AMARYLLIS ANGST

Who knew that a person could stop nature in its tracks?  Who knew that something that happens automatically, every year, for everyone, could be stopped in its tracks in my house?  Who knew I could stop an amaryllis from blooming by just having it in my house?  Well, besides me; I did.  I knew it.

Just in case you don’t know what an amaryllis is, I’m talking about those indestructible bulbs that they sell at Christmas.  You bring them home from the store, take them out of their box and they immediately sprout up, grow at least four inches per day, and produce so many flowers at the top that they usually fall over if you don’t stake them up.  They are gorgeous.  They are strong.  They are self sufficient. 

Except at my house.  This is where they come to go into deep, dark depression.  They don’t die, exactly, but the term “failure to thrive” is putting it mildly.

I’ve had other amaryllis over the years.  People tell me that they are still enjoying the one their mother got for Christmas in 1962, but that’s not what happens when they come to me.  They bloom the first year, struggle the next year, and if I didn’t surrender them to someone better at houseplants before the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to House Plants intervened, they would all be dead by now.  I had pretty much sworn off even trying to grow one by my sixth decade but I won this one.  I took that as a sign that Lady Luck thought I should try again.  In retrospect I think possibly Lady Luck was inebriated (I won it at a Christmas party after all), but for sure Mother Nature wasn’t in on the decision to trust me with another victim.  She hasn’t helped out one bit.

Fresh from the nursery where all its conditions were perfect, and then given to my sister as we were going to be gone for a month, this baby grew and bloomed spectacularly.  I saw the photos on Face book.  It’s the closest I’ve been to it when it was vibrant and healthy.  I was in Australia at the time.  Apparently that’s the safe distance for me to own an amaryllis from.

But, we came home, my sister handed the poor thing back to me, and it’s been all downhill since then.

I do read up on these things.  One is supposed to keep it in the sunlight and water it throughout the summer.  Come fall it will die back which is when you put it in a paper bag, in the dark, in the cool basement, and mark on your calendar to go get it for round two in November.  I did all these things.

It obliged me with leaves; limp noodley things, but they were green and firm to the touch so I was encouraged.  No flower stems, no buds, no flowers, but further reading said that sometimes they take a year off.  I repeated the paper bag/cool/dark business last year and hoped for the best.

Last November when I retrieved this sleeping beauty she showed no signs of life at all.  No signs of death either, mind you – the bulb is firm, there is no mold or disease.  It just seems to be in some sort of stasis – kind of what they want to do with astronauts to keep them alive on long voyages so they awaken when the conditions are safe for life.

Yeah, exactly like that.  At this moment in time the conditions are not safe for amaryllis life.

I can grow things outside where Mother Nature has a fighting chance to step in and tend to her babies, but plants in my indoor custody are doomed.  A friend from long ago who shared my morbid talent with house plants said something that has always stuck with me – what we needed was a plant that thrived on neglect.  I don’t know if she ever found hers but I have a forty year old umbrella tree that is still hanging in there.  I think it may well be up to surviving the apocalypse.

Other than that I have a ‘death row’ of sorts going on in my south-facing window ... an amaryllis in suspended animation, a pot of lemon seeds too smart to germinate, a foolhardy morning glory that stowed away in the soil I used for the lemon seeds (but it’s green and optimistic so it gets to stay!), and last year’s Valentine orchid that has tried to commit suicide twice by leaping to its death off its perch.

Welcome to my den of horrors.  Spring can’t come soon enough.

NEW YEARS ADVERTISING

A person can always tell when the New Year approaches – the “let’s start over” advertisements start.  There are diet commercials, and exercise commercials, the find-a-mate commercials and the quit smoking commercials.  All these companies are ready to help you with your resolutions ... for a price, of course.  For the most part I ignore them. 

My dissatisfaction with my weight is a year round thing, after all.  I don’t need to be told to eat better or less, and I don’t believe that paying for their program or food is going to help me unless I commit to it and if commitment is what is needed, I already own that ... just like I own these 25 extra pounds I lug around.

Likewise the exercise equipment they want to sell me.  I already possess a significant piece of this.  It’s a great place to hang a coat on and the grandkids like to perform death-defying tricks on it, but mostly it just takes up space in my TV room.  It does work when I use it; that’s the trick, for sure.  I do not need another one to double my guilt at money not well spent.

Thanks eHarmony, but one is enough.

Smoking is easy.  If you never begin a bad habit you never have to give it up.

