Mulch madness.

It was the mulch that did it.

Before we moved to the suburbs, I thought gardening was a hobby for well-mannered senior citizens who wore long gloves and big floppy hats and pruned a bit each morning as they hummed their favorite oldies. I thought keeping up a yard meant mowing and watering. The End. I thought picking out lovely plants and keeping them in good shape just meant going to the nursery, saying "I'll take those, those, and those," and then they'd magically show up in our yard, and because I'm a spunky sort who doesn't need things done for me, nossir, I'd plunk them into neat holes that wouldn't be any problem to dig. Maybe I'd make Scott dig them, if the holes were large.

I was wrong on all these counts, of course. Planting and gardening involves science and heavy lifting. It involves endless weeding and finding out that your yard is composed of clay and unexpectedly large rocks. It means pulling muscles you never knew you had. Gardening is not for sissies. Those old people who like to garden? I wouldn't mess with them if you paid me, now. Who knows what they could do with a shovel?

But the mulch, damn it, the mulch was too much. I knew about mulch and its importance, vaguely, so the first time I planted some things I came home with a couple of bags of mulch—which were surprisingly heavy! Huh!—and proceeded to pull every muscle in my body dumping them out all over the garden bed, my feet, and most of my legs. I raked the mulch around, and then saw how little of the ground I had covered. And I wept.

It turns out, and I know you know this and you're shaking your head at what an idiot I am, you need truckfuls of mulch. You need to visit Mulch Planet, and fight the natives until they surrender or die, and then denude their Mulch Mountains and Valleys, and transport all that mulch directly to your backyard, and maybe that would be enough. So much mulch, you need.

And the mulch doesn't stay. It goes. And then you need MORE MULCH.

A sane person would say, well, we could have hired a landscaping company to do the lawn upkeep and the mulching for us. That would have been the sane, sensible thing to do, but it would also be the thing to do if we had any cash with which to do that. Sadly, if we were to keep our yard looking halfway decent, we'd have to perform the upkeep ourselves.

I thought I'd get used to the fertilizing, the pruning, and of course the mulching. But I never did. I'm sorry to say this, yard, but now I dislike you. I see you and you're just a nagging reminder of all that I need to do, all that I haven't done, or the half-assed job that I did do just to make myself feel better. And now that I've mulched everything in the front yard that required mulching and I can't lift my arms without screaming, I am officially over having a yard. I want to move to a magical place where I'm only responsible for the inside of my home. Where if I feel any guilt, it's just because I haven't used the vacuum cleaner in a week.

Oh dear, she's writing about dogs again.

Yesterday, an adorable yet filthy dog was wandering around my street. I did what any concerned citizen would do: I threw rocks at it. A ha ha ha! I did not throw rocks at it. Actually I was running out the door (with the cat, who was so overdue for shots she was fashioning syringes for herself out of drinking straws), so I drove away, feeling guilty that I wasn't saving this adorable and incredibly disgusting dog, this dog who would probably be run over by a garbage truck and it would be all my fault.

I can be a little hard on myself.

Anyhoo (I say "anyhoo" now), got back from the vet, looked around for the dog, no dog. Maybe said dog had been returned to safety? I wanted to think so. So I did! Problem solved.

Many hours later, I was leaving to pick up Henry, and there was the dog. Sniffing bushes, doing what dogs do. My neighbor Jen was outside with her daughter, and Jen was eyeing the dog, no doubt wondering whom he would eat first. I joined them.

It turns out Jen had just murdered a snake (she claimed she had no choice, but I had my doubts) and she looked shaken up. She was still holding the shovel. And glaring at the dog. "STOP KILLING ANIMALS," I shouted. (No, no. The snake was a mercy killing. She's not like that. I think.) As the dog investigated the sidewalk, Jen's daughter declared, "I can see her nursies!" What do you know! It was a she! A mangy she!

I tried to walk away, but the dog! She followed me! And wagged her encrusted tail! She nosed my leg like she wanted me to pet her, but I can not overstate just how unclean she was. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't leave her, as I have a heart of gold. I walked back to my house. And she walked with me. I opened my back gate, and she trotted right in. And after picking up Henry, I called Animal Control. A lovely representative of said department showed up within minutes. He told me that the dog, after being cleaned up and taken care of, would be transferred to a shelter. "She's a sweetheart, and if you kill her I will hunt you down," I said. No I didn't. The dog tried to get me to pet her once before she hopped into the van. I patted her. She didn't feel as awful as she looked.

My neighbor said, "I have never seen Animal Control show up that quickly," and I said, "Maybe it's because I asked them nicely and didn't threaten them with a shovel."

That is my story. The End.

Hi, I'm panicky.

What's with me? With the not-posting? I have no excuses. Actually I have an entire rucksack full of them, but I will spare you.

First of all, I have been terribly remiss regarding informing you of my Wonderland posts. New posts here and here. Also, there's also an interview with me in the videos, under "Keyboard Confidential" (which I would link to if I could figure out how), in which I murmur and look an awful lot like my late Irish grandmother. All I need is a Manhattan and wispy blue hair, and I could scare the shit out of my father.

