06.14.05 - 11:22 a.m.

My shoulder hurts. Egad, does it hurt. It started hurting yesterday, mid-afternoon. I was sitting here at my desk, doing my work, procrastinating by trying to construct another poem that kept dissolving around the edges with sugary-coated bits of empty, tasty clich�s and I thought it was just a kink - one of those things that comes from position or sitting too long or not (ugh) exercising in the morning (which I didn't, yesterday, and felt the lack all the day long).

Last night - after a quick stop at the greenhouse for a few impatiens to tuck around the new hydrangea and an impulse purchase of some pretty bicolor marigolds to tuck into the pots where the violas are overtangled, overgrown and exhausted (and also: because I read that marigolds are edible and thought... why not? I would love to try some edible flowers. I might make more room for them next year): I went home with plans to a) plant; b) mulch my new backyard beds; c) trim with the new rechargeable weedwacker; and d) weed underneath the peonies and pull that nasty blackberry bush out!

I did manage a, after a bit of sitting around feeling sorry for myself, and I'm pleased. The marigolds are lovely: I put two in one of the viola pots from the front porch and tucked the other pair into the windowboxes that live on the deck: specifically, into the windowbox where the herb seeds failed to germinate. Well, truthfully, the oregano came up fine, but the chives and whatever else I planted there (memory fails, as it so often does) did not. So: now, the oregano is bordered by a lovely pair of marigolds, and I have a gorgeous deck without any bare spots in my pots.

I didn't need to use the rhyming dictionary for that.

The impatiens around the hydrangea are perfect, too, although I'm half-wishing that I'd picked up some white ones for that spot - to shine and reflect light at night - instead of being seduced by the almost-red vibrance of the plants I picked up. I'm glad I picked up a regular hydrangea rather than one of the expensive "endless summer" cultivars, since the plant was larger, with healthier greenery, even if the blooms will be fewer and will not repeat. The endless summer hydrangea in the front bed has grown only a bit, and is now dwarfed by the fastgrowing dahlias on either side. My word, now I understand why my mother digs up those dahlias and african daffodils every year. They are ridiculously rewarding plants.

Onwards to the point: after planting, I decided that I really wanted to go ahead and do the trimming. I didn't want it hanging over me, and the stupid trimmer was a semi-impulse purchase. It's hard to justify such an impulse purchase if you don't use it right away.

Oh, my dear lady, that thing is HEAVY and it is NOT easy to use - but it does get into the places that the mower doesn't reach, and is probably necessary if annoying and awkward and heavy. Did I mention heavy? And bulky and weird and awkward? I trimmed the whole yard without taking a break, but you have to use both hands to hold it, and I switched my main hand from right to the sore left arm somewhere in the middle. When I was finished - it took hardly any time, twenty or thirty minutes at most - I brought the trimmer back inside to plug it immediately in to recharge (per the directions) and headed back outside to mulch.

That was when I realized that I was in serious pain. Still, I wanted to perservere. I didn't want to wimp out: I have a timeline in my head in which to complete these tasks, and we're heading out of town this weekend so the weekend is out. Moreover: what a gorgeous evening with the sun and the heat and sky and the falling swathes of brilliant light interspersed with long, golden shadows. The fireflies have suddenly emerged, and as darkness falls they come out to play their delicate sex games in the gloaming. Lovely little bugs.

I grabbed the bag of mulch in my left hand and the box from the trimmer in the other and headed toward the back to mulch the new bed of coreopsis and porcupine grass toward the back of the yard and drop the trimmerbox off with the rest of the trash, but before I grabbed the first handful of mulch, I realized that I was really really in pain - the sort of pain that steals your breath and makes you stand rigid and still for fear of its recurrence. Obviously, the trimming was foolish.

I spent the rest of the evening icing my shoulder - specifically, the left scapula - and watching the first disk of the Godfather, Part II while eating the least healthy dinner ever: openfaced cheese and mustard sandwiches, popcorn, and not one but TWO strawberry sherbert bars (60 calories each, so bite me) because I didn't feel up to making the spinach salad I planned or to reheating the curry I made yesterday.

In other news: I love the Godfather. I read the books years ago and had a thing for Tom Hagen and Michael Corleone then - I was in eighth grade, darlings, a babygirl, grossed out and enthralled by the frank sexuality, but more enthralled by the sprawling dark romance of the series: aspirations/and the fall. That's what life is about, right? Aspirations and falls from grace, with dwarf perennial snapdragons betweentimes for variety. I still have things for both, even though Tom's a bit old for me. He still has the matter-of-fact stoicism and deep man-strength loyalty. And Michael Corleone, my god, is just insanely hot.