Gangsta Crap

October 24, 2005

It’s misting again outside, but harder than it has been the past two mornings. It’s enough to change the timbre of the cars as they pass by our house, enough to start the germination of all those native seeds I have yet to plant. Enough to make you a little sad if you stand in it by yourself and feel the fall coming on.

Maybe it’s just because I’m done paying bills (which is always excruciating to me), or because my wife is talking to her estranged father on the phone, but the sadness gripped me when I stood on the porch looking out at the massive juvenile California sycamore we planted when Ryan was born.

There are reasons I’m a frustrated gardener. Probably one is, like the bonsai artists, I want to control the world, and it angers me when it doesn’t listen to my commands.

Looking at that beautiful tree we planted when Ryan was born I think of how different I want the world to be, a longing for peace. In my garden I hope to undo a little of what my fellow humans have instigated on the very ground we walk on. Ridiculous as that sounds as a man who lives in a dirty, crime-ridden city, it’s something I still believe strongly.

There was a day, a cold day last year, maybe the year before, Wendy was working and I took the children to Descanso Gardens to have a look around and ride the train once around the park. It was around this time of year, and the winter rains were just setting in. It wasn’t that cold when we started, but by the time I bought them hot chocolate and I held Abby’s little ice cube hands in mine, I felt terrible for letting her run around without gloves on.

They both fell fast asleep by the time I came home. I put them into their beds, turned on the radio, and started to wash dishes and look out at the beautiful rain.

Just then shots rang out, about a block away from our house. I could barely make out a black SUV driving away and a figure lying down. Police cars arrived in waves no more than three minutes later and neighbors started pouring out of their houses to find out what had happened.

Of course it was gang related. Of course all these misguided kids were killing each other like the assholes they admire so much.

I went back to my house and said, “We are moving”.

I couldn’t shake the feeling of how ineffectual my puttering in the garden had been. How, like the priest in the Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby he walks away from the grave and “no one was saved”.

I believed strongly in God when those kids were shot and killed. And I do still, mostly. I don’t wonder how He would let them do something so horrible as that. He has let much, much more horrible things happen on a daily basis for everyone, humans, animals, and insects alike.

I wondered, tonight, staring out at that black, black rain, about another man’s garden, in a country like Iraq. A garden that has seen dictators come and go, withstood wars, jihads, and so much human misery.

Those closest to God, even the Buddhists who don’t necessarily even believe in Him, would tell me to continue to garden, regardless.

Mother Theresa continued to heal the sick though Calcutta would always churn out an infinite number more than she could ever heal, or help through the night as they passed out of her arms and into their Lord’s.

And those people would tell you that Smith & Hawken, Gardener’s Eden, Sunset, and your Sunday supplement are full of shit. There is Gardening, and then there is all the crap thrown on top of it. There is a deep reason for putting your hands in that soil and it may not always be clear. Many of those incredibly, wonderfully, unfathomably smart people would tell you they were not always clear, either, but you should do it.

Because it is in your bones.

Do it if you’re tired. Or nervous. Or feel like taking a rifle to every gangbanger, politician, and black SUV driver in sight.

There is a connection between your hands and the earth that started before you were born. Probably before any of us were born.

And it is as rich as any loam you could find in the finest garden on the earth.

Box Stores and Gardeners and Whiskers on Kittens

October 20, 2005

It’s 8:30 at night, 68 degrees outside, the children are (finally) asleep, Wendy is being taken out for her birthday by our friend Denise, and, I finally get a chance to sit down and write.

This morning, the light came streaming in where the eucalyptus once stood. All that remain of the giant are tiny woodchips and (ironically) a little replanted jade plant the tree guys had to relocate when they disassembled the fence to get the stump grinder in.

