The Merry Month of May

Lilac, May 2009.

May was a washout for writing.  I have a full life, even if it is currently fraught with facing fascism.  Here’s what was going on, which pulled me away from writing.

Health stuff

• Signed up for Medicare.  Thankfully this did not require any decision-making at this time.

• Outpatient “surgery” – diagnostic d&c, so not really any slicing and dicing – lab results were negative which is a big positive.  Recovery was smooth.  The most noticeable effect was a Toddler-in-Chief-sized bruise on my hand.

• Went to walk on the treadmill (before sciatica) and discovered it is broken.  I had been using the treadmill only about once or twice a month, for about 15 minutes at a time.  “Better than nothing!” I proclaim to the imaginary scolding doctor in my head.

But then toward the end of the month I ruined my health with…

Counterproductive physical activity

• Scrubbed every surface in the shower - mild sciatica.

• Two days, back to back, of massively intensive gardening, with the result of agonizing sciatica.  I planted eight types of perennials, and three kinds of annuals.

French horn pathways

Music

• Community Symphonic Band Concert - my son is in this band.  It’s always enjoyable.  And not very costly!

• River City Brass Band - phenomenal and very loud professional performing group.

• Church choir - we sang on Pentecost.

Activism and Civic Duty

• Church anti-racism team meeting

• Two School Board meetings (I try to attend every meeting, just to listen)

• Political meeting.  Whenever I say this, it reminds me of Gone With the Wind, when the men-folk have a “political meeting” to do violent racist stuff.  My political meeting is the opposite of that, and is not secret.

• Monthly informal gathering of politically like-minded people with no agenda.

• Staffing the political party tent at the County Election Satellite Office, nearby.

• Contacted my elected officials 17 times, mostly by phone.  Irate screed: 8 to Senator Bitcoin, 5 to Senator Failure.  Expressions of gratitude: 4 to my actually useful US Rep.

• Corresponded with voters in my precinct who had questions about the upcoming election.

• Town Council meeting (I just attended to listen.  Can’t usually make it to these meetings.)

• Election officer - a 15-hour work day of boredom on Election Day to ensure that everyone can vote.  Turnout was especially low this time, but the silver lining was that my party’s turnout exceeded the other’s turnout, even though there were no contested seats for my party and several contested seats for Party 2.

• Won my (uncontested) seat on the Party Committee.  Thank you, voters.

• Compiling and examining election data after our local primary election.

• Garden Party event at a local LGBTQ+ organization we wanted to find out more about.  We were impressed and will be supporting them as best we can.

• Township event recognizing veterans and first responders.  It should have included some kind of honoring for Memorial Day, but the event speakers only obliquely mentioned those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.  I don’t have the bandwidth to issue a criticism to the township for this. 

• Attended two local sidewalk rallies to object to all the crap dished out by the Orange Menace & his sycophants.

• A total of 76.5 hours of political/civic duty activity during May.  Oof.

Spiritual and Intellectual endeavors

• Church - weekly worship, a board meeting, a nominating committee meeting (I am practically useless on this committee)

• Synagogue - attended worship service recognizing our friends’ wedding anniversary

• Two book clubs

Family & household stuff

• Closed a bank account that was no longer needed.  It was this trip to the bank that showed me the sciatica was unmanageable.  I could barely drive home for the pain.

• Visited family in Ohio.

• 62 hours of paid work.

What were you up to in May, Dear Reader?

Explosions

Holden Arboretum, Kirtland, OH

Congratulations to all you folks who had “meteor fireball” on your 2026 bingo card.  Exploding meteor over Massachusetts!  Younger Daughter says she heard it, but thought it was thunder.  

“It was definitely bigger than a normal fireball, about a yard wide,” [American Meteor Society program monitor Robert Lunsford] said.   

Are fireballs ever normal?  

I experienced my own sort of explosion this week, due to aggressive shower scrubbing on Monday and then, stupidly, excessive gardening on Wed. and Thurs.  

The dark lines in the shower floor
are not dirt but emptiness.

I had to scrub the shower because the guy was coming on Thursday to regrout the shower floor.   The only thing good about this was that I had abandoned the idea of doing the regrouting myself.  The scrubbing of the shower brought on mild sciatica. 

Gardening on a steep slope like this
is difficult.  But of course, you can't
tell from this photo that it is a steep slope.
Lamb's ear, lantana, and verbena.

Outside, we have been planting perennials and annuals galore, as our horticultural statement that we believe there will be a future with beauty in it, despite all current evidence to the contrary.  Perennials from the garden store come in DEEP buckets.   We bought a spade to dig deep holes.  And our neighbor saw me planting stuff, and gave me gobs more perennials (for free!) from her very successful garden.

