We’ve been doing quite a bit of gardening recently. I’d tell you all about the new plants I’ve gotten, except that I’m more than a little embarrassed by my lack of botanical control. My downfall is that we keep needed to make trips to Lowe’s. And Lowe’s has all these perennials for $2.77, which is Quite A Deal! I mean, that’s not even three dollars! Great deal! Except, of course, for the fact that when you buy ten of ‘em, it’s thirty bucks.

However, in my defense, they’re almost entirely perennials, which means that they’ll be back next year. So I can think of it as an investment in the house. Yeah!

Of course we’ve been doing other stuff outside. Since the neighbors finally repaired the year where last year they drove heavy machinery through and made a huge mess that involved all my topsoil being buried and replaced with what was underneath, which is clay, since this was repaired, we decided it was time to do something with all the blocks that never became a parking spot (don’t ask). So we now have a small retaining wall along the corner of the house, which in theory levels out that corner of the yard a bit, but in reality was created solely to do something with the blocks.

Since the blocks were moved, I decided that the flagstones back there would make a nice path along the back of the house, so we pulled ‘em up and made a walk from along the back of the house. Now I don’t have to tromp on the grass to water all the perennials I just planted back there. And that, of course, meant that we had to seed the area where the flagstones had been. So now, instead of a pile ‘o junk, we’re going to have a nice section of grass, which I will then proceed to tear up to make room for more plants.

But that’s all in the future.

Plus I transplanted some plants, which gives me the satisfaction of planting things, without all the expense. What I really need are a whole bunch of gardener friends, with different plants than I have, so I can take cuttings and bulbs that they’ve thinned out, and it won’t cost me anything—except the price of potting soil. Which reminds me, some of my day lilies will need divided this fall, if anyone is interested. Also, I have a spider plant that is actually at least two separate plants, that is too heavy for it’s hanging basket, so if someone is interested, I could divide it (and then in theory hang it up again.)

The problem, however with all this gardening and work outside the house, is that I’m actually getting some sun, despite the fact that I use SPF 45 sunscreen (you think I’m joking? You can only have so many relatives develop cancer before you Take A Hint and start to do something about all your bad habits). Normally my coloring is quite pale, perhaps even pasty, with a slight touch of ‘undead’ thrown in, just for fun. But I’ve been outside so much this spring that I’m starting to get the slightest hint of color to my skin. That means, of course, that all my scars are starting to stand out.

No, I wasn’t in some horrible accident where I was lucky to walk away, these are just the accumulation of a lifetime of being really damn clumsy: the scar on my forehead where I ran into a house with my face, the other scar on my forehead where I passed out in an elevator after donating blood, the myriad of scars on my hands from glasses shattering as I wash them, or knives closing on my fingers, burns because I thought a hot pad was Good Enough (I now own two super thick hot mitts that come up past my wrists) or because I spilled boiling water. All the stuff that doesn’t amount to anything at the time, but starts to add up over a lifetime. And since I’ve been outside during daylight hours, my scars are starting to become more visible, which is leading me to wonder how it is that clumsiness as a genetic trait wasn’t weeded out millennia ago.

Of course I know the answer to my own question. Other than post-blood donation passing out that required 12 stitches (after the ambulance trip to the hospital and the MRI, it was the least they could do), none of my accidents have required anything much more than a cursory treatment involving aloe and a band aid. So I apparently have a low level sort of clumsiness that allows me to stumble through life doing continual, minimal damage.

I read or heard a claim that clumsiness is just a lack of concentration. That people are not inherently clumsy, just aren’t paying enough attention. I can’t remember precisely who said that, I just remember thinking that I hoped they died the death of a thousand paper cuts.