book the other day. There were a couple of parts that had me laughing so hard I could barely breathe – especially the line “I see you have a little swimming mouse”. My favorite stories are the ones that he writes about his family.
After I finished the David Sedaris book, I started The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and as much as I wanted to like it – Fred enjoyed it a great deal when he read it – I realized around page 150 that I just didn’t care what happened to the characters and, y’know, life’s just too damn short.
Yesterday morning I started The Da Vinci Code. I’m about 250 pages into it (I read in bed after Fred went to his room, and couldn’t put it down – thus the reason I was up past midnight last night), and enjoying it a great deal so far.
We watched a bunch of movies this weekend, the best one being The Pianist. What a downer of a movie. Of course, now that I know the movie’s based on the book, I’ll have to be sure to add the book to my wish list.
* * *
Pet store kitty pics from yesterday are
here.
* * *
So, Fred’s father has a small lemon tree. It’s planted in a big pot, and he keeps it outside for the summer, and then when the weather gets cold, he pulls the pot into his garage, where it stays for the winter. Ever since last summer, when Fred’s father gave Fred a lemon from the tree and Fred declared it the Best Lemon Ever, we’ve been looking for a lemon tree. We tried all the area nurseries, we looked online to see if we could order a lemon tree, we bitched and moaned about the lack of lemon trees in this area, and then we forgot about it for a little while, and made do with lemons from the grocery store (Fred likes fresh lemon juice in his iced tea).
A few months back, when we were driving to Memphis with Fred’s mother, we somehow got on the subject of lemons and lemon trees.
“We just can’t find one anywhere!” Fred said sadly. “And I would really like a lemon tree of my own.”
We all sat in silence and mourned the lack of a lemon tree in our life.
“Did you check the (something or other) Nursery?” Fred’s mother asked.
“Yeah, we checked there,” Fred said.
“And the (something) Nursery?”
“Yeah.”
Long, long silence.
“Well,” Fred’s mother said tentatively. “You could always just plant some seeds from a lemon…”
Fred and I glanced at her and then at each other.
“Plant seeds from a lemon?” I said.
“Yes, seeds from a lemon. To grow a lemon tree.”
Fred quickly changed the subject. Later that night, while we were laying in bed talking, he brought it up.
“Plant seeds from a lemon,” he said. “To grow a lemon tree.”
“Can you really do that?” I asked. “The time the lemon spent in the refrigerator doesn’t ruin the seeds or something?”
He shrugged. “Fuck if I know.”
“Well, it won’t hurt to try, huh?” I said. “We have potting soil, and lemon seeds from your lemons. Let’s give it a try!”
Some days later, I poked holes in the bottom of an empty, clean yogurt container, filled it with soil, and planted a couple of seeds from a lemon. Then I put the container on the front step and waited.
“I don’t think anything’s going to happen,” I said two weeks later. “Surely it doesn’t take THIS long for a lemon seed to sprout.”
Fred agreed. But since we are who we are, neither of us got around to moving the container off the front step, and a week later after I went out to get the mail, I glanced down and saw it. Our lemon seeds had sprouted!
You can plant seeds from a lemon and eventually end up with a lemon tree. Who the fuck knew?
(Yes, it’ll probably be 50 years before we actually GET a lemon off the lemon tree, but that’s not the POINT.)
Next, we’re going to try our hand at growing a peach tree. By the time the spud has graduated from high school and we’ve found a house we like on many, many acres, both the lemon and peach trees should be ready to plant in the ground.
Just call me Farmer Robyn.
* * *
Yesterday I finally downloaded and installed
Firefox. Fred’s been using it for a couple of weeks now and really, really likes it a lot. I like it so far, too – especially the popup stopper extension you can install – but I’m having a problem with Eudora. Even though Firefox is set as my default browser, if I click on a link in an email, it comes up in both Firefox and Internet Explorer. Fred tried to figure out what the problem was and couldn’t, so I threw myself on the mercy of Eudora support. Their response? It’s a Firefox problem.
Smells like bullshit to me.
So if I’m on your notify list and you see me leave, don’t worry. I’m switching all my notify email to a gmail account. Which doesn’t really solve the problem with Eudora, but 9/10 of the links I get are in notify emails, so it’ll be easier to deal with.
Stupid Eudora.
* * *
Bath time!]]>