My Back Pages: May 2014

Welcome to the 1st edition of So That Happened on Orcas Island, 2014. I fully expect to have significantly fewer friends once I post this, but it's a risk I'm willing to take! Here we go:

Baxter is unimpressed by Matt's enthusiastic rendition of
"Hit Me with Your Best Shot."

1. The other night I introduced Matt to Sporcle, an astonishingly addictive website featuring hundreds of educational games in categories ranging from history to geography to literature. We may or may not have taken actual, quantifiable time out of our lives to play a game where we had to identify a series of animals based solely on pictures of their tongues. Even more astonishing (perhaps alarmingly so) was the fact that we were actually pretty good at it.

2. Last summer my coworker Janet and I left photographs for each other every morning on the shop desk. They were pictures of everything: doors (we both love doors), barnyard animals, golden evening light absorbed in a mushroom that looked like a melting candle. This year, after discovering our mutual love of words, we've decided that we will exchange words and definitions rather than photos. After a morning spent running errands in town and smelling every lilac bush I passed for way longer than any sane person might consider normal, I decided that such a scent needed a word of its very own. I got back to the shop and announced to Janet that I had invented the word wispent. "I love it," she said. "That is a great word." Not only was she supportive of its creation, but we even engaged in a nearly two-hour debate about how exactly it should be spelled. When I suggested an i instead of an e, the sound that escaped her lips was what I imagine she might exclaim if I were to volunteer to set fire to her house.

The Lilac Fairy left these on my steps yesterday morning.

The shop from Syd's porch. My apartment is the tall
building on the left.

3. I received two orchids for my birthday this year. I am utterly hopeless when it comes to caring for finicky plants, by which I mean that I research proper care procedures and usually just follow the one that says, "Water every two weeks." That I can handle. Shockingly, the orchids don't seem respond well to my blatant inattention. I brought them, one with its leaves shriveled like a grandmother's skin, with me to Orcas with every intention of repotting them in the proper soil and the proper pots. Last week I rode my bike to Island Supply, the hardware store just down the road. I was discouraged, though perhaps not surprised, to learn that they sold only orchid food, not pots or potting bark. I did, however, run into a family friend who suggested that I talk to Lorna, who owns The Driftwood (a nursery) in town. "Or Ace," she said. "Ace has everything." The next time I was in Eastsound I strolled into Ace and headed to the plant section. It was a veritable emporium of potting soil--potting soil for dahlias and potting soil for roses and potting soil for shy flowers with self-esteem issues that only bloom at sunset every other Thursday--but nothing for orchids. I asked the guy at the counter and he pointed a finger toward The Driftwood. "I'd go check with Lorna," he said. This Lorna certainly has the market cornered, I thought as I crossed the street and headed toward the nursery. I looked around for a while before asking for help, knowing instinctively that I would leave empty-handed but wanting to savor my last moments before disappointment. When I finally approached the famous, all-knowing Lorna and presented her with my request, she scrunched her nose and offered an apologetic smile. "You're just looking for the bark?" she asked. "And the pots," I said, nodding. "I haven't got any of that here," she said, "but you should try Ace." Of course I should. I didn't tell her that I was being bandied back and forth between hardware stores and her nursery like a ping pong ball; I simply thanked her for her time and, bowing my head down, trudged away to the tune of the Charlie Brown Sad Music.

I love this place.

Several days later, on a whim, I went back to Ace. To my delight, the shelves had been restocked and there was the elusive orchid potting soil staring right back at me. I grabbed a bag and, overjoyed, practically pranced to the counter to pay. When I got home I parked my bike outside my apartment and yanked the potting soil from my backpack, leaving my perishable grocery items to stew in the hot sun while I ran toward the shop and threw open the studio door. "Janet!" I shrieked, and when she lifted her head from the tiny clay chicken she was sculpting I triumphantly held up the bag of potting soil as if it were a trophy. Any other person would have furrowed their brow or shrugged or asked, "...potting soil?" as if it were a punch line to a joke that went over their head. Not Janet. "Oh!" she said, "you found it!" I felt like the smartest person who had ever lived. (And it is just now occurring to me why I was never popular in school.)

4. The other day I received an email from my friend Meaghin with the subject line, "Uh..." that reads as follows: "Can we please discuss the fact that there is currently a show on the Smithsonian Channel called 'Hippo Ganglands'? K, thanks." Best email ever.

Stay tuned for more. Or don't. The Don't option is probably a smarter way to go.