Originally published on Machinations of a Wandering Mind - April 22, 2005:
I have recently taken up gardening. The allure was simple: watch things grow, tame nature (to some degree), and make the jungle of my Dad's backyard into something that looks just a bit neater.
I also love plants (a key to gardening, I hear). And for most of my life I have sorrowfully been like death running a scythe through a glass shop. I have killed every plant that ever found its way into my grubby fingers. Even things you didn't think could be killed.
To name a few on my list of plant-murders:
Ferns
Cactus
African violets
Lavender
Rosemary
Chives
And some ugly plant that no one knew the name for. My mother got it from some friend who didn't want it any more, my Dad tried killing it by hacking it away. I got it, under the faintly veiled assumption that it would eventually meet its demise under my well-intentioned care.
It grew... just one stalk and one leaf...to about six feet tall. And then, not so suddenly it died. To be honest, I wasn't quite so upset. It really was an ugly plant.
So, back to gardening. With glee in my eyes and a sigh of resignation and wonderful support from my husband, we went to a nursery and bought a bunch of lovely flowers and herbs for my new garden.
I then proceeded to spend the weekend pulling weeds, yanking vines, churning soil and arguing with roots. After much sweat and tiredness, I now have a lovely garden of Alyssum and other things. (I went for simple)
I love it. I take a look at it every day and smile. My hard work seems like it paid off...and I am hoping that fate doesn't go the way it always done and the flowers live for the summer.
However, fate it seems, has a strange sense of humor and the plants have avenged their fallen brethren by giving me...poison ivy.
Yup. Despite the fact that I have lived near a forest almost all of my life, I'm still terrible at identifying the pesky plant. I probably ripped it out with the rest of the anonymous weeds lurking in the back of the house.
I wore gloves, but due to the heat I wore a short-sleeved shirt. It started with a few tiny bumps...now my arms look like the elephant man - tiny replicas of John Merrick attached to my shoulders. It's hideous. I have bumps on top of bumps.
In total frustration I have looked poison ivy up and learned that the stem has enough oils to infect 10,000 people. I bet that's what I touched.
I have learned my lesson though. No more short sleeves for gardening. Plant-killing however, I have no control over.
I have now tried tons of stuff, but presently I'm on a regimen of washing the areas with dishwashing soap, patting dry, dabbing on witch hazel and hydrogen peroxide, and then topping it all off with toothpaste. (It draws out the oils and dries the area quickly...as well as having the added benefit of smelling minty fresh.)
So, as the summer goes by I will take a look at my beautiful garden, knowing that I'm happy that my plants didn't die. My plants will be happy for their revenge against my herbicidal tendencies. I will sip lemonade and smile as I inhale the aroma of flowers and perhaps the minty fresh memory of all this will make me smile.
Or itch...I'm not sure.
Showing posts with label Flashback. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flashback. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Flashback: Run Away! The Signs of Aging are upon us!
In celebration of my birthday.
Originally published on Machinations of a Wandering Mind - June 27, 2005:
It was terrible, it was hideous! It was a sign that I'm getting older.
Two weeks ago was my birthday...my 27th birthday, and during this time, my mother and I went shopping. We looked for a lovely summer ensemble that didn't make me look, well, you know...sausage-like. Of course this doesn't preclude Mom from exercising her miss-judgment in recommending pieces of fabric with more ruffles than Scarlet O'Hara's curtains in Gone With the Wind.
Here is a dramatic recreation: Please imagine my mother fawning over this ugly bluish monstrosity on a hanger:
"Oh this will look lovely." Mother said, holding up the frilly blue ruffled skirt up to my body.
"No it won't."
"You're just being picky. Be daring for once."
"It's horrible." I state, no inflection in my tone as I finger a ruffle with obvious disdain.
"Just try it on. You'll be surprised."
"Did I mention it's ugly?"
Of course, it goes into the pile. Let me just share the warm feeling to bask in the glowing light of I-told-you-so when I put on the offending "garment" and I ended up looking like a large blue covered sausage that got caught in a paper shredder. I will always remember the blank look of my mother trying to think of the best way to describe the quite laughable image of me in the mirror.
"Perhaps you should take it off." Her eyes are smiling but she exercises a cool control that is to be commended. I'm sure if given the opportunity she could fool a highly trained interrogator.
