#279

I like to grow things. Children, yes, they're fun to grow. Marijuana, no. Houseplants, yes. Also ficus and citrus trees, coffee plants, and succulents grow nicely indoors. But this year I go big-time, I go outdoors; the new house has a vegetable garden and I'm gonna fill it. Tomatoes, peppers, beans, beets, basil. We also have lilies. The bounty of Mother Nature will come bursting forth! In breathtaking fullness and beauty, as far as the eye can see, which is to the fence, and the ugly escarpment for buried utilities, and the untrimmed bushes and scrubby overgrowth, but everywhere else, I promise you, everywhere else the robins will sing and cardinals flutter, in sunbeams and soft breezes, above sprouts sprouting, squirrels playing, and the tender greenery, stalks, and vines of my plush and perfect plantings. Heaven on Earth they'll call it. The garden of Eden. Before Adam messed it up. Or was it Eve? And that was before they had kids? I'm doing better than Adam, at least.

A word on bunnies and edible vegetation: I hear Bunnies are tireless, gluttonous trespassers and devastators of gardens. Fuzzy and insatiable. Total disregard for property lines and ownership. They don't care that I pay taxes. The so-called deterrents are ineffective. Marigolds and human hair? They laugh like the raccoons in 'The Great Outdoors.' Megan loves bunnies, so I can't shoot them. People used to eat bunnies; Papa Mike says they taste like chicken. I won't yak about when I was a kid, but when I was a kid, Grandpa Swede shot a rabbit in their garden, and I thought he killed the Easter Bunny. A serious charge. I was very upset. Will I have to battle rabbits? Bugs Bunny comes to mind. Also Carl and the gopher in Caddyshack. I don't want any trouble with varmints. Varmints? Varmint: noun, a troublesome wild animal. Okay.

This is supposed to be a portraiture of M 'n' m. Not so much a vault for random thoughts and my bullshit. But I'm a parent, human, and Cyclone fan in frequent existential crisis. Especially during football season. And when I talk to adults who were once kids (it's remarkable, every one of them was once a kid), they wish the photos and mementos from their childhood were less focused on them and more focused on their parents. Interesting.