2003-07-15 - 12:01 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Blueberries"

So, we are back from vacation. It felt really weird to come back. I seem to adapt very quickly to a routine in a new place, and so when I get back home, all the stuff that used to be my routine now feels weird and unfamiliar. Some stuff I'd even forgotten about, like my 2pm 2-cookie routine. I suppose that would be a good one to forget. I also completely forgot about some clothes I own, since for two weeks I wore the same five outfits repeatedly. That's the nice thing about going some place with a washing machine -- I can pack realllllly light.

Anyway, first up are a couple of photos that Kit requested, of me and Kelly pounding Poindexter into the couch. If you look closely you can see the dog, too:

First, some backstory: Earlier this spring, I found a small plant growing in the trough on the back wall. It was not a baby tree (I have dozens of these growing in the dead leaves under the deck and in the dirt in the cement seams of the patio under the deck). And it also didn't look like a weed. So I pulled it out of the trough and into a little container to see what happened. It began to grow, so much that I had to put it into a bigger container. It was growing really easily and quickly and nobody really thought it was a weed, but it still had some weedy characteristics. See for yourself:

By the time Kit came to visit a couple weeks ago, it was beginning to bud. She didn't think it was a weed, either.

So, while I was away, I gave my "weed", as Poindexter insisted on calling it, to my mother to babysit, as well as the fuchsia because I love it too much. I asked my parents to take a picture of the weed if it did anything. The rest of the containers on my deck were arranged in a linear fashion and a drip hose with timer was set up. I only had a day to test the timer, so I was a little worried about my plants not surviving if something went wrong.

In fact, I had one nightmare that I got home and everything was dead and brown, and another that my mother had completely forgotten about my plants and they'd also died. In the one about my mom, I was so shocked and upset by this completely uncharacteristic behavior of hers (she does NOT forget things like this) that I crumpled into a ball on the lawn and was crying my eyes out when I woke up. Stupid freaking dreams.

Anyway. As it turns out, I needn't have worried. My garden exploded in growth. I was SO EXCITED. Maybe this is old hat for seasoned gardeners, but I was blown away. Check out the basil, for starters:

And the double impatiens, which have much longer stalks now and bunches of buds:

BTW, the tall purplish-pink plants in the foreground are spider flowers that my mom gave me (transplanted from her yard). They were barely a foot tall when I left, and no signs of flowering. WOW.

And finally, the flamingo trough:

Notice that the morning glory vines are strangling the flamingos. And those are hollyhocks in the container on the right, which also basically doubled in size. I started those from seed, indoors, back in early June.

And the day after I got back, I got an e-mail from my folks, entitled "Mystery Plant Photo". I just about shrieked, I was so excited:

That ain't no WEED!! Shortly afterwards, another e-mail arrived:

"Welcome back � Poindexter too. Hope you had a great vacation. Just wanted to let you know the name of your flower. I was at [a local nursery] yesterday and they had them. It is a �False Sunflower� called Heliopsis. It recommends removing spent flowers to promote more flowering. It�s a perennial so if you should have them next year, too. Maybe with a bigger pot you would have bunches!!"

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