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My Profile
Retro-retrospection - 2008-10-06
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10:07 a.m. - 2005-04-27
I can’t seem to shake this flu. I think by now it’s mostly allergies, but I have one of those deep wet coughs that’s making my whole body sore from the racking. I’m also a booger faucet and 3 of the 7 dwarfs: Dopey, Sneezy, and Sleepy. Boodles of flowers are up in my Easter egg garden. It didn’t turn out quite like I envisioned, too much empty space. Still, I have a couple score of tulips and the paperwhites are perfuming the entire neighborhood. I picked a few stems and parked them singly in various places in the house. More than one paperwhite per room is overwhelming. You’d think a daffodil is a daffodil, right? Nuh uh. The variety of daffodils in my yard is amazing. Tall, short, long trumpets with short corona petals and vice versa, all sorts of color combos, and one type that are double daffodils. Two trumpets and two rows of corona petals tucked inside each other, all very ruffly like petticoats. I also found out daffodils have scent. Nowhere near as powerful as the paperwhites, but pretty just the same. Every year I bless Marie, the original owner of this house. It was she who bequeathed me this magnificent horticultural bounty. I planted pansies last fall and damn if they didn’t come back this spring as advertised! I’m impressed. There’s signs of life in my poor weedy perennial bed. The trumpet honeysuckles are leafed out and already twining up the trellises. Sure enough the one I put in last year did like the first one I put in two years ago. Did very poorly last summer, all sickly and transplant shocky, but after a quiet winter it’s robust and healthy looking now. I am a horribly impatient person and learning to bide my time with plants has been a toughie for me. Fortunately I’m also cheap. If I buy a thing then dammit I’m going to do my best with it, even if it goes against my grain to wait it out. And for learning patience I am rewarded. This summer I will sit and watch the hummingbirds zip and sip in the honeysuckle. I gave Wolf the choosing of the colors for the window boxes and hanging baskets. He wants red and white. Works for me. It’s still too early in the season, but a couple weeks from now we’ll go off to the plant place and bring home scads of red geraniums and white petunias. Last year I tried pre-planting the window boxes with special container bulbs. They didn’t do squat. Not one flower. And the bulbs themselves just turned to mush. Made me cranky. So annuals ahoy for the window boxes and hanging baskets. Annuals are cheap enough and certainly quick blooming enough for me the impatient tightwad. Sorry. I know all this garden yadda isn’t as scintillating as a political rant or amusing like some of the Rasta entries, but I am cheering myself with thoughts of flowers. Besides the rib-cracking cough and mucus festival, I have no water today. Mike decided we need a bigger well tank. With all the garden watering and laundry doing we need more water to hand. The well pump just grinds on 24 hours a day trying to keep up with the demand. So Ben is downstairs in the cellar messing around with the well tank and I can’t flush the toilet. Ben, you will be unsurprised to find out, is still treating me like a scary potential psychopath. This despite several friendly overtures on my part. Fine. This is totally his problem now. If he’s that much of a wuss or that much of a bully who wants to be a dramatic nellie to make me feel bad, then I wish him the joy of it. Even Mike, who automatically sides against me, thinks Ben is being a jerk. But then Mike also remembered that Ben speaks of his wife in the same way. When they go off to the tittie bars (as they do once or twice a year) Ben makes up elaborate cover stories and drills Mike to play along. Ben is stunned that I send Mike off with a cheery, “Have fun!” I am not threatened by strippers. For one thing those women do this for a living. They have no interest in my guy beyond his wallet. For another, the quality of dancers up here in the sticks is abysmal. Mike said that last place they went was so terrible he wanted to give the girls money to put their clothes back on. I did have the foresight to top off my tea kettle and fill a gallon milk jug before the water was turned off. I’m going to make a soothing cuppa, take a hefty shot of Tussin, wrap up in an afghan and watch movies. Cough, hack, wheeze, ~LA
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