A Happy Mango Move

Puppy has a new spot.  She's moved from my balcony to my office.  She has responded by putting out new leaves and growing.  She's a beauty, I gotta tell ya.  We're both happy in our new space.  For one thing, I have actual WINDOWS in my office, a vast improvement over the cubicle farm at the last space.  I have vastly underrated the delight of natural light in the office.  I valued it, don't get me wrong, but feel so much more relaxed and in touch with the natural world, even though my windows look out over a parking lot, there are lovely green bushes outside and trees fill my line of sight.  Blue skies, clouds over head...I think this is helping my circadian rhythm get back in sync. 

It makes me happy to see Puppy thriving in her new environment, and my office mates are delighted to see her again and amazed at her growth.

It's so exciting, I may do this again...and again...and again.  I love growing things from seed, or taking the root end of celery or leeks and planting and watching them grow again.  Leeks, however, should not be grown inside as they will stink up the place, just so ya know.

Just an aside, did you know dogs LOVE verbena?  It's like catnip to cats!  You can't keep them away from it, so you better keep the verbena from them!

Hey, out there in bloggerland, anybody got a good (safe, natural) way to rid the house of little flying pests?  They are about the size of fruit flies or a bit bigger.  We live in hot, muggy Northern Virginia, and this time of year they always seem to show up.  I don't like to kill things, but these things creep me out!

Tax day.

It's that time again. Each year, after many hours of fussing, cussing, calculating, stomping and storming, turbo tax tells us how much of the money we earn is actually ours. Some politicians would claim we are wealthy, but their standards of what makes a person wealthy change as they try to see how much blood this turnip can actually produce. It's vile and disgusting. These two"wealthy" people rarely take vacations, have to budget to be able to fix my 8 year old vehicle, and sometimes the Ollie grocery budget gets stretched pretty thin. Then uncle Sam tells us that we aren't donating enough to the cause. Tea anyone?

Chocolate Chai

I couldn’t seem to get my socks onto my feet this morning and while I was standing in the laundry room in my underwear waiting for the wrinkles to steam out of my pants I found a hole in my favorite dish cloth, knitted for my by a friend from back home. And I couldn’t find my to go tumbler, so I had to use the one with the crack in the lid and I missed my light by 30 seconds and had to wait through the world’s longest traffic light and got to work and someone was in my parking spot, and I made a mistake on the contract I was working on and totally had to re-do it. And the stack of work waiting for me is so high I had to break it into three stacks and now I can’t find anything. 

And I had a doctor appointment this morning where a new doctor sprayed stuff up my nose and ran a scope and made me sneeze all over him, which was totally gross.  Then I was forced to watch videos of my sinuses which is like watching a totally gross sci-fi movie but without the cool spaceships or Mr. Spock, and then he explained what was wrong with the surgery I had done years ago and why I needed a new surgery to fix what the old surgery didn’t, and showed me where the old doc removed bone and TOTALLY DIDN’T TELL ME, (no wonder it hurt so bad.) And he explained the new surgery and then I found out why the outstanding bill is accurate and has to be paid before scheduling surgery (which is totally fine but I don’t understand why my husband thought it was wrong). 

My face hurts from the sinus pain, or maybe from the scope, I don’t know, and it totally depresses me to see all the gunk hanging around in my nose and sinuses and to have strangers poking around in there, so on the way back to work I stopped for a Soy Chocolate Chai Tea Latte, which is so totally awesome and I love it so much that I think I’ll have it’s baby.

So now I almost don’t care that I forgot my new password (which was the best password ever) and may never be able to order from Amazon again.

I may have had too much caffeine.  No, really.

Puppy has a new home

I finished my essay exam for British Lit, the romantics through modernism, and then re-potted Puppy in her new home. Lovely new soil for a lovely girl.  Housewarming gifts are not required.

House Shopping

Where do you shop for a new home for a mango tree?  Home Depot, of course!  Ba-dum-pum.

So anyway...I went shopping for a new home for Puppy last night.  It's not exactly the season for home shopping...apparently spring and summer are the primary seasons for that, so the shelves were picked through.  I really didn't want a fixer-upper, so the damaged ones where outta there, and painting a glazed pot is a challenge, and being that it's fall, the leftovers are often the colors that someone thought would be great but turned out to be ugly, so...no.  Plus, this home has to be outside when it's nice and inside when it's cooler, so it can't clash with the décor.