I’m not going to be romantic about this tree. You can write poems about them, you can drain them of sap to make syrup, use their fronds for houses, curse them when you hit your head on them, and you can cut them down when they become a nuisance. I’m not crazy about killing living things, but there are several factors about this tree you have to consider. One, in a good wind limbs drop on my roof. In fact, all the crap it drops on a regular basis are giving my saltillo tile roof a half life (I’m guessing $20K to replace). These things explode when they catch fire. Okay, maybe that’s a myth, but still… Two, it really doesn’t belong here in the first place. All the eucalyptus trees you see in California are related to ones brought over by one guy from Australia in the 30’s and 40’s as windbreaks, landscaping, etc. Yes, they are drought tolerant, but they don’t feed any wildlife that I know of and they stink to high hell. Which brings us to point three: they stink to high hell. Wendy wanted to get rid of it when we moved in and has always regretted not doing it before we did.

For the job of removal we ended up going with Paul instead of Javier, our normal gardener. Besides the money thing (which was about a $2K difference) I was unsure if Javier could pull the dang thing off without killing him and us in the process. What I haven’t done, unfortunately, is tell him someone else ripped out the tree. I have four days to do that before he comes over here and discovers it for himself.

Worse yet, I’m going to have to tell him we’re going to attempt to take care of the yard ourselves starting next month. “Just in time for Christmas”, Wendy commented when I told her.

I told her that wasn’t making the decision any less difficult. Javier has been working in this garden for at least 15 years. I’ve heard about his kids going to school and then college, and for a guy who came from Zacatecas, Mexico 30 some years ago, he’s done all right. It’s nice knowing, too, in some way we helped him by being his clients. It’s the opposite feeling you get when you go to visit the near Dead people at Costco or Wal-Mart to purchase some cheap shoes made for a nickel in China.

Okay, I’ve got a thing about box stores. And though I was probably halfway there anyway, working with my hands in the garden and seeing the fruits of my own labors (so to speak) has certainly pushed me the rest of the distance to hating gross consumerism.

The Javier decision is an economic one. We can either try to keep the filth in the house under control by bringing in a maid once or twice a month or we could have Javier. We can’t have both. We’re damn lucky to have even one. But my Saturdays are spent vacuuming and cleaning bathrooms while Wendy is at work, so you can probably venture a guess I’d much rather be out in the yard on those days.

What worries me, of course, is what if I make the discovery I can’t keep up with the damn thing.

He and his helper can fill one of those 90-gallon green trashcans every week with stuff from our yard. I have to figure out if I can do that without losing my mind and killing my family. Honestly, there’s a lot to love about this yard: we’re organic, we’re certified by the National Wildlife Federation as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat (or front in our case), and whenever I’m out working I always here people say, “I love your yard”.

But then again, there’s a hell of a lot to hate: we’re inundated with Bermuda grass that Paul, the guy who lived here before, failed to kill before planting drought tolerant plants, it always looks like a mess to me, and I honestly get the feeling on some days I’m Sisyphus trying to roll that boulder up the hill before the damn thing comes down again and tries to run me over.

Maybe I should get my Master’s in Mythology of Gardening.

Hell, it’s California, someone’s probably already offering it.

Probably Berkeley.

Stinky Australians

October 5, 2005

The Santa Ana winds are up. People in many parts of the country are putting on their warm jackets and collecting leaves to burn. In Los Angeles today it was 94 degrees and the leaves and the trees and the grass and several houses were burning regardless of anyone trying to collect them.

I think about the Santa Anas every year when they come up. Like the French Mistral winds, they are full of mystery. I can imagine people in the 1800s blaming all sorts of things on these winds. Anything from ripping down a neighbor’s fence to murder. Notably, I’ve never seen anyone go crazy from these particular winds. And even in a litiginious state like this has its limits for alibis. (Up to now, anyway.)

I’m going back to the back yard.

I started here years ago. And now I’m back. If I stay another 11 years, I imagine I’ll be back again a few times. Maybe I’ll leave a note for myself so I don’t forget what I’ve done.