But, there’s another resolution suggestion that’s been popping up on Face book this past week or so.  I don’t know how Mark Zuckerberg can see into my house but it’s obvious he can.  He thinks I should de-clutter the place and promises that I will feel less stressed and be more productive if 75% of the garbage I’m holding onto is gone.  There have been several pop up ads to spur me on.  I say if he feels so strongly about it, he should come help me.  Or, he can mind his own business.

I’ve been hoarding stuff for so long I just lack the oomph to tackle such a daunting job.

So, I have been ignoring the de-cluttering push as well.  The first few days after the company went home I focussed my attention to dealing with the leftovers and putting random toys away.  Next I began the push to rid the house of extra Turtles chocolates and opened bottles of wine.  The guest bedding was washed and the surplus blankets put away.  I think I’ve found a place for all the new Christmas gifts.

Yesterday as I reluctantly took down the tinsel and garland, the wreaths and the ornaments, the lights and my collection of angels I began to see a pattern.  I was clearing space and putting things away.  Occasionally I was actually throwing something out.  Oh sure, it was only the leftover cranberries, a broken decoration and a handful of cards from years ago, but still.  I would never have to deal with them again.  That kind of felt good.

This morning dawned as unremarkably as any other: my to-do list quite unimpressive.  I’m the chairperson of a board and I needed to find the minutes from our last meeting to prepare for the next one.  I was sure I had put them in a file folder in my office while getting ready for Christmas.  It’s now 11:30 and it appears I placed them in my “safe place” vault and will only find them in 2023 when I’m looking for something else.

BUT, and I say this with astonishment at how I have put this fruitless search to good use, in turning up the many other papers I’ve kept that I have no need for I actually reached for a garbage bag instead of putting them back where I found them.  I have .5% less junk spilling all over my desk than I did three hours ago.  Look at it this on the surface it is such a tiny difference, but on the inside I feel like a trajectory has been altered.

We’re not talking doing a 180, or even a 90 degree turn, but I remember a teacher pointing out to us how a one degree angle could be the difference between the Apollo spacecraft hitting the Moon, or missing it and drifting on forever.  This course correction is a subtle thing, but I think that’s exactly the reason it might just work.  The difference isn’t in the change of the angle, it’s in the distance it will carry me.  Who knows where I’ll be a year from now!

I sure hope good old Mark Z can spot the difference in my office clutter by spring so he gets bored and leaves me alone.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a few Turtles left to take care of.

LIGHTING THE WAY

We live a fair bit out of the way to be a part of anyone’s twinkle tour.  Houses in rural Saskatchewan are getting further and further apart – there are fewer farmers farming much more land than was the norm a couple of decades ago.  And, it’s not uncommon for them to decide to live in town, as well.  It makes for a feeling of privacy, tranquility, and peace for those of us who choose the country life.

But, when I put up my outdoor Christmas lights, I know very few people are going to see them.

It doesn’t deter me though.  I have grandchildren who think they are pretty and they spend a fair amount of time here over the holidays; I do it for them.

And me.  I also do it for me.

I began, years ago, with a fifteen foot blue spruce just east of the house.  What’s the point of having a Christmas tree and not decorate it, after all?  At first it took two strings of lights, and then three.  I am now up to four strings and that doesn’t take the lights to the top by any means.  But it’s as far as anyone can go without a picker truck.  Sadly, I do not possess a picker truck.

This year I went ahead and bought light string number five before I was forced to accept my lack of picker truck capabilities.  It took me a cup of tea and a half hour of contemplation before I decided that this was an opportunity, not a set back, and went back out to devise an optical illusion Christmas tree down by the well.  Not only did a single string of lights create a tree, this one could be seen without having to leave the house.  I’m pretty pleased with the way it turned out.

But, the yard looked unfinished so off I went to town and bought another string of lights for my little Amur maple tree.  To look at the actual bulbs on this string is misleading.  They are tiny, insignificant things but the light they put out is amazing; the colours dazzling.  And, even better, this tree is almost right out in front of the house.  It lights up the whole front yard.  It also lights up my smile as I do the dishes after supper – out there, twinkling in the dark, the wind giving it movement and extra sparkle.

There is also the indoor Christmas tree.  I still buy a real one every year, refusing to think about the money I throw away every January.  I love the smell of the real ones.  The prelit artificial ones just don’t have the rich, bright colours I like to use.  This time of year has too many hours of darkness; I need all the light and colour I can get!

