My First Plant – Grow Write Guild Prompt #1

This is my first entry for the You Grow Girl‘s Grow Write Guild. If you’d like to play along, check out the post and go here for the first prompt – which is…
“Write about your first plant”.

My family has always had gardens for as long as I can remember. My mother’s mother was a great gardener. She grew flowers, succulents (there was a huge bed of hens-and-chicks right next to the kitchen window), and vegetables; including the most memorable plants, the giant horseradish plant and a rhubarb plant in opposite corners of the yard. They were subsistence farmers (my grandfather was also an electrician in the nearby coal mine, so the extra food, meat and milk came in handy). There was a large plot of vegetables next to the house, the hill above the garage was planted in alfalfa and wheat grass for the cows, and they raised chickens for eggs as well as the dairy cattle.

When we moved there to help take care of them, I was 15. We started a small plot where the hay used to be, up on the hill. By that time, we had had lots of gardens where we used to live, but not a lot of space. This was the first time I’d chosen plants to grow myself – and I’d be responsible for them.

There were quite a few herbs: oregano, thyme, sesame (in hindsight, not the best choice for cool, rainy western PA), giant sage, borage, and pineapple sage. I fell in love with the pineapple sage when I heard the description. This was in the pre-Internet Stone Age, so I bought the plant by mail order sight unseen. It looked exactly the way it was described: big, soft, fuzzy leaves; speckled with white, yellow and green.
It was one of a half-dozen plants that arrived in a big cardboard box one day in spring. Opening it up was pretty exciting. Some of the plants I wouldn’t have recognized without the help of the plant markers stuck into the pots. I could smell the pineapple sage right away.

The sage plant grew really quickly, bigger than most of the rest. The oregano wound up being bigger, but it spread out instead of getting taller. So did the giant sage.

Probably the best part of the pineapple sage was the scent. Sweet, like a ripe pineapple. The taste of the tea made from the leaves wasn’t quite the same – somewhere in between sage and pineapple. Not as sweet as pineapple, but not as…medicinal and sharp as sage.

Unlike regular sage, pineapple sage is a biennial. Especially on an exposed, windy hill. The plant’s long since gone to the Great Compost Heap, but I still remember it; and the fun I had that summer taking care of it, watching it grow, and harvesting the leaves for tea.

I’m not even sure how to title this. It’s been on my mind for a while, and I thought I’d write about it today. Primarily because it won’t leave me alone.

“A squaw living under an oak tree in C_____ T_______ Twp.” It’s part of a marriage record from a very long time ago. In the mid-1800s, when this was written, people didn’t bother to learn the names of people who weren’t white (at least not there).

White people also didn’t bother to learn what tribe they were from. A family story indicated the woman in the document was “Cherokee” – which would have been impossible in that area. Of course, back then if you weren’t white, black or Asian, you were a Cherokee. But anyway.

I have no idea how to feel about this. I suppose I should feel pride, but I only feel sadness and anger for the woman “living under the oak tree”.

Quiet Time

For the past 3 days now, I’ve been a Single Lonely Loser parent. Baby Bat certainly hasn’t minded; she gets to eat meatless without too much of a fight, save for the “new veggies are EVIL AND WRONG! NOOOOO!” thing, and she gets to read in bed with Mom.

I’m actually enjoying having some time alone. The whole “Lonely Loser” is inaccurate. I’m pretty happy being by myself when I need to be, and I haven’t run out of things to do quite yet. Right now I’m working on one project that is 2/3 finished, one project that is both ongoing and pretty important to me, and thank you letters. I have yet to resort to the TV/Netflix during the day. Internet radio’s pretty amazing right now, and I can crank my Davis as loud as I want. If I wasn’t physically miserable (thank YOU, shark week) things would be much better.

Hard to believe that a year ago I was waiting for my parents to get here and going into a full-blown panic over surgery.

Dear 2012: GTFO.

