My 3 year old came home from daycare appalled because a kid in their class had said a bad word.
I asked what the word was.
“I can’t tell you. It’s a Bad Word.” (Big ol’ eye roll. My child. It had already started.)
I said “I’m not setting you up to get in trouble. And you aren’t saying the bad word if you are just telling it to me. It’s OK. I promise.”
“It was the S word.”
“He said ‘shit’?”
“No-o-o. He said (deep breath and portentous pronouncement} ‘Shut. Up.'”
Category: family
And then there are the plants
I really love flowers. And I love planting things that come back the next year. It’s kind of a running joke how proud I am to come back from a trip to Lowe’s without bringing another plant with me.
A fond memory of my mother is a tiny garden she planted when I was little. I don’t even remember how old I was. There were marigolds and radishes in a little space beside the driveway. I remember trying to eat the radishes in salad and thinking they tasted like hot dirt. (I still don’t care for them.) And I remember her showing me how the marigolds had made seeds we could save to plant the next year. I’m not sure that happened. We may have moved.
I reminded her of that recently and she didn’t remember the marigolds. She said she did remember the radishes and wasn’t sure why she planted them because she never liked the taste.
When I bought this house, I thought “there is no reason for me to have house plants or pots on the deck with this much yard.” Then, Chuck moved in with his small collection of apartment plants and it was Kitty-bar-the-door.
So, there is a yard of grass, all sorts of flowering things, fruit trees and berry bushes. And pots on nearly every flat surface in the house.
I have 4 colors of Xmas cactus! Who needs that? But, I can’t choose one to get rid of because I think they’re all lovely.
Once I started planting fruit trees, I learned that it only takes five to make an orchard. I have 2 grafted Arkansas Black apple trees, 2 peaches I started from seeds, a “self pollinating” pear tree we have never gotten any fruit from and a plum and a sour cherry we think may be dead. Also, we have hazelnuts and blueberries galore.
The blueberries were so prolific this year that Chuck put fresh ones in his morning shake all season, I made 3 pies and we have a gallon in the freezer to make a pie at the solstice. (I made tomato pie for the last 3 years. But, our tomatoes weren’t as enthusiastic this year. It amuses me to make a dish with summer produce at the solstice. My little “bring back the sun” effort.)
A lot of the flowers in my yard are reminders of particular people.
My dad liked the Mexican evening primroses and the crepe myrtles I put in when I bought the house. And he was a fan of bonsai. So, he is in my mind when I work on my trees. My mother’s favorite flower is peonies. (She even had them in her wedding.) My maternal grandmother was fond of irises and always had hollyhocks growing by the pasture fence. My paternal grandmother always planted petunias and loved gardenias.
Chuck asked for chrysanthemums, picked out particular trees and planted the hazelnuts.
My cousin, Missy, sent me a basket that had an African violet in it after I had surgery. So, they always make me think of her even though that one eventually died and I replaced it with a different color.
I got the bat flower because my kid thought I needed it.
A particular friend turned me on to the joys of zinnias. A friend gave me a bear’s breeches, some salvia and a mammoth calla lily. Another friend gave me a dogwood tree. I have a particular iris because I took a stained glass class with a friend and traded with a classmate. A couple of other irises were gifts from particular people and those friends always come to mind when the flowers bloom. Another friend grows tea. The yucca and 2 irises were gifts from a coworker. Lavender puts me in mind of an old boyfriend and a German woman I met online. The black elephant ear was a gift and puts me in mind of the road trip to her house and the people who were gathered there. Hellebores came in when a beekeeper was clearing out his paths from volunteers that were creeping out of the bed he has.
All that to say that it isn’t just a yard and stuff in pots. It’s memories.
The party’s over
My great aunt famously stood on the stairs of her sister’s house when a party went on too long and said “Come on, Bill. Let’s you and I go to bed so these nice people can go home.”
Lena and her sister, Della, were best friends and absolute characters. Bill was Della’s husband and Lena was leaving her sister to lock up since the party was at their house.
Later, after Bill died, Della moved in with Lena and her husband until her dementia required moving her to a care facility. She stayed gracious and entertaining, even though her short term memory crumbled away.
Lena was a competitive bridge player and was packed to go to a tournament when she simply did not wake up one morning.
8 October 1982
That spate of lunacy is over.
We’ve decided we really just prefer to live here.
