Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Transplants

A 50/50 chance.

I re-potted some plants yesterday.

It was kind of a mass promotion.  With less mayhem than in the days when the British army would toast “to bloody wars and dread diseases.”  I’ve also heard that it was the British Navy and the toast was “to bloody wars and sickly seasons.”  It meant, of course, that the officers had no hope of promotion unless there was an opening above them.  Since superior officers retiring, by definition, required years, the fastest route to higher rank would be someone else’s death.

Fortunately—and somewhat astonishingly—none of my plants had to die in order for several of them to move up in pot size.

Oh!  Wait!  That’s not true.  The tomato plant!

The tomato plant did yeoman service throughout the summer.  But it went the way of all tomato plants—or, at least, any that I’ve ever owned.  Yield tapered off.  The leaves turned yellow.  The stalks dried out.

I dug it up.

Which left me with a very large pot.

I never planted the tomato plant in the ground because I have the illusion that container gardening will require fewer insect encounters than in-ground gardening.

For a while, I left the pot empty.  I did set my chrysanthemum on it—the one that became such a baroque resting place for the lizard—but I left it in the small container in which it came and just set it on top of the dirt in the larger pot.

I had a vague plan that, eventually, I would either plant the chrysanthemum in the large pot or transplant the Northern Lights grass into it.  This is the kind of vague plan that can evaporate due to lack of initiative and an unwillingness to murder defenseless flora.  (I’m not good with plants.)

However, I was weeding one of my flower beds the day before yesterday (I’m good with weeds), and I found several shoots of vinca in places where I did not want them.  The vinca has proven to be very hardy—by which I mean I haven’t killed it yet.  So, it seemed like careful extraction of these shoots and re-potting them might be a good idea.

Ergo, everybody moved up.  It was a game of musical chairs—without the music and without the chairs.  The Northern Lights went into the very large pot.  The chrysanthemum went into the medium pot.  And the vinca shoots went into smaller pots.

Sounds a little like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, doesn’t it?  I wonder which pot will prove to be “just right.”  Odds are against all three of them making it.

I’m a transplant myself, you know.  Putting down new roots is hard.

I’m so bummed!

But I’ll get over it.

I’m bummed because I have been faithfully blogging every day since June 10th.  Every day!

It was a little goal I set for myself.  Start a blog.  Write every day.

For four months, I have been meeting that goal.

Thursday, however, something went wrong.

I wrote a post on Wednesday night.  I looked it over.  Spell-checked.  Proofread.  Formatted.  And I thought I scheduled it.  But last night, when I logged in to work on a post for today, I discovered it sitting there with a big bold “Draft” label on it.

Oh, it had the right date and time listed where the schedule information appears, but something happened.  I must have neglected to push the button that would switch it from a draft to a scheduled post.  I thought I did.  I even think I saw the post appear in my inbox.  (Yes, I subscribe to my own blog.  How else am I going to know if something goes wrong with the delivery system?)  Apparently, I was seeing things, however, and it never went out.

So, today, you may get two posts.  Because a person can’t waste a perfectly good blog post, can she?

But my perfect record is spoiled.

Sigh.

This is a very dangerous moment.  It’s like having a piece of birthday cake for the first time since you started your diet six weeks ago.  If you let it become this big failure, you figure you might as well eat the whole cake.

Oops.  Failed to meet the standard I set for myself.  Missed a blog post.  No point in continuing.

Or, you can decide that a piece of cake during a celebration is not a terrible lapse.  You can eat salad tomorrow.

So, I’m bummed.  And a little annoyed with myself for not double-checking.  (Rushing to watch the VP debate–but that’s no excuse.)  On the other hand, there are far bigger tragedies in the world.  Far bigger.

A 14-year old girl was shot by a bunch of religious thugs because she wanted an education.

Yes, it’s important to adhere to goals and maintain standards.  On the other hand, my message to myself today is to keep a sense of proportion.

14-years old.  She wanted an education.  They shot her in the head.

My little blogging error doesn’t seem like such a big deal, does it?

 

The most amazing thing has happened

I can draw!

I’m no da Vinci, but I’m sitting here with a couple of semi-respectable drawings.

It’s all thanks to this website I found: Drawspace.com

Drawspace offers over 200 free lessons in how to draw, and they’re pretty good.  I’ve been working my way through the beginner level, and I’ve learned some stuff.  I’ve managed some pretty good anime drawings, assorted simple cartoons, a decent line drawing of a fish and an awesome hand.

