On the descent the pilot warned it would be bumpy, which for an anxious flyer like me can induce heart stopping panic. Since he had the flight attendents strap themselves down early, I listened to my iPod with impunity, which is one of my distraction techniques (along with meditation, slow breathing, energy psychology techniques and an emergency stash of Xanax). As the clouds parted Carole King rang out, “I feel the earth move, under my feet! I feel the sky tumbling down, a tumbling down!”
It was an easy landing in the end, though the power was out at home from the windstorm, some of the sunflowers were blown down and pieces of Elly's Douglas Fir were strewn across her street.
This morning I read the Sunday New York Times and, in avoidance of the real news, read every article in the Style section. The latest trend is that Real Men Have Cats. If you're insecure and feel the need to be defended, you get a dog. “A man with a cat, on the other hand, is secure with himself. He shares his space with a predator.”
These are straight men, mind you. “They make the best boyfriends because they're totally cool with staying home and watching a movie,” says one Elizabeth Daza, a video producer in Manhattan. “They don't need to be running around the park and proving their masculinity like the dog guys.”
This is all to justify writing about my cat in the blog twice inside a week. I get regular reports on her emotional state in my absence (she gets depressed and waits for me at the window, and doesn't come to bed), and when I return she purrs like crazy and demands to be brushed constantly for a few days until I am taken for granted again.
But about those sunflowers. This spring we had a garden put in, by professionals. It was tasteful. It looked like something out of a Sunset magazine spread. We had to fix that.
The seed envelope said “Giant,” and although I have regularly put a few sunflowers in the bed every year, this time I planted the whole package. With fresh compost and regular watering, they created a Jack in the Beanstalk old growth forest of sunflowers that stops traffic (some are 12 feet tall) and is a destination on the mom and baby stroller circuit. It is most definitely not tasteful. Whimsical on a baroque scale is more like it. The squirrels have topped several of the sunflowers and are chewing through the rest as they ripen.
It's good to be home.
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