On a recent Tuesday morning, I intended to join the Tuesday morning UUCS garden crew working in the Memorial Garden, but an ailing hip was acting up so I found a good spot to sit and watch our masked volunteer gardeners prune, cut, weed and clip. Maybe I could claim credit for supervising?
Diane, our gardening crew chief (and my wife) sensing that something more than my hip was ailing, came over to join me on the walkway bench overlooking the Memorial Garden. “You have the September blues don’t you?” she said. “Every year you whine about how it is still hot and humid here and there are hurricanes lurking about while in our native Vermont the air is crisp and cool and the leaves are colorful and bright. And this year, your hip is bothering you, causing you to be, well, a bit of a pain in the butt.”
I thought she had summed up my mental and medical make-up pretty well although I like to think of myself as curmudgeonly rather than a pain in the butt.
Diane continued. “Well, we don’t have bright oranges, reds and yellows here in our tropical paradise, but to cheer you up, Bob Milner, our UUCS orchid specialist, added a beautiful purple orchid to the Memorial Garden the other day. It is absolutely gorgeous. Take a look- it will raise your spirits.”
I did look, and my disposition improved. And, as Diane reminded me, it won’t be long before I will be writing gloating emails to friends in the north, as they struggle with ice, snow and subzero temperatures while we are out and about in shorts and tee shirts.
As for the present, I said to Diane “maybe we could buy a big orange pumpkin and place it in the memorial garden. Wouldn’t that be nice?
“Delightful,” said Diane, but the tone of her voice suggested that we wouldn’t be buying big orange pumpkins any time soon.
Diane, our gardening crew chief (and my wife) sensing that something more than my hip was ailing, came over to join me on the walkway bench overlooking the Memorial Garden. “You have the September blues don’t you?” she said. “Every year you whine about how it is still hot and humid here and there are hurricanes lurking about while in our native Vermont the air is crisp and cool and the leaves are colorful and bright. And this year, your hip is bothering you, causing you to be, well, a bit of a pain in the butt.”
I thought she had summed up my mental and medical make-up pretty well although I like to think of myself as curmudgeonly rather than a pain in the butt.
Diane continued. “Well, we don’t have bright oranges, reds and yellows here in our tropical paradise, but to cheer you up, Bob Milner, our UUCS orchid specialist, added a beautiful purple orchid to the Memorial Garden the other day. It is absolutely gorgeous. Take a look- it will raise your spirits.”
I did look, and my disposition improved. And, as Diane reminded me, it won’t be long before I will be writing gloating emails to friends in the north, as they struggle with ice, snow and subzero temperatures while we are out and about in shorts and tee shirts.
As for the present, I said to Diane “maybe we could buy a big orange pumpkin and place it in the memorial garden. Wouldn’t that be nice?
“Delightful,” said Diane, but the tone of her voice suggested that we wouldn’t be buying big orange pumpkins any time soon.