As much as I love all of my trees, though, it’s the laser lights that have never worked properly since I first brought them home that I love the most.  They were the first generation of the laser option and I paid crazy money for them because my whole family was going to be home that year and I wanted the best of everything.  These things are designed to be installed outside and aimed at the house, projecting a light show of moving lights or shapes across the building’s walls.  Mine refuse to move, or blink, or do anything but shine.

From the outside this is a disappointment.  When the plan was for dancing lights and changing colours and all I got was pin points of red and green in a static grid pattern, I felt gypped.   But, life went on and our house filled to bursting, and over that crazy, dizzy, noisy holiday I grew to love that my interior walls and ceilings were decorated in Christmas coloured dots of light.  They acted as decorations, as night lights, as red and green freckles on anyone standing in their beams.  They have never worked properly but I wouldn’t dream of not putting them up every single year.  They stir the memories of that 2014 Christmas every time I see them.

A few of their beams even make into our bedroom and shimmer across the stippled ceiling.  I don’t know why but the laser beams that are sharp and clear in the air out side but once through the window glass are refracted in a way that make the lights look like lace when they hit the wall.  It’s the last thing I see before I fall asleep and the first thing I see in the morning.

One of my favorite things to do this time of the year is to take a twinkle tour drive to see what people do to decorate, and I welcome everyone to come see mine if they want, but unless you come inside for a cup of cheer you’ll never see the ones I love the best.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

2019 is rolling downhill like a great big snowball.  There’s no stopping it, or even slowing it down.  The best I can hope for is to stay out of its direct path while I scramble through the remaining days trying to get things done.

This being retired business that I’m in is kind of misleading.  Yes, I can and do call my time my own, but also yes, this precious time is sometimes spent puttering around my gardens and playing with grandchildren.  This is not ‘wasting’ time, it is the perfect way to refresh my soul, but even people with refreshed souls need to get a few things accomplished from day to day.

Oh sure the meals get made, the laundry gets done and it’s a very rare bill that doesn’t get paid on time.  The outside summer work gets done because I love to be out there doing it and writing is usually up to date because, again, it’s the kind of thing I enjoy.  Where I fail usually has to do with numbers, books, accounts, and paperwork of any kind.  Let me play with words all day long ... make the numbers go away.

With less than two weeks before Christmas and three before we swap out our calendars for the bright new shiny unscribbled on ones, I have a fair amount on my plate already.  I am hosting the family feast so there is a menu to plan, phone calls to make, baking to do, and extra house cleaning to tackle.  It’s really embarrassing when you know Santa was here because he left his autograph in the dust on your furniture.  And wouldn’t it be nice if the windows were clean enough to let the sun shine through?

But, before I tackle cleaning I should get the decorating out of the way.  The tree is bought but not yet thawed out or set up.  The tubs of garland and tinsel, baubles and lights are awaiting their annual moment to shine.  It’s time to turn on the Christmas music or the ‘too sweet for my teeth’ Hallmark movie channel, and get in the groove.

As of this morning I have several dozen tarts of many kinds all baked – and due to extreme will power, not all eaten – and the gifts have all been wrapped and hidden because there are grandkids coming for a sleepover tomorrow.  The tree is my weekend project.

That’s what I started doing last night - tidying up so that I could begin decorating.  I cleaned up the pile of papers on the desk in my tv room – and found a stack of paperwork to claim 2019 health benefits before the end of the year.  I sorted through the stack of too-important-to-throw-away papers on top of the china cabinet and found a project I was working on for Tourism that I had forgotten all about.  Thank goodness the deadline is still a month off!  Chastising myself for being so unorganized I carefully stacked these two jobs out to my computer desk in the office and placed them with a couple other coupon redemption jobs that have to be completed online.  To top it off I received an email requiring me to put together an application for grant money, I must double check the deadline on that ...

 Even as I sit here, happily tapping away on my keyboard this stack of nuisance papers mock and intimidate me.  I wonder, if I poured gravy on them, would the dog eat my homework?

Merry Christmas everyone – lets all hope for a quiet, relaxing January!

CALENDAR CRUNCH

It must be almost December.  Things are beginning to pile up around me and I find myself slipping into denial about how much time I have left before I need to cook a turkey.

