Tony is embarrassed. I am resolved.
"It's European," I say and add "It's chic."
It is our friends' multi-million dollar property in Santa Cruz above the ocean where the weeds are as appreciated as the orange. It is a gorgeous subdivision that mandates natural landscape. It is common sense when the state is in drought conditions.
"We have a water shortage, yet we still keep watering our lawns," Tony says.
He slowly moves to the dark side.
It is our most recent and ongoing argument: To grass or not to grass. Or should we keep the grass and pull all the dandelions by hand. Or, let the clover grow. Tony orders a new weed removing gadget each year, from dandelion-lifters to a torch that burns weeds into little black lumps. Another year, I paid a former student $15 an hour to pull those driveway weeds.
My beekeeping friends and I keep losing our bees. My neighbor worries because she hasn't seen any bees in her yard this spring.
I stay resolved.
And yet sometimes it feels so futile. One little patch of weed infested grass on a cul de sac of beautifully manicured sprayed lawns. I imagine our neighbors plotting while we're on vacation to anonymously call TruGreen or Lawn Doctor. I don't blame them. Non-conformity in a neighborhood with CCRs is annoying.
Almost out of special weed killing tools to order from Amazon, Tony's latest ploy was to call a turf company and ask for a bid for fake grass. But somehow that just seems wrong. This is suburban America, land of lawns.
When I step back, I feel even more embarrassed, for all of us--that our tiny two-patch front yard grass is such a worry when for others the worries are, how will I pay the rent? How will I feed my children? When will we get out of this refugee camp?
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