C.O.L.

It's official. I'm a cranky old lady.

It's not just that I have officially retired -- well, I will have once I've had some of the vacation time I'm owed. Technicalities.

Really, I'm here, confused by the sensation of daily not having to count down the hours that are left to me before being obliged to present myself at my paying job. Don't have to do that anymore! I still have to remind myself.

However, the old "to do list" still grows ever longer, doesn't it? It might have something to do with my deliberate choice to stop trying to do as much ... As my dad would say, "Everything is relative." So that begs the question, how much, relatively speaking, was I wont to do before?? Good question.

Remember, I'm now officially a COL, so be careful.

So I ventured into the garden over the last few days. Found the usual evidence of squirrels.

ommm....I am letting go of my urge to kill all the squirrels I see...

psst: it helps that I have seen some feral and/or otherwise cats, plus a red-tailed hawk (thrilling as it swoops down from the tree-tops), all actively lingering in my neighborhood lately.

I've also had some interesting encounters with one of my rather deaf neighbours. She throws dried bread crumbs out for the birds, etc. several times a day.

psst: I wonder if I should enlighten her that the crumbs attract all sorts of vermin, including those aforementioned squirrels, plus skunks, raccoons, mice, rats and gulls? never mind the mold on the previous disseminations already festering in the grass!

I suspect she also has some short term memory loss, because in the span of only a couple of hours one day, she came out at least twice, if not three times. Both times, she defiantly told me she had permission to feed the birds.

psst: um...so many feedings that the lawn is white with breadcrumbs, and plants in the vicinity of the front steps and/or in the area accessible to the reach of her throwing arm are smothered by the weight of it all? we have the best fed vermin in the neighborhood!

and no, this old lady is not the same old lady -- now deceased, bless her heart -- who made the gardens white with raining moth balls -- sung to the tune of "it's raining men"

A couple of days later, I'm gardening again, and out she comes, starts to throw out more bread crumbs and asks me if I mind. Um, why would I mind, as she apparently has permission??

She also told me and my pesky would-be assistant(more about that later!!) several times, that bread-crumbs should always be stale, because fresh bread crumbs will make the birds ill. And that she promised her husband to always feed the animals. By the way, she loves birds. Yep, she loves animals. Did I say, she promised her husband that she'd always feed the animals?

Ah, the cranky part?

psst: I suspected I was being cranky already!

It's my pesky, would-be assistant that has been the last straw, the final straw that drove me over the edge into confirmed COL-hood. I can't seem to step out into the garden without her being there, asking if I wouldn't like her help.

Meanwhile, you see, she's already been busy -- my pesky WBA, I mean -- before even offering her services to me in the garden!

The superintendent of my building thought one day to speak to me about a small drawer someone had, no doubt, thrown out for recycling. It had been fished out of the trash and filled with shriveled up, dried-out dandelion flowers and seed-puffs, then ceremoniously placed at the east side of our building.

psst: funnily enough, right under said pesky WBA's apartment window!

Now,I have no idea why my superintendent would have thought I'd do such a thing. Nothing like my sense of aesthetics, I assure you!

I mean, I've been known to enjoy the cheery yellow of dandelions, but not that much!

I said to her I thought it might have been children playing.

meaning: who could it be but my pesky WBA??

You think this is trivial? Obviously, you've never lived cheek-by-jowl in a small building that houses a collection of all sorts of people, most of them just fine, I would like to assume. However, I am constantly reminded by some of those very people, that I should be suspicious of some amongst them.

a difficult temptation to resist! (ommm....)

So, yesterday, I'm in the garden, trying to get some plants into the ground, some plants I bought to celebrate my retirement.

psst: I never really need a reason to purchase more plants

When who should pop up but my pesky WBA. And she's not alone; she has a side-kick.

They want to help me. Can they help me? They love flowers. Am I putting in more flowers?

god help me!

Keep in mind that I have already rescued a large, multi-budded stem of an iris and some delicate, newly interred, delphinium plants from under a heavy, smothering blanket of wilted dandelion stems, lilac and wild-cherry branches.

I'm not the least bit cranky or bothered by that. n-o-t a-t a-l-l !!

Trying to be nice, I suggest pesky WBA and her side-kick help by taking the plants I bought and putting them on the front steps where they (by that I mean the plants!) can wait until I've dug out an extension to accommodate them in the beds already along the front walks (as I said, I mean the plants -- no intention of interring the pesky children!)

as tempting as the thought is...

psst: I'm hoping the tedium of waiting for me to dig up the sod will extinguish their patience and desire to help, and that when they skip off, I'll have my opportunity to sneak the plants into place without their as-ahem-assistance. a very loose description, in my opinion.

As hoped, the digging-up-the-sod part soon bored the children. But they kept coming back to check on my progress.

And to ask me how Old I am.

Ancient.

What does that mean?

Very old.

Like 30? My dad is in his 30's.

No. Older.

Like, 40's?

No. Older.

50's?

Yes.

That's old.

Yes, ancient.

And to ask me the names of many of the plants already in the garden: sage, lavender, gaura, iris ... more lavender.

This is lavender, Pesky's side-kick exclaimed!

And I wondered, because the lavender was not in bloom yet, if it was as meaningful to her as the answers I sometimes gave to "inquiring minds" at my paying job who wanted to know what their loved one's hemoglobin say, or potassium, or (pick a lab value) was today...

psst: I'm glad I don't have to wonder about that anymore -- ie, do they even know what hemoglobin is?

I was nearly finished when I noticed another pile of wilted dandelion stems and leaves, lilac blossoms, etc. had been unceremoniously dumped upon the variegated miscanthus grass by the front steps and footprints were all over that corner where I had just planted some daylilies too.

Unlucky pesky WBA happened to return at that moment and tried to suggest places where I could plant the last of the pink coreopsis.

No, no room by the daylilies which will grow rather larger (I fervently hope), and which, I reminded pesky WBA, must not be stepped upon or they will not grow!

Immediately, pesky WBA hotly denied stepping in the flower beds.

Later that evening, after a shower and a pot of herbal tea meant to cool my post-menopausal hot flashes...

it's not working, the tea, but that may be because I refuse as yet to give up drinking my beloved coffee -- although I have cut down, honestly I have!

I happened to glance out my window only to see pesky WBA and side-kick stripping more branches off some bushes along the back fence. Irritated, I wondered if I'd see more bundles of dead things tenderly laid over the fragile things I'd planted today. I resisted the urge to go outside to check and carry out a rescue...

prn...

thinking: sometimes one attracts what one does not want by putting out that energy. And...

I wondered why I am not at all the child-friendly teacher of the love of gardening that I secretly aspire to be, like a guru of grubbing about in the soil, a guerilla of greening spaces, a humble disciple of Mother Nature.

go forth and convert all to a love of the green, floriferous, natural world!

Not at all! Instead, I have discovered that I am a cranky, judgmental woman, anxiously grumbling to myself about Some People's Children!

ps: I gave in to my urge to check on the garden this afternoon -- no blankets of dead things -- only to spy pesky WBA in the front passenger seat of her father's car, her black eyes nailing me on the spot. I had planned to take more photos to update you on the garden, but slunk indoors instead, defeated by a 10-year old terrorist.