I am babysitting a tree.
Named Rory. I’m great with plants but I’m not so good with tropical house
plants. First, I kill them with too much water. Then I try again and kill them
with not enough water. I bought one of those tall Fern-type plants because I
LOVE them. In stores. After I get them home, they don’t do so well. It’s been
in the corner of the front room for over a year with absolutely no new growth
and it looked pretty sickly.
This is what they look like
in the store. When Melody returns from Hawaii with my camera, I will show you
mine. Half of the stalks died and the remaining ones turned brown on the ends.
I trimmed off the brown, moved it to the sunny window, put Rory next to it and
I’m trying hard to give them the right amount of water, though I have no idea
what is the right amount. I shower love on them. Does that count for anything?
Hurry back to the mainland, Marissa. Just in case.
I’ve only eaten Krispy Kreme
donuts about 5 times in my life. They are SO good when they’re still warm and
soft! This is why I stay away from the place. I’m fat enough already. But
today, Sam requested we get some. I ordered a dozen glazed donuts and the
helpful young man said, “Would you like a second dozen glazed donuts for 76
cents?” Well, I’m not as dumb as I look so I said yes. They were still warm and
melt-in-your-mouth soft. Ahhh. Surely we’ll have these things in heaven. After
Nathan ate one, Sam said, “Can we make a rule that everyone just eats one?! We’re
gonna run out!”
“There are 24 of them. And
three of us,” I said.
“Let’s just eat one box then
and save the other one.”
“What are we saving the
other one for?”
“For me and Keith,” he said
as if that was the most natural, logical, no-brainer explanation ever and he
must think his mother is a dim bulb to need it explained.
But, we were on our way to
my son, Richard’s house so Nathan could pull weeds and mow the lawn; we shared
and no donuts made it home, fortunately for everyone except maybe Keith who was
at work. I helped Nathan pull the weeds because it was a large area with lots
of tall weeds and I thought he might need help and the morale boost of me
working with him. What a good workout. My legs and arms were a bit shaky when we
were done. You don’t think it had anything to do with the 5 donuts I ate right
beforehand, do you?
Also, I taught my 5 yr old
granddaughter, Victoria how to dead head today. She seemed dubious at first but
I patiently explained that the plant will make new flowers if you cut off the
dead ones. If you don’t, the plant will put its energy into making seeds but
not new flowers. She went into the house, found a pair of scissors and happily
cut off dead daisies and roses. She said, “You should tell Mommy about this!” (This makes me smile because her mama is a multi-talented genius at many things but not yard work.) I
hope I haven’t created a monster. Near the end, she was trimming off the new
flowers on the blue salvia. The great thing about grandparenting is you just go
home at the end of the day and let their parents deal with…whatever. J
While I was trimming dead
daisies, 3 yr old Ben came up and in a shocked, plaintive voice said, “Grandma,
WHY are you cutting off the flowers??” His tone was plainly stunned, scared
even, to have just discovered that his grandma is really a psychotic plant
mutilator. Again, I explained that the plant would only make new flowers if we
cut off the dead ones. I don’t think he was convinced. To the parents, sorry
for using the kitchen scissors. I hope I haven’t given them ideas now when they
see them in the drawer. If you had houseplants, I’d be afraid. I still remember
the time when my brother-in-law, Ardie, pruned the apple tree in the backyard,
all the while being carefully observed by 3 yr old Richard and 1 ½ yr old
Alden. The next day, they took scissors to my ficus tree and butchered it. It’s
funny now. But I was stupid then and yelled at them. I wish I could do that
over. It’s so much easier to be patient from 20 years’ distance.
One more thing. I finally caved and bought an XBox Kinect. If you're one of my children, I'm sure you're wondering who or what has possessed me. I haven't bought a game player of any kind since the early 1990's. Nathan was so sore after the first couple of days of boxing, etc. ( I don't even know what the games are) that he had to take a nap and not do anything strenuous. Ha Ha. Fun times.
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