Whew

Last weekend I went to the nursery to pick up some geraniums for the front porch. I found some really beautiful exotic ones, called "Tulip Geraniums." These particular ones are hot pink, with each individual "flower" in the cluster forming sort of a cup , i.e., the "tulip" of the name, I guess. They're really unusual, and after I told my mom about them on the phone, I realized that she would probably like to have one, so I went back yesterday to get another one.

While I was there, I made friends with a cat.

I had picked up the geranium and was heading up to the check-out when I saw a little black and white cat dart under one of the tables. The greenhouse is huge, and I just kind of followed him from table to table, and he eventually ended up in a room in the back where they have various containers and pots for sale. He was pawing at a door that was almost closed, but he couldn't get it open. I didn't know, of course, whether he was supposed to go through the door, so I didn't feel like I could open it for him. I crouched down and talked to him, and got him to come over close enough so I could touch him.

He was a little skittish, but I just stayed down there, talking to him, and after a few minutes he came close enough to be stroked, and I sat down on the floor and he crawled up into my lap and purred. I guess I sat there with him about five minutes, then reluctantly, had to leave. It always feels like such a victory to make friends with a cat. I'm not sure why, but it just feels very special.

I asked the girl at the check-out counter what his name was. "Oreo." Not exactly unique, but I guess it fit him. The other girl on the counter turned around and said, "We have a cat?"

When I had been there the weekend before, I had been amazed at some of the people who were there at the same time. There was a big crowd, and a long line, and while I was waiting, I was listening to a woman complain about the high prices, saying that she had been to another nursery, and "everything" was cheaper, everything was a dollar cheaper. She counted the plants in her basket, saying, "I could have saved, one, two, three, four dollars! Enough to buy another flower!" She said she wasn't going to come back there again until they lowered their prices! And after she left, the man in front of me turned around and said the nursery she was referring to was 20 miles away! "She's going to drive forty miles to save four dollars," he said, shaking his head. Makes sense to me.

There was another woman complaining that she had gotten a plant home, then noticed that it had a broken stem. It was some kind of a small bushy plant--I couldn't tell what kind--but certainly not a tree with a broken branch or anything like that, just a plant. She said she wanted to know whether it had broken off, or whether it had been cut off because the stem was dead, or what, and the clerk was saying she didn't know, but the plant looked fine, it looked healthy. The woman wanted her money back, and they wouldn't give it to her. She said she was just unhappy because it wasn't perfect, and I thought, lady, the plant's going to grow! It's not like it's an inanimate object . . .

And then the people in front of me wanted to know if the peonys they were buying were guaranteed, and I thought, wouldn't it be nice if everything in the world were guaranteed?

I finished three websites this month, and put the third one live this weekend.

Number 1, for Terri Farley:

Number 2, for Melinda Rucker Haynes:

And number 3, for Sari Robins:

All I can say is, "Whew."

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