Plants

Three Leaves And A Stick

Me: Where’s the ice cube tray?
Ken: The what?
Me: The ice cube tray! Where is it?
Ken: In the freezer?
Me: No, it’s not. What did you do with it?
Ken: Why would I have done anything with it?
Me: Well, it’s not in here. Where did you put it?!
Ken: I sold it on EBay.
Me: Did you at least get a good price for it, KEN?!
Ken: Unfortunately, no.
Me DAMN YOUR EYES!!

5 minutes later…

Ken: I see you found the ice cube tray. Where was it?
Me (sheepishly): Behind a bag of frozen French fries.

Now, you may be wondering what on earth prompted such an overreaction to the missing (temporarily) ice cube tray, but the fact of the matter was that my orchid was starting to look a little wilty and I realized to my horror that I had failed to provide it with its requisite 2 ice cubes a week since the previous Friday. And under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have been quite so panicky except that I had recently returned to work after the holidays and discovered that the incredibly lush orchid given to me by my team for my birthday had succumbed to my neglect and all the flowers had fallen off. Here’s what it looked like when I initially received it—it was glorious, more’s the pity:

Destined to become 3 leaves and a stick.

Yes, once again, I was now left with three leaves and a stick. When they gave it to me, I was overcome with gratitude, but at the same time, I felt sad because I knew it wouldn’t be long before I committed yet another planticide. Completely unintentional of course, what we would call ‘involuntary plantslaughter’, but with the same dire results. Because the fact is, I’m just not good with houseplants.

Don’t get me wrong—I love my garden, and I love plants. As long as they’re outside. I have a rule in my garden—I will plant you and occasionally water you, and the rest is your deal. Most garden plants are just fine with this and manage to thrive without much help from me, aside from me making sure that weeds don’t choke them out. House plants are a whole other matter, though. I seem to have absolutely no knack with houseplants whatsoever. Unfortunately, for both me and them, I really want plants in the house. I haven’t had any for a while, aside from the straggly hibiscus that Ken’s mom gave me years ago, which spends all summer outside looking gorgeous then comes in for the winter and pretty much withers away under my care until the weather gets warm again, and a stupid fern that Ken won’t let me throw away. I got the fern as far as the front porch at the beginning of January, and while I was vacuuming up all the dead leaves, Ken snuck it back in the house, because I’m “only allowed to have one fern and if I can’t keep it alive all winter I can’t get a new one”. It’s like a test of character, or a Nietzschean struggle of the wills. Nietzsche once said “that which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”, so I like to think that if there’s ever a zombie apocalypse, I’ve done my part to ensure that the fern will survive. Last spring, Ken bought me a pot of daffodils as a gift and it sat proudly on the kitchen island until the lack of consistent watering did it in. Well, how am I supposed to know that it needed to be watered EVERY DAY? What am I, its mother? So the next time we went to the grocery store, I decided I wanted a replacement plant, and Ken was no help at all.

Me: Oh look! They have orchids—I’ve always wanted an orchid!
Ken: They’re $24.99. Are you really going to pay that much money for something you’re just going to kill?
Me: I won’t kill it!
Ken: Yeah, you will.
Me: What about this campanula? Wait, they look pretty fragile…
Ken: You’ll kill it.
Me: I don’t kill everything, you know.
Ken: (snickers) They have nice cut flowers. Get a bouquet—they’re supposed to die eventually anyway.
Me: Wait, there are orchids here for $14.99!…no, you’re right. It’ll die. What about these African violets? I had one once and it lived for a long time.
Ken: I remember that. It’s a good choice—it might survive.
Me: You’re so mean!
Ken: I have to be—I’m a member of the Vegetation Protection League.

So I got the African violet instead of the orchid. It was dead within the month. But in November, I received the wilting orchid in question from a friend who couldn’t be at my book launch, so she gave it to me as a congratulatory gift, and I was determined that it would live to see February. It will not. Despite my ice-cubing and sweet talking, it’s looking worse by the day.

