Haunted Memories

I used to live on the edge of a forest just outside of Savannah, Georgia. On Halloween, especially, I miss the eerie beauty of the place, where acorns falling from monster Live Oaks sounded like Sasquatch crashing through the woods.

I still cling to the Spanish moss, tillandsia usenioides. It drapes my sunroom—my own way of remembering the way it dripped from those sprawling southern trees like the cobwebs of an ancient and ghostly past.

We had what Southerners called “Black Widdahs,” beautiful spiders, shiny black and leggy and delicate. I watched one once. She folded herself over that lipstick-red-hourglass almost protectively.

But my favorite thrill was watching the migrating blackbirds descend every fall. There were so many thousands that they darkened the trees just like a scene from The Birds. The sound was deafening and the air itself felt electrified. It was eerie and exciting and awe inspiring all at once, like National Geographic-gone-Goth. But the real magic came when they suddenly rose as one to leave. Every single one suddenly fell silent, as if someone had flipped off the volume switch, and they lifted in a hushed, magnificent cloud so thick and black that it momentarily blocked out the sun.

Happy Halloween wherever you are!


Conversation between two trick-or-treaters (as I opened the door while they were walking away): 
Trick-or-Treater 1: Told you that’s not what ‘No Soliciting’ means.
Trick-or-Treater 2: Then what does it mean?
Trick-or-Treater 1: It means hanging around and stuff.
Me: It means I don’t want people trying to get me to buy stuff.
Trick-or-Treater 2: Oh, we don’t want you to buy stuff! We want to take stuff. Your candy.

Improper Poll: Gone with the Whim

Ahner's Greenhouse in its Former Glory

It’s been a summer of disappointments. The heat and lack of rain meant it was hard to go to festivals and outdoor concerts. Most of the Fourth of July fireworks were cancelled.

Then I found out two of my favorite summer products have been discontinued. The horror! Harry and David’s Strawberry Green tea is absolutely delightful iced. Why would they get rid of it? Especially when no one else I know of has a strawberry green tea?

And Clean Sweet Layer was my absolute favorite of all the Clean fragrances by D’lish and one of my favorite summer perfumes. Sure, I can still get it online, but someday those supplies too will dwindle. Besides, fragrances don’t have the shelf lives that companies pretend they do. Stale is stale.

But one of the worst is that I keep finding out more beloved places around town have closed. The one that absolutely broke my heart was Ahner’s greenhouse and gift shop. I had no idea it had closed until I drove by it. What a shock! It was not only closed, but going through some kind of deconstruction process that had it all hollowed out like a monstrous carcass on the side of the road. Brought tears to my eyes.

Have you lost a beloved product or store recently?

Book Blurb Friday #48

Not only is it Book Blurb Friday, but gracious Southern hostess and Belle-of-the-Blurb herself, Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff, has chosen my picture to use as this week’s cover! It’s an extreme close-up of ‘Miami Rose’ plumeria that bloomed for the first time this fall and has been brightening up my sunroom ever since, so it’s been fun to play with possible plots for it. The weekly BBF challenge is to “write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book.” My blurb this week has 150 words.

~It Also Means Goodbye~

They couldn’t have been more different. But Connecticut accountant Charlotte Wilder and Hawaii nursery owner Mimi Rose Ebert began their internet friendship with a similar passion for plumerias.

Perhaps because they felt safe at such a distance, the unlikely friends began to share more than plumeria cuttings with each other. Mimi knew how much Charlotte hated her job…and Charlotte knew that Mimi was planning to leave her controlling husband.

When Mimi unexpectedly killed herself, Charlotte was shocked to find her friend had willed her a gift: a one-way ticket to Maui. Mimi’s grieving husband insisted it was Mimi’s last wish to have Charlotte come to the funeral and choose a plumeria to plant near her grave.

But when Charlotte arrived and met Mimi’s handsome brother Scott, she learned she wasn’t alone in thinking that Mimi’s death was suspicious.

Now that she was in paradise, was her life in danger, too?

