The last of my tomatoes is gone, and I didn’t get to eat any of them. I absolutely love the taste of home-grown tomatoes, so over the past several years I’ve made several attempts to grow them myself. Sadly, all that work and effort produced only one bumper crop of cherry tomatoes. I was happy and proud, but it only happened once. Some years I grew enormous tomato plants that didn’t actually produce tomatoes, other years my plants were infected with “white flies” which meant the tomatoes never ripened, and one year something ate my entire tomato plant. All that was left was a sad little gnawed-off stump.
Hope springs eternal, so this Spring when I saw a healthy little plant that was labeled as an “early producer,” I thought I would give it a try. I was heartened to see five tomatoes growing shortly after I planted it, and since there was no sign of the dreaded white flies, I thought this was going to be my year, tomato-wise. But then the tomatoes began disappearing, one by one. I asked my husband to surround the plant with a protective barrier. That worked for three days, but this morning, all that was left of my tomato crop was a single tomato with a huge bite taken out of it. I know when I’m beat, so I left it on the ground so some critter could finish its meal.
I think the time has come for me to admit that growing my own tomatoes is not in my skill set. But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy home-grown tomatoes, it just means I have to eat tomatoes that other people have grown. For now, I buy them at the local farmer’s market. Later this Summer, my friends and family who can successfully grow tomatoes will most likely share their extras with me. And I’ve decided that I’m okay with that.
The truth is, sometimes we have to rely on other people. When the shower head in our main bathroom started dripping, my husband and I made several attempts to fix it ourselves, but finally gave up and called a plumber. The plumber fixed it in less than an hour. When my dog managed to snag my necklace and I heard a loud “twang,” I thought it was broken. It wasn’t, but the chain was suddenly several inches longer. I couldn’t figure out how a sterling silver chain suddenly lengthened, but a friend took one look at it and told me that the chain had “sprung,” which did indeed make it longer. Sometimes other people know the answers that elude us.
I am, by nature, a somewhat independent person and I don’t apologize for that. But I also know just how connected I am to other people, and how much we all rely on each other to get through our day-to-day lives. And I hope I can always remember just how much I need others, even those people who don’t think, vote, believe, or look just like I do. Because when I can remember how connected we all truly are, it’s a whole lot easier to treat others the way I want them to treat me. And that results in a better world for everyone…..
A quick survey of the yard revealed a stack of logs in the grass between our house and driveway, more stacks in the back yard, some of which were laying across the sidewalk, and finally, the huge trunk of the tree spanning the area behind the garage to the middle of the yard. I asked him how long it usually took logs left on a lawn to kill the grass underneath them, and he said about seven days.
My mother and I have an ongoing dispute over the proper placement of silverware in the dishwasher. I always place my forks, spoons and knives in the dishwasher with the handles up. My mother places them in with the handles down, because she says the silverware gets cleaner that way. And perhaps they do, I tell her. But what happens after the dishwasher has run its cycle, and then I have to remove the silverware by placing my grubby little fingers on the parts of the spoons and forks that are supposed to go in people’s mouths? And isn’t it dangerous to handle the knives by the blades?
When I became a volunteer dog walker at a local humane society, all I wanted to do was help shelter dogs. My daily schedule was rather busy at the time, so I only signed up for a two-hour walking shift, one day a week. That was over fifteen years ago, and I’m still walking dogs there, although now I do it three days a week. And my “shift” rarely ends before all the adoptable dogs get out, no matter how long that happens to take.
There’s so much more I could say on this subject, but I don’t have the time. My 87-year old mother is having problems opening her emails, and I have to go over to her house and figure out just what she is doing wrong…..
Still, there is nothing I can do but accept the changes that are happening in, and to, my body. I may still be young in spirit….and hope that I always will be….but I am no longer quite so young in body, and that means that I have to remember to cut myself some slack. I need to pay attention to my physical limits these days, and be willing to ask for help when I need it. I also need to be strong enough to graciously accept help when it’s offered, even those times when I didn’t ask for it. Because the time is coming, slowly but inevitably, when the only shelter dogs I’ll be walking are the chihuahuas.
‘m going to be spending way too much time in the dentist’s chair in the upcoming weeks. Last Monday, an upper molar that had been only mildly sore the day before decided it was time to get seriously worse, what with it being the day before a holiday and all. I found a dentist who took emergencies, who referred me to an specialist for a root canal on at least one tooth, possibly two. Trust me, that was not how I had been planning to celebrate the Fourth of July.
Muddling Through My Middle Age 