A Gothic Garden Tool

"Listen garden tool, don't make me introduce you to my power tool."

-- Eminem, "Won't Back Down"

Self portrait 5-12-14

I got the best gifts for Mother's Day.

I got a whole bag of my favorite dark roast Sumatra decaf, from Sam.

I got a whole pound of M&Ms, from Leo.

And I got a bad ass Gothic looking garden tool from my very thoughtful husband.

So about this garden tool ...

My grandfather had something like it. It's not quite a rake, not quite a hoe, but a long-handled, single clawed hook that is exactly perfect for maneuvering around and in between plants without disrupting everything else in its path.

It was the only thing on my one-item birthday list. And even my super-tenacious husband couldn't find one anywhere. Trust me, if it was out there, he'd have found it.

But he didn't give up.

"American Gothic," Grant Wood, 1930

He talked to a guy who knew a guy who happens to also be our plumber and who has a workshop full of all kinds of great stuff. This guy is pretty super-ingenious at making and fixing just about anything. And he happened to have an old 3-prong claw rake that he said probably belonged to his grandfather, which makes the thing more than 100 years old. The claws can be removed and re-configured with screw-down clamps, so he removed all but the single center claw, cleaned it up and delivered it to my husband's office just in time for Mother's Day.

(He also gave us the extra claws. What a sweetie pie!)

I plan to start using it today. My garden plants are sitting in flats, all ready to go. But first I have a few weeds to deal with, and I've got a bad ass hook to do it with, so those little fuckers better watch out.

As for the self portrait?

With all due respect to Grant Wood, I just couldn't resist.

A Grown Up Lunch Date

"I'm not making art, I'm making sushi."

-- Masaharu Morimoto

Play Doh sushi 5-11-14

My, how times have changed.

When my son Sam was little, a "lunch date" usually meant a fast food kids' meal and a trip to the toy store.

Now that he's all grown up (he turns 19 tomorrow), Sam's tastes have matured, a lot. Yesterday, we had a perfectly lovely lunch date at a sushi restaurant (his choice), followed by some upscale shopping to replenish his work/school wardrobe.

He wears a suit and tie to work and classes nearly every day, so he needed some new dress shirts and shoes.

Way back when, he'd have balked at the merest mention of dreaded clothes shopping. Now he shops like a pro. He knows exactly what he needs, goes in and gets it, has membership benefits and coupons that slice the final tally in half and then shave 40 percent off that. I just tag along, try to keep up, stand back and watch him work, and help carry his shopping bags.

As for the sushi, of course there was a day when, like most little kids, he preferred hamburgers and french fries with a toy in the box. He wouldn't have touched raw fish with a pair of ten foot chopsticks. Now, he gets positively giddy over the prospect of yellowtail sashimi and a rainbow roll.

It's Mother's Day today, and while I do sometimes miss the days when my boys were little and wish I could pick them up and hold them one more time, I also love where they both are now -- young men, confident and capable and becoming who they're meant to be. Naturally, with growth comes change, changes in what they do, what they like, and even what they eat.

I'm not opposed to change. I'm intrigued by it, actually. And I hope I'm the kind of mother who'll never interfere with either of my boys "becoming." I'd much rather tag along as an observer and watch the fascinating metamorphosis unfold.

God forbid I should ever stand in the way of such a good and beautiful thing.

Weeds

"A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill

except for learning how to grow in rows."

-- Doug Larson

Wild violet (Johnny jump up) in the woods 5-4-14

"When weeds go to heaven,

I suppose they will be flowers."

-- L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl

Wild vine in the woods 5-4-14

"Weeds are flowers too, once you get to  know them."

-- A.A. Milne

Dandelion in the woods 5-4-14

I spent the late afternoon yesterday, camera in hand, trudging through the woods. I went off-trail, up and down hills, dodging briers and low-hanging vines, searching for majesty.

The brooks were babbling. The birds were singing. Majesty was plentiful in the beams of a brilliant sun streaming down on me through the towering, leafless trees, illuminating the coming-alive-ness of the forest all around me.

I was looking for wildflowers, but mostly I found weeds.

Except for the May Apples and Jacks-in-the-Pulpits, the wildflowers were being shy. Apprehensive. After a hard winter, they weren't quite ready to stick their necks out just yet.

Not weeds. 

While the "real" flowers  were taking their sweet, timid time opening up, the weeds were growing happily and plentifully, running roughshod all over the forest floor,

Weeds are like Nature's little extroverts. Eager and unabashed. Not afraid to show their faces and shout "Look at me! Down here!"

Mother's day is coming, and for many, that means flowers. Some mothers will receive lovely, expensive bouquets and arrangements and hanging baskets purchased from the florist. Others will get last minute grocery store mums wrapped in cellophane. Some might get meticulously cultivated long stemmed roses, and others, tulips snipped from their very own landscaping.

But the luckiest mothers of all, I think, will be given fistfuls of battered dandelions and johnny jump ups, held forth proudly in grubby little bunches by beaming, grubby little children. 

A good mother will oooh and aaah over the loveliness of these "flowers" and carefully place them in Dixie cups on the kitchen windowsill and then dutifully water them like prize orchids. 

Her eyes may brim with tears, prompting the child to ask "Mommy, what's wrong? Don't you like them?" (translation: "Don't you love me?") And she will hug the child closely and confirm that she absolutely loves and adores both the flowers and the child, not minding (for once) the smear of dirty hand prints across her blouse, or the muddy shoe tracks across her gleaming kitchen floor.

She may secretly pop an extra Claritin or Benadryl to keep her allergies at bay. 

And in the future, she may feel a tiny ache in her heart each time the lawn chemical truck saturates the flawless green grass with weed-killer. In the future, no store-bought bouquet will ever mean as much. 

In the future, she may spend a late afternoon, camera in hand, trudging through the woods. And she may go off-trail, up and down hills, dodging briers and low-hanging vines, searching for majesty. 

And she will find it running roughshod all over the forest floor in the happy, plentiful, grubby little weed-faces stretching sun-ward.

Her eyes may brim with tears.