A Cut Above the Rest

Okay, this blog is stagnating a bit lately, so I think it`s time we introduced a new character on the scene.

No, that wasn`t a lead-up to annouce a pregnancy, pending adoption, or even a new pet.

It`s even better: I hired a gay Israeli gardener to do the bushes. (No, NO! Not THOSE bushes! Oh, my god -- my readers have such dirty minds!)

I first heard about Amir from one of the moms at school, because he takes care of the house next door to her, and he likes to talk to everyone. He has a day job as a landscape architect and a bunch of degrees in horticulture, but does neighborhood yard work on the side. He sometimes hires guys to help him, but he does all the pruning himself, because he insists, "only I can do it right."

He quoted me a price that was much less what I expected to pay someone, to do the tall parts of the bushes where I can`t reach. At first I thought I could borrow the neighbor`s ladder and do it myself, but I`m kind of clumsy, so the idea of getting up on a ladder with a cutting tool didn`t seem very wise.

I`ve walked past Amir`s house many times without knowing it -- it`s just a few blocks away, and I always wondered what the hell was going on with it. Its small front yard is overflowing with all sorts of garden furniture and plants, some still in plastic nursery buckets. I realize now it`s a mish-mash of his passion and his business storage area. In fact, if I had seen only Amir`s house, I would probably never have hired him, but I saw the other house he works on and it looks fine.

Amir is tall and thin, with dark hair and green eyes. He has ADD, and likes to talk about it. He keeps saying, "I know I seem as if I`m on speed, but I`m really not taking any medication at all, even for my ADD."

He keeps referring to "my ADD," as if it were almost a living, breathing entity. He mentions it a lot.

I do not have the time to transcribe my entire conversation with Amir, and anyway, it wasn`t much of a conversation, because I think I got in two words for every hundred of his. And I`m usually a very talkative person.

Amir had an opinion on everything and everyone, and knew a lot of neighborhood gossip, too. At one point, he mentioned that he thought I would look better with long hair. Then I said we had guinea pigs, he begged to see them, and was as excited as a little kid. "You should make them have babies!" he said.

Somehow, we got on the subject of Hub, and I mentioned that Hub is sometimes mistaken for a gay guy in San Francisco, because of his preferred style of clothing. (In fact, some of friends have nicknamed Hub, Fashionista --- sssshhhh, don`t tell him, okay?)

"What if your husband really is gay? Would you mind? What would you do if you caught him with another man?" Amir asked breathlessly, while manically sweeping up branch clippings.

"I don`t know," I said. "It would depend on the situation."

"Good answer!" he said.

"Actually, I think that whether I caught him with a woman or another man, I would be upset about the same thing, that he had lied to me," I said.

"Ah, that`s the way I thought when I was younger. But you see, hurting people and being honest are two very different things," he said.

I thought about that, but he changed the subject and started going on about something else.

Today he clipped part of every bush -- he didn`t finish a single one.

"Sorry," he said. "It`s my ADD. I`ll be back sometime soon!"

My friend who introduced him assured me that he always comes back, and he always finishes the job -- at his own pace.

Oh, well -- I can live with half-clipped bushes.

But now he has me thinking about my hair....