sweet ivy

13 march 2020, word came down from the CEO's office that we'd indefinitely be remote workers. 

14 march 2020, a saturday, i went to the office to grab some things i needed. almost as an afterthought, i took my plant, sweet ivy. i was convinced we'd be back in the office real soon, but you know, just in case...

i can't remember who gave me the sprig that i first stuck in a pot of dirt, and i can't even remember when that was. alls i know is sweet ivy has kept me company in several different offices across two different buildings. she's been on the top floor and in the basement and in between. she's had natural light and fake light and practically no light. she can go a long time without water, but is consistently thankful to get some. she has always lived in the same white plastic pot tucked into an admittedly somewhat pricey-for-the-situation "m hadley" cereal bowl. 

so i brought her home and she's been just fine until a week or 10 days ago. she sort of started to droop, so i watered her, but it didn't help. i put her outside when the weather allowed, but it didn't help. some of her leaves were turning a sickly yellow-brown, and she had developed a serious case of the droops.

so today i repotted her. the soil was pretty musty, and the pot and bowl were stained and looking sad. despite its supposed value, i threw away the bowl along with the plastic pot, and it was oddly freeing. i took the musty soil to the back of the yard in case it was diseased or something. 

sweet ivy shed the old dirt like taylor swift sheds boyfriends -- just dropped it off and didn't look back. ivy roots are naturally shallow, so there isn't much to her hidden parts. i tucked her into some clean, rich, store-bought soil in a freshly rinsed terra cotta pot, and gave her a small drink of water. 

time will tell. send your loving thoughts sweet ivy's way. 

longer

when i was a sophomore in high school, i received for christmas an alarm clock radio, among other things. on the first morning of school after christmas break, the alarm went off to dan fogelberg's "longer". it was the first time i had heard the song and my first thought was: welcome to the world of knowing about the music the rest of the world (i.e. my classmates) are listening to, ya giant dork. my next thought was: wow, excellent song. and so, longer than there've been fishes in the ocean, that song will have a special place in my heart.

that clock radio saw me thru the remaining years of high school and on through college. 8 o'clock classes were no match for my trusty alarm. i got a radio station sticker from somewhere and damned if i know where i got it or, at this point, what station it was. i stuck that sticker and a small red heart on him, and that was it, that was enough. he's cute but not fancy. 

he rolled on & on for many years after college, but time passed and his volume & tuner got glitchy and we'd wake to blaring or static or blaring static. a crew originally from honduras painted our house one summer and they asked if they could have him. ah, sure. what the heck. go, fly, and be free! 

i miss him, but i like to imagine he's raucously blaring static-infused tejana on demand, ad infinitum... longer than...

Longer by Dan Fogelberg. https://www.shazam.com/track/5586628/longer

in the zone

the bomb fell in the earthquake zone

and the water rose so fast

that all the people were alone

when jesus floated past. 

delicious tea and a sense of whimsy

we got really into tea a few years ago. really into. a kettle and tea bags and leaves and a box to store it and a teapot to brew it. i've not yet used the teapot altho i have used the hell outta the kettle. 

not really sure why i bought so many teas... the only one i really like is called constant comment. it's a type of spice tea made by the bigelow tea company. it comes in black and green, and used to be i could only find the green on trips to NYC but now it is of course available from amazon, the killer of all adventure and whimsy. 

bigelow is a family owned tea company, in business for 75 years, with constant comment being the flagship product. from the company's website:

"In 1945, inspired by an Early Colonial recipe, Ruth Campbell Bigelow disappeared into her New York brownstone kitchen to create a better cup of tea."

they sell all sorts of gifts off their website including a nicely engraved wooden tea chest and, for this one i'd take an adult M, the bigelow tea shirt.

delicious tea and a sense of whimsy. what's not to love?

pet peeve #389

it is entirely possible that i have mentioned this before; however... it's no less true for the repetition. 

it peeves the hell outta me when fiction authors give two main characters names beginning with the same letter. 

i mean, come ON. these are made up people with made up names. go ahead and splurge on ANOTHER LETTER. there are literally 26 to choose from. 

the book i am currently reading has two L named women. i have just started it, so i don't know enough about Libby to tell her from Lucy, or Lucy from Libby. 

did you see that? uh-huh, that's right - L startings and Y endings. 

OH MY GOD.

making your way in the world today takes everything you've got

well, you know how it goes. you commit yourself to something and you let yourself down, over and over again, and then you die. speaking of which...

21 months ago, we took in an elderly relative. she was NOT in good shape - cracked neck in a brace, oxygen machine on 24x7, feeble, etc. we frankly did not give her more than six months. however, she recovered from those ailments along with many minor illnesses, kicked the O2 habit, got stronger, ate well, slept well, had some overnight adventures to the homes of other relatives, and generally hung in there for 20 months. still, she spent a lot of time just sitting and watching the telly. she'd complain at night that she was sore, and i'd say - what, from your all day long of doing nothing? and she'd laugh, and agree, and then nearly every single night, she would commit to doing better. "i'll walk more, tomorrow." "i will drink more water, tomorrow." "i will go to bed earlier, tomorrow." "i will eat more fruit, tomorrow." 

she eventually ran out of tomorrows, as we all have done, are doing, and will do.

so here i am back again. recommitting to writing a little something every day. 

day 1: mission accomplished. 

cheers.