Making It Up

I love plants but they just don't love me back. As I child I was conned by my green-thumbed mother. She would line all the windowsills in the the kitchen and dining room with little yoghurt cups. Into each of these yoghurt cups she would put water and a leaf. In weeks the leaves would start sprouting roots and then she would transfer these rooted leaves into cups of dirt. Out of these dirt-filled cups would sprout real plants which would then flower. From a leaf to a flower without breaking a sweat. Often, as she headed to work, she would take one, or several, of these plants to hand over to a coworker. She made it look so easy that I thought there was nothing to it.

Silly me, I never wondered why she needed to take the plants in to work to give to other people if making them grow was so easy. A disastrous experience with high school biology put me off learning anything about plants and yet, having grown up surrounded by green life, I feel incomplete (dare I say, half alive) without greenery around me. And yet I live in New York City. Is that what one could call irony?

My first encounters with rearing plants ended in pots of soil, haunted by the plant that had lived a very short life in the pot. I tried the things that I had read - fertilizer, moving the plant around the apartment to try different lighting situations, varying the watering schedule - but to no avail. The plants just died. Finally, I resorted to begging and that has given me some success. I adopt them, like they are my children, I try to give them pretty names (mostly because my biology rebellion has led me to not know what anything's official name is) and I try to make my love keep them alive.

I still have my little fire that I got back in 2006, on a visit to the Bronx Zoo. All I can say is that, at times when the plant was struggling and barely a leaf in the pot and the only thing that brought her back from the edge was my singing and desperate entreaties for her to just hold on a little longer. She must like something about me because she has stuck around and she has convinced others to stick around with me.

But let me tell you about when my mother came to visit. She would putter around my green space, aka the corner in my apartment where plants don't die, and, by the time she left a month later, my plants were the most robust they have ever been. I mean, I have never seen so much green in my space. Not only that, one plant was growing out of its pot and she took leaves from the plant and replanted them in another pot. Over a year later, those leaves are still a plant. After she left, I tried the same thing and those leaves were dead within a fortnight.

I have asked how she does it and she shrugs as though it's nothing. She looks at a plant and it blooms. I look over and the plant smells my fear.

August 21st

when i was around 12 or 13, the biggest expression of me becoming a grown up was going to the movies without my family. an outing of us grown girls - how adult of us. and my day as an almost grown up would go like this:

i would wake up at the crack of dawn and get dressed, pack a book and get ready. i would then meet my father in the kitchen for a quick breakfast. we would then get in the car and head to his office. this was so that i wouldn't have to worry about getting public transport into town. "my dear, i think it will just be easier. don't you agree?" and i would agree, partly because it was exciting for me to spend some time with my father where i wasn't fighting with my brother and sister for his attention.

i would sit in a corner and read the book. i would feel special when he passed me an official document to read and opine on. ask me if i understood. darned if i know but you know i tried very hard to come up with an intelligent response. my father would engage me in conversation and act as though he was seriously taking my opinions under advisement.

close to movie time, he would put on his jacket and say, "okay, my dear, let's go. we don't want to be late." the movie theatre was just a couple of blocks from his offices, but he would walk me over, buy my ticket and hand me over some money for popcorn and other snacks. sometimes my friends hadn't arrived yet - my father was all about being early - and so he would hang about a bit. "i don't want you to be alone."
"i'll be okay, i can take care of myself."
"Ah, Miss P." he smiled at me, as though he knew i was happy that he stuck around.
when my friends appeared, he would boom out (he could have an awfully loud voice).
"okay, my dear, i'll see you after the movie!" and then he would lean down and smack a loud kiss on my lips mmmmwah! yes. with sound effects. and then he would leave, and i would stare at the ground for a minute or two, completely embarrassed. whose father did that in front of their cool friends?
and you know that after the movie, he would be waiting outside for me, ready to take me home. i would act nonchalant as i said goodbye to my friends. my father wouldn't care what i was trying to be, he would sling his arm casually around my shoulder so we could walk to the car. i would try to roll my eyes and pretend that i was too grown for my father's attention but i really was happy to see him and couldn't wait to tell him about the outing.

so, thank you baba, for making it way cool for me to be uncool.

The Tide Is High

what better way to recover than in the sun, next to the ocean? the only thing better than that is a friend who can organise a week of such sun and next to oceaness. luckily for me, i did better. so at the crack of dawn i am up and off to florida for a week of rest and recuperation. i've got my books, i've got my flip flops and i've got lots of sunscreen.

and i can easily say see you in a bit to my freezing-cold-landlord-hasn't-turned-the-heat-on-yet apartment.

