Our house this morning, 7:34 am.



I am just running Cleo out when I turn and snap a picture of our dirt. A truck pulls up and
the driver watches me, but short-shorts girl across the street doesn't bat an eye.

Walking that dog with a camera again. What-ever!

Since we moved in on December 15, the sky has only poured rain, snow or ice - so instead of
living with benign dry dirt, we've had a moat.

A muddy moat. If you wished to get to the yard you'd have to cross soggy bits of carpet, moldy
moving boxes and wet gray boards shot with rusted nails. Day after muddy day, Greg would frown
and say "god...it looks like World War I out there."



Our house at 5:00 pm - peace on earth!  The guys in the truck were sod guys, and spent
the day rolling out a miraculous green carpet.  I can't believe it. 

Greg beams at the grass.  It's worth noting that my husband likes plants about as much
as he likes aquariums.  Greg, want to go the aquarium?  Eh - fish.

Okay, how about some gardening? 

We were walking today and I said, "oh, wait, I want to get a shot of that forsythia."



And Greg said, "who?"  Eh.

But show him a truck filled with perfect rolls of grass...



...and suddenly he's cruising the sprinkler aisles.

Seriously, in 14 years of marriage we've never had a decent lawn.  At our first place, a three-flat in
Chicago's Wrigleyville, we had a fabulous urban garden courtesy of Tad & Kirby, the uber-gay power
couple upstairs.  They had pugs and Stickley chairs and green thumbs, but one day Kirby packed his
Fiestaware and split.  Tad nursed his broken heart and the yard went to hell.

At our 1929 ex-house here in Lawrence, we battled dry shade, acorns, and seed-strangling tree roots. We
killed everything from grass to groundcover to mulch before accepting that even Astro Turf could not, would
not survive that spot.

So imagine our pleasure - our immense gratification - at a few instant yards of soft, green lawn. 



We stood and looked at it, amazed.  Then I said "why do we have lawns, anyway?"

"I believe we have the English to blame,"  said Greg.  He knows I love the English.  Damn.

"Well, it looks good there - in the gardens and everything.  But here - I mean, how did everyone
come to need their little square, anyway?  Isn't it just some kind of symbol of man taming nature?"

"Yes," he said, "it is."  And then he went off to find the hose.