Raelynn unfurled a leg longer than the weeds in my herb garden and regarded one foot. She pulled out a cell phone and pressed a button. Immediate attention from Emergency services was essential.
The only numbers I have on speed dial are my kids and the plant doctor. If the Peta people cared as much about geraniums as they do about houseflies, they’d be hurling organic fertilizer at me every time I strolled through the Lawn and Garden section at Sears. A day doesn’t go by at my house without another senseless murder surrounded by potting soil and peat moss. But more important matters were afoot here.
My dear friend Raelynn was experiencing a crisis. Climbing out of her Town Car, she’d chipped the polish on one of her piggies.
Raelynn spends more money on her big toe than most people spend on their first real car—not the beater that got you through college and collapsed in a sigh of oil-induced relief on graduation day, but the one whose odometer turned to 100 for nobody but you. Spread this kind of upkeep over all available footage, and I could float a Ferrari over the Autobahn like a hovercraft for what she spends on the care and feeding of her feet.
If I ever spend that much time on a part of my body I haven’t seen since the last time Waldo was spotted, please repossess my WalMart Master Card.
“They’ll take me at four,” she said, snapping her cell phone shut the way a prosecuting attorney would close a file of incriminating evidence in front of a condescending judge. She watched as I shucked off my Converse sneakers.
“You could take better care of your feet. It isn’t that hard.”
“I don’t have time for all that oil and lotion and sanding them with a rock. I’ve got to peel the potatoes for dinner and vacuum the living room.”
“You use frozen potatoes. How long can it take to push Start? And that little automatic vacuum cleaner of yours scurries around like a mouse sucking up hairballs. It’s like playing room to room air hockey.”
“Well, it’s too much trouble.”
“Taking care of your feet is easier than cooking dinner. Why, after you wash and dry them. . .”
“You have to wash them?”
Raelynn looked at me as if I’d suggested she upholster her Lincoln with vinyl siding.
“You don’t wash your feet?”
“I’m not exactly sure where they are. I figure they must be at the bottom of the pile somewhere. They get the soap and water runoff when I take a shower.”
She blinked. “You’re going with me this afternoon. You need it more than I do.”
Two hours later my feet were softer than cumulous clouds, better decorated than my guest bedroom, and smelled like the perfume tester counter at the mall. I was afraid to walk.
The girl in charge of my new look played the cash register like a slot machine and announced a total. I could have bought a registered Shih Tzu and a groomer to find its eyes for what I paid for my feet. I handed over the little piece of plastic that big girls use to buy new toys and sighed.
That night, Bill and I spent the evening calculating whether it was worth sacrificing the kids’ college education to support my feet in their new lifestyle.
“Well, he said, watching the light dance off of the Pink Passion polish. It gives a whole new meaning to the term “foot the bill.”
Laugh
Showing posts with label fertilizer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fertilizer. Show all posts
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
Bloghopping around the web not long ago, I came across (tripped over) something that puts the jingle in my bells like nothing else. The chance to talk. (Thanks to Eileen for lighting the way.) As long as I hop on the soap box that Baby Boomer extraordinaire popartdiva picks out, I can expound away and nobody, neither Superman nor the Nintendo-playing teenagers on the couch can stop me. I haven't felt this kind of power since I ate all the Girl Scout cookies without giving the dogs a single bite. (That line is a lie, they still have peanut butter breath, but it's a good example.)
This week’s topic is “Are We Wasting the Resources of our Elders?” and while I stumbled on the topic late, I still managed to come up with an opinion. Those of you who know me well will not be surprised. You may sigh deeply, roll your eyes, and catch the latest episode of Lost, but you're not surprised.
As one of the youngest of the generation that knows all about life and has tried it on like a clearance rack sweater, I am, in fact, a baby Baby Boomer. Still, I’m over fifty, if hugging the back side of fifty like a first-time skydiver hugs a parachute counts as over fifty. So I know a little bit about resources: Green stamps, plastic, and the theme songs to twenty years’ worth of situation comedies.
I’ve lived through hard times. As the youngest, I was the one who always had to do the antenna aerobics to get a good picture on the television. When Romper Room came on I had to hold the rabbit ears skyward like the staff of Moses, and I didn’t dare move until Miss Nancy put down her magic mirror. These days I automatically do arm rotations whenever the HDTV signal goes bad.
