"I was lying on the grass…"-Len

Memememe….

No, that's not the last fight with MyUnwife, that's just me warming my voice. I went outside to grab the paper and the chorus had already begun. I'd hoped it was catcalls and whistles for my Tony Soprano robe, but now, it's just a gathering of gardeners harmonizing their tools.

And just what do you call a group of gardeners? A group of Lawyers is a firm; a group of retailers is a mall; and a group of politicians is a stagnation. What is a group of greenery groomers? Well, call them what you will, they are my neighborhoods mowers and shapers, and on a clear day like today, they're busy.

Lawn mowers across the neighborhood hummed in tune. The guy down the block, he's got an alto; the guy with the monster truck, he's got a tenor. He'd have a tractor if his could justify it to his wife. It might be easier if his lawn were bigger than a yoga mat. Lawn tractors are a guys equivalent to that sit-down Dyson vacuum you've been asking for every Christmas. Give him the tractor and The Cat In The Hat's Clean up tool could be yours! It's just a helpful tip from a Rob who cares.

The guy next to me he had a tractor on his lawn. Different thing. it didn't mow. It dug. I suppose it was really more of a backhoe really. He used it to put in a pool in the back. The front never recovered. It's probably the trailer and the RV they roll across it all the time. He still has a lawn crew come out once a month and move around the dirt. I think that's to appease his wife. She's a nice woman, but she has a strong view of what the house should look like, and sometimes I wonder if it's the same as his. So far I have to admit, I like her vision better than his reality. When we play neighborhood golf, his lawn is the sand trap. Mine's usually the rough. Today, I'm gonna go for fairway.

Tractor neighbor isn't the worst house on the block though. That's my neighbor on the other side. He's a dental student. I don't think he has a day job. He's got a girlfriend though, and his yard suffers for it. I hope he's more attentive with his patient's mouths when he gets a practice. His yard's the water hazard. It's cool, you go out at night and he's got a plot of Texas oil gushers: broken sprinklers spewing spray straight into the air. Maybe it's a dental spigot-tool thing.

"Here, put your mouth here, now wait for the timer to go off."

He needs to practice.

I sound snooty don't I? I'm not. I'm just an observationalist. My lot is nowhere near the best on the block, My "curb appeal" matches my block placement: right in the middle. Actually I've sunk a little since Christmas. The steel poles holding up my front fence cost me aesthetic points. It's not my fault. I'm waiting for tractor guy to fit the fence fix into his busy to-do schedule. I realize I'm lower on the list than his wife. I'm ok with that. It does keep the golfers off my lawn.

"Keep away from the Boyd house, it's harder to get away from than the ball-stealing squirrels at the Bullwinkle place."

"That's what his ex wife told me too…"

Today I'll go out and help people play through faster. I need to mow, trim and weed. My neighbors will be happy. I'm kind of nonplussed. I only see the outside every once and a while.

The dog sees the outside a lot. I keep trying to get him to trim the back yard. There's a lot of overgrowth back there, and I think it's the least he could do to maintain that for me. He is. He's maintaining overgrowth. He also plants smelly piles where work should be done. I think his previous owners worked a California road crew.

You wanna hear something weird? I was on my porch shaking my bathroom rug, and Tractor neighbor's wife was unwrapping her dog leash from one of the palms that divides our property. She'd been a good girl. No, I'm kidding, don't start sending me hate mail. The stuff I get is enough. I swear. The neighbors have a dog, that they move out front sometimes. If they don't leash him to the trees, he'll explore the neighborhood, tear up sprinklers, give the golfers a mean dog leg.

Here comes the hate mail...

So anyway, tractor wife was asking about my divorce. I told her, "I just saw MyUnwife a week ago." It feels so strange talking about MyUnwife in that context. I used to see her everyday. Now her coworkers see her more than I do. Of course with our work schedules, that was probably always the case. It's just that it was like one of our cats. He may act like he's ignoring you while he's licking himself, but really he's thinking all about you, and at some point, he'll slip a paw over your arm just to prove you're still there. Now there's nothing. Now pawing, no licking, just "I saw her a week ago."

It's kind of sad to think that someday she'll just be the last paragraph in a blog entry. I don't want that to happen, but it will, and I don't have time to worry about that now. I've got a mower choir to join . Today we're belting out Warner Bros. showtunes. I think I'll join in for the Elmer Fudd "Kill the Wabbit" chorus. Come on by, play a round of golf. Steer clear of the squirrels though, they'll steal your balls.