Compost O My Soul

One of the awesome things about buying a house – oh, by the way, Manpants and I bought a house while I was away. Away from the blog, that is. “Away.” Sounds like I was off for “the cure” or in jail or the funny farm or other such nonsense. Actually a lot of things happened while I was away, leaving us both a little older, wiser, fatter. And while Manpants still has a lovely head of dark hair, I seem to have developed a large quantity of gray that my hairdresser liberally covers with some sort of ash blonde something-or-other to get it back to its natural state.

What was I saying? Oh right. One of the awesome things about buying a house is that the amateur gardener in me gets to come out and play. I have to admit I love it. It is literally the only time my head shuts up completely and all outside sound is gloriously filtered by my subconscious to include only birdsong and the buzzing of various insect life. Oh, and the sound of the next door neighbors’ giant front yard fountain that sounds like Paul Bunyon is relieving himself. That one is kind of hard to tune out and often triggers a sudden urge to relieve my own self in the Bougainvillea.

We’re on water rationing here in California, so I am moving certain plants and shrubs from the front of the house to the back into areas where they won’t need so much – putting a lot of peat moss and compost around the plants to hold onto the moisture longer – all while improving my upper body strength and thereby holding off bone loss for another day.

This brings me to the subject of this ramble. Rather than staying in bed and drinking coffee Saturday morning, Manpants and I went off to a workshop given by LA County on . . . composting. About twenty minutes of our lives to find out what one can and cannot put in said composter – and we then get to take home our fancy schmancy Bio Stack from Smith & Hawken, at the subsidized price of $45! Didja know you can put dryer lint in there? I know!

Com-post [kom-pohst]: –noun -- a mixture of various decaying organic substances, used for fertilizing.

I like to think that the mundane and terribly suburban act of introducing a composter to our garden is somehow symbolic in the larger scheme of things as we begin this new portion of our lives – and that perhaps we can – I can – allow the experiences of the past two years to become a form of decay that I can put into a metaphorical bin, add water, and something altogether wonderful and nurturing and fabulous will come out of it.

Fertilizing my HOPE, as it were.

Other than that Mrs. Lincoln . . .

Previously seen on Millicent: Oh hell, read the archives – but they are over two years old and so much has happened! Turns out Dick Cheney IS a demon that eats small children and puppies! Who knew! Our new president can READ!!!! His wife is awesome and completely her own person with her own fan base!!!!

There’s a famous track on a recording by Tallulah Bankhead where she posed the same question several times to demonstrate how vocal emphasis could COMPLETELY make a performance. That question, posed thusly below, can sum up my last two years away from this blog.

What have you been doing?
WHAT – have you been doing?
What HAVE you been doing?
What have YOU been doing?
What have you BEEN doing?
What have you been DOING?

[fill in blank here]

No seriously. What HAVE you been doing? No, not me. I mean you. I’m talking to you. Duh. Oh, and Manpants says hello.