It's Just Abbey

I am at the point in my life where my biological clock is tick tick ticking away and I am getting that early need to take care of something. Usually to keep this at bay one would buy a cat or a dog. My current work schedule keeps that from being a possibility. I work 12 hour shift and would have to neglect whatever creature I have. I have abandonment issues and I would pass those onto my cat or dog. Plus, the dogs my parents have break my heart when they look at me leaving, I couldn’t stand to do it every day.

That being said I have been looking for a way to fill the hole in my heart that wants to love and squeeze something I can call my own.

I should mention one thing before I go on. Due to this need to mother things I have always had a weird quirk (it is probably more of an emotional cry for help or a result of a massive head wound but let’s call it a quirk) of naming everything I own. But not just any names, awesome names. Hoppie gave me a tiger a while back and I named him F. Scott Fitzgerald. My desktop’s name is Delly and my Wii is named Linus. There is a stray cat that lives in Hoppie’s back yard that I have named William H. Macy.

Anywho, today Hoppie and I decided we are going to start a garden this summer. My dad has a kick ass garden and his grandmother used to have a pretty killer one herself so it is something we both clearly think will be awesome and not at all heartbreaking. Nope… Not at all. Yeah…

We’ll call this adventure Operation Planting Hopes and Harvesting Sorrow. This garden will either be a wild success or a crushing disappointment of deadness and doom.

As we walked around Menard’s today with our heads full of hope and our pockets full of dreams I spotted something wonderful. I gasped, grabbed and loved it with all my heart. It was a starter strawberry plant. Just some little vines poking there happy little vine faces out of the dirt. I was in love and demanded we find a pot for him immediately. As we shopped I refused to put him in the cart or let Hoppie hold him. Poor little Patrick would be dead out of my hands.

Yeah, btw, I named my strawberry plant Patrick.

I happily took him home (safely carried in the cup holder) and I will plant him in his new home in the morning. It is rather late and I don’t want him to get a sub-par relocation because his mother was too tired. But he will love his new home. I bought him the nicest organic/low fat soil to happily thrive in and pretty bitchin’ pot to call his own.

It then became a question of where he shall roost. My apartment was completely out of the question because there is no sun on my patio and someone would try to sell him meth. He is too young to be exposed to those things. The only other option was Hoppie’s deck/patio thing. Plenty of sun and the only real concern is being eaten by William H Macy. In my book, that is way better than exposure to drugs and rent control.

I really hope I don’t kill him. I know this a fear all new mothers have so I should be able to get over it soon. But Patrick is so small and tiny! I just want to protect him from all the evils of the world! Drugs, violence, broken hearts, frost and heavy winds. So many things to keep me up at night. I wonder what kind of plant he will become. Will he be lush, rough and full of spirit? Will he be small, shy but very giving? You can never really know these things at this stage of development. I won’t push him or pressure him to be the plant I want him to be. I will nurture who he is and know it is for the best. All I can really do is water him and hope he learns right and wrong and the value of a dollar.

All I know is that I love him and while I have only owned him a few hours I am already as proud as anyone could be of a strawberry plant they bought in a store.