Hydrangeas and Misplaced Fury

Exhibit A ^

What’s the deal with Hydrangea?
I’ve learned to live with disappointment but this is too much!

When I cut them to place them in a vases around my house, it turns into a game of Russian Roulette. Some blooms will live a couple of days while a couple of the fucking, pom-pom devils my favoite flowers, will wither and die within minutes. 

There is no rhyme, there is no reason. 

I’ve tried every anecdotal cure to stave off their rapid demise (so don’t text or email them to me) but to no avail.

A squirrel and a hummingbird walk into a bar, look cross-eyed at a hydrangea—and it dies.
~ Ancient proverb.

I only mention those two critters because they were the only living witnesses to the hydrangea-hissy-fit I had this morning.

Question: Do you always express the appropriate emotion at the appropriate time? I’m asking for a friend. Anyway, I digress.

Our extreme temperatures have literally fried every flower and most of the leaves on my previously prolifically blooming bushes to a crisp—and I’m ashamed to report that THIS has ruined my summer. I read somewhere that you can hose them down at mid-day, when the heat reaches surface-of-the-sun degrees, but when I do that (and make no mistake—I do that) I get so overheated, so foamy at the mouth, drenched in sweat overheated, that I need someone to hose me down. My dog Ruby would probably do the honors except I can tell by the look in her eyes that she’d rather waterboard me.

What can I say? She’s going through a phase. 

Anyway, the squirrels are used to my antics but the hummingbird was caught completely by surprise.
It hovered around my face for an inordinate amount of time, sizing me up as I waved the hose around like an out-of-control maniac. (Wait, isn’t that redundant?) Perhaps it was thirsty or it mistook the droplets of sunscreen dripping off my nose for nectar? Maybe it was raised in a less dramatic environment?

Or maybe it was feeling the same level of disappointment that I was? I can’t be sure.

I know what you’re thinking, Get a life! Listen, the hummingbird was way ahead of you with her judgy-as-fuck resting bitch face.

And that’s when it hit me! This feeling goes much deeper than mere disappointment. This boarders on fury.
That’s exactly what it is! Misplaced fury!

I have to come to terms with the fact that my brain has become an addled bowl of green jello due to the sheer volume of shit to be furious about this summer. Take for instance, our fucked-up political system, the fact that our votes in the fall may be hacked, a (how can I say this without my head exploding) “questionable” SECOND Supreme Court pick, the White Supremacists who are crawling out from under their rocks and have the audacity to march—in the streets—in broad daylight, and who can forget the babies in cages at the border! It is killing me to see the effect that losing her mother to Alzheimer’s is having on my BFF, the cancer causing pesticides in our food, a new category at the Academy Awards, or the fact that people still care about what happens on The Bachelor. The Bachelor!

But I only have so much emotional bandwidth. I can only misplace so much emotion at a time. So, today, it’s hydrangeas who have disappointed me and I plan on Edward Scissorhanding them into submission. Today, they will take one for the team.

Tomorrow may be different; stay tuned. (Billy, watch your pony.)

Carry on,
xox

Happier times 🙁