Working With What Wants to Grow
In my world, similarities cause more problems than differences. How am I supposed to maintain my faith in my freak factor with a mirror image of me moving independently in my face? I don't especially like myself, but I have no choice but to put up with my own company. I have a choice whether or not to put up with somebody just like me. Adios freako.
I often think my son is out to be a better me than I am. Doesn't he remember that I am what his mother warned him about? Find a better role model, kid!
There is no place our similarities have caused more problems than in the plant kingdom. He has chosen to pursue his profession there. He looks damn good doing it, too. Now if I can just get him to keep his work off my hobby... Plants never called me as a profession, but they are and always have been my most effective therapy. First wild plants. Yes, I admit it, I am a bonafide weed hugger. My longest running hobby is rescuing weeds from bulldozer blades. I even have names for most of those weeds. More and more, I am going for domestic stock, but I still respect my weeds. I seldom cut them before I know their botanical names and even then, I like being able to watch their full life cycles, much to the dismay of the homeowner's associations. Weeds is just weeds.
An obvious precipitator in this past winter's episodes was the monstrous debt that declared the end of the move with entirely too many projects still undone. How depressingly normal!
Early in to the end-of-moving transition, my son and I went nursery hopping to get to know some of nurseries in the new neighborhood. My budget was equally depressing, but I told myself... I should have told my son. The 32 year old brat spent up my entire budget and then some. I nearly flew into one of my rages when I turned around and saw his loaded up cart. I choked and simply put back my own purchases. He had come through like a champ during the moving/renovation work and the scenario fit the way we had been doing it. Transitions get slippery. My communication skills were lagging.
Predictably enough, my son and I have been butting heads pretty hard since then. A few knock down, drag outs. Yaddah to the blah, blah to the yaddah.
We are still taking space, but the love is trickling through. Progress not perfection.
Two of the items on his cart that day were two magnificent blackberry plants. Two of the items I quietly put back were to cheaper bare root blackberry plants. Those two plants came back to me this weekend. It is a bit hot for planting blackberries, but what the hay. We see if they want to grow.
I often think my son is out to be a better me than I am. Doesn't he remember that I am what his mother warned him about? Find a better role model, kid!
There is no place our similarities have caused more problems than in the plant kingdom. He has chosen to pursue his profession there. He looks damn good doing it, too. Now if I can just get him to keep his work off my hobby... Plants never called me as a profession, but they are and always have been my most effective therapy. First wild plants. Yes, I admit it, I am a bonafide weed hugger. My longest running hobby is rescuing weeds from bulldozer blades. I even have names for most of those weeds. More and more, I am going for domestic stock, but I still respect my weeds. I seldom cut them before I know their botanical names and even then, I like being able to watch their full life cycles, much to the dismay of the homeowner's associations. Weeds is just weeds.
An obvious precipitator in this past winter's episodes was the monstrous debt that declared the end of the move with entirely too many projects still undone. How depressingly normal!
Early in to the end-of-moving transition, my son and I went nursery hopping to get to know some of nurseries in the new neighborhood. My budget was equally depressing, but I told myself... I should have told my son. The 32 year old brat spent up my entire budget and then some. I nearly flew into one of my rages when I turned around and saw his loaded up cart. I choked and simply put back my own purchases. He had come through like a champ during the moving/renovation work and the scenario fit the way we had been doing it. Transitions get slippery. My communication skills were lagging.
Predictably enough, my son and I have been butting heads pretty hard since then. A few knock down, drag outs. Yaddah to the blah, blah to the yaddah.
We are still taking space, but the love is trickling through. Progress not perfection.
Two of the items on his cart that day were two magnificent blackberry plants. Two of the items I quietly put back were to cheaper bare root blackberry plants. Those two plants came back to me this weekend. It is a bit hot for planting blackberries, but what the hay. We see if they want to grow.
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