Another exciting day of horticulture and neighborhood intrigue!
I had breakfast on the deck and then did some writing for the peer review required by the Association of Professional Chaplains five years after board certification and every five years thereafter; this will be my first one. They provide a long list of prompts for writing, and then the reviewee assembles an appropriate group who meet to have a discussion based on the writing.
I decided it’s not good to choose one of gardening or walking, but always or almost always to walk and then to do a little gardening. After I spent about an hour writing, I went for a walk and was surprised to see that I had evidently inspired my plant-loving neighbor with my forsythia-related efforts: he had begun to work on his side of the forsythia right near the sidewalk, leaving a big mess thereon. (I did a little sweeping there later.)
Down the block a ways, I encountered a fellow weeding. Weeding! Swoon! I asked him how he knows what to pull out and he said he is a professional gardener who has been working in that yard for three years, so he is very aware of what needs to go. I asked if I could pay him to spend an hour with me in my yard pointing out what to weed and he said that would be fine.
Continuing on, I encountered my plant-loving neighbor walking his dog. He was now all smiles. He said he’d figured out who’d written the letter; he used the word “back,” but said he didn’t want to talk about it. He apologized for yelling at me and said I should always let him know if there is anything I’m concerned about. I said he should do the same, and thus friendly relations were restored.
When I got home, I saw him in his back yard using his weed whacker or string trimmer near the lot line of our new neighbor, Digby, and suddenly it all became clear: The letter he got was from Digby, not from Digby! I texted my sister about this and she said she had assumed this from the start and considered it to go without saying. Hmmph.
I then texted Digby the tree guy to say it was Digby the nice lady who had written the letter, and that my neighbor is aware it wasn’t him. He was happy to have that cleared up and to know he had been exonerated.
I filled out the professional gardener’s online request form, and if that doesn’t work out, there is always my friend’s son, except that I am going to be living in San Francisco, where I will not need to know these things.
I’m sorry to say that one of the main things I have learned from these past four-plus years of caring for my parents is that I’m alone in this world, fundamentally, and the other is that a really good listener is nearly impossible to find. Even my therapist is a crappy listener. (I therefore never see her.) Chaplains are really good listeners. I decided it would be best for such well-being as I might be able to achieve to hang around a group of chaplains. In Michigan, I could almost certainly get a job as a hospice chaplain, but those are solitary jobs. In San Francisco, I’m part of a group of 11 chaplains, plus a harpist and two supervisors.
Also, I cannot get past my terror about transporting the cats. I think I have mentioned that I once saw Marvin shred a soft-sided cat carrier in less than 60 seconds. He was not on 200 mg of gabapentin at the time, as he will be if he ever goes for a ride on a plane, but I am still terrified that he will somehow get loose and never be seen again. If plane travel for Marvin comes to pass, which I really cannot picture, I plan to bring a swath of aluminum screen and a bunch of cable ties to swaddle the carrier in if he starts to destroy it.
Continuing to fly back and forth does not today seem like a reasonable idea. It’s not fair to continue to make the cats spend so much time alone.
After my walk, texts about Digby and Digby, and filling out the gardener’s online form, it was out to the yew hedge to continue snipping off the orange dead parts, a tedious and slow process. I meant to spend one hour but ended up spending two. I couldn’t resist plucking a few weeds out of the sidewalk cracks and the lawn extension, and set aside a distinctive-looking one for later identification. It was Pennsylvania Pellitory! I was very excited when I saw a couple more later on and could pluck them out of the ground with confidence.
It is also kind of great now to see so many hostas when I go on my walk, completely invisible until a few days ago.
I had dinner, my usual salad, on the deck and realized that my eye had fallen on what looked suspiciously like my arch enemy, wild grape vines. I clomped over there in my Birkenstocks and ended up with a massive pile of vines in front of the garage; I will have to cut them up later. The sun had set by the time I was done, and the fireflies were flickering, little white lights suddenly appearing in the dark.
During this effort, I again found myself within a few feet of the side of my neighbor’s house (though not necessarily on his property; it gets a bit murky in there). I’m going to try to remember that the main point of nature is to keep people from being able to see each other and to stay out of that area unless absolutely necessary. (That is, if I see more grape vines I might be able to reach.)
It is also probably best not to garden in the dark with sharp tools lest I have a freak accident that will cause my relatives to feel embarrassed every time they have to explain how I died.
There is a tall tree in the yard that has wild grape vines way higher than I could possibly reach, even with some sort of pole, including at the very tippy top of the tree. It is maddening. Dangling down are thick vine stalks no doubt cut by my father once upon a time as high as he could reach. That might be one important difference between us: He could evidently live with that, but I’m not going to be able to (as long as I’m in the same state with it).
Once I get everything I can get to by hand—and I think I might be nearly there—I am going to hire someone to somehow get up there and get that down.
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