth like a mini-miracle oasis.

Since then I've worked on two more 4 x 8 sections (only one left to go), carefully tending my verdant gems and coaxing them into a [reasonably] well manicured plot. And with a heft of time on my hands, I've become borderline obsessive about raking our tiny lawn. I'm like my grade school neighbor, Mr. Daviero, who would spend all day raking, mowing, and watering his lawn on the weekends. It wasn't rare to see him as fall approached, out on his lawn to pick up an errant leaf marring the pristine sea of green. One. Leaf.

And now, I'm that guy.

Worse yet is the lack of foresight exercised early on in this project. Because while my grass is growing into a lush, thick carpet- I have absolutely no way to mow it. And. AND. It would require me to reach a brand new level of crazy to get out there with a pair of kitchen shears. I will not be that guy. I have better things to do. I swear.

*I had to look this up because all of a sudden I realized that I had absolutely no clue where this expression came from. It turns out, the word 'lo' as used is a shortening of 'look.' So, lo and behold! means look! - behold! Pffft. A little redundant if you ask me.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow...I have not thought about Mr. Daviero in a very long time.
Leah