Scratch off another possible retirement job

Those of you who remember a post from a couple of months ago about how I would be a disaster as a "facilities manager'' (watching over house maintenance) may not be surprised to learn that I have never been a stellar yard-upkeep person either.

I remember driving around suburban streets before we ever bought our first house and watching people mow their laws, trim their driveways and spread fertilizer. I decided I never wanted to spend my weekends that way.

My conviction wavers the most at this time of year, though. Walking through our neighborhood as I often do now I am struck by the fact that there appears to be two kinds of lawns: those with dandelions and those without.

This was also the case a couple of weeks ago, but it didn't bother me then when our lawn (in the latter category, of course) was adorned with pretty yellow flowers that took no maintenance.

But now those flowers are gone, replaced by ugly stems and the remnants of millions of seeds that will assure us of another crop of the flowers next year.

I wish those stems were gone from our lawn - not enough to actually mow it or even call the boy who cuts our grass now - but still, I feel a little bad about it.

I guess I can scratch "lawn boy'' from the list of possible retirement occupations.