I remember a time when a tin foil plate full of tater tots and fried fish was a gourmet meal. When you had to wait til the other people on your party line finished their conversation before you could use the telephone. When you had to wind the film in the camera before you could take another picture. Civilization was in its infancy.
Knowing something of this kind of hardship, Baby Boomers are wary of wasting resources. But as sure as the Beatle’s hit, “Hello Goodbye” is now an advertising jingle for Target, we’ve recycled enough resources to provide fertilizer for generations to come.
So the kids these days had better not pick on me. I know all the words to Green Acres.
And I’m not afraid to use them.
This week’s topic is “Are We Wasting the Resources of our Elders?” and while I stumbled on the topic late, I still managed to come up with an opinion. Those of you who know me well will not be surprised. You may sigh deeply, roll your eyes, and catch the latest episode of Lost, but you're not surprised.
As one of the youngest of the generation that knows all about life and has tried it on like a clearance rack sweater, I am, in fact, a baby Baby Boomer. Still, I’m over fifty, if hugging the back side of fifty like a first-time skydiver hugs a parachute counts as over fifty. So I know a little bit about resources: Green stamps, plastic, and the theme songs to twenty years’ worth of situation comedies.
I’ve lived through hard times. As the youngest, I was the one who always had to do the antenna aerobics to get a good picture on the television. When Romper Room came on I had to hold the rabbit ears skyward like the staff of Moses, and I didn’t dare move until Miss Nancy put down her magic mirror. These days I automatically do arm rotations whenever the HDTV signal goes bad.
I remember a time when a tin foil plate full of tater tots and fried fish was a gourmet meal. When you had to wait til the other people on your party line finished their conversation before you could use the telephone. When you had to wind the film in the camera before you could take another picture. Civilization was in its infancy.
Knowing something of this kind of hardship, Baby Boomers are wary of wasting resources. But as sure as the Beatle’s hit, “Hello Goodbye” is now an advertising jingle for Target, we’ve recycled enough resources to provide fertilizer for generations to come.
So the kids these days had better not pick on me. I know all the words to Green Acres.
And I’m not afraid to use them.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Hornworms and Holes-in-One
Gardening is something I try every year to see if I still don’t like it--sort of like creamed spinach, white shoes, or televised golf. I know there are plenty of folks hanging on the edge of their recliner to see if Tiger Woods sinks that putt, but all I can see is a hundred acres, give or take a few azaleas, of lush green grass tended lovingly by a sea of gardeners for a bunch of guys that are only interested in the spot where the hole is.
Now it’s spring again, when a young lady’s fancy turns to thoughts of fertilizer, and in my mind’s eye I find myself once again nurturing a tiny tomato into full sandwich potential. Of course, my mind’s eye could benefit from the attentions of an optometrist, since it’s a recorded fact that I couldn’t grow ragweed with a bucket of mulch, six gallons of spring water, and the latest edition of the Farmer’s Almanac. But always the optimist, I am willing to spread a little Miracle Gro on the situation and give it the old compost try.
My problem is that I don’t have the necessary tools to garden properly. For instance, I need dirt. You would think that your basic dirt would pretty much come with the territory. But you have to have PH balanced dirt or dirt with Lyme disease or some such thing. What I have here in the southern United States is an amazing substance known as red clay. Red clay is a dirt substitute that comes in several forms; most notably copper-colored dust when completely dry, and copper-colored quicksand when wet. You can find it in large quantities on the sides of pickup trucks, the bottoms of children’s socks, or sunning itself in areas where grass is supposed to grow.
The other essential item I don’t have is water. The transportation of a tender seedling into my yard is a great way to ensure that all the water in the county will disappear into a sinkhole and a record-breaking drought will immediately seize the region, leaving nothing behind but dead worms and sunburned fish. It gives a whole new meaning to the term “dry county.”
“It’s amazing,” the anchorman on the news will say, drawing his brows together to show concern. “We haven’t had a drought like this since the last time Amy Mullis tried to grow a tomato plant. We’ve sent crews to investigate this breaking story.” And pretty soon helicopters will be circling my back yard like mosquitoes on barbecue night.
