My summer in the garden

This past spring, I had an overwhelming desire to grow plants.  I started them as seeds in little seed starter flats in the window of the guest bedroom around mid-March.  I was quite the attentive parent.  I watered them and picked away the mold that sometimes appeared on the soil's surface.  I talked to them and praised them when I was proud of their growth.  I worried about them if they didn't grow or if they grew too much and I thought maybe they needed more dirt or maybe they wanted to be outside.  I grew some flowers and some herbs. 

Eventually I decided that the flowers were ready to be transplanted outdoors.  I bought nice dirt and planted them where I thought they would be comfortable.  They promptly died.  So, I bought some more seeds and planted them.  I watered them, but nothing seemed to be growing.  At the end of April, I left for a month in Africa and made my mother promise to continue watering my seeds even though it seemed pointless to just water dirt.  When I returned, the sweet pea seeds had turned into a tangled jungle of climbing, grasping plants. I decided to expand my garden and bought a huge bag of "Wildflower Mix" seeds.  This was, as it turns out, kind of a stupid idea.  As little plants started sprouting where I sprinkled the seeds, I realized that I couldn't tell the weeds from the good plants.  I had no idea what I was growing.  Eventually, I knew which plants I wanted to keep.  When blooms developed on the plants, I was a little disheartened to see that many of the blooms never opened.  There was a bush-like plant full of yellow flowers that stayed shut all the time, no matter how often I checked on it.  I pried open a bud with my fingers.  "See, doesn't that seem nice?  Don't you want to show the world your colors?"  The flower answered by slowly curling itself back shut.  One evening, after extensive googling, I realized that most of my garden's plants were night bloomers.  When they opened at night, the wind carried their fragrance to their main pollinators, the hawkmoths or the hummingbird hawkmoths (which are, incidently, freakin' weird as insects go).  After I learned that, I would often go out in the middle of the night to visit with my flowers, enjoy the scent, listen to the quiet chirp of insects, feel the cool night air. 

One night, I was out there, just where the light from the porch met the dark of night and I saw something move.  It was an animal and it was coming toward me in the dark.  I screamed and ran inside and slammed the door behind me.  As I tried to regain my cool, my dad appeared in the kitchen.  "Oh, I'm sorry, did I wake you with my screaming?  There was, there was...something outside."  "I didn't hear you scream, but it was probably just a raccoon or that cat that always hangs around the barn."  A cat.  Was it only a cat?  It moved like a cat.  And as I pondered this idea, I was staring out at the ground just outside the kitchen window.  Just then, a grey cat was illuminated by the light from our kitchen as it slinked by.  And so, I felt a little silly.

The next day, as I was pulling out on the highway right outside our house, I saw that cat again.  He was lying next to the median, dead.  I felt like it was somehow my fault.  Like maybe the cat, after listening to me scream, felt really bad about scaring me.  Maybe it got him to thinking about his life.  He thought, "Why am I such an outcast?  Some cats get to live inside with humans, but not me.  I hang out in a barn to get warm, but horses don't accept me.  And I try to make friends with humans and all I do is scare them.  Woe is me."  And that's when he decided that the pain of the world was just too much for his little cat shoulders to bear.  So, he stepped out on the highway with the purpose of ending it all. 

My Life of Crime

Yesterday, my cell phone rang and the display read "Washington, DC."  I answered and entered into conversation with an annoyed and impatient sounding woman, "Ms. Smith? We received your visa application and corresponding documents...." The Liberian Embassy.  I'm going to Africa at the end of April for about a month.  Africa, it seems, is not the easiest place to get into. "But, Ms. Smith," the woman continued, "it seems that your passport was not included."  I frowned.

"I needed to send you my passport as well?  I didn't know.  I've never done this before."  I find that a lot of times, claiming ignorance helps people have more patience for you.  This woman was not so easily moved.

"That's correct, we NEED your passport." She said it with venom in her voice, which made me want to send her my passport even less than I already did.  I don't like being separated from my passport.  I have nightmares about getting to the airport and realizing I don't have my passport. Nevertheless, I assured her that I would send it to her as soon as possible. 

I put it in an envelope and headed to the post office.  I don't like post offices.  The people who work there always act like you are wasting their time.  And the people in line always act like they are in a super big hurry.  It makes me nervous.  Sometimes it makes me cry.  They're all a bunch of bullies.

When I stepped out of my car, I saw an old woman getting out of her car in the handicapped spot.  She looked up and waved in my direction.  I thought maybe she needed my help.  I started walking toward her as she ducked into her back seat and started rummaging around.  She came out with a large blue pouch the size of a basketball just as I got to her car.  "Would you take this and put it in the box for me?" she said, with a sweet little old lady smile on her face. 