2012 is almost over. I am so insanely excited to see it go. There are some good, sound reasons for that; I wrote about them on another blog yesterday, so I won’t be repeating myself. If anybody doesn’t know that I have another blog, let me know in the comments and I’ll send you the link.

The only other things I wanted to say was this: M called on Xmas day this year. First time in ages. I was very happy that she did; unfortunately, A had been up till after 2AM the night before, and was falling asleep on the couch when she called. But they still talked a little, and it was still pretty great.

Also, sometimes you can really find out who your friends are – and who weren’t really friends to begin with (or friends with…other agendas). This past month was quite an eye-opener. But anyway.

If I feel like waking up and writing some more tomorrow, I have a short list of things I’d like to do this year. But we’ll see. Happy New Year’s Eve, guys. May you have an evening of bad-for-you snacks, board games and Anderson Cooper ahead of you, too.

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The London Olympic Stadium is 53 meters high. This blog had about 700 visitors in 2012. If every visitor were a meter, this blog would be 13 times taller than the Olympic Stadium – not too shabby.

Click here to see the complete report.

Considering I didn’t write all that much, and spent quite a bit of 2012 deleting most of my archives, not all that bad. See you next year.

Scary Stories

I love reading. One of my favorite things to read is horror fiction. As an adult it is; when I was a kid, the 4:30 movie during Poe Week was the scariest thing I could handle. Certainly not a scary book.

BabyBat has much different tastes than I did as a kid. She loves Goosebumps, the Bunnicula series, the Inkheart series (which can be kind of scary in its own way), and has been reading a couple of YA ghost story books (thank YOU, book fair).

One of our favorite authors here, and not just the royal we either, is Neil Gaiman. He writes stories. Beautiful, dark, enchanting, and scary stories. All Hallow’s Read is an ancient Halloween tradition that started with one of Mr. Gaiman’s blog posts. Give a scary book to somebody for Halloween. Or tell them a scary story, or write a scary story yourself. BabyBat is toying with the idea of writing something this time, but I think we’ll get her a book anyway.

This year, Neil Gaiman wrote and read a short story for Audible. Click-Clack the Rattlebag is wonderful (link goes to the download page). It’s free until Oct. 31, and Audible will donate $1 to DonorsChoose.org for every download from their site. I’d tell you more about the story, but I’d spoil it for you. But I enjoyed it. Go check it out.

How I Became Not Evil (at least on this blog)

Once upon a time, this blog was called Evil Mommy. It was about our adoption of our now-10-year-old and life as older parents. Sometimes other things, like politics, feminism and assorted rants. But not especially often. I mentioned a little bit about how that change came to be on this page, where there’s an explanation about how the name came about. But I thought I’d write about that today.

When I originally began this blog, I was experiencing post-adoption depression. I truly believed what I wrote back then. M went through her own mental health issues, and I can’t speak for those or for her. These were mine. Believing that I was a terrible parent because I didn’t give birth to the love of my life; and because I was a terrible parent, I was a terrible person. I was also considerably older than any of the parents around us; certainly when we lived in town that was true, and out here as well. Plus I was (still am) an aging Goth/positive punker who has moved away from some aspects of the “scene” and hasn’t given up others. Not quite the same as the other parents.

Writing helped with getting some of those feelings out. Time, counseling and meds helped too. Getting to know people online who I have more in common with than people nearby – that also helped. Seeing myself as someone worth being around took a long time. I’m still working on that one.

So now I’m just me.

Ada Lovelace, My Mom, and Aunt Ginny

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a day dedicated to women who have worked or currently work in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. I myself am not one of those women, although I love and appreciate science. There are quite a few women in my family who are. Here are two of them.