Warm Up

so two friday's ago, i had everything planned and mapped out. it would take a little over an hour on the subway to get to the airport and so if i left work 3 hours before the flight i would be better than good. in fact i would have time for a courage-boosting cocktail. i did have a four hour trip ahead of me.

so of course, i get caught up in meetings and leave the office after 3:30. so maybe no cocktails but i am still doing well for time. i head to the subway and get on the N train. one stop later there is one of those barely audible announcements. it seems the N train isn't going to queens so i need to switch to the R. damn! local train. so definitely no cocktails but what can i do. i still have time.

a couple of stops later - another announcements. train stalled, no trains on that line are going to queens at all. i get out with my bag. i am irritated but okay. i'll just take a cab because i cannot see any other way i'll get to the airport from this stop. i come out and stand on the street corner to hail a cab.

they are all off duty. or taken. or they stop to tell me "sorry, dear, i am off duty in 20 minutes, i can't take you to the airport". the sorry dear guys get on my worst nerves because they raise my hopes by stopping. i am too worked up to remember to take down their numbers to file complaints - cab drivers are not allowed to refuse to take you somewhere if they are on the clock, are they?

half an hour later. i am still trying to hail a cab. i have 60 minutes to go now before my flight. where did the time all go? i am freaking out now. calling my friend in ohio to say that i may not make it because i am stuck in manhattan. i am cursing new york city for all it's worth. i try the subway station again but the trains are STILL not running. i am hot and bothered and wondering how it can be so difficult to get a damn ride.

55 minutes before the flight, all hope gone, a stretch limo pulls up next to me and the driver (the only person in the car) asks me where i'm going.
laguardia airport.
get in, he says.
how much? i know i shouldn't get in but i'm desperate and i have a plane to catch.
$40.
like i would have tried to bargain him down.
i jump in and call a friend to loudly reel off all the details of the car (i tell myself that this will save me if the driver has evil ulterior motives)

what a SLOW ride. i am trying to be calm. traffice sucks. i am trying not to shout at the driver.

as soon as we hit the airport - i am quickly running out of time. it is too late to check my luggage and now i have to hit security.

my bag is FULL of liquids. and they are not in a clear ziploc bag and they are way too big to be allowed anyway. and so security pulls me aside. i try to put things in a bag. i am hopping from one foot to another. a fellow passenger is complaining on my behalf - oh those bottles look expensive, women must lose so much money going through security. security takes my shower gel, my special sunscreen and my toothpaste. i am very sad about the sunscreen. but i have ten minutes to catch my flight.

complaining guy invites me to join him at the bar. i thank him for complaining on my behalf but, sadly i have to run for a plane. and i am off. i am the last person there. the gate is about to close. i have overheated.

and then the flight sits on the runway. for an hour. all this time i had been running, i had needed to pee but i thought - well as soon as the plane takes off, i'll go. but we sit on the runway. for an hour. and we are not allowed to leave our seats, in case we get clearance to take off.

when we get to detroit i need to transfer. when i booked my flight i had over an hour between flights. but remember, i sat on the runway in new york for that hour. the flight attendant asks folk to be kind enough to let those of us who have transfers off the plane first but, of course, as soon as the plane touches down and the seatbelt light goes off, everyone stands up and clogs up the aisle. someone offers to lift me up and pass me over everyone. but i gracefully decline the kind offer. i don't quite trust the folk in the front, clogging up the aisle. so i jump up and down until i can get off and start running.

of course my gate is on the OTHER end of the airport. and i run. up escalators, along those moving pathways they have in super long hallways, past the bar with the cocktails. i am the third to last person on the plane. the other two were also on my flight. i get onto the smallest plane i have ever been on.

thank goodness the flight is short.

i get to dayton ohio at almost 11pm. my friends pick me up an hour later (they were drinking margaritas and lost track of time). my head hurts and i am frighteningly foul. but there's a margarita waiting for me at home to make it a semi distant memory.

i am still kinda sorta hating new york, especially its cabbies. SORRY!

Time And Tide...

i thought since i am not a man (at last review) perhaps i might get a little leeway. but nope.. time and tide wait for no woman either. i had all these grand plans - physiotherapy, eyebrows, hair, nails, pack and get ready for trip all after day at work. and then blog.

where am i now? sorta packed, hair is damp. nails very bare. but i did do the physiotherapy. and well can one really call this a blog?

so i am off, before the dawn breaks, on a super-windy-cold day (the coldest since JANUARY
2005 the weather channel said) to (please god) warm and sunny miami beach! to not run a marathon.

then i spend two days recuperating from my non-running and return to the wintry city on tuesday. i tell you, the best laid plans...

you break a leg (or at least injure it) and your life becomes a walking cliche... ;)