Tuesday, March 15, 2016

The Big Green Monster



Every time I hobble through the kitchen in my home, I have to turn my head away from the window so that I will not catch a glimpse of my nemesis. It is big, it is green, it is frightening, and it is NOT going to go away. But maybe, just maybe, if I don't catch a glimpse, I won't be overwhelmed by my feeling that I should be doing something about it.

My arch-enemy is not a big green snake. It is not Oscar the Grouch, or Kermit the Frog. It is the huge, weed-infested yards that surround the home we currently live in. You see, our home was built in the 1950s, and is therefore not restricted by the Xeriscape requirements that most homes here in Albuquerque are. (Xeriscape is landscaping designed around low water use. Think cactus and rocks.) However, by the time we moved into the house 3 years ago, no one had bothered to do anything else with landscaping the home for years. So, when the weather starts warming up again, we wind up in a home surrounded by huge patches of weeds. Where there are not weeds, there is simply good old-fashioned dirt.

In my head, I am the kind of guy who is out every weekend working on his perfectly manicured yard -  a couple of small lawns, some fruit trees, even a garden for fresh veggies. In reality, I am disabled, mobility-impaired, and know nothing about yard care in the first place. So, I should just farm the work out, right? Last week, I attempted to do just that - I spoke with a handyman here in our neighborhood about what it would cost us to rein in my front yard. He took one look at my yard, filled with two-foot high weeds punctuated my 3 dead 10-foot tall trees that would have to be chain-sawed and removed, and quoted me a reasonable price - $60.

But, no matter how I tried, I could not squeeze another $60 our of our household budget. Social Security Disability keeps our household held firmly below the poverty line, and leaves no money for things like contractor yard care. Discouraged, I decided to tackle the problem myself. I spent two hours with a weed trimmer engaged in combat with the front yard. The end result? I was laid out for 3 days from injuring my back and knees. And my front yard is just as ugly as it ever was - now filled with dirt and dead weeds, over which still tower my deceased trees.

So, here I sit, crippled by my two disabilities - the one that keeps me from working (epilepsy), and the one that keeps me from moving (obesity). Between the two, I feel effectively trapped - and that gigantic patch of weeds in the back yard just keeps growing. Unless the Xeriscape Fairy arrives, I can expect that the situation is never going to change - even if I had the energy to take down all those weeds (which I don't), I still wouldn't have the money to replace them with something else. The circle of life continues.

Now, the odds are good that weight loss will give me back some mobility. There is even a chance (not a guarantee, but a chance) that weight loss will increase the efficacy of my anti-seizure meds - maybe even to the point where I could look into beginning to work again. But until that day arrives, I will just have to keep on waiting for the willpower to charge out into the back yard and injure myself again reining it in. Knowing all the while that the front yard is once again getting over-grown...

Sighing and Trying Not To Look Out The Windows,

- Hawkwind

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