Please Tiptoe Around (Not Through) The Tulips

(Photograph taken by Janet Draper)

In this week’s "Home Section" of The Washington Post, Adrian Higgins writes an interesting article about the damage done to flowers and plants by crowds and festivities during the Inauguration (“For Smithsonian, a Sad Souvenir of the Inauguration.”) Higgins interviews Mary Draper, a horticulturist with the Smithsonian Institution, where they discuss the trampling the gardens took during this time of national celebration.

(Photograph of Mary Draper by Juana Arias of The Washington Post)

Friends tried to prepare Ms. Draper for the damage done, but “….when a shell-shocked Draper got there the next day, she found the mulch had been turned to dust, 3,000 pansies and other winter plants were gone, evergreen shrubs had been beaten in and several prized woody plants had disappeared.” Have you ever done anything on a par like plant 3,000 pansies? Every joint and muscle in your body will remind you about it for days.

As we enter this time of nature's renewal: garden cleanup, and reading our favorite plant catalogues: wondering what we can afford in this time of economic hardship (and plants ain’t cheap, folks,) you need to remember that plants will tolerate only so much. "Cal? Keep your soccer ball out of that flower bed!" Ask my amsonia.

(photograph by Juana Arias of The Washington Post)

What these images from The Post remind me of is something I read about a few years ago regarding Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. During the time of the kidnapping (and murder) of their son, their sorrow became a world-wide media event, with reporters and the curious trampling through their property, trying to keep on top of the "scoop." Anne Morrow Lindbergh later wrote in her journal of her further sorrow, when spring arrived, and all of the white tulips she had anticipatingly planted coming up mangled and destroyed, from the foot pounding of the earth above their resting place; and for her, a hauntingly symbolic reminder of what her family had been through and their loss.

If you’ve ever had to spent three days chopping deep into a weed’s root system to clear gardening space, or baby along something that could be irreplaceable (your grandmother’s narcissus,) it’s wise to remember that plants are genetically wired to take somewhat of a pounding from nature, but they can endure only so much. We are not, of course, discussing bamboo that backhoes so dearly love, or that trumpet vine I was warned about that refuses to fall on its sword and die. I have sliced it’s root stem open and poured straight Round-Up on it, and I swear I heard it say, “I laugh at you, you foolish woman.” Slice away. I will return.”

The Sarah Palin of Plants. Pretty, yes? Try getting rid of it.

Sarah Palin And Jacques Pacque Sixe

"A nod's as good as a wink...to a blind bat. Nudge. Nudge."

I was scanning gossip blogs and stumbled on a piece that said Sarah Palin wished to appear on Saturday Night Live, mimicking Tina Fey who was mimicking her. I find Palin an odd creature of ambition and desire veneered with poutine. There are so many reasons why I would not vote for this woman, even down to the fact that she drops her "g's." I shudder thinking of her on the world stage saying "Prime Minister Poutine (Putin) ....Ay kin see yer house."

I have a very sophisticated friend in San Francisco, and the night of the Vice-Presidential debate, I asked her if she was watching, and she replied, "You betcha," which has become a catch phrase in describing Palin. Palin seems insistent on playing to the average American Joe Six -Pack, but my friend said, "Wouldn't you be insulted if that was you she was talking about-- as your furniture is being carried out by the Sheriff's office?" I told her I was driving in a Maryland suburb on Saturday and saw a white haired grandmother sitting by the curb with her furniture. It was heartbreaking.

"I think we need a little bit of reality from Wasilla Main Street"

There is the weird dichotomy about Palin. She presents herself as one of the "people," but she doesn't see herself (in her designer glasses) as one of the people, and yet she is one of the people. My San Francisco friend said to me that night, "Do you know one person with a knocked up teenager?" "Do you have one friend who hangs around his wife's office and gives orders?" (since Palin repeatedly says she's one of us.) I think I'd be happier with her if she had sharpened fangs, exposed like an Alaskan carnivore, ripping at flesh and enjoying the kill, staring over a rib cage with threatening eyes if you dare approach the prize.

Another friend and I were talking about all of this today, including the proposed SNL skit, and how this would be one more layer of unreality on top of an already bizzare campaign, and for some reason an old George Jones and Tammy Wynette song popped into my head, and I started singing,


"No we're not the jet set
We're the old Chevrolet set
There's no Riviera
In Festus, Missouri

And you won't find Onnasis
In Mullinville, Kansas
No, we're not the jet set
We're the old Chevrolet set
But ain't we got love?

No we're not the jet set
We're the old Chevrolet set
Our steak and martinis
Is draft beer and weinies

Our Bach and Tschaikowsky
Is Haggard and Husky
No we're not the jet set
We're the old Chevrolet set
But ain't we got love? "






Back in the day, country singer Conway Twitty turned himself into a theme park and built "Twitty City" at his home. I had this vision of tourists going through his house, and Conway saying, "Well y'all can buy that and that there, but not that. I wanna keep that." I suppose if Palin is elected, she could open up Number One Observatory Circle, so we could all go in and hold her babies while she's off to Paris, France (not Tennessee) and admire the moose heads and seal skins and buy You Betcha Beer Huggies.

Joe Six-Pack Makes Himself At Home at Number One Observatory Circle

-- thinking Washington is purdy darn fancy and maybe he should be Jacques Pacque Sixe