My Face book memories reminded me the other day that a few years ago I had all the shopping/cards/decorating done and it wasn’t even the end of November yet.  I was a little shocked at this, even to the point of checking to make sure I was on the right page.  I didn’t think I had ever been that far ahead of the game – and if I had, wouldn’t I have remembered it?  But, the page was mine, the post was backed up by comments from trustworthy people I actually know, it looked legit.  I still half think it was fake news.  I didn’t think it was possible I could be early ready for Christmas.

Then again, they do talk of such things as Christmas miracles. 

It’s not looking too much like I’m getting another one in 2019.

It’s not that I have nothing done.  I have a few gifts bought.  Well, more like partly bought.  I have half of what I want to give to a few people, all squirreled away in various closets and cupboards, plus a bag I just remembered in the back of my car.  One gift has already been delivered and is in use, two more are going to be delivered closer to the big day, and the gifts that have to go the farthest (Australia) are not even a solid plan in my head yet.  I’m going to regret that one, I can tell you.

What I really need is to clearly write this information down in list form so I can see where the empty blanks still are.  I might be pleasantly surprised that I’m further ahead than I think.

The one thing that I actually have all done is my Christmas letter.  Well, the writing it part is done.  I still have to buy the Christmassy paper to print it on, get the copies made, and address all the envelopes to the folks who get a paper letter.  Because I send so many I have switched to email for anyone whose address I know – so much quicker to send ... except that this year I lost all my contacts info and have to start from scratch.  On second thought, even the thing I thought I was done, I am not done.  That’s depressing.

Yesterday, since the ladder was up at the house because we were changing light bulbs in the porch, I sent my husband up to the attic to retrieve the Christmas lights and decorations.  This is a good thing, right?  Now I can get busy decorating whenever I feel like it.  I no longer have the excuse that the decorations are out of reach.  I realize now how much I was relying on that excuse.  Now I have four large tubs of tinsel, baubles and lights taking up all kinds of space in my TV room.  A smart person would decorate immediately and store the tubs in the basement.  A smart, energetic person.  I’m not sure I qualify on either count there, but I do recognize what is necessary.  It’s a start.

With all this talk of other holiday activities one must also face the biggy – Christmas baking.  The grocery stores all have baking ingredients on sale – they know it’s time.  My Face book friends are starting to post pictures of all the goodies they are brewing up in their kitchens – they know it’s time.  It’s the time of year for bake sales – they know it’s time.  The thing that I know is that if I start baking now it will all be eaten and I will have to do it all again in a couple weeks.  I’m going to save all kinds of work and reduce my caloric intake by the thousands and only make butter tarts once.  I’m crafty like that.

And then there will only be one more thing before the turkey goes into the oven.  Some quiet Sunday afternoon I will haul all my treasures out, gather paper and scissors and tape together, and wrap up Christmas.  Nothing is ever done until the paperwork is done, right?

And that will remind me it is almost January and that the paperwork of tax time is waiting for me next.

IN DENIAL

There is no ignoring the progression of the days.  Granted, the weather has warmed up this week so we’re dealing with fog and rain instead of snow and ice, but the calendar still says we are past mid November.  This forces me to face the following unalienable truths:

1.       The Christmas shopping cannot be put off any forever

2.       I have already received my first Christmas letter (it was a late 2018 one, but still)

3.       Since I’m staging the family feast this year the baking should commence sooner rather than later

4.       And did I mention the Christmas shopping thing?

I’ve been trying to get my head around it.  With pen and paper I have written down a Christmas gift list.  Well, to be completely honest, only half a list.  I have done the side with the names on it.  The side with gift ideas needs work ... a lot of work.  And sadly, there’s every chance that I will discover that the name side isn’t complete either.

Armed with this flimsy outline of what I need, I have wandered around a few stores and found nothing to inspire me.  I’m not blaming the stores, mind you, they had lots of things to choose from – I just am not a natural born shopper.  It’s a rare day when I am actually in the mood for browsing/shopping/spending money.  I think the last time it happened was in 1999.

Also I am not the kind of mom or grandma that thinks the spirit of Christmas is shown in large, lavish gifts.  I’m into giving pyjamas and books and maybe one little fun thing to do like a puzzle or game.  It seems pathetic that even with the bar set so low I still can’t seem to motivate myself to get the job done.  It’s times like this when I fantasize about being the little kid and my greatest Christmas dilemma was that I would be expected to ‘at least try’ the Christmas pudding, and then wait six more eons before the dishes were done and we could open our presents.  Ah!  Those were the days.

