I have taken my eye off the ball. I've let myself get sloppy for a couple weeks, and everything I have been trying to keep a handle on has started to take off while my attention was elsewhere. My climbing fruit and vegetable plants are creeping off of their own supports, to latch on to anything and everything they can reach. I've tried to train them back in their own columns, but I'm losing that battle. The citronella, that never bloomed, has started working its way over every other container in that corner, hiding the carrots and aiming toward the Swiss chard. I pulled a carrot out from under it, to see how close they are to ending up in my salad, and I found I had a tiny, bitter root, not worth my time. (How are supermarket carrots so sweet and mine end up inedible, every time?) I came back through the back gate after watering the side garden, and noticed just how thick and unruly everything is getting. The ferns are three feet high, and even thicker than last year, hiding all sorts of poison ivy and spiky weeds. They're also showing signs of being trampled where the naughty dogs go behind the wire fence so they can bark. And those selfsame naughty dogs have left paths of destruction all around the yard. They've been tunneling to China, and today I found they killed the purple butterfly plant (I don't remember what, but not buddlea) next to the vertical pallet. It's in a glass of water, but I don't think it's going to make it. For once, you cruel beasties, could you not dig one of those giant holes someplace I was planning on planting one of the big shrubs I still have in nursery pots anyway?
I am still a little on edge, but not nearly as bad as yesterday. At least one part of my "family" has come home. After six months of waiting for a new clutch assembly, that I was told was on backorder every time I called or dropped by to nag, I finally complained up the food chain far enough that they expedited my repair. They had my car in all week, and today I turned in the rental and picked my little blue bullet back up. She seems to be driving better, in the two miles back from the shop. No lurching or jerking or shifting at the wrong RPMs. As I pulled into the garage, in the right car for the first time in a week, the song on the radio called out, "Hello, it's me." Thanks, Mr Rundgren, for that perfectly timed greeting. I'm sure my car is happier in its own garage than out in a hot dealer parking lot. She got a bath and a little shine, and has been put away for the night. I feel like I need to write the modern-day update for Black Beauty, to express how happy I am that she's back.
It's probably painfully obvious, but I am not great at confrontation. It's especially difficult if a telephone is involved. And now I have two sticking points that I can't ignore anymore. I'm sure I will have to stress out for days before I finally take care of the things I've let slide for too long. I may just go hide in the jungle instead.
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