Footloose and Sneezy-free

daphne on August 22, 2009

Thank you to all for the plethora of suggestions on how to beat the seasonal snotties.  I take it you were not impressed with my plan of barring the doors and windows and never venturing forth into polite company again?

Worries over me becoming a hermit are groundless.  Why just today I strolled out through the door and into my garden.  I made it almost 5 minutes before the allergens launched their merciless attack.  And despite the onslaught I lasted another half hour past that, long enough to photograph the progress of the garden.  Because, yippee, we are making progress.

Not only have the cucumbers finally gone co-ed, but they’ve been (getting) busy.  They are not big, they are not ready, but they are going to be tasty. . .if they reach their teens before the first frost. (Note, objects taken at extreme close-up may actually be just a tiny fraction of apparent size.)

Not quite as far along socially are the squash vines.  Still, credit where credit is due–they too are showing signs of leaving bachelorhood behind.  Here, without further ado, is our first female flower.

Allow me to introduce you to Big Bertha, our beautiful butternut babe-to-be.  I am expecting big things from her, assuming some studly male steps up and does his duty.

I am impressed by the perseverance of the rainbow chard.  I had given it up as gone to the bugs when we returned home to find the leaves holey and frail; but when I trimmed them back new growth sprung forth.  Looks like the cucumbers may have someone to play with after all (you know, on my salad plate.)

The raspberries are numerous and ripening fast–

Ahh, and the tomatoes.  The tomatoes are hanging heavy.  Really heavy.

Is it wrong to think that it might be time for my produce to get a bra?


The Downside of Cool

daphne on August 20, 2009

Back when I was still knee-deep in needy newborns, it was hard to conceive of a day like today.  A day that loomed out there, somewhere in a future where children attended school all day and I would have hours upon hours of fulfilling self-reflection and silent contemplation.  Well, it’s here. Today is the first day in nine years that I loaded both of my big girls onto the school bus, not to return until 3:00pm.  Pass the bon-bons;  I’ve got six hours of silent bliss.  I will write a novel.  I will read all the editorials.  I will cook a meal the likes of which gourmets round the world will clamor to taste.

Or I’ll strip every bed and rip up the rugs and douse the entire house in bleach and lemon-scented spray stuff.  Anything that will increase my chances of breathing through my nose once again.

Don’t be fooled.  These are no ordinary allergies.  They laugh in the face of Benadryl, my trusted old friend that typically knocks me out faster than a blow to the head with a falling piano.  And the sneezes just keep coming.

My waking hours are spent buried in a box of tissues, and I haven’t slept in days.  I swear last night would have been better if someone filled my pillowcase with freshly cut grass and a bag of kittens and then wrapped their fluffy little tails around my eyes as a blindfold.

I have been so busy ooohing and aaahing over the delightfully cool weather and the extra dose of lush rain that I didn’t stop to consider the consequences.  Something new is growing out there, and it does not play well with me.

The doctor gave me an appointment for next week, and extracted my sincere promise not to step foot outdoors until then.  In the meantime to rid my house of lurking pollen  I am dousing every inch with a bottle or two of bleach.  Cleaning isn’t really my thing, but if it will buy me an hour or two of snot-free sleep, I’m in.  And since I’ve only got a few hours left in this precious gift of a day nine years in the making, I’d better run and dump more bleach into the laundry and see about some dust monsters under the couch.

Yes, these are tears in my eyes.  It’s all this sneezing, of course.  It’s purely coincidental that this morning I bid farewell to my little darlings as they set out for first and third grade, so big and so grown-up already.  Of course my eyes are itchy and red.  Allergies or not, that is the price I pay for watching my babies morph into real people right before my very eyes.