Monday we drove back up to Miami, in our car with no air conditioning. We stopped off for a walk on the beach part way but the wind was too gusty for Danny to want to go swimming in the sea. We checked into our hotel, which, like everything in Miami, seemed especially dated, though not in a cool retro sense, but in a tired-needing to be renewed sense. Danny played in the water at Miami Beach and I took a nap on the sand. We ate at a so-so diner, sharing a burger and house salad, but never fear, we had our own milkshakes!
Danny complained about our lack of ac and threw in the 'my wife is pregnant and was not happy' and they knocked $110 off our $170 bill! It always pays to ask right! The worst they can do is say no!
The flight home Tuesday was uneventful and practically empty.
We plunged back into real-life with a to-do list the length of a kite string. Very sobering. The biggest problem with 'our' to-do list, is that I cant help with most of it. Its not necessarily the 'helpless' feeling that I mind, its the pressure upon Danny to do it all. Its not like there are any jobs that we can get someone else to do, we just need time I suppose. Its a good job pregnancy has brought an unusual calm over me.
Oh and before anyone tries this remedy, be warned, my broccoli had died by the time I got home. So this age old remedy of spraying broccoli with dish soap that I hear about from everyone, didnt quite work for me; but Im guessing I used to strong a solution and perhaps needed to dilute it more. Other sad vegetable patch news is that deer ate my bean seedlings, though left the tomatoes, thank goodness. The little erhms also mutilated my apple tree, leaving just a few leaves and a single apple. Now I have to erect a fence round the apple tree, which will be an eye-sore in my front yard, but Im not losing a perfectly healthy tree to some flea-ridden deer. They ate some random flowers in my flower bed by the road, but Im less mad about that, just mildly niggled.
To end on a positive garden note, everything else around the garden is looking fantastic. Dont get me wrong, I have some major weeding and up-keep to do, things that need staking and so forth; but for the most part, it looks great out there and it keeps itself. Many of my elephant ears eventually came back from their long hibernation, my hydrangea are all blooming already; some that last year were white are now blue, and some that have never bloomed for me are covered in little flower heads. My spirea are flaunting their pink beauty. Three of my clematis remain in bloom and the stella d'oro day lilies have begun to open. The nicest surprise of all was the opening of the Holly Hocks by the mail box in the deepest shades of pink-purple and the imminent lavender deluge alongside the bright yellow coreopsis. If only I knew someone who would take pretty pictures of it all for me...
