One Month: Revival of Dead Plant Short-Lived, Indeed

I have been stalling the writing process for a few days to avoid showing what the terrarium actually looks like right now. Both plants were growing at an alarming rate and the leaf shapes looked perfectly alien. Right when I was getting excited and hoping to see some teeth soon, I left it outside in the sun to photosynthesize on Monday. Plants need to photosynthesize, right?

It appears that the recently resurrected plant has spontaneously combusted, whereas the other plant seems to have been seared by a small, contained forest fire. I watered it promptly and moved it back inside, vowing never to leave the terrarium outside in the sun while I go to work again. Next time I will leave it with a sitter.

I do not foresee a second resurrection in the future for my dearly departed carnivorous plant. I discovered a frosty white mold blanketing what is left of it tonight. If it returns now, it will be in the form of a fly-eating zombie.

I suppose I’ll have to find something else to write about if the other plant decomposes with it. The avocado pits are moldy. The strawberries are brown. I only have so much to say about these pleasantly striated onions.

Originally I planned to write about my adventures in Prague, but I have a while before the time comes to venture over the big blue puddle. What to do, what to do….

Horticultural Hubris and Herbal Bravado

The bravado caused by the resuscitation of my Venus flytrap (or pitcher plant?), for which I take full credit, has lead me to spontaneously germinate an avocado tree. I’ve eaten a lot of avocado during the past five days. This is the week where I decided that I like avocado, and I am celebrating by eating avocados. I’ve had it by itself, in salads, in pita bread, on sandwiches, and I’ve rubbed it on my skin. I read about how to slice them and eat them online. I viewed an instructional video about how to plant the pit and grow an attractive potted avocado tree for your home.

Last night, I saw the collection of pits accumulating on the window sill next to my dead bamboo plant. I remembered that edifying clip, the enthusiastic narrator, and the energizing eighties workout music to which it was set, and began to sprout a pit. That is to say, I have it suspended with some toothpicks in a glass on my windowsill beside winged stone cat. In about a week it should sprout eight white tentacles.

While I was at Sensibiliteas today I decided to be brave with my choice of leaf. The last time I was brave with my tea I tried something called “Mate Carnivale” at Alice’s Teacup in New York City. It contained cocoa, sunflower, rooibus, cactus, cornflowers, and almonds. It tasted a lot better than it sounds.

This time, I tried Holy Basil. For those who don’t know, this is basil that is blessed by the Pope on Good Friday and left sitting for three days in the company of a bishop. It has medicinal properties that not only cure blindness and leprosy, but also kills fungi.

I sampled a hot Styrofoam cup of Holy Basil with lemon, which the fellow who works there has successfully used to season a chicken (and kill cure its leprosy). It mostly just tasted like lemon, but I could almost feel the fungi flushing from my system, if there was fungi to be flushed. I purchased a bag of a Holy Basil blend tea called “Shanti,” a term I recognized from yoga that is usually in the company of several ommmmmms. I just finished a cup of Shanti and I approve.

As today was the first continuously sunny day in a week or so, I photographed some bracelets I made while I was moping indoors.

Supposedly Dead Plant Miraculously Revives Itself After Three Weeks

I went to take the weekly photographs of my budding carnivorous plant terrarium, and was bewildered to see new growth in the plant that I supposed was wilted and decomposing. I am delighted to inform the world that this deceptive plant has resurrected overnight. I am overjoyed.

The plant which has been unquestionably alive for the past three weeks is thriving, as usual, but I find myself wondering if it was a Venus flytrap all along. I could easily see the leaves turning into hungry little mouths in the near future.

I’ve been reading up on carnivorous plants. When one of my mother’s friends learned of my endeavors she sent me a magazine article from Smithsonian magazine about endangered Venus flytraps growing in the wilds of North and South Carolina. Colonial folks exported them to Europe as a curiosity, and the English named them “tipitiwitchets.”

