A flower grows in Raleigh

Dogger and I put gas in the car ($2.08 at Sams Club). On the way home I was admiring the flowers in front of the houses and thinking how nice the neighborhood looked, until I came to the one that looked kind of abandoned. I was home.

No flowers at all. It little absentee owneresque. I pulled into the drive way and said “Do I want to go to Wal-Mart and buy some flowers?” I answered “Yes. Yes I do.”. Dogger was thrilled. I prayed it didn’t get sunny on the way to Wal-Mart and once at Wal-Mart PETA would not have any roaming buttinskys to throw up a picket line around my car to protest Doggers forced incarceration in a too hot car. I opened the windows and parked under a tree and prayed for rain. I told Dogger I would be right back.

I strode into the garden section and did not see garden. I saw hanging plants, I saw yard art – thankfully none that I wanted, a bunch of yard furniture. No bedding plants to speak of. Its just June!. I know everyone else got there garden on in May, but shouldn’t there be replacement plants to make up for all the bedding plants who suffered crib death? I mean how about those curb busters who planted in April and then the plants died because it was April? I remember there were shelves and shelves of bedding plants at the Wal-Mart garden section. I walked past them many, many times. I didn’t need bedding plants then because I was still enjoying the dregs of my fall bedding plants and I would still be had someone who was not me decided that they just were not alive enough to display any longer. I was totally willing to get little feeding tubes for them…

Anyway. I went further into the garden section and looked around. There were a few bedding plants left but they were all ready leggy and pale. I had pale, leggy bedding plants at home all ready. I needed something stocky and sun kissed. I put on my sunglasses and searched on.

Finally, I found what I was looking for. I got a couple of pots of a furry, yet spiky looking plant and a couple of pots of a plant with pretty pink and green leaves. I don’t have a clue what they are, but they were on sale and not dead.

I also picked up a .75 bag of top soil. I was standing in line and I started to think “Hmmm. “Top Soil” isn’t the same as “Potting Soil”. Should I go find a bag marked “Potting Soil?” do I want to lose my place in line? Is Dogger being slow roasted in the parking lot? Has she managed to get a thermometer and then learned to read it and is she pissed? Does she have PETA on speed dial? Are they on their way to “liberate” her? Where did she get a cell phone? Do I want to pay more then .75 for a bag of dirt?” . I selflessly put Doggers’ well being ahead of my soil snobbery.

Dogger and I arrive home again. I pull into the drive way, take Dogger into the air-conditioning and start to add some Curb Appeal.

I check out the pots on hand and go grab another couple from the shed. I’m sitting on my front deck, surrounded by flower pots, up to my elbows in the bag of damn – sight –better-then- the-top-soil-we-have-here-no-wonder-I-have-no-grass and supervised by four pots of greenery. The neighbor across the street hollers over “Hey Neighbor, whatcha doing?” I wondered if the trip to Wal-Mart was a hallucination, her question caused me to question how tight my grasp on reality is. I took a deep breath - from where the neighbor was standing she could see the pots and the dirt. I was up to my elbows in potting soil. I’m pretty sure I was not

1. Knitting,
2. Baking a cake,
3. Washing my hair,
4. Vacuuming my bedroom
5. Pilling the cat.

The front of the house looks much nicer now and whatever I planted seems happy.