"You think?"
"Yes. You were right."
"Let me bask in the moment."
"Enough basking."
"I hope we learned a valuable lesson from this."
"Yes dear. Now take it off."
"You want to try it on?"
"No! Um...no thank you. It's safe to say we'll put it in the 'No' pile."
And this is where I found it...the grey hair, sticking straight up from the top of my head like a short, crinkly flag staking out the victory of middle age.
In a flight of pure panic, I ripped the offending hair out of my scalp (it hurt, by the way) and examined it. Indeed it was bright white and stood out from my naturally brown/black tresses. I showed my mother, holding the hair away from me, as if its loss of pigment was something that could infect the rest of my folicles.
"What did you expect. You're getting older." Were the words mom had for me. Strangely enough they didn't have the desired effect of calming that I wished. Mom was also strangely unsympathetic to the fact that her daughter has a grey hair. My mother, herself, had grey hair at a young age. I was hoping this was not the case for me...though it wouldn't change much since I dye my hair anyway.
"Plus," She sagely added, "It's only one hair." My eyes widened...surely the one strand could not have already convinced the others to go pigment free. I return to the dressing room mirror of Hecht's to inspect the rest of my head, in what must be the most vain moment in my entire life.
I even called up my husband with the news. He laughed. I was not pleased.
Satisfied that there were no more pigment-free hairs, I went on with my shopping.
I dyed my hair again. Though that one hair seemed to be a fluke, I'm not taking any chances. It's a war...a war I may not win...but by the gods I will have dark hair at least until I'm forty.
Originally published on Machinations of a Wandering Mind - June 27, 2005:
It was terrible, it was hideous! It was a sign that I'm getting older.
Two weeks ago was my birthday...my 27th birthday, and during this time, my mother and I went shopping. We looked for a lovely summer ensemble that didn't make me look, well, you know...sausage-like. Of course this doesn't preclude Mom from exercising her miss-judgment in recommending pieces of fabric with more ruffles than Scarlet O'Hara's curtains in Gone With the Wind.
Here is a dramatic recreation: Please imagine my mother fawning over this ugly bluish monstrosity on a hanger:
"Oh this will look lovely." Mother said, holding up the frilly blue ruffled skirt up to my body.
"No it won't."
"You're just being picky. Be daring for once."
"It's horrible." I state, no inflection in my tone as I finger a ruffle with obvious disdain.
"Just try it on. You'll be surprised."
"Did I mention it's ugly?"
Of course, it goes into the pile. Let me just share the warm feeling to bask in the glowing light of I-told-you-so when I put on the offending "garment" and I ended up looking like a large blue covered sausage that got caught in a paper shredder. I will always remember the blank look of my mother trying to think of the best way to describe the quite laughable image of me in the mirror.
"Perhaps you should take it off." Her eyes are smiling but she exercises a cool control that is to be commended. I'm sure if given the opportunity she could fool a highly trained interrogator.
"You think?"
"Yes. You were right."
"Let me bask in the moment."
"Enough basking."
"I hope we learned a valuable lesson from this."
"Yes dear. Now take it off."
"You want to try it on?"
"No! Um...no thank you. It's safe to say we'll put it in the 'No' pile."
And this is where I found it...the grey hair, sticking straight up from the top of my head like a short, crinkly flag staking out the victory of middle age.
In a flight of pure panic, I ripped the offending hair out of my scalp (it hurt, by the way) and examined it. Indeed it was bright white and stood out from my naturally brown/black tresses. I showed my mother, holding the hair away from me, as if its loss of pigment was something that could infect the rest of my folicles.
"What did you expect. You're getting older." Were the words mom had for me. Strangely enough they didn't have the desired effect of calming that I wished. Mom was also strangely unsympathetic to the fact that her daughter has a grey hair. My mother, herself, had grey hair at a young age. I was hoping this was not the case for me...though it wouldn't change much since I dye my hair anyway.
"Plus," She sagely added, "It's only one hair." My eyes widened...surely the one strand could not have already convinced the others to go pigment free. I return to the dressing room mirror of Hecht's to inspect the rest of my head, in what must be the most vain moment in my entire life.