I’m not so good with lips.  They all look like an alien spaceship or something you’d expect to come out of the Little Shop of Horrors, but I think I’ll improve.

Eyes are also a hit or miss proposition just now.  Conceivably, I’d do better with some actual drawing materials rather than a #2 pencil and the back side of laser printer paper.  I’m going to look into that now that I am not the artistic failure all previous art classes led me to believe.

I’m not saying I’ll ever be da Vinci, but I’m having fun.  Someday, I might be able to leave the sample drawings behind, and sketch something recognizable out of my own little head.  Wouldn’t that be something?

It just goes to show that taking the time to work at a thing and paying attention to how it’s done is half the battle.  Because if I can draw, I figure just about anybody can.

You should check out Drawspace.com.  But be warned!  Drawing practice is as much a time sink as Facebook—and that’s saying something.

So far, I’ve been very disciplined.  I’ve managed to keep up with my workouts and my yard work and some other commitments I’ve made.  But the housework is starting to slip down the scale.  And the writing has tended toward the bottom of the pile for the last few months (years?) anyway.

That will have to stop.

But in the meantime, I think one creative endeavor usually feeds another—and, besides, I can draw!

Who knew?!

And then you’re afraid you won’t.

Why I got a flu shot.

[Note:  This post was intended to appear on Oct 11.  I’ve just noticed that I apparently never hit the Publish button.  Ruined my perfect record!]

 

I got my flu shot the other day.

I’ve been getting them every year around this time for the past couple of years.  Never bothered before then because I thought I’d had the flu many times.  I had all kinds of illnesses over the years with flu-like symptoms.  I was pretty miserable each time, but no big deal.  Better than a poke in the arm with a sharp needle, anyway.

Or so it seemed.

And then, I got the flu.

At that point, I realized all those other illnesses were something else.  The flu is to those other ailments as an anaconda is to a garter snake.  You don’t want to fool around with the flu.

When I had the actual flu, I was out of commission for about a week.  Fever, chills, and an aching in the bones that just wouldn’t quit.  It was exactly like that old joke:  First, you’re afraid you’re gonna die.  And then you’re afraid you won’t.

What a misery!  I understood for the first time how it was that the 1918 pandemic killed so many people.  Estimates are as high as 50 million.  I’m sure whatever strain of the flu it was that I had was nowhere near as virulent as the 1918 version.  It was bad enough, though.

Consequently, I get a flu shot every year.  I don’t want to go through that again.  Better a poke in the arm with a sharp needle.

I highly recommend a flu shot if you haven’t already gotten one.  It only hurts for a minute.  (Obviously, you should check with a doctor before taking any kind of medication you’ve never taken previously.  But it’s worth checking.)

Today, I am thankful that I have access to modern immunization procedures.  And I am thankful that I have medical insurance that covers a yearly flu shot.

And I am more than thankful that I do not have the flu!

 

The rules don’t apply to me

Except they do.

I was wondering yesterday, for the umpteenth time, why it is I think I can go without eating?

I get all involved in something, and I don’t want to stop.  Just let me mow this one more patch of grass, pull this one more weed.  Let me check Facebook and then answer this email.  Let me figure out why this WordPress plugin isn’t working the way it should.

Just one more minute.

And then it’s two o’clock, and I haven’t had breakfast or lunch.

My head hurts, I’m tired, I’m making mistakes, and I am grouchier than a grizzly bear.

Everybody has had that happen, right?

Only, I am way old enough to know better—so why?

There are laws of physics, biology, gravity.  Nobody is immune.

The truth is I—and every other human being on the planet—function better with a blood sugar level that hasn’t dropped below 70 and some reasonable amount of sleep.

It’s a fact.  We know this. Why do so many of us ignore it?

It’s like we’re walking around thinking, Okay, I know if I drop this anvil on my foot, it’s going to crash down and break my toes, but today, I’d rather throw it up in the air and watch it float away, and it’s going to do that because that’s what I want it to do.

Yeah.  Right.

One of the things they say in AA—I’ve heard—is you should never let yourself get too hungry or too tired.  It undermines your sobriety.

Here’s another thing.

It undermines your creativity.

Art takes energy.  Your brain needs to be sharp and alert when those brilliant ideas come along.  At the very least, you can’t afford to make the dumb mistakes like not saving your novel before the computer crashes or having your hand tremble as your paintbrush is just about to finish the hat.*

So, why is it that I think I can go without eating?  I really do wonder.

