It's not a metaphor for life.
This summer marks the third summer in a row I will be stateside; moreover I will spend the entire summer recovering from ankle surgery. The prospects aren't good for a successful summer. Therefore I mapped out the things I love about Europe and life that are absent in my American life. When I think of bliss I think of Montmarte on a summer day. Cliche, I know. Even calling it cliche is cliche. But I imagine a sunny, white-walled apartment with flowers and cat on the deck, overlooking a small neighborhood street lined with cafes and outdoor seating. I imagine a baguette and bruschetta on the table and espresso or red wine in my hand. (Probably espresso since the time is early morning, but if I can't drink red wine at 10 am in my fantasy when can I? I surely wouldn't be eating bruschetta at 10 am... so on second thought we will move the time to 11:30 or 12 and I will have wine thank you very much.) Music floats through the room, there's an open book on the table, and somehow in the midst of all this bliss I've found time to write.
Where does Dunkin' Donuts fit in? Watch:
I set out on my 10 step plan for a European Humboldt Park summer of domestic, one-footed bliss.
Step #1: Sunny white-walled apartment. The living room is mostly white except for that one mint wall...close enough.
Step #2: Flowers.
 |
| Pre Wildflower Genocide |
I plant enough seeds in each pot so I could transplant some later on (30-50 per pot). -Mistake 1- Within 2 weeks all the plants (except strawberries which suffered a terrible fate) were sprouting seedlings. Lots and lots of seedlings. My cilantro now looks like grass. There will be a genocide of cilantro when I decide which plant should live and thin the rest. I had no idea that thinning didn't mean transplanting when I started, so when my cilantro begins to look like my parent's overrun weed garden I decide it is time to move some plants -Mistake 2- over so I can have two pots of each herb going all summer.
I start with wildflowers, sagely, as those were always the least practical plant in my container garden. I do as told on You Tube, watering them an hour before transplanting, tap the pot, and then VOILA dumped them out. (Let's call these -Mistakes 3 and 4 collectively-.)
No root ball....uh-oh....(No shit no root ball these are no more than tiny little bean sprouts- you know the kind you put on your sandwich? Dipshit. ) Previously, when you asked what happened to the wildflowers I may have told you it was the cat. I lied. I happened to the wildflowers.
After half an hour of desperately sticking little sprouts back into the pot and planting some new seeds since the rest are going to die, I decide against transplanting any more plants. I make some new pots with the new Miracle Gro soil that weirds me out and is NOT a part of my French fantasy and put all pots on the deck. Four days later I have one live wildflower seedling.
-Mistake 5- is not my fault, but fate. I wake and it is pouring rain. The boyfriend, who I could usually get to rescue the pots, is working OT and I have no one (save cat) to help me bring in the new plants as it torrentially downpours. I decide plastic bags are going to be the best I can do on one foot, and I finally hop over to the door to see little seedling carcasses floating in a puddle of death in the wildflower pot. I hop out in the rain (surgery dressing, pajamas, and all!) to rescue the plants but (-Mistake 6-) the deck is flooding. If you put your compost bucket (which is not compost yet but just watermelon rinds and mildew) on top of the drainage pipe to keep the cat from escaping to certain doom to the alley below through the drainage pipe, the roof will flood.
I get the water gushing off the roof (thankful the building below is currently unoccupied as I can't be accused of any resultant water damage) and rescue the struggling oregano and preserve the dignity of the wildflowers. Each plant gets its own happy hat of plastic bag and the wildflowers are pushed under the deck in a dunkin donuts bag. I hop inside, smearing mud all over the walls, but content that my flowers are rescued.
The sun comes out a few hours later and I hop back outside to unhat my happy little plants (-Mistake 7 as it is sun-showering.) By the time I come home from work it is chucking buckets again and I am back out in the rain on one foot and the wildflowers go back under the deck where they have been for two days until I see a clear blue sky (-Mistake 8-? CO2?)
They never even made it to seedlings, so I won't bother telling you what happened to the tomato seeds, because I don't know. Needless to say I won't be getting tomatoes this summer. Not even the fast sprout hybrid (wait did that say fast sprout or no sprout?).
So what's the lesson? Besides call my friend the gardener before any more gardening disasters? There's always a grand conclusion, especially if it involves a Mississippi-sized flood on the back roof.
The lesson: I'm writing about it. I've spent 50 dollars on soil and seeds and planter kits and all I've got are dirty garbage bags on the back porch and mud on my little shoe the doctor gave me for my healing foot. I have 8 Mistakes, but I've got step 2 of Christine's road to happiness: "flowers and cat on the deck." Does it matter that because of cat the deck flooded and the flowers are dead? I will keep you posted as I decide.
