Green... thumb.

I started this post about the matchie matches, but lost it and now I can’t get it back. My brain is stalled. So I will try that one again tomorrow, and instead I will tell you now about how my landlord raised my rent.

And that it is awesome.

I have lived in this same 1/2 of a duplex for almost exactly 5 years. When I moved in here fall of 2003 my landlord explained that I had to keep my lawn and corner lot trimmed and such. I didn’t have to GARDEN, mind you, but packs of raccoons should not be able to travel through my lawn unseen. And let me assure you, nothing that I do could accurately be called ‘gardening’; however I can shove a mower in waves across a lawn. In fact, I pushed the hand-me-down mower from my uncle back and forth so diligently the first 3 years that it eventually coughed a final gas-powered gasp and croaked. And I did what any responsible home-renter would do. I nestled the non-mowering mower in the bushes ‘round behind my carport, bought a new one and finished the lawn.

My landlord has only raised the rent once before, so I was a little bummed to hear of the hike in early October, but mostly on principle. It’s not a lot of money at all. But it’s more than the previous amount of money. Sigh. I decided to blame the government and moved on with my world.

Then about a week later I was home during the day, eating lunch, and I spied someone stealing my lawn mower. My broken lawn mower. Someone was pulling my dead lawn mower out of the corner of the carport bushes right there in front of me! “Scuse me!” I yelled, “are you stealing my broken lawn mower???” and then the next few minutes are a soft, nice-smelling blur of hot dudeness.

Here stood this hot dude! A lawn mower stealing dude? Well, sure. But it was so broken and he was so YUM! Let him have the mower! Finally the blood rushing. Hormone-fueled, past my ears calmed down and I heard hot-mower-stealing-dude mention that he worked for a yardwork business that my landlord had hired to come and clear out the mass of bramble bushes behind the house. With my brand new, now completely justified and maybe even a bargain, rent hike.

Tangent: I’m extremely independent. To the point of being simultaneously stupid and annoying about it. I get angry when my helpful Auntie M folds a towel for me, because my overly independent brain translates the act of towel folding into somehow impuning my ability to clean up my own towels. Many smart, loving people in my world would probably hesitate to pee on my flaming form for fear of my insisting I was just about to pee on myself and totally didn’t need the help thank YOU! So for months now I have been girding my loins in preparation for an assault on my neighbor’s attacking bramble bushes. I even got gloves! Special barb wire gloves, so very thick and stiff as to not allow one to touch thumb to finger! But these brambles were apparently transplanted from the land of Sleeping Beauty, being the same ones they used to keep Princey McPrince-boy from reaching her for some hot smoochey-smooches. Of course none of this kept me from momentarily getting defensive at the idea of someone being hired to do this bramble bush warfare. Because HELLO, I was TOTALLY going to do it! I was! I could totally do it myself. Wanna see my plywood gloves??

Beautiful bramble bush attack boy worked all during my lunch and I was able to find a good 11 or 30 reasons to go into the back of my house during lunch and peek out the back window. “hey, I wonder is the sun spontaneously setting in the east? At 1pm? Nope! Good to know! Veeeeerrrryyy good….” He was still hard (gulp) at work when I went back to my job. I came home to a note that he was all finished and some other guy would be back in a few weeks for general maintenance. Wah.

And yet there he was again, today, to blow my leaves and edge my lawn, both of which suddenly sound just a little dirty. Do I know his name? No. To me he is just Hot Yard Guy. But I am very much looking forward to the summer months! The hot, sweaty, hopefully shirtless, summer months… I think I may take up gardening after all!