I have not forgotten you. Life has just gotten a little crazy. But I will be back soon!
You might wonder what wine and babies have in common. Really, not much. But I did attend my cousin’s baby shower at a winery on Saturday. It was a lovely setting with surpisingly beautiful weather.
More to follow on the finger lakes wine region, cousins’ winery, and why I’ve been so neglectful.
Patience will pay off in the end!
Somebody has taken an interest in my garden diary, so it’s time I admit that I am long overdue for an update. This summer’s oddly mild and rainy weather has prompted a change in my garden. In the past, I was often guilty of under-watering my plants, leading to some crispy, brown leaves. But I am now learning that rain leads to dead plants, mushrooms, and slugs, among other mysterious changes. It’s a whole new garden. I discovered the slugs when I started noticing entire leaves being eaten away in one particular garden. I was instructed by a master gardener to put beer in a bowl and the slugs would be drawn to it. This is true and slugs are gross. But I think I caught a few. I’ll keep working on it.
My potted zinnias are blooming, but weakly. As I have neglected my blog, I have also neglected my garden. I weeded last weekend and this has helped motivate me to finish this summer out right.
Here are a few shots of what’s left after a summer of partial neglect, too much rain, and a lot of slugs.
These last for a long time!
Garden having a drink.
Zinnia? Tiny little thing.
Vinca with more rain on it.
Daylily
That's one hungry slug.
Mums already
Dahlia with slug damage. So sad!
We’d be hard pressed to find a person in this country who has not had some experience with foreclosure, unemployment, or other economic difficulties. For me, I’ve seen most of it repeatedly. At the time of our wedding, my father-in-law was unemployed after being laid off. Then, this Spring, my mother was laid off after working for her company for ten years. We’ve looked at numerous foreclosed homes, realizing that our dream is somebody else’s nightmare. Although, we personally have been lucky to have secure jobs, the economy remains in a state of crisis all around us.
For my mother, this has been a true challenge. She was raised in a time when a high school education was an accomplishment. Each of my parents came from blue collar families, their own parents never having completed high school. In fact, most of my grandparents did not even go to high school at all. Two generations later, jobs appear to be reserved for the college educated. In many ways, this is a testament to the advancement of our society, a great value placed on education. But it also devalues our older generation as less worthy because college wasn’t for blue collar families in the 1970’s and earlier.
Although a new grandson is helpful, my mother is hurting. Work gives her life a sense of purpose, as it does for all of us. She has worked at low-wage jobs most of her life, having to prove herself among more educated individuals. And she made a great living, committing 10 years to a company where she went from administrative work to accounting work. Now, she is being interviewed for positions by individuals that are younger than her own children. She is being offered unlivable low wages with no health benefits. At a time when my mother should be looking forward to a retirement, she is, instead, looking for a job that doesn’t seem to exist.
Due to my sad neglect and serious lack of writing 100 words per day, I will now take this time to make a sweeping update on my life. Please imagine that speedy scene in Amelie, if you will, where images flash as the narrator speaks quickly. It’s been a blur:
I was hired as an adjunct professor. John now does his own laundry. It’s an experiment or maybe an identity crisis for me. We’ll see. I have decided to embrace the cabin. I cleaned and nursed Bella back to health after her snake bite. I filed 3 years worth of paper work. My attic is bursting at the seems. We have offered on and lost our 12th house. John is depressed. Bella turned black and blue. 
Bella got better.
My sister had a baby. He’s perfect. 
She named him after my father. I still can’t call him by his name. For now, I call him “Buddy” which is what I call all baby boys. It’s also the name of my sister’s dog. Nothing new in the garden except weeds. I still haven’t planned for my class. I’m preparing for my fourth winter.
Well, I think that’s it.
On our nightly walk last night, Bella had a run in with a copperhead in the lawn outside our house. I was walking her on a leash and didn’t even see the thing until she jumped out of the way. I had no idea it bit her until she started limping. I ran in the house to grab my husband and we took a photo. Of course, we googled snakes and made a guess that we might be dealing with a copperhead, one of our local venemous snakes.
