Overwatering and How I become attached to plants I've begun to love

Listen to this while reading this blogpost:








A month or two ago I bought a plant at the Greenfield's Farmers Market. It was a heliotrope and it was lovely. The plant seemed rich with flowers and sturdy. I marvelled at its thick beauty because I have a heliotrope at home which I grew from seed and love with all sorts of pride and delight. The above is a photo of the recently purchased plant with its rich, multi-hued purple flowers and vibrant green leaves about a week or so after I repotted it and put it in sunny company with a varigated lemon thyme.
I loved it so. But just yesterday I came to work and found it sitting in an over- sodden planter. I realized that the water I had supplied it on Friday did not drain out or get evaporated by the sun and soil. The poor plant was drowned. Horrified, I tipped the planter over to let out all the sitting water. I hoped that it would dry out and recover quickly. I went to a work meeting and after the meeting I saw a well-meaning coworker walking about with my watering can. Fearing the worst, I went outside and found that she had watered the heliotrope. I can only imagine that she saw its sickly sight and tried to help by watering, perhaps thinking that it was too dry! I poured out the water again and went in to admonish her.

I really wanted the plant to recover. I cut off the drooping limbs and branches, the grey flowers and swollen but limp stems and brought it home where i put the now-smaller plant in a pot with fresh soil, cutting off all dead items and hoping for the best.



When I was in my twenties and thirties I liked plants and flowers and enjoyed nature but never really understood the love of indoor plants. I thought they were pretty and appreciated them but had a boyf who had them all stacked up next to a window in one area. I have since discovered people have plants placed artfully around a house which I find is nicer. As I have gotten into my thirties I have enjoyed more and more the act of growing things from seed. Many Marches have seen me start flowers I really should wait longer to start and filled spaces inside by windows with seedlings and boxes of dirt. I understand this activity more now and appreciate the plants all clustered together by a window in the wintertime. The same guy from my past started a plant called a heliotrope when I lived with him and I was charmed that he would grow a plant because he heard of it in a ragtime song he taught himself to play on piano. A couple of years ago I saw a pack of heliotrope seeds for sale and just for amusement I bought them and tried to grow the plant. Out of the whole pack of seeds I successfully began a plant and still have it to this day. That plant is the healthier one in the above pic. I went for years not remembering its name and then something reminded me of the name of the purple color. It is rather "leggy" and long-branched. I was tempted to trim it way down to make it more bushy but DbR halted the scissors, pointing out that it was a healthy plant.



I've only seen it flower twice in the two+ years since I've grown it. I hope it will flower more.

funny funny funny

everything is nice--the house is hella full. i went to get donuts from adams this morning and would like to get my hair cut...it doesn't look that great. blah blah blah.
it seems like all the house guests are happy here...there's drama as usual in the lesbian quarter but that's life. tonight should be fun..i received a call last night from evelyn asking when guests were going to arrive. i guess she thought 5 pm but maggie knew it was 7. i love that goof=iness. i feel goofy but on the outside i bet i come off as annoying. oh well.
DbR's brother is obsessively playing guitar hero which is funny. I'm glad we have something to occupy and amuse. CB and I spent an embarrassingly long time playing Singstar yesterday. hee hee hee.

Husband Rotates Laundry, story at eleven

This weekend's been wack. Friday night I started my new zine which I will distribute as a party favor at our "reception". I'm pretty happy about PAWL BITT. Anyway, while eating pizza and doing a photoshoot simultaneously I broke the camera-argh. I did get a couple nice shots beforehand. Here's one:


Anyway, the breaking of the camera set off a raggedy chain of events which caused me and the husband to get uglydolls at each other and that put a major damper on things. Pickles didn't like it, the hostility. He had to cancel his piano lesson.


Bird was upset, too. Bird put a bug in our ear and we made up Saturday and proceeded to enjoy a busy day-first we went to Comp USA or some other comparable business and DbR generously replaced the broken camera. We also enjoyed some lovely lunch at SITAR restaurant in Springfield. DbR and I were discussing "politics"-I had heard an interview with Gore Vidal on Air America the night before which galvanized me-He had referred to the republican party as a MOB and although it is an obvious comparison hearing such an astute historian say so on the radio was a great relief.-while waiting for our mango lasses and nan and I looked out the window onto Main Street Springfield and there was some sort of protest parade going by! It was only for fifteen minutes or so until all the stragglers following the people with signs, etc were passed but it was funny because DbR was just bemoaning the rights which have been taken away from us U.S. citizens for the sake of "national security" (which Obama hasn't promised to give us back, by the way) and how it was hard to protest these days and there comes this parade. It was kind of nice. Although he did mean, protest the president's speech or something of that ilk, that type of protest.


That was interesting though. We came back to the Bricker and I took some more photos and enjoyed hanging around the house and snacking here and there on this and that. I started working on the captions with my alphabet stamps while watching the idiot box. We finally settled down to the first installation of The Lord Of The Rings. That nutty Frodo! What's he up to next, I wonder? And where are my 'levensies?


Today is going to be a major driving drag because I am picking up the Kid in New Haven (after his whirlwind Sonic Youth experience) and driving him to Woods Hole, dropping him off and coming back home. All that driving for ...three hours' kid time. groan. Sure, I'll take it, but I wish that if I'm driving for seven-eight hours I should end up with Kid at the Bricker. For a couple weeks. ah, well. I'm psyched for him. He took a flight with coco and went with her family to their rock show in Brooklyn and now here I go to fetch him. For more info, ask him. That's his story to tell.

Kid knows what he's doing back there.

dog tags gingerly jingle

Spend most the day away from the house, dragging husband to his first TRANSPERFORMANCE. bully for him.
dogs were very glad to see us get home. DbR had some cheery moments while walking the pups although intermittently complaining about his feet and tiredness. i got him singing a pop song, which is always a treat.
after transp. we ate a late dinner at the new Paradise City tavern. Really liked my burger au poivre. they have oysters there too and after quizzing our server relentlessly i ascertained they were wild from wellfleet! i declined but said i would be back in November to sample the same ilk.
almost feeling cuddly.

Long Week

and a long week ahead, blah blah blah. I did a lot and am slated to continue to do stuff and I just want it all but also just want to sit in bed and read. I dread and anticipate happily simultaneously. Nothing mollifies or satisfies. Right now the edge seems omnipresent. Would like to remove nail polish from toes.

eh

feeling kind of melancholy tonight. dogs surrounding and shopping on line doesn't help. even the right decisions in life sometimes ache a little bit. maybe i'm too sensitive. will go upstairs and ...something. not going to northampton as planned. seems too far away.