Do You Weed Me?

I got all in a dither about what I saw out in my back "yard" earlier today and so I applied 30 SPF sunblock and grabbed some gardening gloves and a pair of large hedge clippers (if I crane my neck I can just look out from where I am sitting and see the gloves and the clippers on the ground where I threw them in disgust).  I then charged outdoors and careened around the low retaining wall that separates our pool area from the "jungle" that abuts the privacy fence.  This is where the Tiki torches stand sentinel while we are swimming in the summertime.  There is supposed to be a sort of "walkway" back there and then a higher, more pronounced "flower" bed ... by the way have you ever seen so many quotation marks?  This is what I get for trying to have a "yard."

I pulled and pulled and pulled at weeds that were not there even last week, and they were laughing at me, I kid you not, and so were their white-trash relatives.

See, I am NO gardener.  Truth be told, yard work interests me less than calisthenics ... and that's saying something, y'all.  In the spectrum of symbols that might be placed on display to represent ways I prefer to spend my life if for some crazy reason that's the way things were done and anyone gave a rat's fanny, anything related to gardening and its corollary, i.e. perspiring and being bitten by bugs, would be very much toward the bottom of the graph while important things, like lipstick and high heels, would be close to the top.  I may not "get" gardening but no one can say I do not have highly developed priorities.

Let's spare you the drama and cut to the chase: the weeds won.  Well, they half won.  After I had yanked out enough of them to fill eighteen Hefty bags, it looked like I'd done absolutely nothing.  I'll be honest with you: this sort of thing does not work for me.  I pulled and pulled and pulled at weeds that were not there even last week, and they were laughing at me, I kid you not, and so were their white-trash relatives, and my lumbar spine began to beg for Aleve and something bit one of my toes (yes, I was wearing flip-flops because I was too lazy to put on proper shoes). 

That's when it hit me:  I am a weed.  I ain't got no pedigree ... I was not planted here on purpose but just kind of floated in on a wing and a prayer ... but although my provenance is as murky as it is unremarkable, I am here ... and I may not be as gorgeous as a rose but I can hold my own among the other weeds ... I am not going away ... I'm stubborn but not without a certain softness ... and I don't care what anyone thinks about me.