It's like daisies for Terminators, too!

"Come with me if you want to live!"

That may be simply one of the coolest lines Ahnold has ever used to touch my soul in one of his movies (that and "Stick Around" and "He's Dead Tired" and "IT'S NOT A TOUMA")!  Terminator 2 was simply an awesome movie not just for the action, but for the story line and soundtrack as well.  However, it had a deep meaningful message.  Terminator 2 taught me that sometimes we must sacrifice ourselves for the soul purpose of other living things; it also taught me why we cry.

Ideally people are the living things we wish to sacrifice for, but that is such a deep subject matter, and I'm no good guy terminator, so I'm just going to try to keep it to simple life forms for the sake of this blog.  

I am VERY BAD with plants.  But somehow, I have been designated the protector of just a few.  I am not always successful.

So, here is a plant. 

I'm getting better at blogging, here is an image!

I have had this plant for quite some time, I think three years or so by now.  I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how I have managed to keep this thing alive.

I'm sure some botanist out there will tell me something like "oh well, what you've got there is a non-killibus greenous-herbascious which is a common household plant given to bachelors to prove to society and visitors that they can keep something alive and act as a responsible person in a civilized state."

I swear, that thing is just prospering in my kitchen.  Off to the left of it is my coffee pot and I accidentally gave that plant really warm coffee one day.  IT GREW!!!

I'm not entirely certain if I know what I'm doing with this thing but I have grown accustomed to it greeting me in the morning as I pour myself a cup of coffee.  Sometimes I remember to water it.

So here I am, much like the Terminator, I have this "life" in my hands.  It is my responsibility and I must protect it!  Yes, I am well aware that this plant is not going to be locked up and left to die like Sarah Connor.  No, this plant had no say in being put under my care but then again, neither did Sarah Connor. 

Now the plant is pretty and someone dear to me gave it to me; much like Sarah Connor was cute and someone dear to the awful metal killing machine wanted it to protect her.  But I was willing to bet that  had Sarah Connor been really really ugly, the Terminator would have just gotten back to her son with something like "John Connor, you're mahther deedn't mahk eet.  She was ahhglee! We find pretty mahther."

NOT Sarah Connor.  Maybe a Triffid?
You tell me.

Then THIS THING ---> came into my life!

That has not grown any larger in the three plus years I've been its protectorate.  It was my first "bachelor plant" other than a chia pet I once had (it's a damn shame what they did to that chia). 

My precious, precious daughter got in my car after school over three springs ago (we planter types explain time by referencing the seasons) with some wet dirt in a cup and said in such a sweet innocent voice:

"Daddy my teacher gave me this.  Can we plant it and grow it in a garden?"

"No baby, I can't plant a garden where we live right now.  We'll just keep it in the cup it's in and see if we can take care of it until we get into a new place."

I was really just thinking that I'd "accidentally" throw it away and that would be the end of the non save-able ugly Sarah Connor mud in a cup.  But my daughter actually cared for it for just enough days that it started to sprout some ugly spawn.

This thing scares me.  What you can't tell is that the stems are almost transparent and the leaves have little spikes.  Yeah, it's greenish, but that's it.  Also, every once in a while the whole thing simply lays down.  That's when I decide to water it and the previously mentioned pretty plant.  But if not for this thing laying down, the other plant would surely be dead by now.  I cannot be expected to remember to water plants that I only see two or three times a day.  But when I water this one, within an hour it stands right back up as if nothing was ever wrong.  I really think it's thought out the performance it puts on for me.  I sometimes worry about leaving it alone at home.

Now, back to my point,  unlike the Terminator, I could not tell my child that this thing is going to die because it is soooo ugly.  I now have to make sure this one lives.  She doesn't pay any attention to it at all anymore but I know that if it goes missing, I'm in BIG trouble!  Not only will she be upset with me, but the plant... the plant may start to stalk me!  No no no... in a scary stalker way, not a vegetarian celery pun type way.

But if you'll notice, it's still in the styrofoam coffee cup that I first got it in.  I did upgrade to putting that into an old margarine container when I tried to drown the damned thing one day and got water all over my counter.  The other plant is in a pretty pot with a sexy mushroom thing in there I guess in case any Smurfs need a place to crash sometime.

But my point is that I cannot not kill these things.  I "cannot" in that I have inadvertently tried to do so and also "cannot" because if I do, the people who gave these to me might very well dip me into molten iron or at the very least, give me a hard time.

I have come to realize that, much like Sarah Connor surviving because she was around the Terminator, the plants have only survived because they are around me.  Granted, I put them in a place that would best aid in their survival as long as I could teach one of them to lay down when they wanted water.

I had a cactus and some bamboo that other people gave me, but they didn't make it.  Seriously they were maybe ten feet away in my dining room and I completely forgot to water them. I KILLED A CACTUS...

So, It's all about proximity.

Notice the Dog watching my "proximity."

What do you think of my pansies?  I think they were too far away from my kitchen sink too. 

I guess the plants in the kitchen thrive because, as bad as I am at caring for them, they are in a place where I can actually make the connection that when they look all droopy, they need water and the water is right there.  The plants anywhere else are kind of on their own. 

Once I walk past my pansies on the front porch and into my house, I have a dog and kid (and two kitchen plants) who I need to keep alive. 

I've noticed that the kid and the dog seem to stay really really close to me all the time.  Maybe It's all the dead plants keeping them in check and making said kid and dog remind me that I need to care for them too.

Nobody wants to end up like my pansies.