"Sure," I said, taking the pouch.  It had an address label on the side and a zipper on the top.  I was trying to think if there was anything wrong about mailing a package in a pouch rather than a box.  I didn't know.  Then, a horrible thought occurred to me.  What if it was a bomb?  What if I take it in the post office and it blows up?  And then, somehow they still have the surveillance tapes and they identify me as the bomber?  Are there rules about not mailing mail for perfect strangers?  Should I have refused?  I mean, little old lady.  How perfect is that?  No one would have suspected her of having a bomb to mail. right?  But no.  That's ridiculous.  I dumped the package in the package slot in the post office and got in line.

Later, I think, what if it was the type of bomb that's rigged to explode when opened by the addressee?  That would be better because probably less people would die.  But then the postal inspectors or FBI people or whoever would come and investigate and somehow it would lead them back to the post office and they would look at the tapes.  And again, they would identify me as the bomber.  Only, by that time, I would be in Liberia.  And everyone would say that of course I was guilty because no one goes to Liberia except to escape murder charges.  Then, later, at the trial, they would put me up on the stand and I would be crying because the whole thing is so awful and unfair.  I would say, "It wasn't me.  It was a little old lady!  She handed me the package and I took it because I wanted to be nice.  I just wanted to be nice!"   And then the jury would go off to deliberate.  They would say that I was guilty because no one is stupid enough to mail a package for a complete stranger.  And what a ridiculous story about a little old lady!  And then they would sentence me to 20 years in prison. 

Currently The Three Musketeers (Signet Classics) By Alexandre Dumas père see related

Recovery Mode

I recently went to the hospital to have a very tiny surgery on a very tiny part of my body.  I had this bone spur that was poking up through the nail bed on my big toe.  Very troublesome for such a small thing.  So, the doctor had to saw that thing out of there.  I've never had surgery before, so I wasn't sure what to expect.  This is how my day went:

1.  Arrive at hospital 2 hours before kick-off, er, surgery time.

2. Put on hospital gown, hospital booties.  Answer a bunch of questions for the nurses.  Attempt to pee in cup.

3. Get in bed.  Allow nurse to attach IV.  Allow someone else to take blood.  Stare at ceiling. 

4.  Wheeled into holding room.  Stare at fellow surgery patients.  Hope that someone finds a nail clipper for that one guy.  Tell mom to have fun while I'm gone.  Wheeled into surgery room.

5.  Transfer to operating table.  Covered in warm blankets. Strapped down.  Monitors attached to chest.  Arms strapped to outstretched arm tables.  Unconsciousness.

6. Consciousness returns.  Watch nurses move back and forth.  Ask for pain meds.

7.  Wheeled back to original hospital room.  Given water.  Attempt to pee.  Exit of hospital not granted without urine.  More water. Waiting.  More water. Waiting.  Two cans of coke.  Then....success!

8.  Drive home.  Traffic is stop and go.  Nausea.  Mom hands me a plastic bag.  Two cans of coke go from my stomach and into the bag.  Yeah.  Eww.

And so, now a few days later, I am still in recovery mode.  The doctor told me to keep it elevated, so I did. And I haven't had any pain, so that is awesome.  But I have this huge bandage around my whole foot.  I can walk around with it, but I have to walk without putting pressure on my toe.  It makes me appreciate toes.  They are surprisingly useful in the act of walking.  Without them, it's just not the same. 

To pass the time, I have been reading The Three Musketeers.  I have started this book four or five times before.  This time, I am quite determined to finish.

A Duel

This morning I was standing at my dresser, trying to decide what to wear when I heard a knocking at the wall to my right.  This is an exterior wall, so I had a sinking feeling that our house was being attacked by a woodpecker…..again. 

Woodpecker (peck-peck)

Alicia (groans…..bangs fist against the wall twice)

Woodpecker (in response: peck-peck)

Alicia (curious:  knock-knock….knock)

Woodpecker (peck-peck…..peck)

Mom:  Alicia, is that you knocking?

Alicia:  Yes, there’s a woodpecker.  And he seems to be echoing my knocking.  (knock, knockety-knock-knock….knock-knock)  Try that, sucka!

Woodpecker: ……..

Mom (Laughs)

The end.

Covert Operation

So, for about three years now we have been trying to get my dad to go to the doctor.  He refuses.  He gets angry if we even talk about it.  We’ve tried making deals with him, issuing ultimatums, making threats.  Nothing really motivated him to go.  So, finally, my sister in law, my brother and I decided it was time to enact the plan where we would lie to him.  I made a doctor appointment for him for today at 3 pm.  My brother made up some story about needing my dad to drive him home from a doctor appointment.  Well, my dad went with my brother to the doctor’s office and my brother started filling out the paperwork.  But then he needed my dad’s insurance card.  So he asked my dad for the card and my dad realized what was going on.  He grabbed my brother’s truck keys and ran out of the office, jumped into the truck and drove away, leaving my brother behind.  I think that was when my dad called Joy.  Usually Joy is the picture of politeness, but at that point, she was pissed.  She yelled at him, calling him a hypocrite, and he hung up on her. 

So, this did not go as we had hoped.  Not sure what we’re going to try next, but I guess it will need a little bit more elaborate planning.