In a mid-summer garden update, I have now successfully grown a tomato plant. Not just any tomato plant, but a cherry tomato behemoth. A leafy, sprawling monster that has overtaken one of the two raised garden beds as though it hopes to soon audition for the “Little Shop of Horrors; Granite Falls edition”.
I make a lot of jokes here at Beyond Reason. Some are at the expense of the game of pickleball. Some are the expense of the pickleball players. While I do try to make other jokes about other topics—bugs, potato salad, and, of course, gourds—heretofore, I’ve never attempted a single joke about the Dewey Decimal System.
America believes in second chances. It’s the land of reinvention. The country that invented brunch, rebooted Batman eleven times, and gave Paul Giamatti a leading man phase. And now, it has done the impossible: turned a backyard barbecue game into a professional sport.
Last week, I noticed a person walking into one of our local establishments carrying a sign that I found rather amusing, admitting on cardboard in big black marker letters that they were seeking funds for specific wipes for a specific part of their body. I recalled seeing the same person last summer, because of the amusing sign.The person also carried an instrument.
It finally happened. Friday morning I woke up, and was enjoying my morning coffee while on the phone with my first born child. As I entered the kitchen to refill my coffee cup, as one does when listening to their reckless first-born child talk about such things as his desire to join the military’s program that trains you to jump out of planes and such, I glanced out of the kitchen window. And I saw it. A bunny - a cute, fluffy little demon had made it’s way into my raised garden bed and was sitting happily amongst the bok choy.
As it goes sometimes, all of the best intentions can fall to the wayside when things get busy. I had been accumulating the necessary items needed to work on a project to accompany my photo exhibit that will go up this fall in the Marshall Area Fine Arts Council gallery, and finally had all of the necessary supplies to work on botanical printing of native plant species found in the public lands that are featured in the photo exhibit. Alas, I had big plans for the weekend to get out in nature and collect some of the plants to work on the project, but, as a volunteer also, I ended up being the one to not have out of town plans for the weekend - thus, the entire weekend was spent volunteering.
Germany is efficient. France is flirtatious. Canada apologizes for being in your way, even though I don’t know anyone on their way to the North Pole other than Will Steiger. But America? If you want to understand America, skip the textbooks or history lessons. At a distance, just observe the month of July.
He began with frogging. Then jigging. By noon, he said, he’d be hula popping. I kept nodding, as though these were natural things for a man to say while I was drinking my first cup of coffee. Or ever.
Now that my oldest child has resumed his military work after his couple of month leave in Minnesota, and has returned to New York, that of course, means my grandmother has resumed her cookie baking mission.