Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Lawn Boy and the Weather Goddess

People (who shall remain nameless) have been laughing at my recently acquired gardening obsession. I realize that I have become one of those people who talk about plants as if they are human. I blame it on the roses. Once you start to grow them you go insane. However, I had some vindication when my husband decided to put in a lawn in the back. He cleared out an area between the path and my cutting garden and laid sod. He was blessed with ample rain and he nurtured his little patch. Then mysterious yellow patches began to appear. He turned into Ward Cleaver. It was so funny. Finally one evening he came in with a jar and went upstairs to the computer. Turns out he had lifted the sod and found bugs. He captured some and went on the internet to identify them. Having found that they were indeed the culprits he purchased insecticide, and killed the little varmints off. The insecticide part was tough as neither of us really likes to use that stuff. Men and grass are strange. They get really weird about it. I guess no man is immune. Thank goodness it's just a small patch or I might never see him.

While my husband works on his little patch of green I have decided to open a rainmaking business. If you want it to rain in your area have me come over and put my bicycle on the roof of my car. It's the most amazing thing. I love to bike and recently purchased a nifty new trail bike. It's wonderful because it has front and rear suspension. I added a padded seat which has springs on it too. (I like to bike but I need to be comfortable). I am, as they say, a traditionally built Black woman, so I don't need to be jiggling around. At any rate I was so excited about this bike and couldn't wait to ride it. Then to top it off someone told me about a new trail in the city that runs along the river, is 15 minutes by car from my house and has access to a hip shopping district at its extreme end. It was like heaven. Well, my beloved and I went out one afternoon and loaded the bikes on the roof rack of our car. This is no mean feat. The bikes are cumbersome and it really takes two people to get them up there. I can do it alone but it involves a step ladder and lots of obscenities. (Please don't tell me to get rear hitch for my car because we have tried that and because of the sort of car we drive and the sort of bikes we ride it didn't quite work out.) At any rate, as soon as we got the bikes up the sky opened and it proceeded to rain for a week. The sun would come out and I would put the bike up at which point it would begin to rain again. Today the sun is out and the sky is blue, and I am too busy to ride. So we should have continuing sun. Joy told me that I was really powerful to be able to control the weather like that. So I am embracing my magical powers. If you need rain, just call me.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We Brits are also known as rain makers. We created a game called 'cricket', whereby we knock three sticks into the gorund and it starts to rain. Another example is an event called Wimbledon. Guaranteed to bring rain, and men in green blazers looking ominously at the sky, or should that be men looking at the at the ominous sky. This week's deluge on the first day is reported to have cost well over $1 million.