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The Accidental Garden

5/26/2016

Gourds or cukes? Stay tuned 60 days from now, when we find out!

I plant a vegetable garden every year. It takes me back to happy memories of my childhood, when I would watch Mom plant and water and hoe and weed, while my sister and I followed behind her, eating string beans off the bush and making remarks like “Gee, Mom looks tired.”

Now that I’m an adult, karma has essentially bitten me in the butt. I’m the one planting and hoeing and weeding, while Jason makes comments on my haggard appearance. (In all fairness, he does rototill the garden every spring, though I suspect if I had the upper arm strength to control the tiller, I’d be doing that, too.) But this year, I would have my revenge.

You see, I’ve been sick lately. I’m not going to go into detail, but suffice to say I’ve been tired, dizzy, and generally miserable. I could help with the planting, sure, but there was no way I could do it all myself this year. Jason would have to put the garden in, while I “supervised.” (I could hear myself already: “Boy, that looks like hard work! You sure do look tired.”)

We went out to the tilled patch to map things out. I had grand designs for corn, potatoes, green beans, pumpkins . . . I was even debating putting in zucchini, even though I hate the darn things. But if I wasn’t planting, I was all for it.

“What’s this?” Jason said, toeing a sprout that had pushed through the dirt.

I bent down for a closer look. “I think—it looks like a cucumber.”

“There’s more over here,” Jason said. “And something else, too.”

See, here’s the thing about my personal gardening cycle: I start out every spring ambitious as all get-out, planting and weeding and fertilizing and playing soothing music for the plants. (I have found, over the years, that James Taylor is wildly popular with most any budding vegetable.) Then, by mid-July, it’s hot, my knees ache, and I don’t care so much any more. By the end of August, the weeds have taken over, and it’s pretty much a game of hide-and-seek at that point, trying to find the ripening veggies. We were undoubtedly looking at new sprouts that had risen from the rotted remains of the vegetables that had hidden a little too well last year.

A quick survey showed that we had onions, potatoes, green beans, cucumbers (or possibly gourds), and zucchini already growing. “How can that be? I didn’t plant zucchini last year,” I grumbled.

“Didn’t one of the girls at work give you a zucchini last year? And you pitched it in the back yard?”

“Yes,” I snapped.

Jason shrugged. He strolled over to one corner, made a couple of hills, stuck some pumpkin seeds in, and brushed his hands off on his jeans. He was done planting the garden.

I was mad. This wasn’t fair. Everything was already blooming. I was sick with rage . . . actually, no. I was still just plain sick. Sick, dizzy, and weak. I really shouldn’t have been outside at all.

“Boy,” Jason said. “You sure do look tired.”

Well played, karma. Well played.

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New York vs. Boston

5/20/2016

If you live in Connecticut as I do (and yes, your murmurs of sympathy are appreciated), you cannot go through life without having a favorite city. It is a requirement of all Connecticut residents that you must visit both New York and Boston before the age of twelve; otherwise, you lose the privilege of calling yourself an official Nutmegger. You’d think we wouldn’t care about losing this honor, but as it turns out, we wear our residency like a medal of courage: we’ve paid our outrageous taxes, endured October snowstorms that left the state without power for a week and summer thunderstorms that left the state without power for a week, and take pride in the fact that arguably, we’re best known as the birthplace of a debilitating tick-borne disease. My point is, before you even hit your teenage years, you’d better know which city you prefer: New York or Boston. Because you’ll be asked this very question any time you leave your house in our fair state. (I don’t mean “fair” as in “pretty.” I mean “fair” as in “meh.”)

So let’s look at the pros and cons. First off, let me knock distance right off the table, because both are about two hours away from central Connecticut. Also, people talking funny doesn’t count, because both cities have equally cringe-worthy accents. We need to dive a bit more deeply—to look at the important things. Like food. And baseball.

