The Tao of Martha (18 page)

However, with patience and diligence, I’m eventually able to get all the pork into her, and only then do I go back outside to meet Fletch. I find him in the same spot, swearing and sweating. The tilling is not going well.

“Maybe we should have Rich’s guys plant this area,” Fletch says. “They likely understood how untilled this earth was and knew the amount of effort they’d have to put in.”

“Yeah, I’m not spending Maisy’s emergency fund to plant sixty dollars’ worth of impatiens. We can do this.” I kneel back on my towel and begin to make a hole. The process is easier this time, slightly, and I manage to get a couple of impatiens in the ground. It’s not until I move over a foot that I encounter the massive layer of clay and root. Argh.

“I was afraid it would come to this,” he says. Fletch goes back to the garage and returns with some kind of gardening implement. It’s two long wooden poles attached to a serrated canister. He lines up his spot and then with all his might, slams the canister part in the ground with a thump and gives it a solid twist, followed by a couple of grunts and a stomp, leaving the perfect-size hole in which to place my impatiens.

“Well, that doesn’t look so hard,” I say.

“Oh? You want to give it a try, Hercules?” He hands the fence-posting contraption over to me and I attempt to operate it the same way that he does, but I’m able to drive it only about an inch into the ground. “That’s what I thought. Okay, I’ll make the holes; you plant and backfill them.”

We crawl along, thump-twist-grunt-grunt-stomp, thump-twist-grunt-grunt-stomp, and we’re still getting only one impatiens in the ground every five minutes. At this rate, we’ll be out here for five hundred minutes.

No wonder Fletch no longer believes me when I claim something will take an hour.

We plod on. We’re making slow, steady progress and finding our rhythm. Whereas I wouldn’t say things are going well, I would say we’ve found our groove.

That is, until I sit on a nest of red ants, whereupon I’m compelled to whip my pants into traffic. I spend the next ten minutes running around the driveway in my bathing suit and sneakers, screaming and attempting to soothe my inflamed rump with the hose.

I am livid.

“This! This is why I hate dirt! I have lived forty-four years with what, a couple of bee stings and a handful of mosquito bites? But now I am America’s Most Wanted when it comes to the insect world. I’m Public Enemy Number One. No, wait—
Pubic
Enemy Number One. Why? What did I ever do to them? I’m nice to bugs! I’m all about the Tao of not killing shit unnecessarily. Yet all they want to do now is
get up in my business
! That’s it. I’m done. D-O-N-E. Now I want you to take all the impatiens we’ve planted thus far and help me stick them in the trash. That’s it. No more. We’re tossing these out.”

“You should probably calm down,” Fletch says. “We’re almost halfway finished. We can power through this.”

“That’s easy for you to say; you don’t have ants in your fucking pants!”

He gestures toward the road. “Technically your pants are in the street.”

“NOT HELPFUL!” I bellow.

Fletch wipes an ocean of sweat away from his brow. “Why don’t you go inside and put some Benadryl or calamine lotion on your bites and I’ll work on this while you’re gone.”

“That’s one idea,” I say. “The other entails sticking every last one of these stupid impatiens in the garbage. Let’s explore that option when I get back.”

“You really want to put sixty dollars directly in the trash?”

“Most definitely. I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”

He tries to reason with me. “What would Martha say about your defeatist attitude?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Perhaps we can shove some fire ants in her shorts and find out.”

Fletch seems resigned yet determined. “You go get a drink; I’ll be here.”

I march my scorching case of baboon bottom back to the house, where I wash the affected area and then apply a potion of Benadryl, anti-itch cream, and Neosporin. By the time I’m done hand-feeding Maisy more dinner and rubbing my hindquarters against a doorjamb to quell the itch, Fletch finishes the planting job.

“It’s done,” he says with great weariness. His demeanor is that of a soldier just returned from a battle full of casualties. He seems changed, lessened, hardened. There’s not an inch of his T-shirt that isn’t saturated, and he’s ringed in filth. And yet he’s proud of the job he’s done, as well he should be. Right now, he is my hero.

I’d hug him if I didn’t think he’d punch me.

I love what he’s been able to do with the flowers. The triangles are all bright and festive with coral and peppermint-pink hybrid impatiens. Rich had suggested using New Guinea impatiens, but I hate their big, thick, ugly leaves. These are delicate and ethereal and look much more natural.

“Couldn’t have done it better myself,” I tell him sincerely.

“You don’t say,” he drily replies.

“And just think of how much money we saved! Plus, I feel like this fulfills my obligation to create an organic garden. I’ll get some environmentally friendly spray to take care of the bugs—I mean, the ones I haven’t already stomped into the hereafter—and I can consider this a mission accomplished.” I mentally give myself a high five. This isn’t
where I meant to go, exactly, but I’m certainly glad to have gotten here.

Slowly, Fletch says, “I am hot, I am tired, I am sore, and I am starving. Are we having that pork roast for dinner?” he asks.

Right at this moment, I love him too much to tell him that I already fed his dinner to the dog.

“Absolutely.”

