According to Trish

I never thought that I would be the person who was having a spat with her neighbor. But here we are, in a veritable turf war over dandelions.

I posted on facebook the other week that I was committing surbuban heresy by not using chemical dandelion killers on my lawn. My immediate neighbor — let’s call her “Fern” – has let me know on several occasions over the years that she hates dandelions worse than she hates Republicans and that if she sees one (a dandelion, not a Republican) she has to immediately rip it out of the ground and flog it as if she were Dick Cheney and the cursed weed was a Gitmo detainee (or something like that). After a while I got the feeling that her general outrage might just be a thinly veiled plea for a specific action on my part.

We have done the chemical treatment once or twice over the years but I try to avoid it when I can. I’m no hippie (despite the presence of a Phish CD in my hybrid vehicle — OK, two Phish CDs…) and yes, I do shave my underarms and attend to various other forms of personal groundskeeping. But I’m not a huge fan of the Suburban Steroid Lawn. Really, to me, it’s just grass. You walk on it. Animals crap on it. It’s not a carpet and I find it silly to treat it like one. Also, I have a toddler in my house. Toddlers spent 90% of their waking time on the floor. Chemicals on the lawn get tracked into the house and all over the actual carpets and floors — where my darling Little B is picking up every teensy little thing and taste testing it. Not to mention, the runoff from all the chemicals is very bad for local water sources and everyone on our street has private wells. So the way I see it, I’d rather deal with some dandelions than deal with spreading poison all over my entire lawn. (I will admit to using occasional targeted weed killers like Round Up — I just hate the idea of covering the better part of a half acre with the stuff.)

However, I know people get nuts about their yards. And after a certain age in particular, people get absolutely obsessed about their yards. I’ve seen “the change” happen to people I know…  And I would like to tell you all now that if I ever get that crazy about my grass that I would like you to take me to an art movie house and duct tape me into a seat because I will clearly need some reprogramming. It’s one thing to get some sort of peace and joy out of gardening. It’s entirely another to patrol your grass for weeds as if you were a Minuteman doing border patrol.

But even I had to admit that this year the dandelions were getting a bit much. I knew that we were probably ticking off the neighbors, which I didn’t want to do. So we bit the bullet. I nagged the husband to go outside and do the dirty deed. Our front yard is now one unbroken stretch of green.

Then there’s the back yard. Last year we removed an old above-ground pool that we inherited from the former owners. Problem is, when you remove an above-ground pool, what you’re left with is an enormous round depression in your yard that looks like a meteorite may have once landed there. And our landing sight is full of sand and rock, which is on top of a membrane that I can’t seem to dig out. Oh yeah, and there are weeds. Lots of ’em.

We let the big mess just sit last year because our financial situation was changing and we didn’t want to put out the money to pay contractors. But Tom and I both agree that it’s an eyesore and we have already starting getting estimates to get it done this year. But in the meantime, the dandelions are having a dandy time in there.

Then one day this week I returned home from picking up my daughter at school and my husband says, “You’re going to love this. Right after you left today, Fern came over and started pulling dandelions in the backyard. She left just a few minutes ago.”

Now Fern and I have always been friendly. She had keys to our house. She let our dog out a bunch of times when we were away. She once drove me to the doctor’s office when I was having strange pregnancy-related symptoms. But I have felt the tide turning in the past few years — ever since I told her that I was voting for Obama in the primaries and not Clinton. Seriously.

Now it’s important to know that this woman is home all day every day. She spends a LOT of time walking around her yard, talking on her cordless phone and smoking. So I guess she has a lot of time to look things over.

I began noticing little comments here and there after Benjamin was born. She emailed me to water our grass seed after we had some work done — I was uncertain whether to be amused or annoyed (I decided to be grateful because I honestly had forgotten). Several times she complained about leaves in her yard (that we both knew had blown over from our house) and talked about how some pine cones from her one tree fall on the other neighbor’s property and that she feels bad about it and has to go over and pick them all up.

I knew what she was getting at. But I have two small kids, a big commute every day, a job and a husband with a very hectic work schedule. And even if I didn’t, I still don’t care enough to spend time patroling her yard for foliage that might have blown over from ours.

