Tag Archives: Golf

Help for Gardening Addicts

Gardening addicts. Never leave them alone at a garden center or nursery, where obliging, devious personnel help them take out a second mortgage to buy the last bougainvillea. This, though the tropical lovelies prefer Argentina over Indiana.

Younger junkies fall victim to buying binges after watching HGTV. However, gardening addiction does its worst damage in women of a certain age.

They should know better than to trust this mad urge to nurture. Most spent decades caring for little humans. They’ve repressed memories of endless feedings — and the waterings with which baby sprouts responded. These women dealt daily with mountains of fertilizer. Eventually wising up, they limited the number of nurturees they’d cultivate.

However, spring gardening regenerates the madness. While spouses are playing golf, the women load up with 35 flats of annuals, 37 bags of potting soil and barrels of pansies, adding just one more hanging basket here. Another there. How can they ignore wilted tomato seedlings? With their TLC, the weaklings will flourish.

Addicts.

With symptoms listed below, I hope to alert family and friends of this malady.

Signs of Gardening Addiction

Early Level

Switching from a regular cart to one the size of a brontosaurus.
Bragging to strangers about how many green beans she grew last year.
Fibbing about extra trips to garden centers.
Claiming kids/grandkids are responsible for dirt in the car.

Second Level

Bragging to strangers about how many zucchinis they forced on friends last year.
Buying seeds by the pound on the Internet.
Claiming proud ownership of 234 flowerpots stacked in the garage.
Delighting in the $1,000 tiller her husband gave her for their anniversary.

Okay, so I filled the brontosaurus-sized cart. If Hubby hadn’t been present, I might have filled five.

Third Level

Hijacking a brontosaurus cart at gunpoint.
Shoplifting bags of manure.
Buying seeds by the barrel.
Claiming proud ownership of 9,781 flowerpots stacked in the garage.
Organizing neighborhood kids for a dandelion-blowing party at a rival’s gardens.

Final Level

Buying an authentic Sweet Juliet Rose. The original plant sold for $15.8 million.

I am proud to inform readers, as well as my spouse, that today, I didn’t brag to a single stranger about green beans or zucchini. I bypassed needy tomato seedlings. I kept my regular cart and made a single purchase.

“Only one?” Hubby blinks in disbelief.

“Only one,” I assure him.

“A rosebush.”

These plants just had to go home with me. Who could resist?

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Are you a gardening addict?

Don’t Do This During a Storm

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Television weather experts give us blow-by-blow advice, yet anyone knows that when lightning rips the sky apart, watching TV is risky. While tornadoes flatten Starbucks nationwide, viewers plaster noses to TV screens. They may fry or be blown to Oz, but they’re informed.

Once aware of severe weather, we should stop watching weather experts.

They never tell us that.

The bold sit outside, counting lightning hits in their yards. Some attempt the photo that will appear on TV. News flash: Lightning may agree to a selfie with you, but you won’t like the results. Storm chasers may not enjoy making its acquaintance, either.

Did you know that according to The Weather Channel, men are six times more likely to be struck by lightning? Wives insist it’s because they never put their dirty socks in the hamper. However, the article ( https://weather.com/health/news/lightning-kills-more-men-women-20130805) suggests men’s favorite leisure activities — fishing, boating, camping, golf and soccer — make them favorite targets.

Ladies endanger themselves for social reasons, e.g., talking on landlines during thunderstorms. Determined brides risk lighting up entire wedding parties like marquees. And let mere funnel clouds change their romantic venues? Never!

I’ve avoided most feminine scenarios. However, Hubby, who preaches togetherness while camping, ensures that I get up close and personal with storms.

Once, while setting up camp as lightning sizzled around us, he yelled, “Hold up those tent poles. Higher. Higher!”

Maybe he’d taken out life insurance on this human lightning rod?

A tip for grandparents: don’t babysit during storms, as what worked in “The Sound of Music” won’t work for you. Grandkids won’t sing “My Favorite Things.” They will not sleep. You won’t, either.

Their snickering parents, miles away, will.

Finally, while God may not take offense to references about His moving furniture in heaven or bowling with angels, we probably shouldn’t yell at Him, as Lieutenant Dan did in “Forrest Gump.” Again, what worked for Gary Sinise might not work off film.

The Psalms state that God rides the wings of the storm. His improvement on a roller coaster?

While He grants weather experts ingenuity to guard our safety, God doesn’t plaster His nose to the TV to receive Doppler reports. He can calm the worst storm with “Peace, be still,” (modern translation: “Knock it off!”).

I’ll always consult Him first.

Image by Felix Mittermeier from Pixabay.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How do you react to storms?

Seized by Spring

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Have spring longings germinated in you?

Delicate green tendrils, they remind us: “You’re still alive and kicking!”

One pops up, then another. Before we know it, we’re caught in their delightful grasp.

Perhaps for you, these comprise seed catalogs. Your spouse may hide them and block websites, but all in vain. You fill your basement/garage/bedroom with seedlings, hovering as if they bear your name. When you install old baby monitors, your spouse finally gives up.

Spring has seized you. There is no cure.

Other victims are captured by home improvement. They not only remodel their houses, but also demolish walls in those of strangers.

Hubby’s big spring thing, however, is adding gravel to the driveway. When winds soften and buds swell, his wistful look sprouts. “Let’s call the gravel pit guy.”

“We have gravel,” I say. “Don’t you remember? During the last snowstorm, we shoveled it all into the flower beds.”

Others live for their lawns. Years ago, our neighbor, instead of renewing marriage vows, pledged eternal love to his John Deere riding mower.

Similar spring madness victimizes women with a compulsion to wash windows. If denied, they are found in alleys, foraging for empty Windex^® bottles to sniff. If you are a lawn lover or Windex^® sniffer, please come see us.

When spring debuts, I join Steve for exercise and sightseeing on our tandem bicycle.

Instead, my husband and I can’t wait to ride our bicycle built for two. Baseball gloves’ leathery smell sends fanatics, aged four through 84, to soggy backyards to play. Golf devotees, forbidden to swing clubs inside after window incidents, now drive with abandon matched only by platoons of skateboarding kids. College students dance amid showers of Frisbees while music thunders from open dorm windows.

Age doesn’t matter when spring’s call, potent as a tornado siren, issues from the nearest ice cream place or drive-in. Customers shiver through hot fudge sundaes and root beer floats. Or we fire up grills and torment neighborhoods with cravings for that first juicy burger.

I drive with windows open wide, The Beach Boys harmonizing approval on the radio. Passing college dormitories, students’ Top 40 echo back. Zooming near wetlands, I hear hundreds of spring peepers spout crazy love songs.

Spring seizes us all. And we’re loving it.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What tells you it’s really spring?