But I don’t think it’s just me—I honestly believe that orchids are all destined at some point to become three leaves and a stick. In fact, I was in the kitchen at work on Friday, getting ice cubes for my orchid AS ONE DOES, and a new colleague was making toast:

Me: Oh hey, how’s it going? I just need to get some ice cubes for my orchid.
New Colleague: Oh, I have one of those. The flowers fell off, and it’s only a few leaves and a stick right now, but I hope it’ll bloom again.
Me: It won’t. They never do.
New Colleague: Sigh. I know.

But I will persevere, even if my orchid IS just three leaves and a stick, for the sentimental value. As for Ken, it’s a shame that he didn’t really sell my ice cube tray on EBay, because we’ve had it almost since we got married, and when I went to the EBay website, I discovered that he could have gotten fifty bucks for a “vintage plastic ice cube tray”. That’s enough for at least FIVE leaves and a stick.

My Week 197: The Joys of Gardening, Plants I Hate

“What the f*ck is up with raspberries?!” I asked Ken in the car yesterday. Ken looked simultaneously taken aback by the question yet somehow not very surprised at the way it was put to him.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Isn’t the whole point of fruit, of virtually EVERYTHING alive on this planet, to procreate and spread in the most efficient way possible? Like cherries, for example. Birds and tree-rats eat them, then they poop out the pits somewhere else where a new cherry tree can form.”

“I’m missing the point,” Ken answered. “Why are you so mad at raspberries?”

“Because they’re f*cking stupid! AND passive-aggressive. The berries are on top, all beautiful and beckoning, and then you get in there and it’s like being attacked by a school of piranhas. No wonder they’re almost extinct.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s true,” said Ken.

“Well, they should be! They’re stupid. That’s their slogan: Raspberries—The Stupid Fruit.”

Right now, you might be wondering exactly what prompted my anti-raspberry rant. Then again, if you’ve ever tried to pick raspberries, you probably know. Yes, that morning I had gone out with a bowl and a very optimistic attitude, forgetting as I do every year that raspberries are the devil’s spawn. Sure, they taste delicious, but isn’t that just part of their evil charm? It’s like when you see a cat, and it looks so adorable and squishy, and it bats its eyes at you and rolls over, then you try to rub its tummy and it grabs your hand and bites you. Raspberries are essentially the cats of the fruit world. And the worst part is, I didn’t even plant them—they just appeared, thousands of them, from god knows where. But I thought, I might as well take advantage of the situation. Unfortunately,  I came back into the house with a small bowl of berries and huge gashes on my arms and legs. At one point, I was so caught up in the thorns that I couldn’t move without ripping my T-shirt and pajama bottoms (yeah, PAJAMAS. Don’t judge me—it was only 10 am and it was Saturday). I’m sure the neighbours were a little concerned when I started screaming, “Let me go, you m*therf*cker!!” Although as a side-note, the police never arrived and now I’m seriously doubting the competency of our Neighbourhood Watch.

I was attacked just taking this picture.

But my ire isn’t reserved solely for the dreaded raspberry bush. I also hate a few other stupid plants:

1) Black Walnut Trees

These are the scourge of the forest. Nothing will grow under their “drip line”, which sounds really disgusting but that’s what tree people call it. And their nuts are SAVAGE. They drop down at the slightest hint of a breeze, and it’s like they’re TRYING to kill you. We have one in our front yard that’s over 80 feet high, and I swear there’s an evil sprite that lives in it, whose only job is to throw walnuts at people. Remember the episode of the Twilight Zone where William Shatner is a passenger on an airplane and he sees a gremlin ripping the wing apart but no one will believe him? I believe him, because that thing lives in my walnut tree now. And it’s in league with the squirrels, who keep burying the nuts all over my yard, causing new black walnut trees to spring up in random places like the middle of a flower bed, beside the pond, or up through the floorboards of the porch. You can’t even ignore them, because they grow so damned fast—one minute it’s 4 inches high; two days later, you need a chainsaw to cut it down. They’re perfect for annoying other people though. Yesterday, my mom told me that my brother’s neighbours had built this monstrosity of a garage overlooking his backyard. She wanted to know what he could plant that would grow quickly and block it out. “A Black Walnut Tree”, I said. The best revenge is slimy, green, and will give you a concussion.

