Another Week: Number 74

For four months now, I have felt like I’m putting things back in order after a tornado. Sure, forty-two years are gone forever — but summer is almost here and there are those two ceramic flower pots in the basement and maybe if I get a couple of New Guinea Impatiens and some Lobelia, my front step will look more civilized.

It’s not as if no one is paying attention. A day after my purchase, Home Depot sent an email asking me to write a review of the bag of potting mix I bought. Maybe I’ll give it some time and see whether the plants live.

Time itself is the puzzle I’m grappling with. I remember Kurt Vonnegut’s Tralfamadorians in Slaughterhouse-Five and their ability to engage with the whole expanse of time instead of just the present moment. As an earthling, I can’t imagine how that would work. I can only engage with the present and perhaps make theoretical plans for my future — which, in the words of the late Tom Petty, is wide open.

Lawn and garden chores at this time of year are a virtual wrestling match with time. Choices and actions taken over just a few days will determine things for the rest of the growing season. To complicate matters, we have had an especially wet spring, so the grass grows fast and you must seize opportunities to avoid wet mowing and digging in mud. I don’t know how people who don’t work from home can do it.

On Thursday, I planted the Yukon Belle® Pyracantha that had been under consideration for years, ordered a month ago, and picked up at Mileager’s on Tuesday. To give it room and sunlight, I started disassembling a ratty old lilac in the corner of my yard. Eventually, on the damp and sloping ground, I toppled the aluminum ladder I was standing on to trim branches. I was surprisingly unhurt, but the ladder was bent beyond repair and will go to the curb for scrap pickers.

On Friday, I ordered two calendars — one for the hall wall at my back door, and the other for my office.

The back hall spot always held a calendar annually gifted to Amy at Christmas by her sister Karen, and my eyes have been disappointed this year by that empty space. The Old Farmer’s Almanac Gardening Calendar I ordered from Amazon is not a perfect replacement, but it will do for six months.

Upstairs, I have gradually been decluttering and moving back into my office in the small third bedroom. It also lacks a serious wall calendar, so I ordered one to remedy that.

Will I go full Seinfeld on it?  I don’t think so — but just having it there might add some rudder.

This week I walked zero miles.