I realized something yesterday.
I went to my mother's house because my brother told me to -- I think we were going to get food to go and have a family lunch, I'm not really sure to be honest -- only he forgot and was didn't understand why I texted him to say I was on my way. And I could have just gone on with errands but I needed to pee (of course). So I went to mom's house anyway to use her bathroom and then she was talking to me and suddenly I was being grilled about the hostas.
I didn't even plant the damn things! They came with the house. Really. I think the woman who owned the house before me initially did all sort of "curb appeal" projects, including seriously overplanting the front flower beds. So I inherited 6-8 hostas. I deliberately mowed the ones around the maple tree until they finally took the hint and dies. But the three in the bed are determined to outlive me. Seriously. I'm in a weird cold war with my hostas.
I don't really like hostas. I didn't really dislike them either, until I had some of my own. Now I loathe them. (Note to hosta fanciers: I hate them. I'm not saying you should, too. Love your hostas. Help them grow big and leafy. Freakin' sing to them every morning. The point is that hostas can exist in the world just not in my yard.)
My mom thought her misc plants along her back fence seemed thinner than usual. She finally realized it was because her hostas are gone. I guess they started coming up this spring, but couldn't hack the alternating freezing, drowning, and burning, and just . . . died. Hence the sudden rabid interest in my hostas.
I explained that, yes, I have hostas this year. They're already way too large for the space. I neglect them. I've tried to dig them up. But no, they're back huge and leafy every year. So what if we had overnight frost? Or rain three days out of every five? Or no rain at all for two weeks? They're fine.
My mom was shocked and kind of judgey about my hosta abuse. Then she described, in great detail, the care she took of her hostas. And all of her plants, really. All the morning out spraying pesticides to keep the bugs, especially the beetles and ants (stupid peonies, my words not hers) away. How she covered them every night when it dropped to the 30s even tho it's spring and that's not how we do it in the south. She probably knits them sweaters.
Up until this conversation, well, I knew she loved the pets more than she ever loved her children. Look at the framed pictures in her house (and she has many many many). Find the ones of furless family members. There's less than five and my brother and I are children in them. I don't know that she has any pics of us as adults on display.
And now I learn she takes better care of the plants than she did of us. Seriously. Years ago, before annual flu shots were the norm, I got the flu. The for real I-dragged-myself-to-the-bathroom-and-brushed-my-teeth-for-the-first-time-in-week-and-now-I'm-too-tired-to-get-back-to-the-bedroom-so-I-guess-I'll-just-go-fetal-here-on-the-bathroom-tile flu. The kind where just thinking through such a complex sentence would make you collapse.
I went back to work after a week and half. I totally shouldn't have but I worked for total jerks who made it clear they wouldn't keep my spot open forever. And two days later they laid off the whole editorial department (me and another guy). And I was so effing relieved because I could go back to bed.
Before I went back to work I called my mother and asked her to bring me some aspirin and maybe some soup and crackers (I had fever delusions of being able to open a can, dump contents in pot, turn on stove, and eat). I lived in an apartment maybe a mile from her house. The grocery store was between her place and mine. She refused because I was sick.
But heaven forbid her hostas catch a chill.
Those hostas are dead, mom. I'm still here. Now who do you love more?!
p.s. That company went bankrupt because that's what happens to a publisher with no editors. And they were investigated by the FBI. And at least one guy was convicted of fraud. True story.
p.p.s. I don't really resent my mother, not more than the normal amount. I'm exaggerating for effect. Except about refusing to get me aspiring and soup when I had the flu. That was over twenty years ago and I'm still pretty miffed.
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