Virgina Conway Littau was an ethnobotanist and research biologist. She and my uncle married not long after he passed his state bar exam and right after she received her doctorate in biology. Ginny worked with plant viruses, how eating diseased plants affected insects, and plant tumors. She and my uncle joked that it gave them an excuse to go around the world on adventures. She never talked much about her work when I was growing up. They were both much more interested in talking about their travels. Frankly, at the time my sister and I were far more interested in hearing about their adventures than how things went in the lab or with the grant writing that month. Ginny shared that with my mom and dad, who worked in the same sort of environment. She worked at a couple of large non-profit research laboratories near their NY home. We never heard about the work she was doing at the time she did it; but Ginny’s enthusiasm about the world around us, especially the plant world – that came through loud and clear.

Sara Bennett Littau was interested in science as a young girl. Lots of visits to her parents’ house in rural PA involved playing with my mom’s chemistry set. She grew up on a farm; her family were subsistence farmers, and my grandfather also worked as an electrician for a nearby mining company. Mom was the first person in her family to go to a 4-year college, majoring in chemistry. In fact, my mom and dad met while she was at school – he was one of the teaching assistants while she was an undergrad. She went and got a masters, got married and had me. And later on, my sister. That was it for a while.

Once my sister was in 1st grade and we were both at school all day, she found that she was bored. Very bored. Bored enough to go down to the local hospital, head to their analytical lab, and offer to volunteer as a medical technologist. The department head let her volunteer for a couple of weeks. Then he offered her a job.

She worked at that hospital for the next 5 or 6 years, moved back to her parents’ home to help take care of them, and found work – both she and my dad – at an analytical lab. She also worked as a medical supply salesperson. Her clients loved her because she knew how to develop testing methods and was willing to work through testing issues with them.

My mom and dad both inspired my sister to pursue a career in chemistry. She doesn’t enjoy the politics around her work, but she loves what she does.

Conferences

Yesterday was Baby Bat’s fall conference. She’ll have another one in the spring (and her teacher invited us to email or phone her if we wanted to talk any other time).

Her teacher is great. Baby Bat loves being in her class, and she seems to be doing well. The only thing that was mentioned is that she’s very quiet in class. Which is…just the way she is. I’d imagine that M was pretty quiet in class as well. She’s pretty reserved with people she doesn’t know well. M is, anyway. Because DadGoth and I are very outgoing and not at all introverted. Yeah. I see you laughing. Shut up.

We also got to meet her new math teacher. This year, the kids are being split up by ability level for math classes, and go to a different class for that subject. Baby Bat loves her math class. She especially loves that some of her friends are in her math class as well. At least they can spend a little more time together that way. Her math teacher is lovely. She’s young, enthusiastic and has been encouraging Baby Bat to speak up more in class, which is almost always good. Almost.

We also had two go-rounds at the book fair, the event that happens conveniently around conference time twice a year. One of Baby Bat’s choices this time was a ghost story. One that looks like a few levels beyond her usual Goosebumps/Horrorland choices, and not due to the reading level. But she did say she wanted to read it during break, in case it was too scary to let her sleep.

Another conference down, and another public thing done.

Scary Movie Month: Halloween

I love horror movies. My favorites are the creepy ones, either gory or not, but usually not. I don’t care much for slasher movies in general. Boring after a while, pointless and almost always involving rape. Eh, not for me, thanks.

The only exception is Halloween; the first one, not the Rob Zombie remake. It made me a John Carpenter fan. The first time I saw this, it was at college. On a big screen, with a room full of drunk, stoned students screaming and laughing all through the movie. The second time, also at college, was at a friend’s house. That’s when I really got into this one.

For the three people who have never seen this, it’s a pretty simple plot. Once upon a time, little Mikey Myers stabbed his teenage sister to death. Years later, he escapes from his former home/local psychiatric hospital and returns to his old house. Lots of scenes of teenagers having sex and getting stabbed, Jamie Lee Curtis being scared and Donald Pleasance being his creepy self as Myers’ shrink.

This one, IMO, is not for the kids. Baby Bat won’t be watching this for quite some time. At least not before Night of the Living Dead and some other favorites.