Hot Times Friday Round-Up

It was 93 degrees when I went to the garden store today. I nearly keeled over in the petunia aisle, trying the whole while to look like being extremely hot and towing a big red wagon full of potting soil was no big deal for me. I worried that the guy coming toward me as I pulled my wagon up the incline would offer to help me but then was dejected and discouraged when he just smiled at me and buzzed by. I never feel any one way for long.

A young person I’ve known since they were a baby has transitioned from female to male and every time I see their posts on Facebook, I am deeply glad. I’ll never get it all right – the terminology and the right thing to say – so I just hit the Like button all the time and say things like “That’s a wonderful picture!” That’s what I can do so I do it. I think it’s important to weigh in on the positive, the happiness of it all, even if my weighing in is weak and lame.

This year, I released myself from the tyranny of planting a garden. This means I am free from the faux optimism and deep shame that comes from my endless attempts to grow crops in my yard. Instead, I am planting red geraniums and purple petunias in pots and getting way arty by putting one of my beloved jade plants on the porch. This means I don’t have to flick tiny worms of the wee lettuce leaves before I harvest them for the annual suspicious salad. It’s very freeing.

Sled dogs don’t do so well in the heat. This one immediately gravitated to the fan we just brought downstairs. The huge quilt on the chair next to him is there because, on occasion, this particular dog has gnawed bits out of this precious prairie style chair that I bought in a thrift store 500 years ago and have had refinished several times. We forgive him for this sin as we do all the others because he is beautiful and sweet and, in the end, who cares about a chair. Still, the quilt.

I am going to do the right and kind thing even though there are a lot of arguments to do the opposite. The challenge is too complex and snarled to explain so I won’t try. I will say this – there is a great calmness in just deciding to be a good person, no matter what happens next. You just have to relax into it and end the debate. Let the cells take over.