NEW YORK
Cons:
Garbage bags are left on the street, even on non-garbage day
Overcrowded
One time, a complete stranger stopped me on the sidewalk to tell me I was ugly (I was thirteen, and still have self-esteem issues to this day)
They think their food is better than everyone else’s, and it’s not
Another time, someone dumped their air-conditioner water on Jason and me when we were walking under their building
Life-threatening traffic to both drive through and walk near (sidewalks are not streets, New York!)
Overall rudeness

Pros:
Cool wax museum
Great deals on bootleg DVDs and illegal knockoff purses
The New York Yankees

Ooh! It looked like Boston was a shoo-in, until I pulled out the Yankees. Don’t underestimate the power of a winning baseball team (something you Boston folks are largely unfamiliar with. Occasional flukes don’t count.)

BOSTON
Cons:
Their snowstorms are often worse than ours, and ours are terrible
Bootleg DVDs and illegal knockoff purses ridiculously overpriced
The Boston Red Sox

Pros:
They think their food is better than everyone else’s, and it is
Bags of garbage blocking the sidewalk noticeably absent
JFK Presidential Library and Museum
Not once has a Bostonian stopped me on the street to point out the deficiencies in my appearance
Quincy Market
Specifically, clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl sold at Quincy Market
Can enter a crosswalk without worrying that your last will and testament might not be in order

I suppose it would’ve been easier to just tell you that Boston, by far, is my favorite city. It’s cleaner, the people are less mean, and Boston gave us the Kennedys. They have cobblestone streets and the best farmers’ markets and did I mention the food? Spanakopita and pastichio, culatello and handmade pappardelle . . . followed by dessert. My sister and I once gained seven pounds in just two hours in Boston, and it was worth every bite.

So that’s my answer, DMV clerk. Thanks for asking. Can I have my official Nutmegger residency card now?

New York Babe still wins, though.

My Peculiar Hobby

5/13/2016

People have hobbies. Some people knit. Some collect stamps (I don't know who—I've never met any philatelists myself, but I hear they exist, like leprechauns and unicorns), some paint, some read.
Wait. I read. That's a normal hobby, right?
Except that often, I read about murderers.

I've had this interest since my early teens. It waxes and wanes, and I go through periods where I can't bear to hear one more word about man's inhumanity against man. There's a limit to what I can take. It's the reason why I'm not a cop. (That, plus the physical and mental testing they put you through, and the being shot at part. I'm not that brave.) But I have, over the years, collected a lot of information on a lot of despicable people. I don't listen to the radio any more—I listen to true crime podcasts (I'm eight episodes in on season one of Serial—no spoilers, please) and watch Forensic Files. If I've already seen that particular episode of FF, I switch to FBI Files. Or a documentary on H.H. Holmes, or Ed Gein, or Albert Fish. In a pinch, there's always a new JFK assassination theory show to watch.

What I've never been able to quite grasp is how other people react to this interest of mine.

It's not something I do on purpose. But, say, if I'm having lunch at work with Sue and Jackie, and Sue mentions that the girl two tables over with the long, dark hair parted in the middle looks nice today, and I glance over and say (out loud—I need to work on that, I suspect), "She looks like one of Ted Bundy's victims," and then Jackie says, "Christ, I'm trying to eat here!"—that. That's the reaction that surprises me every time. I mean, whose mind doesn't go to Ted Bundy when they see long, dark hair parted in the middle?

According to Jackie: "Most people don't. Seriously. Eating here."

I've tried to curb this habit of spouting useless murder trivia. When Jackie said that she'd bought a new set of butcher knives on clearance, do you know how hard it was not to mention Andrei Chikatilo? (Hard, Jackie. It was hard.) Or when she brought up visiting Chicago, and I had to bite my lip in order not to ask her if she visited the scene of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre? Or when she wondered out loud what might have been happening in Benedict Canyon, say, on August 8, 1969? I did not mention Charles Manson even once. (Also, sometimes I think Jackie tries to bait me.)

I suppose I can talk about other things. I tried this one day at lunch. Jackie mentioned that the pulled pork sandwich she'd ordered tasted a little funny. I can talk about pork. My father used to raise pigs to slaughter on the farm. So I started talking about that process. I'm a writer, so I tried to be as descriptive as possible, mentioning the sounds, the smell . . .

