The Ballad of Brown Thumb: Maybe there are good points to having a virus

take this morning, for instance. I wake up with my usual-for-this-stage-of-the-cold painful laryngitus at 2:30 a.m. and decide that I'm really going to be a wimp and dash for the kitchen for a shot of tylenol (to be washed down with a gallon and a half of just-this-side-of-boiling tea), when I notice that my indoor/outdoor thermometer is reading 34 degrees in the greenhouse. So naturally, I dash out in my bare feet over ground I would normally put shoes on for just because of the goat-head danger (for you medievalists, a goat-head thorn is where they got the idea for caltrops; any way you step on it you're going to get something very painful in a very tender part of your tootsie. Ask me how I know.) But anyhow, I get into the greenhouse and the heater is giving off a strong smell of propane but no heat so I shut everything down and bring the citrus into the house, not to mention the one surviving tomato (which, btw Bobbi, is not a Marianna's Peace but a Marizol Red -- my bad memory, sorry -- and I do have more seeds for said Red :)! ) cursing my lack of propane, blessing the otherwise horrendous cold virus for getting me up in time, and drinking another half gallon of tea. The pain-killers should be kicking in here pretty soon and life will be good again.

Or at least it would be if I wasn't being constantly bugged by a relative. I kid you not, every single correspondence is tagged with, "Send me pictures, send me pictures, send me pictures right now." All of the Banshees got birthday cards signed off with "And tell your mother to send me pictures." I have three unopened emails in my inbox because I just don't want to deal with it anymore. My darling dearest beleagured spouse says that it's probably because this person thinks of herself as the family historian, and that she doesn't have any children of her own and...and I say that this is no excuse to behave rudely. The Banshees' grandparents don't lay siege to this level and they surely have more right to. I'm a polite person and I revere family, but if you can't write a single bit of correspondence without nagging about a subject you've already been asked to back off on, then I kinda hope you do get into a snit and quit writing me altogether. I have three small children and a rather untidy life to take care of right now, thankyouverymuch, and I will take pictures/write letters/blog/ draw sanskrit characters in henna all over my pudgy body in my own time and when/if I ever get around to it. Thank you for paying attention and not squalling at me to do what you want me to do as if I have no other schedule than to please you.

[deep breath] Sorry. We shall now resume our regularly scheduled gardening blog. Which has me contemplating larger propane tanks so I don't have to worry once a week about whether or not my citrus is going to get cold roots and chilled leaves. Oh, something about

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