* Stephen Sondheim, Sunday in the Park with George

It’s only slightly related to this post, but I wanted you to understand the reference. Enjoy!

You can do everything

Just not all at once.

Here’s a tip for you.

Multi-tasking is a myth.  So, there’s no point in wishing for that third hand.  Your brain can’t manage as much as you are already giving it, let alone more.

The modern world—and, for all I know, the ancient one—has led us to believe that we are faster and more efficient if we try to do more than one thing at a time.  Check your email while you make phone calls.  Write the report while you watch 60 Minutes.  (Trying to be charitable there.  Most of us are watching Dallas—or Honey Boo Boo, I guess.)

It’s all a juggling act, we say.

The truth is even a juggler is only handling one thing at a time:  a ball, a bowling pin, a fire baton.  The juggler is handling each one quickly, to be sure, and switching her attention more rapidly than most of us to the next, but she’s only handling one.  (I know.  I learned how to juggle in college. Don’t get me started on what my dad said when he realized that’s where my tuition dollars were going!)

Think about it.

Your computer multi-tasks.

Or does it?

If you’ve got any of those tools that analyze its performance, you know that it really doesn’t.  Resource allocation is the term.  Your computer is switching resources rapidly between tasks.  It looks like it’s doing more than one at a time, but it really isn’t.

Thus, the extremely annoying paradox of modern life that you have to do less to do more.  You either have to set things up so that you can focus exclusively on your most important task—which is likely to be impractical—or you have to allocate your resources so that you can focus serially on several important things.

There are things you can do to help make that easier—and some of them are sure to come up later in this blog—but they all tend to involve a few tasks in themselves.

Scheduling.  Prioritization.  Organization. Automation.

I’m sorry.

That’s just the way it is.

Stay tuned for more suggestions, but for now. . .just slow down.

Moving back

It helps to know where things are.

Y’all know I recently moved to Florida.  (Well, okay, it’s been two years—but that’s recent when considered as a percentage of years I’ve been alive.)

What some of you may not know is that I was born here.  And the area to which I moved is the same area I spent many a summer when I was much, much younger than I am now.

And therein lies this Monday’s Miracle.

Because Saturday night, the MotH* got a fish hook stuck in his thumb.  We’ll set aside all the nonsense about how I didn’t respond quickly enough when he told me he wanted me to come out to the garage—because, really, who would think just telling me what the problem was when I asked would take any more time than yelling about how I should just do what he said?  We’ll set that aside.  Mitigating circumstances, and all that.  A fish hook in the thumb can be pretty painful. So he gets a pass on that—although I would like to point out, for future reference, that I respond better in an emergency if it is clear to me that something is an emergency and what the exact nature of it is.

And let’s consider, when we are adding up my crisis management skills, that I did manage to cut the lure, thereby releasing him from the fish, at least, without fainting at the sight of blood.  That’s something I’ve never been sure I was immune to since the one and only time I’ve ever fainted was during a first aid lecture.  (Mitigating circumstances there, as well.  Long story. Maybe some other post.)

And let’s consider that I got him to the emergency room pretty quickly.

That’s the miracle.  Not that I got him there, exactly, but rather that I know where an emergency room is around here.  It’s not like I scope out all urgent care facilities whenever I go anywhere.  (I know some people do that.  I’ve never been sure if they are taking that scouting motto of “Be Prepared” —or hypochondria—to a whole new level.)

I don’t think it has ever occurred to me, in anything other than a vague ‘it might be good to know this’ kind of way, to acquire that kind of data.  It’s possible I always had a vague idea that an emergency needing an emergency room would also need an ambulance, and I feel 99% certain that the ambulance driver will know where to go.

So, this could have been a bad thing.  I might have had to call that ambulance.

But I spent a lot of time here intermittently many years ago.  I know where a hospital is!  I know the way well enough to find it in the dark!  (And I hate to drive in the dark.)  So this is a miracle.

And the thumb is fine.

* MotH = Man of the House

 

What a dump!*

 Where does your trash go?

I’m not entirely sure where the weekly garbage pickup ends up, but out here in the boonies, we make regular trips to the dump.

Anything outside of ordinary household refuse or those things designated as recyclable, must be disposed of by the homeowner.  Either we have to make special arrangements with the disposal company, or we make a trip to the dump.  Consequently, I have a more intimate knowledge of the amount of trash people generate than those who just lug things to the basement for a city super to handle.