I spent more than I wanted to (who doesn't when you're shopping for a home?), but I wound up with a subtle and pretty off-white glazed pot with room for Puppy to grow.  The pig pot is awesome, but it's pretty small.

While I'm at it, I decided to get some new soil for Puppy.  I don't like how the last bit I bought has settled.  Potting soil shouldn't look like mud.  If it does there's not enough organic material in there, right?  So, while I'm afraid Puppy might go into shock, I'm going to give her new soil in her new home.

The timing is another worrying part.  She's been putting out new leaves.  I don't want to interrupt her growth, and it's true that I really don't know that much about growing mangos, but it's an experiment.  I may have to find someone with a greenhouse in a few years, but hopefully by then I'll have my own. 

I'll be sure to take pictures once I move Puppy to her new home, you know, before she has a chance to go into shock and look sad and pathetic.  Maybe this weekend, after I take my British Lit final.

New Growth

Yesterday was a sad day for our nation as we remembered the attacks of 9/11. A heaviness lay on many of us all day.  It was palpable, at least in my office.  Things were somber. It soothed me to go out on the balcony and note that Puppy is putting out new leaves.  Even in the remembrance of death and loss, life goes on. And this morning, the spikey plantings in front of the apartment had put up long shoots of purple flowers.

It's clearly fall, the tree at the end of the walkway (unknown species) is covered in luscious-looking ruby red berries. The trees have been host to mobs of birds all chattering to each other, hidden by the leaves, and suddenly by some signal I can't discern, the tree erupts with the beat of hundreds of pairs of wings, all lighting out at once only to land on another tree somewhere else and carry on the raucous conversation.

A bird flew around and around the balcony, checking the top of the post as if seeking out a nesting place, even though it is clearly the wrong time of year. Perhaps he was making note of it as a possibility for Spring nesting.  Do birds do that?  Do they have their own version of House Hunters International?

This activity cheers me, evidence of a world out there that is bigger and grander than our problems, that is far deeper than my own existence, or even that of my own country and her disputes around the world. The birds take no notice.  They have no passports, yet they cross borders without any hassle. The follow the seasons, leaving one hemisphere behind, always heading forward.

There are trees which have stood in this land since it's founding...perhaps longer! There are trees that witnessed my grandfather play as a child, though he passed more than 30 years ago. These trees have withstood wars and rumors of wars, and will withstand this.

You will forgive me if I take this as evidence of a God who is beyond, who is bigger and greater, and who takes delight in each sparrow, and sorrows with each loss, but is steady and abiding and present. I can't explain it, but I can sense it...that something else, something more, something greater.

A New Pot and Deeper Thoughts on Giving and Selfishness

Puppy is growing...soon, very soon, I think, she will need a new pot.  I am on the lookout for her new bed, and think I will give her some volcanic soil at the same time as a special treat.  Treat your pets well, I say.

And speaking of pets...I am really wanting a puppy of the canine variety.  We found one that really "spoke to" both of us, but the breeder wanted a whopping $1450 for her.  I cannot find it in me to spend anywhere near that kind of money for a dog.  There are children starving throughout the world, there are families who are barely surviving, people who cannot afford clean water...etc., etc.  I cannot do this thing.

I have no moral or ethical objection to it, this is a personal determination to try to use my relative wealth to help someone else.  This is not to be praised, it is an obligation I feel and a choice I make to love someone else in practical ways.  It does far more for me than it does for the children I support.  For me, it reminds me that I am richly blessed.  I am grateful to be able to do this thing and to care for little one's I have never met opens my heart to the plight of various parts of the world.  To help these children, not just eat, but to receive an education that should help them become self-sufficient and able to help their families and communities in ways I cannot, is a wonderful thing.  The cost is so little, it embarrasses me.  It should cost more, I think.  It should hurt, cause me to make choices, to deny myself something.  Something worthwhile, that is, not a few cups of coffee each month, or a magazine subscription.  Ah, my heart, I fear, does not love enough for more profound sacrifice.  I wish it did.  My sin in this is a lack of love and a love of self that must be turned away from.  Lord have mercy!