Charles Darwin imported some Venus flytraps from the Carolinas and devotedly fed them cheese and egg whites. Thomas Jefferson, while living in France, sent away for some flytraps to impress the Parisian ladies. Empress Josephine kept them in her garden at Chateau Malmaison. The magazine attributes the plant’s name to a British botanist called John Ellis, while other sources attribute its name to a dirty, dirty man punning on female anatomy. (Anybody seen the movie Teeth?)

There is apparently a popular misconception that the American colonists were all amateur art historians and compared the structure of the leaf to the clam shell in the Birth of Venus by Botticelli. This gives me the idea to paint a beautiful naked women emerging from the open mouth of a Venus flytrap, hiding her shame. I offer this idea to anyone who wouldn’t destroy it as I would.

Bringing the stunted plant back to life was but one miracle. I planted a bean teepee over our septic tank, and the leaves around the poles have been sprouting and sprawling for quite some time. There is nothing remarkable about this. As of this morning, a dozen other bean plants sprouted under the bean tent. I’m not sure what to make of it. I didn’t plant any seeds there.

When I was little, I went to my friend Sara’s house wile she helped her mom plant a bean teepee. Sara informed me that the teepee would grow large enough for her family to camp in and they would spend the entire night picking beans off the walls and eating them.

Unfortunately, our industrial strawberry plant was not bestowed with miracles. It looks rather sickly after a week of rain and overcast. The corporate garden gnome hasn’t responded to my e-mails or phone calls. Why can’t we just plant real strawberries like normal people? I will not provide an image to support this observation, as I do not want to sully my blog with its rotting leaves. Instead, feast your eyes on these pleasantly striated sliced red onions.

After Two Weeks

They said I couldn't grow nonindiginous carnivorous foliage in a humid continental climate, but I proved them wrong. I proved them all wrong.

The Wisdom of Youth

While de-cluttering my living space I found a drawer of my early journals among the plush snowmen and worn out pairs of sneakers. Sitting cross-legged between a burlap sack of old shoes and a pair of lime green Rollerblades I flipped eagerly through the notebooks discovering early traces of my brilliance. I believe this journal, from 1996, to be a key moment in my personal and professional development. I share my findings here in hopes that my prodigious wisdom will progress mankind as a whole.

February 5, 1996

I ate a Banana a couple of times.

February 6, 1996

I cleaned my rome and I hid it under my bed.

February 7, 1996

I am a happy tooth because I get flost every day.

February 13, 1996

Gess wut song is stuc in my hed

Mow mow mow mow mow mow mow mow mow mow mow mow

February 16, 1996

On vacation, I am going to Mikdonalds.

February 28, 1996

I am a sad tooth because I bo not flos. I bo not brush. I bo not ete good food. I ete candey.

March 4, 1996
Over the weekend I played with Sara. I played with babby sistar Kely. I played with another babby sistar Kely.

March 14, 1996
If I were a kite I would fly the rest of my life.

March 15, 1996
I wish shamrocks were a food.

March 19, 1996
My fren Sara gets happy at me sumtimes.

Merch 21, 1996
If I were a raddit I could hop withowt falling. I could ete caris. I wont haff to ete Foods.

April 15, 1996
If I were the sun I could live in the sky.
I wuod be yellow.
I wuod get very hot.
I could turn into the moon.

April 29, 1996
I throw up.

May 2, 1996
My mother is a special person. She is special to me because she pulls my teeth out.

June 3, 1996
Saras sistr throw a big rock at me.

June 4, 1996
Were going on a feeld trip. I think I’m going to see Bears.

June 27, 1996
I’ve ben akting like a horse.

The second notebook, produced two years later in Mrs. Porter’s third grade class, was from a far less prolific period. I sketched the blueprints of an automatic flyswatter, somewhat resembling a catapult with wheels. I also expressed a desire to own a dog that is half Maltese and half macaroni and cheese.