Home de Fence

I've been neglecting my blog – in part because I got outed. Not in the sexual sense, but two of my kids discovered I had a blog and read it. As expected, one shrugged it off and was “like whatever.” The other was reportedly rather upset, and concerned that I was “depressed.” For the record, I'm not. 

I've been waiting for something funny, or profound, to write about, that wouldn't upset anyone, but divine inspiration eludes me. My life drifts on, without literary inspiration or a vision of the future, so I fill it with activity.

I'm waging war on weeds because that's the only thing I can control right now. I pull them, whack them, and hoe them, but best of all, I BURN them. My latest weapon is a propane

powered weed torch. It's very frightening and highly dangerous, but immensely satisfying. It's hot and it's loud. It roars. I point it at the enemy and they shrivel into blackened ash with a hiss. Only today did I dare use it in the front yard, fearing the passersby would deem it dangerous and call the police or fire department. If I get it too close to fallen leaves, they burn, but a quick stamp of the foot puts it out. Best of all, it smells of camping. I enjoy the scent of campfires and this makes me really quite happy. Roaring hot destruction also pleases me.

The hubby is waging his own war on roaches. Those nasty big brown ones periodically infiltrate our house and he gets crazy about them. I figure it comes with the “old house” territory but my dearest insists on complete and total elimination. I managed to talk him out of spraying insecticide all over every surface in our kitchen and pantry, opting for me caulking every crack and crevice that could be discovered. Then we followed with roach bait stations, but they were still making themselves known. Next, hubby armed himself with

the boric acid powder that I had gently powdered in the appropriate places. The instructions call for “lightly dusting” areas where roaches travel – do not create “piles” as roaches will avoid those. Hubby (being a typical overachiever and non-label reader) finished off the first bottle and is now on his second as he creates Sierra Nevada sized snow drifts along every baseboard in our kitchen and has now moved on to the backyard where we are enjoying winter during the spring. (I am not allowed to water near any of his boric acid deposits, which is pretty much everywhere.) At least it gives him something to do.

Which is really what the problem is here. He has nothing to do. He has a job (or at least an employer) but he works from home - that is, he is . . . home, but . . . he has nothing to do. The new company, that took over his old company, doesn't know what to do with him. He's had several conversations with his “new boss”, but he has no projects to work on, no office to go to, no-one to meet with and nothing to plan for. It's very unsettling, knowing that at any minute, this mega company will figure out that they don't need him after all and terminate him. We'd like to hit the road next week, for our son's spring break, but he can hardly ask for vacation time under the circumstances. Staying home is more of the same. Killing weeds and roaches. We continue to search the internet for a “more substantial” job for him and wait. And wonder. And burn weeds. And kill roaches.

Idleness can breed anxiety. Hubby's been working from home for a number of years, is very aware of the pulse of the neighborhood and has become known as our local Gladys Kravitz (remember

Bewitched?). This is good and bad. Good, because he's keeping an eye on things, and bad because you can't see everything at once. We have an alley in the back of the property that is partially fenced by chain link. Our front yard is on a very busy street that sees a lot of transient foot traffic. Our neighbor to the west was foreclosed and the house has been empty for 3 months. Despite Gladys's vigilance, the copper plumbing next door has been stolen twice. It's all a lot of to keep track of, so now we are working on fences. Yesterday, we started covering over the chain link with recycled fence boards from a previous project. We bought solar lights for the top posts of the redwood fence that we started building FIVE YEARS ago. We are replacing posts of the gothic pickets along the sidewalk that are on the verge of breaking off the next time a drunk stops to steady himself.

Killing weeds, annihilating bugs, stronger fences, constant vigilance. It's starting to feel like we really are prepping for the zombie apocalypse. Zombie prepping has become quite trendy. Why do you think that is? Not having premium cable, I don't watch shows like the Walking Dead, so I'm a little out of the loop when it comes to this stuff, but I don't know anyone that really believes that zombies are actually coming to get us.

Zombies are a metaphor for things we have no control over. You can't kill something that is already dead. How do you prepare for that? Propane flame torches and toxic acid powders won't kill them. Stronger fences won't repel them. So we stand at the window, like Gladys Kravitz, ready to sound the alarm, fearing the worst but hoping for the best.