Thoughts on lawn mowing

I think that this will probably be my final blog entry for this semester. I might do one more, but I don't know yet. I am sitting here, typing this, thinking about what I want to say and listening to the lawn mower. It is not a self-propelled one, and my husband is out in the front yard, pushing the mower through grass that is not terribly high, but it still looks like he is putting a lot of effort into shoving the mower through the grass.

That is the one chore that I ask him to do around the house. I do everything except take out the garbage (and I do that sometimes, if necessary) and mow the lawn. The garbage is supposed to be dealt with by my son, but that doesn't always happen, sometimes we get busy, sometimes he is sick, sometimes we both forget about it. When those things happen, either I step in and do it, or on the occassions when we both forget, it just doesn't get done. But mowing the lawn, now that is a bit harder to forget. If you forget to mow the lawn, the grass gets really tall and the neighbors complain and call the city on you, and they come out and give you a nasty notice and seven days to cut it or they take you to court and fine you. If you forget to take out the garbage, yes you kitchen might start to smell, but no one is going to take you to court for it and fine you.

But, there are some similarities between un-dealt-with garbage and unmown grass. They both keep growing whether you deal with them or not. They both get higher and higher until finally, they both get fuzzy and kind of shaggy looking. They both also blow around in the breeze if there is enough of them.

If you let grass grow long enough, it becomes a wonderful hiding place for vermin. Garbage acts much the same way. Vermin like large piles of trash. One major difference, though. Your grass won't start smelling wretched if it gets two feet high. A garbage pile will harbor the most awful smells. Vegetable garbage and grass clippings both make good compost, however, and compost heaps can smell pretty fragrant, so I guess that rotting grass is in fact similar to rotting garbage in the smell category.

Good divorce?

There is a new kind of divorce that is gaining popularity. It really seems to be a viable alternative to the typical knock-down drag-out divorces that most of us are accustomed to. It is where people actually sit down and talk. And listen. And then try to work out what is going to be the best solution for everybody involved. There is no yelling, no screaming, no arguing. It's all very civil. It's called "collaborative divorce".

In a collaborative divorce, the parties involved must seek out an attorney that is specially trained to handle this type of case. Often, the divorcing couple is introduced to not only lawyers, but also financial planners and other professionals as needed to help them take stock of themselves and their assets, and to help them figure out how they can live after the divorce.

Persons going through a collaborative divorce typically never appear in court. There is no need for that as everything is worked out between the parties, and there is no need to go in front of a judge and duke it out. Collaborative divorce is easier on everyone involved, both financially and emotionally, and it is based on respect, both for each other and for yourselves. Many people who have started the process of a collaborative divorce hating each other have come out the other side of the divorce as close friends, still involved in each others lives, and both still very much involved in their children's lives. If a divorce can be a good thing, the collaborative divorce comes closest to a positive divorce as anything I have ever seen.

Woo-hoo

Today was the Beltane celebration at our church. We belong to an earth-based Pagan themed UU group. We meet every Sunday afternoon, but we really go all out to celebrate our high holidays, about every eight weeks or so. This holiday was extra-special for me because my best friend and her daughter were able to be here with us. I had not seen them for a while, so it was good to see her, and her new tattoo. I'm always excited to see new tattoos and hear the stories behind them.

Today, in honor of Beltane, we had a maypole (of course! What is a May celebration without a maypole?!) and after the dancing of the maypole, we had a potluck dinner. We always have a potluck dinner after the rituals on our high holidays. We have a very diverse group of people that attend our rituals, so we have a very wide variety of foods at the potlucks. Desserts are of course the most popular and the most plentiful. There are vegan dishes, vegetarian dishes, and "regular" dishes with meat in them. It's always fun to see what people bring. Tonight we had the most wonderful home-made feta and goat cheese balls. Wow, they were great! I like feta! And, it seems that I like goat cheese, too. :-) I am mostly a vegetarian, so I was very happy to find there were mostly vegeterian dishes tonight.

Since I last posted here, my family has gotten a dog. He is half husky and half german sheppard (we think anyway. We are not completely certain about the german sheppard part. He looks a lot like a wolf.) He is about 80 pounds right now, and the top of his head comes to my hip when we are standing side by side. I am 5'9" tall, if that gives you any indication of how high the dogs head comes. He is a beautiful dog and really smart. I am not normally a big dog person, but he is a really neat dog. He likes to play this stomping game. First he will stomp his front feet at me and then he wants me to stomp back at him. When I do, he takes off running around the yard like a maniac, barking joyously the entire time. The one bad thing that I have found so far is that his claws are extremely sharp, and he is not shy about using them. That and he drools...