2) Tall Flox

This flower is the bane of my existence, as invasive as daylilies but with worse foliage. Trying to get rid of them is almost impossible—you pull out one, and ten more pop up in its place. You exhaust yourself digging them all out and you think you finally got rid of them, but the next year, they’re all back again. The only one I like has pink and white candy striped petals, and it’s the only one that WON’T GROW.

3) Dandelions

If their flowers were pink and white striped, I would have no complaint. I just don’t like yellow.

4) Orchids

Someone gave me an orchid once. It was a gift, I suppose. After a week, the flowers fell off. Three years later, and I still have three leaves and a stick. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who has an orchid with flowers on it. At work, there are several people who also have plant pots full of leaves and sticks. Two weeks ago, it was a co-worker’s birthday and she was given an orchid. We all stood around ooh-ing and aw-ing: “In a couple of weeks, that’s going to be a very lovely stick!” People say, “Don’t water your orchid–give it one ice cube a week.” Frankly, I think that’s a waste of good ice. And why are the roots always growing out of the pot? They’re like tentacles reaching out to strangle you, but they can’t because they’re too weak from the cold.

4 years later–not even a stick anymore.

Now, don’t get me wrong—I love my garden and ALMOST everything in it. I have some beautiful hostas, which are so hardy that you can apparently plant them upside down and they’ll still grow. Actually, I find that a little disturbing, like the way your hair and fingernails continue to grow after death, but they’re pretty. And I have peonies, and bergamot, and roses, and hollyhocks that suddenly just appeared in the perfect spot in a flowerbed as if I’d put them there deliberately. I made jam last weekend with the cherries from our own tree (certified organic, which also means that I had to break open EVERY SINGLE CHERRY to make sure there were no worms in them). Later this summer, I’ll make jelly with quince from a bush that sprang from an old pear tree because I am THAT f*cking earthy.

Cherries: The Friendly Fruit.

So Happy Canada Day everyone, even if you aren’t Canadian. I’m going to celebrate by putting on a hazmat suit and picking more raspberries, because Canadians are nothing if not determined, and I have a cheesecake to make.

The Mystery Guest

My Week 109: Hallowe’en Histrionics, Trump’s Alphabet, Plants to Kill

Thursday: Hallowe’en Histrionics

The things that people get all “up in arms” about these days is starting to astonish me. The most recent, down below our southern border (does that sound a little innuendo-y? Maybe it’s because so much of what is happening in the States has to do with sex and a lot of hot air) is about emails. People are all like “Oh My God. Emails. How dare anyone use their own private secure server to send emails?” Me, I worry, because I send work emails from home sometimes, and a lot of what I do is confidential, so if Wikileaks (which sounds like some kind of STD, honestly—like, “Have you been experiencing any Wikileakage from your private area?”) ever hacked my email, they might well expose the fact that I told someone they needed to add a semi-colon and maybe a “direct quotation to spice things up a little”. The same kind of astonishing stuff that’s in Hillary Clinton’s emails. Of course, “confidential” is not quite the same as “classified”, and as Donald Trump pointed out, “Hillary wasn’t smart enough to know that the C stood for classified”. Which tells us one more really important thing—that Donald Trump knows SOME of the letters of the alphabet. Not all of them, mind you, and of course in HIS alphabet book, the letter C stands for something quite different.

Reporter: Mr. Trump, can you recite the alphabet for us?
 Trump: The alphabet is a great alphabet. I can recite the alphabet like you wouldn’t believe and it’s going to be great. “A” is for “A lot”, “B” is for “Bigly”, “C” is for—
Reporter: Wait! Is “C” almost the same as what “P” is for?
Trump: You know it! Grab them by the c—
Reporter: Back to you, Bob!