We’ve decided to finally call it a day on the grass. Yes, men of suburban USA, I have given up on this goddamn grass and I am putting in something else. Something that uses less water maybe. Something that doesn’t die in patches when you put a pool on it for 4 hours one summer day. Something that isn’t a colossal waste of pesticide, herbicide, fertilizer, and insecticide. Maybe bark. Wendy and I did take an honest look at the area (it didn’t take long, it’s only 500 sq. feet. There was still time for drinks and snacks.) and after thinking of what we use it for – parties, setting up the kids’ pool, something to waste water on – we both decided that grass was a waste. Unfortunately, I, like every other man in this country it seems, have been indoctrinated with pictures of kids lying on the cool, downy soft grass and watching clouds pass by. “Damn it, why can’t I give my kids at least that!”, I’d say in my head as I watered the browning St. Augustine, Bermuda, or what have you. I will try to remind myself that I am a former cult member and these thoughts, along with looking at pictures of naked women and taking bong hits while driving, were never really such a hot idea in the first place. And were a lot less hot after getting married.

It was only a matter of time, of course, for Wendy to look up at the towering 80 foot Eucalyptus that some ignoramus planted three feet from my house (and thus leaning precariously over my roof) and say, “We’ve really got to get rid of that thing.” She’s right, I know. Those things explode when they catch fire. They stink. They peel incessantly. Their branches fall on everything including my roof and my neighbor’s cactus garden. And my roofer told me I could take 5 years off the life of my roof if I don’t do anything about it. “But it’s been there for, what, 20 years?” I still counter, hoping that it doesn’t sound as dumb to her as it does to me.

But of course it does. So the first call I make is to our gardener, Javier. He shows up as I’m trying to eat lunch on a Sunday. He’s dressed in church clothes or realtor clothes (I can never tell) and assesses the situation. He pats the tree and says, “Mr. Tim. I’ve talked to a couple guys who have the equipment. And I’m thinking to cut down this tree and that one (he points to the other godforsaken eucalyptus which is also three feet away from my house, but has chosen to try to knock over my fence instead of smashing through my roof)… is, um…” And he pauses. I’m not a fan of his pauses. Because even though he does things very inexpensively when he pauses it means it sounds like a lot of money, even to him. “It’s a big tree, Mr. Tim.” Okay, that’s worse than a pause. That is a big red light warning me to run away. But I just stand there and take it like a man. A man who has chosen to put in bark instead of a lawn and will discuss this very expensive subject so his wife can sleep during the night when the winds blow. “Five, maybe six thousand.”

Man am I hoping he’s talking pesos. Even if it’s the new pesos, it’s still going to be cheaper than dollars.

But he is talking dollars. I go over the whole dance: what if we just take one down, trim two, trim one, and, lastly, take fifteen bucks and go in and tell my wife it’s impossible without knocking down the house first.

I do call another tree guy, Paul Shiver, who cut down the (Jesus, who are the people who planted this bunch of loser trees around this property? Can I find them? Can I sue them?) 80-foot cottonwood tree which ripped up our entire front sidewalk and was, get this, something like 8 years old. Yes, that’s 10 feet a year. If you are looking for a tree to rip up everything in its path to give you shade, here’s your best bet. Did I fail to mention that they are riparian, nee river, trees? That means they put their roots out nice and low looking for water everywhere, thus the ripping up asphalt and concrete problem. It also means that these 80-foot wonders don’t hold onto a heck of a lot of soil and can end up in your house with Piglet, Pooh, and Owl on a particularly blustery day.

Paul, who ripped out the cottonwood 5 years ago remembers our house when I call him. Not the house, the tree. “That was a big tree,” he says. For some reason I thought these guys were always ripping out big trees. Wow, he’s going to love his next challenge. But I called him, because even though I asked Javier if he’s bonded, I’m not really sure he is. And I’d hate to discover that moments after one of his guys accidentally bungee jumps through our front window.

Which leaves me hear, 9pm, 70 degrees, and waiting for Paul Shiver’s bid so I can actually bite my tongue off in conversation.

I could look at my bank account again. But that’s not really going to do me much good. I know this money’s coming out of the home equity loan. You remember that loan, don’t you? The one your financial guy tells you not to touch and yet the home equity people keep dreaming up new ideas how to use it: new bathroom, new car, new pool… or, in my case, new hole in your back yard where that stupid ass eucalyptus used to be.