But I couldn’t blow off the Weeding Incident. So I emailed her. I tried to be dispassionate about it and just state the facts. This is what I said:

Dear Fern,

Please do not weed our yard. I know that dandelions bother you and because of that, we treated the grass with dandelion-killing chemicals last week. I personally do not like to use chemicals unless I have to, but we felt that we should do it because we do not want to upset the rest of the neighbors.

As for the site where the pool was, we realize that it is an eyesore. There is a thick membrane underneath the sand and rock and we have decided that we want to bring someone in with heavy equipment to remove and re-grade the site. To do it ourselves would take forever and Tom’s work schedule is extremely hectic. We could not afford to have someone do it last year, as it was the first year that we didn’t have the income from Tom’s day job. We have already asked our lawn guy to give us an estimate on what he would charge to take care of it this year.

If you have concerns about our yard, please feel free to talk to us about them.

Trish

Within the hour, she approached Tom outside and returned our house key. Then I got an email which I won’t reproduce here because I don’t think it’s fair to post something she intended as a personal correspondence. But the jist of it was that she was just making a neighborly gesture but if she had known that I was so touchy she wouldn’t have. She gave me a big explanation of how dandelions are spread. She said she didn’t think much about the former pool site in our back yard, but now that I mentioned it, it probably was a big breeding ground for mosquitoes but, oh well, it’s been that way for years. And also, she will never step foot on our property again.

I replied that I had no intention of turning this into a turf war, that I just wanted to let her know how I felt. I mentioned that we’d always been neighborly and I hoped that that could continue. And I pointed out that the pool had been that way for less than a year (which made the email feel a little less magnanimous, but that one pissed me off).

So at this point… whatever. I have bigger fish to fry than getting into a pissing match over this. If she’s going to sit in her home and feel hostile toward me, so be it. But I have to admit, I was outside with the kids yesterday wondering if she was inside her house shooting daggers at me. Maybe she was and maybe she wasn’t. I honestly hope that she has something better to do.

And while I try to act like I’m above all of this, I will admit that the big joke in my house right now is, “Did you feed the dog? No? OK, don’t worry about it, I’m sure Fern will be over to do it later…”

But I’m me. And for me nothing is ever about only what it’s about. It’s all gotta go big. So my thoughts on this one are along these lines: In trying to be a good neighbor, a good citizen of the world, a good spouse, a good mother, a good sister, a good daughter, etc., how much do I need to conform to other people’s ideas of how I conduct my life? I think in a lot things, there’s what I would do based on what I want to do, and there’s what I actually do based on how it will affect the people around me. It’s a compromise — “No, I don’t really want to go to your jewelry party but you are my friend so I will show up as long as you don’t expect me to buy a bunch of expensive crap that I don’t need.”

And from the other perspective, how often do I scrutinize my friends and neighbors and expect them to live up to my expectations? Do I expect perfection? Do I make unreasonable demands on things they “should” be doing when maybe those things just aren’t important to them? Is it unfair to expect the people around me to adjust their behaviors for my own comfort? And to what extent are their quirks really affecting my day-to-day life anyway? Are they just a few dandelions on the lawn or are they causing little earthquakes?

I think the bottom line is that very few of us exist in a vacuum. I think you have to be true to yourself but be considerate to people around you. Don’t be the neighborhood jackass. Accept that people are rarely going to give you perfection — and that you will rarely have perfection to offer them. Decide what you can live with.

And if you see a few dandelions here and there, sit your ass on the grass and take a good look. They’re actually sorta pretty.

Here’s another comment from “friend #1.” He emailed it to me and asked me to post it. (He actually sent this back when the conversation was still going but I was having technical difficulties and didn’t get to it until now.)

