My Garden is Officially Out of Control

Every year, around the same time, I come to this conclusion about my garden. It is out of control. My garden was really lame this year, but just the same, the out of control phase came at the usual time, which is mid-August.

There is some kind of tomato disease sweeping the country. Apparently it all originated with a giant corporate farm that supplies the starter plants you get at big box stores, which is exactly where I got my tomato plant. I understand that you either get blossom end rot, or the leaves on the plant crinkle up and die. I have the latter. I'm sure the total crap weather we had this summer only made it worse. It has not seemed to affect the tomatoes themselves. By the way I have about 100 green tomatoes on that plant and I can see that they are all beginning to ripen at once. Typical. My non-gardening neighbors will benefit. I also have a volunteer cherry tomato plant growing out of the side of the compost heap, but that one seems fine.

Everything else is obscured by weeds, or killed by mold and mildew. Part of the weed problem has been brought on by myself in an effort to be "green." I have an entire post in my head about struggles to be more green. I'll save the details for that post.

Some of the garden is still OK.

My house is getting a little weird, too. The persistent rains and our lack of air conditioning is resulting in an atmosphere that is so damp the doors won't shut right and it is starting to smell musty. Yuk.

I finally finished reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Just in time, I suppose, because the day I finished it I saw an article in the newspaper saying that she was about to come out with a new book.

I believe I have mentioned that E.L. lives in Frenchtown. I was at a cafe with friends that looks over the bike path in town. Someone said, "Look, it's Liz Gilbert." but when I looked up she was already gone. That is as close as I've come to seeing her.

I did not love the book, but I didn't hate it either. She is a good writer, and I liked a lot of her descriptions and insights into the places she visits. Her psychic pain was too much for me. She cried a lot, and I have a problem with that. I don't cry much, so there is that, plus when other people cry, I find it alarming. I guess because I think that if you are crying, something down right dreadful must have happened. Not necessarily. It could be that you are still crying about the relationship that didn't work out 2 years ago. Don't worry, I realize that it's me who is weird. I have had clues my entire life, but it was at my sister-in-law's baby shower that I knew for sure that I was different from many women. She opened up one of her gifts and it was some Precious Moments thing with a verse that my sister in law read aloud. She could not even get through it, she was so choked up. Every single one of the 20 women in that room was teary except me. All I could think was how lame it was. It was a very isolating moment. Hey, what can you do?

Just to redeem myself a little, I will tell you about a meeting I attended at work. We were meeting with a new employee group of veterans. The woman in charge was telling us that she was wanted to set up a Missing Man Table near the cafeteria, which consists of a small table with a place setting but no one sitting. There are symbolic things on the table, such as salt to represent tears and lemon (bitterness) a rose and other things to make you think of the missing/POW soldier. I had never heard of this, and I swear, I almost lost it on the spot. I understand that these tables are usually at military dinners and events.

I asked my son about it when I came home. He said he had seen that plenty of times, and that in the Marines there is even one in every chow hall every day.