I even called up my husband with the news. He laughed. I was not pleased.
Satisfied that there were no more pigment-free hairs, I went on with my shopping.
I dyed my hair again. Though that one hair seemed to be a fluke, I'm not taking any chances. It's a war...a war I may not win...but by the gods I will have dark hair at least until I'm forty.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Flashback: An odd experiment...brought to you by baking supplies and matches
Originally published on Machinations of a Wandering Mind - October 18, 2005:
Sit back and let me tell you a story.
The story involves a woman. That woman would be me. I was really bored one day and after watching Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, one question reared its ugly head: How or why did the windmill explode like that?
Windmills don't explode on a fairly normal basis, so there must have been a catalyst, some flammable catalyst. I was going to assume that there was no ammo in there, no TNT, no nitro-glycerin, no other items of explosive goodness. So, what was in that mill that made it explode? There was flour. Bags of flour, barrels of flour.
My mind was reeling...was it flour dust? I remember hearing that flour dust might have been the culprit. My husband only looked at me dubiously.
To support my theory, there was only one thing to do. Set fire to flour.
Being the safety-conscious person I am, I decided to put my cup of white baking flour in the kitchen sink so I could douse it before the impending fire could torch the rest of the house.
My husband was on standby. Not with a fire extinguisher, mind you. He was there for support. And laughing. He was definitely on "flour is not flammable" side of the peanut gallery.
I was determined to prove him wrong. So, with a flourish, I lit my first wooden match. As I carefully touched the warm flame to the small mound of flour in the sink, moving slightly away as not to singe my eyebrows from the inferno I was about to start. However, nothing happened. I actually extinguished the match by sticking it into the hapless flour.
There was a snicker behind me, one that I ignored by lighting another match and another one until there was me, the sink, and the mound of flour with some charred spears of used matches sticking out of it.
Dad decided to come home at that moment and asked what we were doing. I said, "I'm trying to light this pile of flour on fire."
"You're what? This house is made of wood."
"I know, that why we're doing it in the sink."
He then proceeded to tell me that flour is not flammable. As if my experiment was telling me otherwise. This was a year ago or so.
I only thought of this due to the fact that I found out yesterday that flour DUST is flammable and is the cause of many industrial fires. So there!
Flour, however, still remains annoyingly inflammable. I am also still not allowed to set fire to the house in any form, with or without baking supplies.
Sit back and let me tell you a story.
The story involves a woman. That woman would be me. I was really bored one day and after watching Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, one question reared its ugly head: How or why did the windmill explode like that?
Windmills don't explode on a fairly normal basis, so there must have been a catalyst, some flammable catalyst. I was going to assume that there was no ammo in there, no TNT, no nitro-glycerin, no other items of explosive goodness. So, what was in that mill that made it explode? There was flour. Bags of flour, barrels of flour.
My mind was reeling...was it flour dust? I remember hearing that flour dust might have been the culprit. My husband only looked at me dubiously.
To support my theory, there was only one thing to do. Set fire to flour.
Being the safety-conscious person I am, I decided to put my cup of white baking flour in the kitchen sink so I could douse it before the impending fire could torch the rest of the house.
My husband was on standby. Not with a fire extinguisher, mind you. He was there for support. And laughing. He was definitely on "flour is not flammable" side of the peanut gallery.
I was determined to prove him wrong. So, with a flourish, I lit my first wooden match. As I carefully touched the warm flame to the small mound of flour in the sink, moving slightly away as not to singe my eyebrows from the inferno I was about to start. However, nothing happened. I actually extinguished the match by sticking it into the hapless flour.
There was a snicker behind me, one that I ignored by lighting another match and another one until there was me, the sink, and the mound of flour with some charred spears of used matches sticking out of it.
Dad decided to come home at that moment and asked what we were doing. I said, "I'm trying to light this pile of flour on fire."
"You're what? This house is made of wood."
"I know, that why we're doing it in the sink."
He then proceeded to tell me that flour is not flammable. As if my experiment was telling me otherwise. This was a year ago or so.
I only thought of this due to the fact that I found out yesterday that flour DUST is flammable and is the cause of many industrial fires. So there!
Flour, however, still remains annoyingly inflammable. I am also still not allowed to set fire to the house in any form, with or without baking supplies.
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