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She
Stoops to Conquer Despite a slight mood lift caused by the Abramoff scandal and Cheney shooting his hunting buddy, news around here hasn't been that good lately. For one teensy weensy thing, I still can't marry my own wife. Not to mention Guantanamo, warrantless wiretaps, and the rising body count in Iraq. Little stuff like that. The weather doesn't help. Except for a brief sunny respite — our annual February fooler — these late winter days are chilly and gray and, unless you have a Navratilovan constitution (and bankroll), can get downright dreary. Some locals seriously lose it during our long rainy season. You can see them catharting courtside, fieldside, or from their recliners. Unless you thrive on moss and rust, you have to find some way to muddle through. My coping mechanism — if I stay true to all my New Year's resolutions — precludes my former repertoire of self-destructive behavior. But over a long stretch of dismal days, one does get pent up. This time of year I desperately need an outlet. Luckily, we got our sunny spell over the weekend and the winter-neglected garden sent out its siren song. Perfect timing. Mid-February is the best time to plant peas. Started now, sugar snaps will be ready to eat by Memorial Day — that uniquely American holiday when the oil baron administration pretends to honor our war dead. The prospect of pre-summer pea munching prompted me to don my grubbies, pull up my mud boots, and get outdoors. Prepping garden beds is hard work, but nowhere near as arduous as slogging through the dominant culture's right wing miasma. Plus physical activity distracts while it releases depression-fighting endorphins. The rare sunshine activated my impulse to shovel and schlep. I forgot all about melting polar ice, the mounting deficit, and Alito the Terrible. But hibernating most of the winter is not exactly good conditioning for extensive physical labor. I grunted and sweated like a porn star — which naturally attracted my sweetheart's attention. Wifey called out from behind her crossword puzzle, "Be careful of your back, Sweetie." Right, my back. Last summer I was flat on it, and not in a good way. I'd had no choice but to surrender to the healing hands of our friendly neighborhood physical therapist. Her grueling workouts prompted me to remind her of our president's words: "We do not torture." Taking no stock in assurances from the smirking chimp, she continued her treatments and eventually restored me from gardening casualty to homo erectus. Then I forgot all about my back. But Wifey was right, I should take it easy.
It was a perfect day and my back wasn't hurting (yet). I sat on my garden bench and rested a minute to make sure my lower lumbar was holding up OK, then proceeded to clear out the pea bed and dig compost into the soil. I worked at it all afternoon, strangely amnesic that I could be undoing hours of expensive and tedious physical therapy. My project was so completely distracting, I not only abandoned any lingering concerns about the health of my sacrum, but also forgot about anti-immigrant vigilanteism, the melting polar caps, and the erosion of reproductive freedom. Focused on my task, I wrestled a ball of twine into submission and launched into stringing up the pea trellis. I was just reaching for the bag of bone meal when my back sounded its alarm. Ending up in the ER was not on my militant homosexual agenda — I'd have to quit. Me and Michelle Kwan. Gotta know when to fold 'em. I hoisted myself up and — as if I always walk with my torso parallel to the ground — scuffed back to the house. Wifey greeted my at the door with a bottle of ibuprofen and the ice pack. "Come on in." She propped the soothing cold compress onto my throbbing back. "Let's watch the news. It'll take your mind off the garden." Writer Sally Sheklow does her back exercises in Eugene.
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