I guess the reason I get upset when I hear about picketing at a conservative Christian school is that very often people go into a situation wanting to work through the differences verbally, but then if they don’t get the end result they wanted they resort to other means, case in point, the dating site E-Harmony. E-Harmony was created by a conservative Christian named Dr. Neil Clark Warren. A few years back the dating service was sued for not offering a gay dating service. The law suit was won and E-Harmony was forced to offer a gay dating service to complement their regular/straight service. So here is a situation where a person with conservative Christian beliefs is sued and forced to offer a dating service that is in direct violation to his morals. This was not a car dealership who denied a gay person the right to buy a car, or restaurant that wouldn’t serve a gay person, or bank that wouldn’t give a gay person a loan, or hotel that wouldn’t give a gay person a room for the night, you get the point and all of which scenarios I think would be wrong by the way, this was a non-critical service started by a Christian man. He started the service based on Christian principles and going with his conscience made a dating site for men and women that ended up being successful. Again I use the same argument here that I did for the school. Was there a shortage of gay dating sites that it was necessary to sue E-Harmony to force the founder to compromise his beliefs? Far from it. There was Match.com, Chemistry.com, Yahoo Personals, Friendfinder, Perfect Match among others that were offering services to both straight and gays. Add to that list of heavy hitters the myriad of dating services that only specifically cater to the GLBT community. So why was it exactly that E-Harmony had to be sued? This is why many conservative Christians feel that when situations arise like what happened at the school the other week that it’s only about dialogue if the person with the conservative beliefs bends. Otherwise it often seems to end up being about forcing them to bend. Religious beliefs, respect and conscience be damned! I do actually have a lot other comments regarding your response Trish from the religion angle but I’m too tired to write anymore now.

Why the need to picket a conservative Christian college for said beliefs as if a decidedly Christian school holding to such doctrine would be such an incredible shock to even the most hard core atheists? Is there such a shortfall in non-Christian colleges or even more liberal minded Christian colleges for people to attend where they could live as they please on campus, party hard, have loose sex and lead a life of general debauchery101 for their college experience with no ethical or moral code being expected of them? Why not simply um, now this is a radical idea I know…..not attend a school if they don’t believe what you believe? If you’re going to say it’s because it’s the civil rights issue of this century as the argument, then what you’re really saying is that conservative Christians, or anyone else who thinks that homosexuality and/or promiscuity is wrong, can only think what they think in private (sound familiar?) and can impose no restrictions on the attendees of their institutions regardless of whether it conflicts with their beliefs or not. If that’s the case, goodbye freedom of religion (and thought) and hello absolutism.

Dialogue is always important, but what if after the friendly, hopefully non-confrontational dialogue has taken place the school still wants to hold firm to its beliefs? Are they not permitted their beliefs at a private Christian school? What if I wanted to go to an Eastern Buddhist temple and I insisted that they serve meat in the cafeteria and started picketing them because they don’t serve meat? Why should I respect what they think, after all meat is tasty and good for you and besides that, they’re wrong to not eat meat aren’t they!?! …

Dear Gay People of America,

I want to give you some advice as a friend and a long-time supporter of the gay community: Think twice before you push this marriage thing too far. Because you just might get what you ask for.

Here’s the thing: You’re already losing your novelty. There was a time when, if I had a friend who was homosexual, I thought of the person as my “gay friend.” I was proud to have a gay friend because it said something about me to the rest of the world: Look at me! I’m open-minded! I’ve been to a gay bar! I’ve seen drag queens up close! I’m progressive! I’m adventurous and crazy!

It was almost like having a black friend.

But not anymore. Honestly, half the time I forget that most of you are gay. We talk about mortgages and health care and politics. We go to lunch at chain restaurants. You invite me to your homes and there is nary a rainbow flag to be seen, never mind any sort of well-endowed nude lawn statue.

To be honest, the whole “gay thing” is starting to lose its edge. Any sort of residual cache’ you got from your alternative lifestyle “choice” is fading. It’s becoming so that you’re no more interesting than anyone else. In fact, many of you gay men aren’t even good dressers anymore. If I saw you at the Home Depot on a Saturday (which is becoming more and more likely), I wouldn’t walk away thinking that you were there to buy mounting equipment for some advanced sex toy. Plus, many of you have gotten so lazy that you no longer even bother to punctuate your conversations with shrieks of “Girlfriend!”

And you lesbians aren’t any better. Let’s be honest, ladies. None of you have hit on me in ages. And I no longer feel ultra feminine and petite next to your hulking butchness. Why? You wear make up. I suspect that a few of you wear skirts from time to time. Not one of you has ever offered to change my tire. What? Are you afraid that you’re going to break a nail? Heaven forbid.

So what I’m saying is, this marriage thing is all you have left. It’s the only thing that sets you apart. Are you really sure that you want to give that up? Yeah, yeah, yeah, health insurance and visiting sick partners on their death beds is all very nice, of course. But if you lose the struggle, you’re just going to be like the rest of us. Is it really worth it?