I may have found/hit a new level of low. I blame it on my lack of accompaniment by warm souls with paws….
Day 7 on the island (as I might write in a journal about being shipwrecked on a deserted island somewhere), and I’ve taken to studying the local flora. I have discovered myself to have a penchant for ‘window box tending’. Is this even a ‘thing’? I think not, and yet….
Like many French apts, ours has window boxes with what i consider the requisite Napoleonic Red Geraniums. I noticed right away when we moved in however that ours are like the ‘Tom Hanks in the middle of Castaway movie’ version. They are the bare ‘essence’ of the geranium flower but very much lacking in being the ‘substance’ of the geranium flower. Overwhelming us with abundant blooms, they are NOT.
This wouldn’t be quite so tragic except that Double Dubs (see last post) and co above us, with the SAME damn window boxes and the same damn Napoleonic Red Geraniums have the ‘Lady Gaga at the Met Gala’ version of geraniums and this situation is seriously harshing my mellow. I mean Double Dubs’ geraniums are BOLD. They are literally falling all over themselves to attract my attention. The Lady Gaga geraniums sing out to me every time I walk across the courtyard to enter our flat. There are just sooo many blooms, and so much greenery cascading elegantly while my Tom Hanks Castaway geraniums look like the skinny water-wing-wearing men from that 1986 Arctic Power TV commercial. (Click to see it and tell me I’m not the only one who remembers this.)
So now I”m weirdly obsessed with bolstering my blooms (and I can’t imagine a more obvious life metaphor.) In sleepless jet-lagged wee hours I’ve been reading online about geranium propagation. I’ve made trips to 3 shops to procure fertilizer specific to these ‘hungry’ flowers. That was the word on the bottle in french and I’ve never thought of plants as having an appetite level before, but then truthfully, I’ve never really thought about plants much. After all, my forte is warm souls with paws, not things with leaves. Thats just how I roll.
But I am determinably loving these floral friends. I washed their leaves (who wants dusty leaves?!…how can they even breathe like that? I mean I know jack diddly about plants but I remember learning something about photosynethesis and them doing that through their leaves, so I reckon it’s like them trying to read through filthy reading glasses.) I dead-head them daily, give a few of their leaves a gentle rub and spritz them after the sun moves off them with a light shower of Evian. Okay, the Evian is a lie but IF I thought it would make a difference, damn straight my gerries would be getting that french spa treatment! I only have 3 windows of them after all. How much could they really soak up through the scant number of leaves that currently cling for dear life onto their spindly stalks? So I’m doing it all, and hoping for a little Lady Gaga Razzlematazzle.
I guess this is what happens when you move from being surrounded by so much green that it all sort of blends together. Having just three very obvious window’s worth of blooms makes it so glaringly apparent when they are less then resplendant. There is definitely another life metaphor here. Indeed it is often hard to see the trees for the forest.
And already these little guys seem to be responding to the attention, and I’m kind of glad Georgia isn’t here to witness this new ‘growing’ obsession (#GardenPun) otherwise her relentless sense of humor would know no bounds. I haven’t yet named them though, so at least I’m holding onto some shred of sanity. (Not chastising those of you who I know DO name your plants….not naming names, MB, naming your Tomato plants…. hahaha)
I am however going to go full Kayla Itsinies on these babies and take ‘progress’ photos because I swear they have already responded to my Tony Robbins-esque pep talks and ‘ground-breaking’ (wink wink) green leaf massage treatments. I don’t want to brag, but I’m already up at least 2 blooms PER planter box which is at least at a whopping 4 blooms per window. And 6 in the family room! 6 blooms, people! I mean, come ON! And if you are tempted to write and tell me that they are probably just doing what they would naturally do, and bloom some more, don’t burst my bubble. I’ve got at least 10 blooms more than when i arrived, and so there’s really no stopping me now.
Look out Lady Gaga Gerries…we may have started waaaaay behind the pack, but we are fueling up, training hard, and there is no doubt, we are coming for you!