Real friendship is shown in times of trouble; prosperity is full of friends. ~Euripides

They Also Wield Blog Awards

Thank you to Lynn of Present Letters for the lovely and coveted Versatile Blogger Award!! Lynn’s epistolary writing, addressed to the mother she lost when she was young, is moving and inspiring in so many ways. Lynn is also a fellow W.W.W.P. (Wild Women Wielding Pens), described in more detail below.

I’m supposed to tell you seven things about myself that are not included in my blog. So here goes (and if I’ve mentioned any before, sorry):

1.  My mother used to put our Great Pyrenees puppy in the playpen with me, so I literally grew up with dogs. In fact, if I speak a language, it would have to be a very small amount of Doggish. But only if my teacher is very patient with me.

2.  Am not originally from Missouri. We moved around a lot due to my former husband’s job, and this was the place we lived the longest. A few years ago I chose to move back to the St. Louis area. It’s not just the “Gateway to the West.” To me it possesses a sampling of nearly every part of the United States, and I love that. St. Louis has so much variety, there is something for everyone—culture, history, sports, children’s activities, outdoor activities, scenery, weather (ha!—maybe a little too much weather variety, but I’ve definitely lived in much worse) etc. And it’s affordable. Love it.

3. When I was a kid, I used to play Cowboys and Indians with a little boy on the next block named Stevie. Stevie and I got along well because he wanted to grow up to be a cowboy and I wanted to grow up to be an Indian.

4. I spent every possible moment of my childhood without shoes and have always felt fortunate that my mother let me.

5.  Also when I was a little kid, I thought clowns were a race. People still used the phrase “colored people” then, and let’s face it, clowns are colored.

6.  I have Hannibal Lecter’s sense of smell (without his sense of taste—ha!) and collect fragrant plants. Below is a picture of one of the delightfully fragrant viburnums that’s been blooming out of season since December because our weather’s been so warm.  This one is burkwoodii 'Mohawk.'

 And below is plumeria ‘Miami Rose’ that’s been blooming in my sun room all winter, followed by the orchid that a dear friend sent me for my birthday over two months ago. Not only is it stunningly beautiful, it’s still blooming!

7.  I once attended something called Laughter Therapy. The idea is that laughter causes wonderful things to happen in the body and the brain, so you laugh without reason if necessary. It was supposed to provide the body with the equivalent of several hours of exercise and leave you feeling refreshed. The small critique group I joined last year is like laughter therapy, but way better because the laugher (and the people) are genuine. Although our senses of humor range from the naughty to the nice—sometimes all in the same person—those brilliant, witty, talented, spiritual, raunchy, silly, wise, genuinely fun women provide the reason for the laughter in addition to first-rate writing advice. And sometimes, they even provide chocolate…which is another thing we all have in common. So thank you again to Lynn, a fellow W.W.W.P.

I believe I am supposed to pass this award to four awesomely versatile bloggers. The problem is that not only are all of you awesomely versatile, but some people don’t like awards. So I've chosen two who've given me awards in the past and are also awesome and versatile, too.  I'm hoping two others will consider it passed to them as well.

I love Trying to Get Over the Rainbow  because Jules leaves me feeling uplifted and refreshed by her amazingly unique—not to mention hysterically funny—perspective.

Donna’s Book Pub always has advice, opportunities, contests, interviews and other wonderful tidbits for writers. I'm always glad I stopped in.

Enjoy!

Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer. ~Ed Cunningham

Surprise Stuff from Around My House: Decorated Tree for Christmas

Every year, I put my tropical brugmansia tree in the unfinished basement storage room that my kids dubbed “the scary room.” That room is cool and dark enough that the tree goes dormant. We store the Christmas decorations in the same room. So this year, when I went down there to get the Christmas decorations, this was what I found. We’re still working on decorating the “real” tree, which is in fact plastic. Don’t you just love irony?

History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again. ~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Senior Sex(less) and the City: Episode #10

Bucket List Boy
This is the opposite of The Health Nut. He isn’t just embracing his mortality; he is hurtling himself toward it at the speed of a high-pitched scream. He has a list and he’s not afraid to plunge headlong into it…usually hanging on by something that looks a little like a large elastic ponytail holder. His midlife crisis is so out of control that the list usually involves too little oxygen and way too much gravity. He’s like an adolescent with plenty of money and no mom to yell at him.