And then I wanted to put in some bleeding hearts, and on Thursday the garden store finally had them in stock. This meant digging more very deep holes in rocky soil and cutting some thick roots, in a hurry because we would be away for the weekend.   This was the last straw for my sciatic nerve, which has obviously heard that it is the year 2026.  Stinging, burning pain from my butt all the way to my heel.  It became extremely painful to sit, or move to standing, and eventually even when lying down and not moving.   The pain is as intense as labor contractions, but with no prize after. 

From inside the hole for the
bleeding heart

On Friday we drove to Ohio for a planned visit to Older Daughter.  The Common Household Husband said I should go, because if not, I would regret missing the family visit.  I achieved my lifelong goal of getting my husband to stop at every rest stop, so I could stand up for a few blessed minutes.  I went on a regime of max dosages of ibuprofen and acetaminophen, which made the pain barely tolerable instead of excruciating, but had unpleasant effects on my digestion.  

I tried to distract myself from the pain by calling Younger Daughter, who has recently studied anatomy.

Me: “Please explain to me the sciatic nerve, and why it hurts so expletive-deleted much, and why I even need this nerve.”

Younger Daughter, in teacher mode:  “Are you familiar with your spine?”

Me: “That’s a political question. There are many people these days who are not familiar with their spines.”

YD basically said that the sciatic nerve is a big honking nerve (connected to the spine) which I do actually want to have because it enables walking.

Saturday we drove 40 perturbing minutes to the Holden Arboretum. Once I got out of the car I was actually able to enjoy the arboretum, as long as I kept walking and never sat down.  We saw some Quaking Aspens, which are one connected organism! The Bald Cypress is a tree that has knees.  We saw lots of gorgeous flowers too, including some of the same species that we have planted in our own garden.  

Quaking Aspen

Bald Cypress

We probably walked more than two miles, for several hours.  Quite a hike for me!

Instead of staying in Ohio another night we drove home and got to the urgent care an hour before they closed.  Confirmed that it is sciatica. The doc said, “You shouldn’t just lie in bed because that will create other more serious problems.  But don’t go on a hike or anything like that.”    2026 strikes again - I just spent hours walking around the arboretum.

With prednisone, the pain has gone from constant agony down to a dull pain when sitting, and only excruciating when getting to standing, or putting on my socks and shoes.  I have to go up and down the stairs like a toddler.  I can’t drive.

On the plus side, the shower is regrouted, the garden beds are planted, we obtained an Emergency Heating Pad, we got to visit the folks in Ohio, if briefly.  And steroids exist, at least for two more days.

And we have an explosion of flora surrounding the house. That's pretty good, for 2026.

Yellow peonies, Holden Arboretum

Yarrow, Holden Arboretum.
I wonder if ours will look like this, ever.

Star of Persia allium, and two-toned peonies,
Holden Arboretum

The Reluctant Gardener Strikes Again

Snow-in-summer, May 2015
It was neither snowing, nor summer.
But aren't they pretty!

Sunday the weather was wickedly cold and windy.  So we went to the garden store.  I bought seeds and potting soil, in what will probably prove to be a futile attempt to bring beauty into the world.

Yesterday the weather was nice enough that I did this.

Forget-me-nots, Thyme, and
Black-eyed Susan vine

The Black-eyed Susan vine seeds are
fairly large. 

By contrast, the thyme seeds are tiny.

The fatal flaw in this whole project
may be that I did not throw out the old
dirt but just mixed it with the new dirt.

Then out to the yard.
I set to digging two holes in
our less-than-ideal soil.

Into those holes I put two snow-in-summer
plants.  The existing snow-in-summer 
is at the tip of the trowel in this photo.  It 
is on its last legs, so perhaps it was
foolish to plant new ones in the same spot.

And then I sprayed the 
balloon flower sprouts with
Liquid Fence to keep the #$&*#
deer and rabbits away.

I want to eventually plant more perennials, and my more-experienced-at-gardening friends have suggested:

• butterfly weed 

• bee balm 

• anise hyssop 

• yarrow

• allium = ornamental onion

Here are my reasons – first, because all of them claim to be deer- and rabbit-resistant, grow in poor soil, and are heat tolerant.  I plan to place them next to the wall of the house that gets the sun all afternoon.  The downside is the interwebs say they are prone to powdery mildew, a fungal disease.  I don’t want to have to use chemicals. 

Here are more pros:

Butterfly weed:  I want to be nice to the butterflies.  As Ron Weasley said, “Why couldn't it have been 'follow the butterflies'?”

Bee Balm:  It is fun to say.  And I want to be nice to the bees.  As long as they keep their distance and don’t build homes in the walls of the house.

Anise hyssop: Hyssop is biblical.  “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”  (Psalm 51:7)  Never mind that Penn State Extension says that anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) is not bona fide hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis). 

Yarrow:  I would plant this for the interesting foliage, although the flowers online look charming too.  

Allium:  Ornamental Onion is fun to say.  The flowers look like pompoms.

