Dining with Squirrels

Fall fell this week.  After a week of  balmy, skin-kissing weather so glorious that one almost feels global warming is worth it, we got two days of nonstop wind and rain.  It took all the leaves off the trees and left a crunchy, brown carpet for trick or treaters.  Very festive.  Except while our neighbors spent their Sunday diligently blowing and raking and bagging, I took the kids to a play and Karl worked a book deadline. We just wanted to pretend we lived in a condo, or on a lovely estate with gardening staff.

Oh, I was so sorry this morning.  Turns out we’re expecting snow flurries on Wednesday.  Removing the carpet suddenly became very urgent.  If you live somewhere snowless — and bless me, I’m full of envy, a big, ugly ball of it — you’ve never tried to snow-blow your driveway with a carpet of leaves under it.  It’s a job that ranges from back-breaking to impossible.  During the summer, we are grateful for our neighbors’ giant trees on either side.  They keep our house and yard cool and lovely.  This time of year I start contemplating a midnight chainsaw massacre.

These are not neighborly feelings.  So this morning, I put on my ear protection and fired up the leaf blower.  Blowing leaves is a little like moving books.  I’ve never thought we had too many books until I was forced to box them all up and carry them to a UHaul.  After an hour this morning, I had made what appears to be Very Little Progress.  I also realized I had been cursing out loud.  I thought I was muttering under my breath, but that was just my ear muffs.  I’m not sure anyone was outside to hear me, but if they did I imagine they crept back in their house and quietly locked the door. I was sailorly.

I felt a little like Martha.  You know the story of Mary and Martha in the Bible?  They’re sisters who find themselves hosting Jesus and big group of disciples. While Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and offers him her full attention, Martha is in the kitchen, slamming pots and pans and grousing  something about “oh sure,  he’s our Lord and Savior, but I’m the one trying to figure out how to feed all those people and a good thing I’m on top of it since no one else seems to care.”  She’s so busy being martyr-ish that she entirely misses the point of the evening.

I have a thriving inner Martha.  Outrage is a default for me.  I have rutted dirt road called Put-Upon Lane in my brain.   I think Martha needed to take a powder this morning.  Because she and I don’t actually live on an estate with gardening staff.   I had a leaf blower for heaven’s sake. I wasn’t clawing them up with my toes.  And the smell of rotten leaves and dirt was really quite delicious.  And it was drizzling, not raining. And I emailed my husband in despair and he told me to go inside  and  he’d finish it when he got home.   And I called a guy who is going to come and vacuum up the giant pile of leaves at my curb so I don’t have to stuff them into bags.  Martha should have just spent a few shekels and had a neighbor girl make dinner.