Wordless Wednesday: Asparagus

The Lamest Post in the History of Forever

Allow me to complain. I don't do it all that often. But considering that we just had a three day weekend, I feel robbed.

Saturday got taken up by a work-related memorial service, in the city - one of those events at which one's attendance feels mandatory rather than heart-felt. She was a lovely woman, and important to our organization in many ways over a long period of time, but I barely knew her, and would rather have been almost anywhere else at 11:00 on Saturday morning.

Sunday, we went for a bike ride, en famille. At what should have been the mid-point, I fell off my bike. I wasn't even riding! I'd stopped, waiting for my people, and in the process of dismounting, I caught my leg on the rear tire and went down, smash, on my tuchus. I swear, I thought I'd broken my coccyx, so much so that my husband took me to the ER where they shot me up with morphine and x-rayed me. Luckily it's not broken, but as the nice doctor pointed out, that means two weeks of pain instead of six weeks. Joy. I spent the rest of the weekend doped up on Percocet, reading and napping.

I did stagger out to the Memorial Day parade, briefly, and managed to miss two of the three dignitaries as they went by. I did wave frantically at the Secretary of State; I don't think she saw me though.

The worst bit about this damned injury is that on Thursday I have to get in the car and drive for four hours. I think I'll take my husband's car, because his isn't a stick shift, but still - not exactly looking forward to it.

Maybe it won't be so bad; I did make it to work today.

Okay. I'm not going to complain anymore.

Oh, except that this inability to move is going to interfere with my Couch to 5K training - of which I'd only gotten through the first week.

Argh.

No more lame posts. I promise.

(Maybe.)

Wedding Chicken

The bits and bobs surfacing as we clean out our mother's house are mindboggling in their breadth. Just last weekend, I brought home a copper asparagus pot and my junior high school jumpsuit. We found the box of clock bits that Moky had glommed onto when a neighbor's house was emptied - it wasn't that Moky was going to fix any clocks, she just didn't want the gears and springs going in a dumpster. Some crazy karma thing made me take the clock bits home, but I promptly located a clockmaker in my county who came and picked them up - they've moved on to a place where they may actually be of use. [And the guy gave us a Kit Kat Clock in return, even though I specifically said I didn't want any money.]

Up in my bedroom, hanging off the pier glass, were the crown of thyme and bouquet of lavender that had been my floral adornment for my wedding. They were dried out, scentless and shedding - because they were nearly 17 years old - but I popped them in a plastic bag. You can't just throw away your wedding bouquet, can you?

Happily, my husband was planning to grill some chicken for dinner. Happily, he agreed that the right send off for the thyme and lavender was as grill seasoning. Happily, the chicken was delicious, and the thyme and lavender actually came through with some flavor lo these 17 years later.

Me, I ate my wedding bouquet. You?

Cultural Icon

Back in the day, junior high school that is, we had to wear gym suits - at least the girls did. I'd forgotten all about my gym suit, until - of course - it turned up in a box at my mother's house. Of course, I brought it home for the girlie.



She put it right on, and I'll be damned but the thing fits her perfectly which just doesn't make any sense given that she's in third grade and I wore it in seventh, eighth and ninth grades. Great mysteries of life. She then threatened to wear it to school; I dissuaded her. [She also pointed out that it doesn't really fit her; it's got boob darts and she's got no boobs.]

It looks a little like Rosie the Riveter's jumpsuit, it's made out of some unfaded perma-magic everlasting fabric, and my name is tidily embroidered in script - needlework by Moky.

Is there a gym suit museum somewhere?

Double Exposure

Remember that she learned to ride her bike? Here's evidence - complete with an inadvertent multiple exposure, which I like, it gives it motion.

Elected Office...Not.

So yesterday was the local school and library voting - budgets and board members. For some reason, no one ran for library board. As I was entering the high school gym to vote, I ran into the editor of the local paper, and I asked her why no one was running. She lit up and said "write yourself in". So I did.

This morning, I woke up to an email from said editor, subject line reading:

You and Bill Clinton got same number of votes!

Out of 62 write-in votes, I got two, Bill got two, and the winner got 34. So, I lost the race, but I'm totally tickled by the results.

My Mother In My Garden

I spent a good chunk of time in the garden on Sunday. I had flowers to pot up for the front steps, and plants gotten at the garden club sale to put in the ground. There was a bleeding heart that was eating a corner of the perennial bed, a bleeding heart so big it had collapsed of its own sheer exuberance (abetted by a heavy rain). Even though it was still kind of in full bloom, I heartlessly dug it up and divided it in half. Here's hoping it survives. I impaled myself trying to prune the flowering quince, getting intractable thorns stuck in both hands. By the time I was done, I was filthy and sore, and oh so very pleased with myself.

It's impossible for me to work in the garden without thinking of my mother. Hers was her joy. A chore, to be sure, but a joy. She was ever shuffling hosta; I do the same. Her plants are scattered through my yard - hosta, astilbe, sedum - and solomon's seal running up along the front steps.



The sign was hers, bought in France, brought home and mounted on a bit of plywood. It faded terribly, its white letters all chalked off a few years after she got it. But she loved it so, and so painstakingly repainted all the little letters. You can't tell from a distance, but up close? It bears her brushmarks. And I think that's a bit of her standard issue hosta in the lower right hand corner.



It amuses me no end to have her sign living in my own garden. Little children are particularly perplexed, because (as yet) none of them speak French. If you come visit, you're not allowed pick the mushrooms (we've only toadstools), but I might send you home with a piece of hosta.