The Actual Snake
So Bella made an emergency trip to the vet last night. By the time we got there, maybe 30 minutes after the bite, her foot was already swollen to twice its normal size. Having no experience with venemous snakes, I truly feared for her life and burst into tears when the vet positively identified our snake as a copperhead. Although I know I’m attached to my little Bella, I didn’t realize until yesterday how truly destroyed I would be if I lost her. And I don’t handle emergency room scenes well, even in an animal hospital.
Turns out, copperheads are the least dangerous of the “pit vipers”. Apparently, we are lucky it was not a rattlesnake. Bella has been treated with morphine, painkillers, IV fluids, and antibiotics. She spent the night at the hospital and came home this afternoon. She’s so incredibly swollen that her shaved paw is bigger than her hairy paw. The swelling has spread into her leg and chest making her nearly unable to walk. And they say it gets worse before it gets better. She is one sick puppy…again.
This doesn't even do it justice 
This all makes me feel like the world’s worst dog owner. She’s eaten chocolate and chewed on fish bones in the last few months. Now, I’ve walked her into a venemous snake.
I said that I would write about it when I was done crying. I’m not sure that I’m done crying. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I’m not. But we have to get back on that damn horse and start looking for houses again despite the fact that every ounce of my body is opposed to this.
On Friday, we learned that the a**holes that are selling the house we were supposed to buy would officially not replace their absolutely dysfunctional and against-code septic system. They would also not be lowering their asking price. They, in fact, probably never wanted to sell their house in the first place. They just needed us to waste two months and $1,000+ dollars to figure that out.
So, I’ve learned my lesson. If we ever do find another house that we love, I won’t be writing about it. I never expected this 10th deal to fall through, so what makes me think number 11 will be any different? I will continue to write about other things. I apologize for my sad neglect, especially my two weeks with no Garden Diary. I simply haven’t been able to think about much else besides the strong possibility of winter #4 in the cabin. And there we have it- still not done crying. Still homeless. Still in utter mourning over our loss.
Invitations for the official pity party going out next week.
Yesterday was our original closing date for the house we are currently seeking to buy. And we are still waiting for a response from the seller on whether he will fix the dysfunctional septic. People say that buying a house is stressful. I don’t think “people” generally go through what we have gone through. And to make it even more unbearable, our friends who also offered on this same house have already moved into their new house!
I’m tired of waiting. I want an answer and I want the answer I want. Living here is getting more difficult by the day. To help explain that, let me entertain you with a list of things I will not have to do if we buy this house:
- Use my living room chair as a drying rack for my comforter
- Light our stove manually with a lighter
- Worry about running out of wood before the end of Winter (i.e. running out of heat)
- Do laundry in my in-laws’ basement
- Give the dog a “shower” because we have no bathtub
- Eat dinner while sitting on the couch (because we only have on kitchen chair and our table is our desk overflow)
- Feed the dog in the bathroom (it’s the only available floor space)
- Store my clothing outdoors (basically)
- Feed chipmunks unwillingly
- Go in the attic to get another roll of toilet paper
- Wonder if mice are eating my wedding gifts (also in the attic)
- Keep my sewing machine, winter clothes, and high heels next to John’s tools, chemical engineering textbooks, and smelly hockey gear
- Use the back of my front door as a coat hook
- Sleep with my bed against the wall
I could go on and on. I really could. I think about this stuff all the time and then I think about how I have no idea when it will all be a thing of the past. It’s had it’s charm and romantic moments, but now it has me nearly in tears quite often because sometimes you just want to make spaghetti without a risk of explosion.
I really need to teach Bella the difference between “lay down” and “go lay down.” This is important. For example, when she is sitting with her butt on the back of the couch and her front feet on my shoulder, if I say “lay down,” she lays down, right there, nose on my cheek. Now, with “go lay down” she might actually lay down someplace reasonable like, oh I don’t know, on a non-human surface. But her little pea size brain can’t differentiate so I will have to get used to her laying across my chest, licking my chin, and expecting a reward for her very good behavior.