Bucket List Boy asked me to jump out of an airplane with him. Amazingly, there was a time in my life when I actually wanted to do this. Now I have a child still at home whom I don’t want to leave homeless. But even if all that depended on me was my plumerias, I still couldn’t do it. As I age, I find that scary thrills like that lose their thrilling aspects—leaving behind just the scary part. I chickened out of the Mr. Freeze roller coaster at Six Flags and had to walk the long Loser Walk past the crowds of bubble gum-chewing tweens watching me with a combination of pity and adolescent superiority. It was the fact that they had you remove your earrings that got me. Anything that sucks the jewelry out of your body is just too much suckage. Serious, scary suckage. Besides, things already hurt at my age; do I really want to risk adding injuries? If I survive? Right now my idea of risky behavior is using a lower SPF sunscreen or skipping a year of mammograms. Worse—and this is a true confession—I am genuinely afraid that sheer terror would make me lose control of my bodily functions. And let’s face it—it’s just not cool at any age to poop on your date.

No question about it, though—Bucket List Boy is fun. He is a wild man who does everything with gusto. He has recreational vehicles galore. He loves to travel. Oh, the places you could go with Bucket List Boy! The question is, would you return?

Next week: Episode #11, Karma Chameleon

Totally Random Tuesday-Summer

Winter twilight promises only that the day is over. Summer twilight promises that the night is about to begin.







This picture may not have been taken at twilight, but it is a random picture of brugmansia 'Ecuador Pink' which also happens to release its haunting summer fragrance at night.

"They" Were Wrong

When I was young, I used to be slightly haunted by a line in the John Cougar Mellencamp song that goes, “Oh yeah, they say life goes on/long after the thrill of living is gone.” I worried it might be true that the thrill of living leaves us as we age. How hard it would be to live life without that thrill, I thought.

And then during my divorce and the events that led up to it, I realized there was no thrill. Just relentless responsibilities, attacks, hassles, worries. And on top of it all, I worried about the loss of that thrill. Was it gone forever?

Today, on this November day, I look around. The ginger (above) is wafting the most lovely gardenia/papaya scent throughout the house. The passionflowers are still draping the French doors. Outside in the sunlight, a Bouncing Bet flower is still in bloom, and so is a rose. Sweet alyssum is everywhere. The dog is making me laugh, rolling in the grass and leaves, snorting, celebrating the luxuries of sun and earth and air. My daughter finally got over her flu and is playing classical music on the piano, the notes drifting out into the yard and into my soul. I recently heard from another loved one and couldn’t help but grin at the smile in his voice. Got the nicest letter—yes, letter!—from a friend I haven’t heard from in ages. Got a birthday card from another friend I haven’t heard from in even longer. Spent yesterday sipping wine and laughing with some great people at a winery, overlooking the hills of Augusta. When I look back over something sweet that happened at work last week, I can't help but smile. All of it gives me a thrill—all of it.

If someone had told me years ago that I would love this part of my life so much—divorced, and in the autumn of my years—would I have believed them? And yet not only is the thrill of living not gone, but I get it at the slightest, silliest things.

Oh, yeah, life goes on…and the thrill of living gets even more strong.

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy. ~Anne Frank

If Mohammed Can't Go to the Tropics

If you’ve ever seen a naked plumeria cutting, you would know why my little girl first dubbed this plant “The E.T. finger.” There is a vaguely alien quality to the bald little stick.

Rooting it wasn’t easy, either, since I got E.T. at the worst time of year for a plumeria that has the misfortune to live in the Midwest. I had to baby him throughout the winter on a heating pad, under lights, to get him to root. But root he did, and has been growing for at least six years now into quite a handsome little tree. Although plumerias only branch when they bloom, mine branched right away thanks to the inflorescence (flower thingy) that the cutting came with (but that dropped during the rooting process). Every year, I hoped that this would be the year it finally bloomed.

At first I thought it was a semi-bad thing that E.T. chose fall to bloom, since I would normally let him go dormant for winter storage this time of year. But I’ve been enjoying the blooms so much that it’s clear this was quite a blessing. I’m pretty sure it is Celadine, which I’ve read has a unique feature to the leaf edge. The scent is faint and less fruity than the plumeria products I’ve purchased in the past, but it’s still beachy and exotic—slightly coconutty and citrussy, like suntan lotion.

