Yard Work

With this being the 'achievement' (?!) of my 100th blog entry, I decided to use in the inspiration of another blogger, and mix in what I do best: self-deprecation.

After all, the truth doesn't hurt when it's funny. Especially when it's me I'm truthfully making fun of.

A fellow blogger recently regaled her readers with some of the health issues she's battled, and bemoaned the fact that, in the winning of these various battles, she'd..uh.."lost her butt". But -- no pun intended, unless you got it -- she has vowed to get it back.

You go girl.

Which leads me to a seeming digression: yard work. I hate it.

Bear with my seeming digression. It ain't.

Being an apartment dweller, acquaintances occasionally ask me if I ever miss the pleasures of conventional living. Like having and maintaining a yard. I tell 'em I don't lack that luxury; I have a yard. One I really don't care to have. But have it I do.

It's around my middle.

Back in my more sveldt days, I wore a 33 W 34 L. Until the early 90s, it was 34 W 34 L. Then came the year that some good things -- and one really bad one -- came to an end: 1994. Along with everything else, I had a yard. Around my middle. I was 36 W 34 L.

It was the arrival of the riders of the Apocalypse, far as I was concerned. My middle was now bigger around than my legs were long. Gravity was not only sinking my chest into my abs; it was sending me horizontal.

Snarf.

Granted, this yard had some distinctive advantages: it didn't need mowing. Weeding. Raking. It didn't require aeriation or watering. It thrived without spreading compost. The real kind.

An appetite for an abundance of the wrong things helped it thrive, too.

But that spare tire shape kind of annoyed me. Just not enough to get proactive about.

A few years later and given its' way, it went beyond a yard. To 38 W. I was going butterball. I couldn't visit a swimming pool or beach whereon Greenpeace wasn't trying to frantically push me back in the water.

Twits.

Finally in 2001, I actually got serious about something (for once). Ten months later, I'd shed 45 lbs. I'd made it to almost less than a yard.

I was able to return the unordered, unwanted back-up alarm to OSHA. Along with a really helpful suggestion of what they could do with it.

That was '01. I did pretty well, maintaining my 'yard' for a while.

But now it's '06. The yard is threatening rebellyion once more. Greenpeace is back to covert shadowing of me near water. OSHA even sent me a new product catalog.

Snarf.

For that reason, I'm not even going to dwell on my butt. The thought of it meeting/exceeding a yard is ... well ... snarf.