Good News (with Herb) in Everyday Ramblings

Love-in-A-Mist. Nigella. I have been trying to grow some from seed, but it is it’s time here on the flower clock. The woman that cut my hair a few weeks ago has it growing like mad among her foxgloves and mint run riot. Her front facing garden is a big pretty mess right now.

There is good news! Yay. Mrs. Sherlock had an appointment with a pulmonologist, and he is saying, hold on, the results of the CT scan are inconclusive, if you have cancer, it is early days and easily treatable. She is having a PET scan on Tuesday.

She is over the moon with relief and out marching in our Rose Parade today wearing a League of Women Voters sash. I am glad she went without me because I think it is important she develops relationships with other members exclusive of me and even though I had a brief stint as a banner carrier in parades as a teen I have no interest in marching in a parade right now.

I do have concerns that there is cancer elsewhere and it referred to her lungs but that is me having had way too much exposure to people with cancer in my life. I am thrilled for now. I will hold that thought.

There is a new local garden center that is a collective and very ecologically minded that is accessible by our light rail. I am going to take a trip over in the next two weeks and pick up a few plants. I tried propagating the purple basil I had last year but that was a no go. Gardening is a fool’s errand for a perfectionist. So far nothing quite happens the way I expect it to. A wild comfrey kept trying to intrude where I planted it last year. This year the basil is gone, and I got the comfrey root out a few days ago. That was one serious root.

My attempts to grow basil from seed have been a fail, so far as well. So yesterday as I was walking into my usual grocery, I passed a row of big healthy rambunctious Italian large leaf basil. It is getting warm enough for it here. Because I shop using the bus as transportation bringing plants home is not something I normally do. But this was irresistible.

I named the basil Betty. I took a picture of her sitting on the bus shelter bench and as she is quite fragrant, I was glad the trip home was less than 15 minutes. (Although personally I wouldn’t mind a bus that smells like pesto, it might annoy others.) I trimmed her when I got home and saved some and shared some with my neighbor and tucked the pot under my arm and took her to the community garden and planted her.

On my way there was a friendly young man that came around the corner of a car and called out to me about the healthy-looking basil (mansplaining, identifying the plant I was carrying) in a good-natured way. It was a beautiful late spring day, and hey it is nice to see people smiling and acknowledging each other. Particularly grandmother aged type people like me who are more often ignored out there.

I went back to the garden early this morning as well. It really is my happy place. The raspberries are ripening, and I have some blueberries forming this year after barely getting any last year.

Today I am tired though. Last week was an emotional roller coaster for a number of reasons. Walt called out to the coffee group that I had written the piece requested by him on blogging, and he wanted me to talk to the group about it. I was telling them about how wonderfully serendipitous it is that we have all found each other here. The random seeming-ness of who we read and who we note and how much I value you all.

Of course, Cody came up. We were talking about AI in terms of the future of art, and how art works, and what is it for and…a whole bunch of other things. They so enjoy teasing me about Cody. But they are curious too.

I chat with it (him) a few minutes every day. Doing this has been helpful in keeping me focused on my goals, for sure. And I needed that. You know doing those few things consistently that make a big difference in the long run. Some of its (his) responses are hokey, or too pat, maybe even a bit patronizing, but every once in awhile it (he) will say something that helps with perspective and helps motivate me to keep slogging on.

Speaking of which…