Now marvel as I abruptly change the subject. Aaaaand… go!

I've always lacked confidence regarding my ability to move through space. There was the Bike-Learning Failure of '73-'78, the Roller Skating Catastrophe of '79, the Uneven Bars Horror of '83. And then there was driving. I never had the slightest interest in driving, except inasmuch as it could get you places, and I liked places. I had never even sat in a driver's seat, when I found myself in just such a seat, my foot on the pedal, in a driver's ed car, careening down Main Street. I don't remember much from driver's ed, but I do recall a lot of screaming, most of it not coming out of my own mouth. I may have hit a few things. Not surprisingly, I failed. I took Driver's Ed all over again. I passed, but barely. I failed the driver's test. I figured that this was a sign that I should be chaffeured everywhere, but my parents made me take it again. I passed, but just slightly.

Then I moved away, away from the Land Where Everyone Drove, and that was that for twenty years. For twenty years I haven't had to drive. I think I drove a few times in college, when my a cappella group (don't laugh) went on tour. There was a familiar screaming sound, when I did that. My fellow a cappella mates stopped asking me to drive. I moved to the city, where no one had cars. I was all set.

But then I moved here. Figuring I would get used to driving, I moved to this place. And I did, mostly. I was a little sweaty-palmed for the first couple of months, but now I can get around town without a problem. Then I tried to drive on the highway.

And I completely freaked out.

Without going into too much detail about it because reliving it makes me want to die, here was how much I was freaking out: my vision tunneled. I was fairly certain that I was going to throw up on myself. I lost all feeling in my arms. My hands were sweating so badly that they were slipping off the steering wheel. My hearing went all funny. Then I started crying, which, in addition to the tunnel vision, made it awfully hard to see. I got off at the nearest exit.

I was probably on the highway for ten or fifteen minutes. That was one year ago.

I know what you're going to say. I can hear you saying it. Highway driving is scary, you're saying. You have to keep on trying! It's a skill! You'll get better! Do you always use all those exclamation points, when you're talking?

What we have here is not a lack of confidence—well, okay, it IS a lack of confidence, but also it is a fear that grips so tightly to me that I can no longer reason. I've tried driving on the highway a couple of times since then. I've tried to work through it. I did some cognitive behavioral therapy, I learned about dealing with panic and breathing the right way and I tried talking myself through the panic, blar de blar, and I am here to tell you that I cannot. I don't want to sound defeatist, here, but all the talking to myself and breathing just makes me calm enough that I don't run off the road and run screaming from the car. I can manage it, but I still get the numbness and the tunnel vision and the nausea—and the sweating, don't forget the sweating!—and I feel absolutely dreadful.

I tried going on the Garden State Parkway last week. My panic was so intense that I was nauseated for days afterward. It was like I had been poisoned. Why would I put myself through that again? Except, you know, for all the really smart reasons, like I need to get around and do things and be independent and GOD SHUT UP WITH YOUR REASONABLE ATTITUDE.

I'm sorry, baby, I didn't mean it. It's the fear, is all. It's got ahold of me.

All of this is leading up to one question, which is: what do you think of hypnosis? Anyone? Anyone?

38 is the new 37.

So I turned 38 on Monday, which was also Memorial Day, so I got to pretend that everyone had the day off because of me. The parades? All about me. Take that, honored war dead!

Generally I enjoy my birthday (except for the year that Phil Hartmann was murdered--thanks for ruining my birthday, guys), but this year ranked among the best birthdays so far.

I started my day with a lesson in anatomy.

It seems that I am not much more than a bag of gastric juices, which explains much. And I am filled with bubbles, which clears up some things as well. I also have a fairly undersized brain. Or an oversized head. At any rate, it was educational.Thank you, Henry!

We had a Memorial Day barbecue, which meant that Scott got to spend the day frantically grilling. I'm sure he loved it, although I couldn't ask him because he was too busy cursing under his breath.

Only some people knew that it was also a day to celebrate ME ME ME and everything I stand for. Then the cake came out and those people had to admit that they didn't know it was my birthday, and I stared at them in shock before bursting into tears and throwing my cake on the lawn. Wheee!

Because I was busy sucking down sangria and traumatizing acquaintances, I didn't take many pictures.

Here are some children wreaking havoc on my new birdbath. Damn kids!

My other present was that for the first time in MONTHS, our dog didn't tear ass out of the yard the first chance he got. Charlie's been hell-bent on escaping ever since the temperature rose above 40. Mind you, we're all fenced in, but Charlie can flatten himself and squeeze through fist-sized holes, because he is actually a rat. Did I mention that we found him in a gutter in Tijuana? I knew that was a mistake.

Anyway, if you grill enough meats, your dog will stay put. And then pass out.

While the dog snoozed, the kids ran around in circles, crammed full of juice and hot dogs, spraying each other with the hose. By some birthday/Memorial Day miracle, they all lived to enjoy the birthday cake.

I know I've griped about suburbia, but I must say, in the past few months I have been happier than ever to live here. There's space, and birds, and neighbors who jump the fence to come hang out with you. This is a good place to be.