#notmoving
No Context
My husband has always debated with himself about what to do with the photos he takes. They are mostly for himself. But, he would like to share with people who have a similar esthetic. He decided to create a zine, more for his own entertainment than anything. A project for his amusement. He had a copy in his backpack when he went into The Concern newsstand in Chapel Hill and, after some conversation, showed it to the person running it. She asked to sell it. And she has asked for more copies. He is astonished.
https://www.theconcernnewsstand.com/shop/no-context-zine-by-chuck-cunningham
Sawyer and the cherries.
There was a meme on FaceBook about cutting grapes so little kids don’t choke on them and it put me in mind of a story. I don’t know if it will amuse anyone but my nephew and me. But, remembering makes me chuckle.
When my youngest nephew was 3 or 4 years old, we were visiting my parents. He was (and is) a delightful person. But, at that time, he really didn’t talk much. He was one of those kids who used expressions instead of his vocal cords. You can know that, when he finally decided to talk, it was Katie-bar-the-door.
My mother got out a bowl of fresh cherries for us to nibble on while we chatted. Of course the youngest child in the room was all about the fresh fruit and I saw him pop one in his mouth. I made him spit it out. I think he had a second of debating whether to bite me after he did it. But, he did. I picked it out of my hand, showing it to him, and split it open, showing him the pit and removing it. His face said “Oh! I didn’t know that was in there.” I handed him the pitted cherry and he very happily pulverized it.
So, we sat there sharing the cherries. I think I got one for ever 2 or 3 he ate. Whatever.
When we were about 2/3 of the way through the bowl, his mother looked up and said “Did he just eat a cherry? Those have pits! Spit that out!”
He rolled his eyes to me. WithOUT spitting out the cherry. (He still uses that expression. 15 years later) I showed her my collection of pits and said “We’ve got this.” And she left us to it.
I think that is probably the real beginning of our relationship.
A change of taste
25 years ago, Offspring wanted to share some too-sweet-to-bear candy with me, saying “You loved this when you were little!” And I had to say, “But, that was then and this is now. It’s too sweet for me now.”
A week later, I stumbled on a sciency article about taste. It said we effectively have new taste buds every 5 years, give or take a little bit. So, we talked about that and the candy.
To my great delight, since then they have been willing to try stuff they didn’t like before if it had been 5 years since the last attempt. Sometimes the response has been “Nope. Still don’t like it.” But, sometimes, it’s been “This isn’t as bad as I remember.” or (even better) “Oh! Wow! This is good!”
Language
How humans learn language is fascinating to me. And getting to watch a new brain learn it was wonderful.
When my child was learning to read, they came home from school one day and said, “My teacher doesn’t know how to spell ‘juice’. How weird is that? She ends with an E That makes the vowels long.”
I asked how she spelled it. J-U-I-C-E.
“How did you think it was spelled?” D-J-O-O-S.
“Interesting. And I understand how you thought that. But, she’s correct. It’s one of those ways English is weird.”
“Huh. I’ve been saying it wrong all along.”
Only child
When they were about 12, they requested a little sister.
Kitty: “I’m not married.”
Offspring: “Even *I* know that’s not required.”
K: “But, it’s easier with 2 parents.”
O: “I’m old enough to help out. “
K: “She would want to play with your toys.”
O: “I would tell her to stay out of my room.”
K: “Yeah? How well does that work with you staying out of my room?”
O: “Never mind. We’re good.”
The neighbors may have heard me laughing.
I love them so much
My child is non-binary, using they/them. I find they/them easier to use about the adult. When I talk about the child, I still think of the child I knew. When I talk about the child, I’m more likely to slip. I have known that gender dissonance has been part of their way of being since HS. (Didn’t know the name for it, then.) And, truthfully, there seem to have been inklings before that which I didn’t recognize.
They had me come in to a conference with the HS social worker to come out to me as bisexual. I said “And? What else?” “Uh. That’s all.” “Is there “That’s all? I had to come school for this?” The social worker was clearly expecting something else from me.
I think that, as much as the 2 of us have striven to be clear and honest and to have healthy communication , we sometimes have used the Mother and Child boxes on each other.
My child is a Millennial and suffers all the struggles that seem to be rife in that cohort. Depression and anxiety being significant. But, they, also, have the freedom of thought that comes from growing up in the post-hippy era. It makes me sad that they don’t seem to see the benefit of that.
I am the Audience 