At any rate, the false equivalency of emails versus sexual assault is ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as the Facebook post that happened to appear on my newsfeed on Thursday, ONLY because my brother had commented on it. It came from a woman he knows who was railing on about how unfair it was that her kids weren’t allowed to wear Hallowe’en costumes to school. Seriously. With everything else that’s going on in the world, THIS is what you choose to complain about? How unfair it is that your kids can’t dress like robots or sexy nurses or whatnot and this is, like, depriving them somehow? Did the school say they also weren’t allowed to dress up at home and go get candy from their neighbours? Of course not. My brother, who has a PhD, made some sort of sensible comment about my nephew’s school, where they can wear orange T-shirts and have a parade or something. I don’t have a PhD, so I simply commented “Pubic School? HAHA!” because she’d spelled “public school” wrong, and it made me laugh more than the ludicrous nature of the post itself. But then I deleted my comment on the grounds that people HATE it when you point out their spelling mistakes even more than when you point out that their arguments are absurd. But here is why the WHOLE THING is absurd, for anyone who still thinks that schools suck for not letting kids dress up for Hallowe’en:

1) Hallowe’en was originally a festival celebrated by the pre-Christian Celts, so yes, a very small group of people in a very small area of the world. The Celts believed that November 1st was the beginning of the new year, and that on New Year’s Eve, October 31st, the veil between our world and the spirit world was at its most thin. The spirits of our loved ones could enter our plane, but so could demons. To ward them off, the Celts disguised themselves to avoid being harassed by evil spirits. Walmart was not involved back then, but mass marketing has turned this simple festival into a multi-million dollar extravaganza which apparently, some people, even if they aren’t of Celtic descent, feel entitled to.

2) Hallowe’en is one of many strange days that mass commerce has co-opted. Others include the feast day of St. Patrick, the feast day of St. Valentine, and the day designated as the birth of Jesus. Let’s start with St. Patrick’s Day. Would you want your children to go to school dressed as leprechauns and drink beer on March 17th? Why not? St. Patrick’s Day, or at least his feast day, has been around almost as long as All Hallows Eve—why not make schools responsible for THAT too? And what about Valentine’s Day? A lot of schools don’t allow Valentine ’s Day parties and such, and I agree because St. Valentine was BEHEADED for secretly performing marriages, something which Hallmark fails to mention. If you really want a traditional Valentine’s Day party, it wouldn’t involve cards with puppies who have hearts for eyes, or pink Jello shooters. It would be more about sadness and death. Just saying. And Christmas? Christmas is just great. Shut up about Christmas. There are presents and twinkly lights, which I think Jesus would approve of, although I also don’t think it should be celebrated in schools (See reasons 3 and 4). But it seems these days that stores move directly from Christmas to Valentine’s Day to St. Patrick’s Day to Canada Day (why not—it’s celebratable) to Hallowe’en, then we start the circle of life all over again. Next, they’ll be trying to figure out how to make money from Remembrance Day. Candy poppies, chocolate crosses, and decorating the lawn with tanks perhaps?

3) Hallowe’en is f*cking expensive. This is the main reason that schools have stopped allowing Hallowe’en parties, among other things. And I say this directly to the moronic woman who also posted a comment on Facebook decrying the “immigrants who have ruined it for everyone.” I can’t even respond to that because it’s at a level so far below rational thought that you’d get the bends when you came up from it. Immigrants have NOT ruined Hallowe’en. What “ruined” Hallowe’en, and other festivals, was the expectation that people should spend extraordinary amounts of money on costumes and candy and decorations. A lot of people simply can’t afford those things when they’re trying to put food on the table and pay the rent. It’s really hard on kids to NOT be able to participate in things at school. This is the same rationale that rightly stopped many schools from having Valentine’s Day parties, because buying Valentine’s Day cards or bringing cupcakes for the whole class is also expensive and absolutely not necessary. Kids have it hard enough without having to feel sh*tty that they can’t afford a cool costume or treats for the class. I just saw an ad from IKEA that said “Make yourself a last minute Hallowe’en ghost costume with one of our sheet sets. Only $49.99!” Even I can’t afford to ruin a $50 sheet set by cutting eye holes in it. Enough said.