So maybe I can’t go to the tropics, but I’m feeling pretty pleased with having the tropics right here in Missouri. In November.

I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may—light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful. ~John Constable

One Great Smelling Fishbone

This is epiphyllum anguliger, or Fishbone Cactus, that bloomed last week. The flowers were the size of a cup and saucer with a scent that was mild, but heavenly...sort of jasmine/fruity/citrus. Delicious. This flower (to me) smells more like some plumeria products I've bought than actual plumeria does.

Every day I discover how little I know; it's just that I also discover that other people don't know as much as I thought. ~Gloria Steinem

Fall is Budding Out All Over

One of the things I love about my tropical fragrant plants is that they occasionally bloom their little buds off long past the time when our northerly seasons are done. That’s been especially welcome this year because it’s been raining…and raining…and raining.

The above is plumeria (I believe it’s ‘Celadine’ but hopefully will find out soon).


Right is hedychium coronarium 'Dr. Moy' (also known as butterfly ginger).


Left is epiphyllum anguliger (also known as Fishbone cactus).










When I lived down South, I was shocked to find out how much I missed the different seasons. I admit…I am season-greedy. Best of all to me is getting several different seasons at once. Ah, variety.

Mistakes are opportunities in disguise. They offer you the opportunity to look at a situation from a different perspective. Many inventions and discoveries have been the result of a mistake. Columbus discovered America while searching for the West Indies; he simply got lost! ~Dr. Edward A. Dreyfus

A Room Just for Sun

It's been cold and rainy the past couple of days, and I'm wet and chilled from bringing plants in for the winter.

This is one of my very favorite places in all the world—my sunroom. This picture was taken back in July, and right now it leaves me with a sense of longing. I love the way it faces east, so I can watch the sun come up on weekend mornings, and south, so I can sit in the reach of a long ray on weekday evenings.

The direction of the windows means that the room glows most of the day, casting the doorway in its own golden, beckoning aura.

And when I do walk into the light, there are pools of aureate air where I can drench myself, feeling my pores opening in the baptismal beams as if in worship.

To me, it is a poem of light, this room...a prayer.

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don't know what was in the newspapers that morning...a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. ~Joseph Campbell

All Partied Out

This part cracks me up. The day after, it just looks so pooped.

Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath. ~George Carlin

That Ain't No Lady

Here she is in all her glory—Queen of the Night Orchid or Night Blooming Cereus (though it’s really a jungle cactus). Some people actually have Night Blooming Cereus parties. Okay, admittedly not the most exciting-sounding party theme in the world; sounds a little like watching grass grow to me, but who knows.

What I do know is that Epiphyllum oxypetalum blooms are the size of a dessert plate and showy with a capital SHOW that borders on garish. The hoochy-coochy dancers of the flower world, they don’t whisper to potential pollinators, but shout at them with all manner of trumpets and fanfare and blowsy petticoats and beckoning ticklers and effusive nighttime perfume.

Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge. ~George Carlin

Growing Cereus-ness

I love this stage where the monstrous, pinkish, be-tentacled buds elongate and reach up as if ready to strike an unsuspecting victim. To me, these have a "Little Shop of Horrors" feel that makes me not want to turn my back on them....

Feed me! Feed me! Feed me!Feed me, Seymour Feed me all night long~"Little Shop of Horrors"

You Can't Be Cereus

The gardening season has entered its finale, where plants get in that last, desperate bloom.

I'm going to chronicle my Night Blooming Cereus bud. Even if you don't happen to be into gardening, I can't see how anyone could resist the allure of these fleshy alien space pods that dangle from a leaf. Though it's my understanding that "leaf," in this case, is really a misnomer; experts claim that the long, succulent leaves are actually modified stems.

“You are in exactly the time and place prepared for you. Believe in your own worth to the universe. Do not doubt. Do not be afraid. Do not act meanly. Take what comes--both the hard and easy—and learn from it. Advance ever. In the journey, you become yourself. . . Begin.”~ from "Secret of Spirit Lake" by Dan Skelton