And I am also thinking of Black-eyed Susans because I have always loved them.  

And Bleeding Hearts, because we have had two that came up every spring since we moved to this house, but I think the weeds have finally choked them out.  And I’m hoping they will grow in mostly shade.  I would have bought some on Sunday but the garden store had none in stock.

Do you have a garden?  What are you planting this season?  Do you have any experience with these perennials?

(More) Tales of a Reluctant Gardener

That shriek you heard all throughout the neighborhood on the afternoon

of Memorial Day was me being startled by a deer fawn which was very

close to our front door.  I am fairly sure it was as startled as I was. 

This was toward the end of a 60-minute weeding stint of our “mailbox garden”.  After shrieking briefly, grumpy old lady thoughts of “Youths, stay off my lawn!” entered my mind.

Actually I would love it if the human youth who showed up last week asking to be hired to mow our lawn would show up soon to plant some flahrs.

There are only 5 or 6
balloon flower plants left.

Last year at this time, this 4 x 4 plot was riotous with balloon flower plants.  There are hardly any this year.  I know that in spring and summer 2024 there was no gardening done in this household.  I was too busy trying to fight off autocracy / Project 2025 / whatever you want to call this Big Mistake America has entered into.    I still sob internally at the outcome of my efforts.   This is where my thoughts go on this Memorial Day – those who gave their lives for our country – is this what they fought for?

The plant on the upper right is 
definitely balloon flower.  Not so
sure about the other foliage.

I found it difficult to distinguish some plants.  The small leaves (on the left

in the photo) are being eaten by some insect, while the definite balloon

flower leaves (on the upper right) are not.

 

But maybe the ones on the left are just baby balloon flower leaves?  No

matter; those smaller plants are no more.  I pulled them all out.

I planted the bulbs from the teeny but tall daffodils-in-a-pot we bought at

Trader Joe’s in April.  In a fit of dubious gardening daring, I put them at

the foot of our Kwanzan cherry tree.  We will find out in a year if this too

is a Big Mistake.

Big Mistake?

We also went to our local county park.  And so did everyone else, although you can’t

tell from my photos.  It was a lovely day with perfect weather.

A family of ducks

A rare blue sky and perfect temperature

Remembering and honoring
those who died for our country.
May their sacrifice not be in vain.

More from the Reluctant Gardener:

Shallow Thoughts of the Reluctant Gardener (July 2013)

Perils in Suburbia (June 2010)

The Fake Isle of Suburbia (October 2008)

Absolutely Wonderful

cherry tree in bloom April 2024

Today I went for a walk outside and discovered that spring has arrived.  I hadn’t noticed sooner that our Kwanzan cherry tree is in full bloom.  I hadn’t noticed sooner that the big lilac bush is on the verge of blooming.  I hadn’t seen until today that the neighbor’s dogwood tree looks stunning.  Suddenly today there is evidence that it is time for tiny children to learn how to ride tiny bicycles.

I don’t know yet if this is a break in my recent pattern.  In the last week of February, I was energetic enough to get myself to walk (inside, on the treadmill) every day. I was successful, for about a week, at engaging in this healthier practice.   Then my aunt died, and that exercise effort ceased.  There was just so much to do and at the same time so much to process in my head and heart.

Bleeding heart.  So delicate.

My aunt would have loved a day like today.   She was by vocation an artist, especially in watercolor painting.  She thrived on noticing color, shape, and line.  Her go-to phrase was “Absolutely wonderful!” which is how she would have described today. 

We weren’t expecting my aunt to depart so soon.  She had been quite ill, but I really thought she would turn the corner.  Earlier in the year, she said, “I’m planning to make it to 90 years old.”  I thought she would, but she missed it by a few weeks.  My last words to her were, “I love you, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”  And she replied, "Wonderful!" I had planned to drive to see her the next day, but it was not to be.  Instead, we made the trip to the funeral home.

I have conflicting emotions I am working through.  And a whole lot of estate tasks I am working through.  I was glad to have some moments today to leave all that behind and enjoy the flowers and warm air.

Lilac bush ready to bloom

Pink

My favorite tree is the redbud tree outside the main building at the Old Folks' Home where my mom and my aunt live.  

This is what the tree looked like in April.  Please click on the photos to embiggen.

Who could not love a tree that has all those flowers hugging the branches, and then bursts forth in heart-shaped leaves?  

And then there are these instances of a sort of pink:

"Vibrations" by Maxwell G Miller
displayed at the Negative Space Art Studio

painting by Patrick Haggerty
displayed at the Negative Space Art Studio

Lately I sometimes feel like the guy in the first painting.  But sometimes I feel more serene, like the second painting, which was inspired by Italian cathedrals.

This post was inspired by Carmi at Written Inc, who asked all y'all out in blogland to post photos on the theme of pink.