Every year about this time my sister arrives, dressed in root rot black, solemnly bearing the sacrificial tomato plant. She places it lovingly in a pot of expensive store-bought dirt that has been fortified with eight essential vitamins and minerals, not to mention the eleven herbs and spices, and leaves it to die. I don’t see why she just doesn’t just go ahead and throw the thing in the dumpster on the way over. It would save me the trouble of pulling the sticks out of the dirt brick come fall, an activity I like to call “harvesting.”
It’s not that I don’t intend to water the thing. The first day I check it diligently, cooing sweetly and testing for wetness like I’m growing a newborn baby on a vine, which would be an ideal way to have children if only they didn’t get root rot and hornworms.
Eventually I get distracted by important things like sugary snacks or why the Yankees have enough money to buy the International Space Station but won’t get a pitcher that’s not somebody’s grandfather and at least somebody’s grandfather than can hit the outside corner of the plate for goodness sakes, and forget to water the thing until it’s sending up tiny distress signals using the dust in the planter.
So this year as I pry the sickly remains of my nonproductive Big Boy out of the dust and slam it into the trash can with a single stroke, I can compare myself to Tiger Woods. We’re both good for a hole in one.
But I have to wonder how he deals with hornworms.
Now it’s spring again, when a young lady’s fancy turns to thoughts of fertilizer, and in my mind’s eye I find myself once again nurturing a tiny tomato into full sandwich potential. Of course, my mind’s eye could benefit from the attentions of an optometrist, since it’s a recorded fact that I couldn’t grow ragweed with a bucket of mulch, six gallons of spring water, and the latest edition of the Farmer’s Almanac. But always the optimist, I am willing to spread a little Miracle Gro on the situation and give it the old compost try.
My problem is that I don’t have the necessary tools to garden properly. For instance, I need dirt. You would think that your basic dirt would pretty much come with the territory. But you have to have PH balanced dirt or dirt with Lyme disease or some such thing. What I have here in the southern United States is an amazing substance known as red clay. Red clay is a dirt substitute that comes in several forms; most notably copper-colored dust when completely dry, and copper-colored quicksand when wet. You can find it in large quantities on the sides of pickup trucks, the bottoms of children’s socks, or sunning itself in areas where grass is supposed to grow.
The other essential item I don’t have is water. The transportation of a tender seedling into my yard is a great way to ensure that all the water in the county will disappear into a sinkhole and a record-breaking drought will immediately seize the region, leaving nothing behind but dead worms and sunburned fish. It gives a whole new meaning to the term “dry county.”
“It’s amazing,” the anchorman on the news will say, drawing his brows together to show concern. “We haven’t had a drought like this since the last time Amy Mullis tried to grow a tomato plant. We’ve sent crews to investigate this breaking story.” And pretty soon helicopters will be circling my back yard like mosquitoes on barbecue night.
Every year about this time my sister arrives, dressed in root rot black, solemnly bearing the sacrificial tomato plant. She places it lovingly in a pot of expensive store-bought dirt that has been fortified with eight essential vitamins and minerals, not to mention the eleven herbs and spices, and leaves it to die. I don’t see why she just doesn’t just go ahead and throw the thing in the dumpster on the way over. It would save me the trouble of pulling the sticks out of the dirt brick come fall, an activity I like to call “harvesting.”
It’s not that I don’t intend to water the thing. The first day I check it diligently, cooing sweetly and testing for wetness like I’m growing a newborn baby on a vine, which would be an ideal way to have children if only they didn’t get root rot and hornworms.
Eventually I get distracted by important things like sugary snacks or why the Yankees have enough money to buy the International Space Station but won’t get a pitcher that’s not somebody’s grandfather and at least somebody’s grandfather than can hit the outside corner of the plate for goodness sakes, and forget to water the thing until it’s sending up tiny distress signals using the dust in the planter.
So this year as I pry the sickly remains of my nonproductive Big Boy out of the dust and slam it into the trash can with a single stroke, I can compare myself to Tiger Woods. We’re both good for a hole in one.
But I have to wonder how he deals with hornworms.
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