T
wo weeks later I’m busy researching Martha Stewart Crock-Pot meals when there’s a knock at the door. I rush down the stairs and standing there in his usual khaki tactical pants and fishing hat is Rich the Landscaper. Despite his occasionally delivering ridiculously expensive and unwanted news, I really like Rich. He gets the pricing from the landscape design team, so the extra zeros are never his fault. He’s always willing to help us figure out lower-cost solutions, too. Plus he’s very conscientious to swing by to check on the job that his team did. I appreciate his hard work.

“You have downy mold.”

“I have what?”

“Out front, you have downy mold. On your impatiens. It’s a new disease that came over from Europe and it’s killing everyone’s impatiens. Not the New Guinea ones, though—they’re fine.”

“I don’t have any New Guineas.”

He nods. “That’s a shame, because now you have downy mold, which means the leaves on your impatiens are about to fall off and then the plants are going to die. I’ll have the guys remove them on Tuesday.”

“Whoa, hold up—they’ve only been in, what, a couple of weeks?
And I use organic spray on them!” We—well,
Fletch
—did not do all that work to lose the damn plants in a damn fortnight!

Rich chortles. “You’re not going to find anything organic that can conquer downy mold. It’s bad stuff. Gets into the soil and can live there up to seven years. We’ve got to remove them, and you’re going to want to consider planting something different next year, like New Guinea impatiens. They’re not impacted. Anyway, just wanted to let you know. See you Tuesday!”

I rush inside to Google “downy mold” and confirm everything Rich just said. I can’t do anything but laugh at this point. I’d likely be angrier if the whole situation weren’t so damn ironic. Plus, it’s not like I lost my whole (heretofore nonexistent) crop of zucchini. I’m not going to let the incident impair my burgeoning happiness. Laughter seems to be the best way to deal right now.

Plus, I have a Fourth of July party to plan and a sweet little doggie who’s waiting for a home-cooked meal, so, onward and upward.

But I was right to hate dirt.

You can’t deny that.

B
ABY,
Y
OU’RE A
F
IREWORK

“H
ow’s the little patient? What’d the vet say?”

Our friend Elaine is here for our usual Friday dog-training session. We met Elaine when we adopted Libby from Elaine’s rescue group, and since then, we’ve worked with her every single week. With two pit bulls in the house, we have a responsibility to make sure they’re always under control. I mean, we’re well aware of how sweet and harmless they are, yet the fact that they even exist intimidates others, so we train for our neighbors’ peace of mind. As an added bonus, the dogs love it!

After months off from treatment, Maisy’s oncologist suggested we start her on a new course of chemotherapy. She’s been doing exceptionally well since her last surgery in February, so she’s definitely been strong enough to start again. We were told that eighty percent of all dogs who take this drug thrive on it.

Unfortunately, and for the first time, Maisy’s fallen into the twenty percent.

Maisy saw her oncologist earlier this week. The doctor yanked the chemo drug and instead put her on some meds to help her stomach and appetite. We have a follow-up appointment on Monday, and until then, we have to watch her, which I’ve interpreted as, “Keep her by your side at all times and have panic attacks every time she blinks.”

I tell Elaine, “She’s okay, but I’m a disaster.”

Elaine hugs me and then we get to work.

She asks, “Maisy, do you want to go first?”

Even though my girl’s been down, nothing motivates her like a training session. She responds to Elaine’s question with a full-on body wag that’s so enthusiastic she practically bends in half. She barks and skitters across the hardwood, hitting Elaine almost hard enough to knock her down.

Did I mention that Maisy’s a bit of a chunk? She should be in the high fifties in terms of weight, but she’s presently in the mid-sixties. At one point, when she was on steroids for her treatment, she was close to eighty pounds. I remember asking Stacey, “Does Maisy look a little fatter?” to which Stacey replied, “Maisy looks like an ottoman.” Yet I’ve always known a time would come when the extra weight would help her, so I’ve not been too diligent over portion control.

I’m just really hoping that time isn’t now.

Maisy’s so delighted at the opportunity to train first that she cycles through all of her tricks. When Elaine tells Maisy to sit, she first sits, then lies down, then sits up again, then stands, then lies down, all in the course of about ten seconds, and never once taking her eyes off Elaine. Watching her, you can almost see Maisy’s wheels turning as she thinks through every command she knows, offering them up before ever asked for them. We all laugh at Maisy’s version of calisthenics, and I decide to interpret this as positive progress.

Although Maisy’s tired quickly, she’s very pleased with herself as she hops up onto the couch after her turn. She’s all, “That’s right, bitches. Live and learn.”

“Have you been able to distract yourself?” Elaine asks, sensitive to what a wreck I’ve been.

She begins to work with Libby, who’s totally game-face when it comes to training. Libby’s such a silly little free spirit, springing around the backyard like a baby goat and trying to engage everyone in play, so it’s shocking to witness her level of intensity during our sessions. Libby’s long since nailed all the basics, like come, sit, stay, heel, and down, but she’s also highly proficient in dog show training commands, like stand, swing, around, give, and take. One would then believe that this would make Libby less of a prankster around the house, and she wouldn’t perpetually counter-surf and make mischief, but that’s not the case. As Elaine explains it, Libby works when it’s time to work and does what she wants during her free time.