It’s amazing—and somewhat horrifying.  I live in Florida, remember.  Where a restaurant is known as Hilltop throughout many management and actual name changes because it sits on what is essentially a bump in the road.  Flat.  The land is flat, flat, flat.

Out at the dump, though, there is a definite—and big—hill.

Landfill.

Every time I go there I think of future archaeologists excavating this giant mound to find out what the people of the twentieth and twenty-first century were like.  And I feel it’s good we have written words.  Although possibly, we might want to get some stone tablets out and do a little better than paper and ink and electrons to preserve our history.

All that aside, though, the dump is a strikingly well-organized place.  You drive in right onto a scale where your whole car— contents, passengers and all—is weighed, and the checker-in gives you a card with a number on it.  Then you make the rounds:  hazardous waste over here, construction debris there.  Metal, plastic, glass, ordinary garbage—all have their own areas.  You empty your vehicle and drive out over another scale.  You  hand in your numbered card, and the checker-out cheerfully announces the poundage you’ve left behind.  Each family is allowed 500 pounds per week.

500 pounds!  Per week!

We’re going to be buried in trash if we can’t figure out better ways to recycle it.

* One of the iconic lines used by Bette Davis impersonators–from Beyond the Forest, based on the novel by Stuart Engstrand, screenplay by Lenore J. Coffee.

Fern and Dina

Sometimes I like what I don’t like.

So, I was in an antique store yesterday.

In addition to antiques, there were a variety of art works on display and for sale.  My eye was caught by a colorful square painting of two sunglassed, bikini-clad women sitting in beach chairs under a bright tropical sky.

I’m not much of a art connoisseur.  In fact, I’m one of those terrible people artists hate because I could say—although I don’t, because I know they  hate it—that I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.

This painting was not something I particularly liked.  The draftsmanship seemed clumsy, the colors too garish, there were almost no shadows, no perspective.  To be honest, I’m only certain the figures were women because of the title and because the work was so unsubtle as to make me feel that the depiction of long hair could safely be assumed to be an indication of femaleness.

So…in my admittedly uneducated and probably philistine opinion, and only my opinion, I’d have to say it was not a good picture.  I won’t say it was the worst picture I have ever seen. . .but. . .it wasn’t the best.

It did, however, make me laugh out loud and consider, for about half a second, purchasing it.

Because in addition to the beach babes and the bright blue sky, there was something else painted into the picture.  Its title.  In a sort of orangey-red.

Fern and Dina

You probably don’t know why that appealed to me so much.  That’s because you’re missing one critical piece of information.  When I told you I was in an antique store yesterday, I neglected to tell you where.

A little Saturday suggestion here.  Always get the full story.

The reason Fern and Dina, in all their acrylic glory—.  I think they were painted in acrylics.  In fact, I’m almost certain.  The reason Fern and Dina appealed to me so much is I was standing in an antique store.

In Fernandina.

The essence of comedy is the unexpected.

I think I’m going to write “Fern and Dina” up in big letters and post it over my desk to remind me to turn things upside down and inside out and try to look at them through other eyes.

The nut catcher

That’s right.

I said “catcher,” not “cracker.”

Today’s Friday Find is fudging it a little bit, since I haven’t actually found this.  I mean, I have found it—a link to it, anyway—but I haven’t used it.  We’ll call it a future find, okay?

I’m talking about an item that I discovered through an article in last month’s issue of This Old House.  Just as an aside, I’ll mention that I prefer Family Handyman to This Old House—but that’s just me, and this last issue did have a couple of good tips.

One of them was a recommendation for the nut catcher. Actually, its real name is “nut gatherer,” but I prefer “nut catcher”—even though it conjures up a vision, in a totally non-politically correct way, of some little man in a white coat chasing me with an over-sized butterfly net.

This nut catcher, however, has nothing to do with the balance of my mind.  Except in so far as the number of acorns and sweet gum balls that fall into my yard drive me crazy.  To say nothing of the safety issue of the spiky gum balls rocketing out of the side of the lawn mower at some exorbitant number of miles per hour.

The nut catcher looks like it would work—in a highly low tech way.  It may not, of course, and the concept of ‘easy’ might be a relative term—but it doesn’t seem too expensive to take the chance.  I’m thinking I might get one and try it out.

Meanwhile, for your listening pleasure. . .a little ditty that was extremely popular when I was in junior high school.  (Please do not do the math.  It was recorded some years earlier!)


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