"Guess what I started reading the other day?" Sue said, cutting me off. "The Stranger Beside Me. It's about Ted Bundy. Have you read it?" Have I read it? Have I read it? I glanced over at Jackie. It didn't look like she was eating any more of her pork, so I figured it was safe to talk.

I guess my point is this: I'm sorry I have weird interests. Maybe it's part of being a horror writer. And also, thank you to my friends and family. I'll try to wait until after lunch next time.

I honestly thought this podcast was family friendly until I downloaded this image just now.

Mom's Always Right

5/5/2016

Mother’s Day is Sunday, so of course, I’m going to write about my mom.

Again, you might think? To which I say: my blog. My mother. My rules. (Who am I kidding? From an early age, I knew one truth: my mother makes the rules.)

Ever since I was a toddler, running barefoot through the cow manure, my mother has told me what to do. Like how I shouldn’t run barefoot through cow manure, because you can get ringworm. Or hookworm. Something gross and parasitic and deterring enough to keep me in shoes. She told me to just try to go before we left the house, something I still do to this day. (When I got older, Mom finally told me the whole reasoning behind this advice: just try to go before you leave, because with as much coffee as we drink, we’ll inevitably have to go again before we even get to our destination.) She gave me advice on boys and friends and good books to read. When I was a teenager, I of course soundly ignored this advice, which is undoubtedly why I wound up friendless, dating a loser, and reading The Grapes of Wrath. I will go on the record now as saying I did not enjoy The Grapes of Wrath in the slightest. Not one word of it. See? It was a hard lesson to learn, but Mom was . . . right.

When I got to college, I found myself without my mother there every day to tell me how to live my life. My roommate was not so good at advising me to turn off General Hospital and get my paper written, or to avoid mushrooms, because apparently it’s a genetic predisposition handed down from mother to daughter that mushrooms can cause severe intestinal distress. Also, my roommate would never tell me I looked beautiful every morning, something my mother was also pretty good for. It was quite a culture shock.

I’ll admit that the newfound freedom was kind of nice. I could do whatever I wanted (within reason—I wasn’t robbing banks or killing people. My mother raised me better then that). I could—I could do—whatever . . . I . . . wanted.

I had no idea what I wanted to do.

So I called Mom. “I have to pick a major,” I said. “What do I choose?”

And in one of the single most fabulous moments in our relationship, she told me. “I’m not going to tell you what your major should be,” Mom said.

What? For years, she’d been given me unsolicited advice. Now I was coming to her, asking her for the answer, and she wasn’t going to tell me?

“You need to decide that for yourself,” she continued. “What do you enjoy doing the most?”

I was stupefied. I’m not sure anyone had ever asked me that before. I hadn’t really thought about it. Plus, I was still stunned that she hadn’t just given me the answer. “I don’t know. What do I like?”

Mom still refused to tell me. (She did advise me that perhaps mushroom farmer would not be the best choice.) I hung up. I was terrified. I had to make my first real grown-up choice, and it was a pretty important one. If I chose poorly, I’d have to go back to college for a master’s degree in something completely different, and I was pretty sure my parents wouldn’t foot the bill.

I called her back a couple of days later. I’d thought about it long and hard. Even turned off General Hospital to give the matter more serious consideration. I took a deep breath. “Here’s the thing,” I started. “I’ve always loved reading. And I love writing. I think I want to be an English major.”

I could hear Mom smiling through the phone. “Sounds good. I think you’re making the right decision.”

Whew.

The good news is, Mom was right. I did make the right decision. And though she didn’t tell me what to do with my life, she told me exactly the right thing to get me to that choice.

So thanks, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day!

Stuff you might have missed from The Storyside:
"Deadlines and Time Travel" by Rob Smales
"No One Here Gets Out Alive" by Vlad V.
"An Afternoon with Aunt Gretchen" by Ursula Wong

Mom and me.

The Accidental Garden

New York vs. Boston

My Peculiar Hobby

Mom's Always Right

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