4) Newsflash: You can celebrate whatever the hell you want in the privacy of your own home but stop expecting schools to embrace your sh*t. When I was a kid, I don’t remember EVER wearing a costume to school, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t go out trick or treating that night. And my mom reminded me that the worst thing about Valentine’s Day, which WAS observed in schools for many years, was being the kid who DIDN’T get any Valentine cards. Not that SHE didn’t—she was so sweet that EVERYONE gave her cards, I’m sure. But if you’re the kind of person who says, “My child’s popular so I don’t have to care about all those other kids”, then maybe you’re the reason why schools had to start sending home lists of ALL the kids in the class so that no one would feel left out.

Now don’t get me wrong—I love Hallowe’en, and I usually dress up to greet the little trick or treaters that come to our door in the evening. And as I said, just because it doesn’t belong in schools doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate it if we want to. Worship bacon and eggs—I don’t care, so long as you’re not hurting anyone else or expecting the school to celebrate “All Day Breakfast Day!!”, although that WOULD be awesome. Hallowe’en is great because it allows people to break out of their shells and be the superhero or sexy firefighter they’ve always longed to be. Everybody’s getting in on the act now, even pets. I know a lot of people who are buying costumes for their cats or dogs, so I asked Titus how he felt about it:

Me: Do you want me to buy a Hallowe’en costume for you this year?
 Titus: What the hell is Hallowe’en?
Me: You know—when kids come to the door and we give them candy.
Titus: Candy? You mean “sparkly kitty treats”?
Me: Disgusting. And for the last time, stay away from the litter box. No, I mean ACTUAL candy. The sugar kind.
Titus: Also acceptable. So what kind of costume were you thinking about?
Me: I could buy you a troll wig and you could be “Dog-ald Trump”.
Titus: The other dogs would think I was an idiot. Try again.
Me: I have a construction helmet and a reflective vest around here somewhere. You could be a construction worker.
Titus: You mean a SEXY construction worker.
Me: Maybe we should stick to something simple. How about just wearing a cape and a witch hat?
Titus: You mean a SEXY cape and a—
Me: Stop it! It’s not about being sexy.
Titus: I can’t help it. It’s in my nature. Check me out…
Me: Oh god—what IS that? Sexy ghost?.
Raven: Sweet Jesus, I’m living with a porn star.
Titus: You know it, baby.

titus-ghost

Friday: I get a new fern

If you’ve been following this site for a while, you’ll know I love plants, but I’m terrible at taking care of them. Still, my intentions are good, and it’s not my fault if they don’t ask for things like water or light. Communication is the key to a healthy existence after all, and plants can be strangely quiet and sulky. At any rate, my favourite plant is the fern, which for some reason, I always call a “willow” in my head. Last week, my aunt posted a picture of a willow, which is to say “fern”, on Facebook that she found in the brush yard of her town. A brush yard, for those of you who are wondering, is what we call the place where you can drop off your branches, leaves, and other garden trimmings to be mulched by the township. Anyway, she found this beautiful fern that someone had just thrown away and wondered if anyone wanted it. I immediately posted “Me!! Me!!” which caused Ken to post, “Don’t! You know she’ll just kill it!” And that’s nonsense, Ken, because I will love it and care for it. Then my aunt dropped it off at my house, and I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s huge, like f*ckiing prehistoric, like it came straight outta Jurassic Park and a diplodocus should be nibbling on it. We all just stared at it for a while, trying to decide where to put it.

Me: It’s bigger than it looked in the picture…
 Ken: If you kill this one, it would be like mass murder.
Me: I won’t kill it! I don’t think I CAN kill it. It’s bigger than the both of us. This fern would survive the zombie apocalypse.
Ken: Or a nuclear winter. I’m putting it in the dining room.
Me: OK, but you can’t forget to water it.
Ken: Me? You’re the one who wanted it. You take care of it.
Me: FINE, KEN. DON’T HELP.

But because everyone was riding me about how I “kill plants” and whatnot, I took a picture of my new fern and another fern I had that I was trying to bring back to life, and I posted them on Facebook with the caption “OMG! What happened? It was fine an hour ago!” My aunt replied, “That better be a joke unless Titus ate it, which is entirely possible.” And now I know what to do whenever I kill a plant. Just blame the dog. The sexy, ghostly dog.

big-fern

dead-fern