Showing Growth.

Zoée asked me how my garden was doing today. I was delighted to answer their question with a series of photos:

Dead: sugar snap peas, butter lettuce, strawberries, two kale plants and all three nasturtium plants.

Struggling: cherry tomatoes.

Thriving: Carrots, zucchini, and all the flowers.

Currently harvesting: Fast and Furious blend lettuce, bush green beans, one kale plant (???)

I was bothered only by the demise of the strawberry plants. I put way too much hope in a single strawberry, of which I don’t even have a photo.

I offered to split the sacred strawberry with the roommate, as if I were recreating the scene in Mickey’s Christmas Carol where Mickey cuts a pea in half. It wasn’t necessary at the time, as lots of berries were on their way to ripening. Our biggest concern was rats stealing the strawberries, not the plant shrivelling up and dying within a few days. We never missed a day of watering!

They are so fried. They were leftovers from the since-departed upstairs tenants, so the cost was nothing aside from disappointment. The other departed plants gave us more than our money’s worth of crop.

The second zinnia plant bloomed a few days ago, and it is a runt. Beautiful, but way smaller than one would expect from a foot and a half tall plant.

After a few words of encouragement from Zoée, I lopped it off and created my first bouquet. I cannot afford to gamble it like I did that strawberry.

When my parents were deciding on what to name me, Dad put forth the suggestion of Zinnia. Mom must’ve known I was not born to cultivate these flowers. She might also have been going for cohesion, since both my siblings have ordinary names.

After my garden photoshoot in which I shared the pictures with Zoée in real time, I decided it was time to give up on that last kale plant. I’d been unable to nurture it back to producing large leaves. Instead, it keeps shooting up with wimpy excuses for leaves: it looked silly and was also blocking the zinnias from getting the full sun they crave. I felt powerful as I gripped its thick base and yanked it out in its entirety, as if I were a giant ripping out a tree.

Today is the roomie’s birthday, and he’s up-island celebrating it with his girlfriend. Before he left, I gave him a gift to give to his girlfriend. In my note to her, I explained that it was a Dutch custom to congratulate the birthday person and their spouse/family. While true, this wasn’t the reason I gave the gift. I enjoy making things: I can’t keep everything I make, so I try to give my creations to the appropriate person. It’s a possible side effect of associating with me.

The gift was a cross stitch of a unicorn, with a frame I made from polymer clay. My original idea of using satin rope backfired when I was unable to join the ends neatly using glue. The roommate said he’d be careful transporting it, but the concern about it breaking is a long-term issue. I’ve had old polymer clay projects split open from drying out. Nevertheless, because I am a stereotypical Millennial who saves product boxes if they’re nice enough, I found the perfect box for it:

Thus, the unicorn’s name is Samsung.