But, meanwhile back in the real world, I have to think of and then find small, light weight, Canadian themed gifts for the Australian family.  As usual they will have to be sent airmail which costs more than the gifts will, but that is totally my fault – the cost of procrastination.

Next I have to figure out what sizes all the Canadian grandchildren are, go to where children’s pyjamas are sold, and choose wisely so that everyone is happy with whatever superhero/dinosaur/animal/robot that they get.  No pressure. 

Likewise with the book store choices, but there is a hidden pitfall with me and book stores ... I go in and may never find my way back out again.  If they served Timmie’s coffee instead of Starbucks I would only re-emerge in spring and from there would migrate straight to a plant nursery and disappear for at least another month.  These are two places where I can spend all kinds of time and money.  Unfortunately this does not help me with Christmas shopping. 

I play with the idea of running away from home.

 

I’ve considered gluing November’s calendar page to December’s.

Conversely, I might put up a 2020 calendar, starting the year at February.

Are there specific vitamins a person can take to get them through a shopping day?

Could a hypnotherapist put me in a ‘you love to shop’ trance?

Or, do I just have to do this the old fashioned way?  

THE GENIUS’S WIFE

For everything there is a season for every activity under the sun ...

I was thinking of this bible verse (or the song Turn, turn, Turn by the Byrds in the 60’s) the other day as I tackled yet another of my seasonal jobs.  The seasons roll along and those of us with yards and gardens roll along with them.  We know all about ‘a time to sow and a time to reap’, ‘a time to kill (potato bugs) and a time to heal (the apple trees the deer ate)’, and depending on the whims of Mother Nature we also are well acquainted with ‘a time to weep and a time to laugh’.

This year I even took my yard beautification a step further and installed a rock border/pathway around a large new flower bed I had started.  It took me one complete season ... gathering the stones together, keeping the ones shaped properly for the job and throwing away the rest.   For sure Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verses 1-8 do a good job of describing a gardener’s life cycle.

But, even after the last of the deck pots have been stored away and the squirrels have been gifted with the rest of the sunflower heads, there is still more to do.  It’s a smart girl who gets out there before it’s too cold and the ground is all slippery with ice and snow and gets her Christmas lights up.  I have found that it’s much less treacherous standing on metal ladder rungs while wearing dry shoes, as opposed to snow covered boots.  I much prefer stringing lights through the branches of a twenty foot blue spruce on a sunny day in October.  They don’t have to be plugged in until December 1, but the hard part is already done.

Well, except if someone actually put the lights up the wrong way (Who even knew there was a wrong way?!!!!) and ended up with the male end of the light string AT THE TOP OF THE TREE.

But that’s a story for another day.

Thankfully, with age comes wisdom.  Every year I take away a little new knowledge of this job.  I know that when I can’t reach any higher I can gain four more feet by using the fork end of a wiener roasting stick.  Then I use a short step ladder plus the forked stick.  Then I affix a two prong attachment to the end of a telescoping pole meant for clearing snow off the roof and use that.  We do own a taller step ladder but that just doesn’t seem like a good idea with sixty year old bones and frozen ground.  This is the age/wisdom thing kicking in.

When it came time to get the lights out from storage this fall I found evidence of more wisdom.  One of the strings had come off the tree damaged last spring.  I had actually had the presence of mind to set it apart from the others, identify the broken wire, and show it to my husband to see if it could be fixed.  I vaguely recall the conversation ....

Me: See how the wire is pulled out of the socket? Could you fix that?

Him: I can fix anything.  I am a genius.

I did not argue this point; he has some pretty impressive fixing skills.  But also he is good at procrastination and I wanted to put the Christmas clutter away.  The wisdom I want to brag about here is that I had the presence of mind to stick a label on the broken end so I would remember it needed attention before it was already installed in the tree.  The label said “The genius said he would fix this in the fall.”

This fall, when I showed him the note he calmly looked at it and said “They are on sale at the Coop.  Go buy a new one.”  That’s not his normal kind of fixing genius.

I did go buy more, but there is too much Scottish blood in my veins to just throw something away.  With nothing to lose I thought to myself “let’s see what a genius’s wife can do.” 

You know ... There is a time to tear apart, and a time to mend together ...

So far, so good.  The fix involved what I had on hand; Gorilla glue and Gorilla tape.  If I can manage to place the weak spot with enough slack so that the wind can’t pull it tight I think it’s good to go.  Meanwhile I have a whole new set of lights, I may need another extension cord.