When Your Plants Start Conversing Amongst Themselves

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I hit this point every single stinking year.
Ya know, where you glance out the window at some gawdawful wet, hot, muggy air that is-so-humid-laden-you-should-be-frosting-a-cake-with-it point and get so deflated, overwhelmed and disgusted that you just want to throw your hands up and say, "Well, fuck it!" (Hey, I never pronounced this blog to be G-rated.)

Today is that day this year. Yup, there's no hiding from it. Ok, unless I tape black tissue paper over every window and door in my house and hide under the thick, oversized comforter in the muggy, hot bedroom so I don't have to look at one single drooping, pissed-off-at-me plant. Unless this is a good day to die of heat stroke, that is sooo not gonna happen.

So, I end up watching my plants out the window watching me watch them.
And they are obviously talking shit about me. I can tell.
And they don't even have the decency to do it behind my back.
I see their happy little buds, flowers, fronds and leaves nodding at each other, don't think I don't!
I know what they're saying -

Phlox: "Geeez! We're just getting started and she's slacking already."

The daisies drooping with raindrops grumbling from across the walkway: "Pfffttt! where's our stake? Where the hell is our stake? We give up."

The columbines: "I wish she'd get out here long enough to collect all this seed we're wasting on the mulch. We thought she loved us!"

The bee balm nodding in agreement: "She's useless. Invasion, it's the only way!"

The irises, with a Cheshire cat grin: "If you were all just smart enough to do the spring thing..."

The peppers: "Where the hell are our epsom salts? We know she dosed last year, we can feel residue in the soil!"

The pole beans, tendrils waiving free in the breeze: "Awww, quit your whimpering! She couldn't even be bothered to give us a big enough pole. She's pathetic."

The whiney cucumbers: "Look! Just look at all these cucumber beetles. She only smooshed a hundred and fifty or so. What about the other thousand? We're gonna die, we're just gonna wilt and die, and then she'll complain about no pickles!"

The diva heucheras: "Ewww! Look at all those nasty weeds in the walkway. They're gonna touch us. She's going to let their unclean roots creep into the flowerbed and touch us!"

The snooty tomatoes: "She'll see. She'll just see what happens when we're ignored!

The Guaras: "Well, just see if we bother coming back next year. We'll just leave a pitiful empty spot in the flowerbed so everyone knows she doesn't take care of anything. That'll fix her wagon good!"

And then I glance at the lush, green, rain-laden and uncomplaining Boston ferns, grab the pruners and head out the door and into the rain amongst the overwhelming din of "Me first!"
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