Repotting a cactus is something I have been avoiding for a long time…..many, many years actually. All of them are bursting out of their containers, but the thought of handling them has triggered an automatic aversion. The potting soil and new pots have been sitting on the dining room floor for months. I look at them and then redirect my interests elsewhere whenever the thought of doing this crosses my mind.
However, I have been home for a week “recuperating” from hand surgery. Taking advantage of this not-quite vacation, I made a to-do list, which included cactus relocation. I finally did it, and I did it pretty much with one hand, which was quite the feat, if I must say so. A friend suggested I wrap the cacti in newspaper to avoid getting stabbed and minimize breakage, so that is what I did. What I discovered was that despite copious amounts of newspaper and standard garden glove(s), the spikes on one of them pierced right through and stuck me anyway. The other discovery is that one of the cacti is not really a cactus at all.
This one particular cactus-that-isn’t-a-cactus had grown pretty tall and was ready to topple out of its too small base of a pot. With a candelabra shape and spines along its ridges, I have always referred to it as a “Candelabra Cactus”. The Candelabra has never flowered in all the years I have had it, but then, most of my cacti don’t, although some years blooms will occur; a pleasant surprise. There is no recollection as to how this one was acquired. Carefully wrapping it in newspaper, it lifted out of the pot easily and nothing broke. But after it was settled into its new pot, the spines began to literally weep with what appeared to be white glue. Little dots of white were coming out from all different points and began to run copiously down it’s sides. Clearly it was not happy being disturbed.
Seeing this set off an instant trigger. The only time I had ever seen that happen was while trying to eradicate Cypress Spurge (Euphorbia cyparissias), also known as “graveyard weed”, a noxious weed which had invaded a garden of mine a few homes ago with such a vengeance that I never was able to totally remove it. The spurge had suddenly bloomed one year, with a lovely show of yellow flowers and sweet aroma. Leaving it to see what it would do, in no time it took over every little nook of the garden, blooming through the rock wall, up the hill into the lawn, throughout the perennial beds – this despite supposedly preferring dry, gravelly soil. Pulling out the spurge caused a toxic, milky white substance to ooze out and cause a rash and blisters every where it touched skin, much like poison ivy. Methodically spraying the leaves with weed-killer (which I hate to use – it was a desperate measure) decreased its spread, but I was never able to totally eliminate it. This was not a fun time. One of the few perks of moving from that place was leaving the Cypress Spurge behind.
Cautious that the mere act of disturbing the cactus caused it to shed those white tears, I didn’t touch it but I did do an internet search. And sure enough…..the cactus is an imposter – the thing is a type of Euphorbia. This particular one originates in Africa – Zimbabwe to be exact – but they come from other places too, including India. There are different types and shapes of Euphorbia. According to some of the photos, mine appears to be a Euphorbia candelabrum. The white stuff is latex, poisonous, and can do some serious damage, especially if you are sensitive to it. Here are some of the things I found that these nasty Euphorbias can do to you:
“Euphorbia abyssinica
This plant is considered poisonous and
has been used for homicidal purposes. In central Africa the latex is used as a
purgative and as a caustic on skin lesions. On the other hand neither the latex
nor the watery extract from it is toxic to guinea pigs when given by mouth.
E. antisyphilitica
A wax called Candelila is made from this
Euphorbia. It is used in leather polishes and for waterproofing certain
products. Mixed with rubber it is used for insulation, dental mouldings and is
also used in sealing wax, metal lacquers, paint removers and lithographic
colors. Mixed in paraffin it is used to make candles. It is not surprising
therefore that the latex can cause skin problems.
E. bupleurifolia
The latex has been used as an application to help cancerous sores, cracked skin
on the feet and various other skin disorders. However, the latex can be very
dangerous depending on the dose given.
E. canariensis
This is a Euphorbia sought after by
many collectors. When you find one, be sure to remember if you get any amount of
latex on your hands and then rub your eyes, your eyes could become inflamed. The
inflammation can last several days.
E. cooperi
The latex is so irritant that a slight smear on the
face or tender skin produces a blister within a short period. The latex is
irritant to the eye and may result in blindness. If a person stands close to a
bleeding plant, inhalation of the air from the neighborhood produces a burning
sensation in the throat. Some Africans use the latex to poison fish. Apparently
the fish rise, paralyzed but still breathing. They can then easily be caught and
eaten with impunity.
E. caput-medusae
The latex may be highly acrid and
irritating. Milking cows fed on the plant during drought were unable to give
birth to normal calves due to deformities.”
*****E. candelabrum*****
The latex is very poisonous. It has been used
to make poison arrows.
And this is nothing. As I read on, there were horror stories. – burns, blindness, death. And did you see above? The sap from the Euphorbia candelabrum has been used to make poison arrows! Poison Arrows!!!!
The S.O. jokingly asked if I had any enemies, suggesting I could leave the lovely Euphorbia on their doorstep. (OK…before I laughed, I paused for just the most fleeting of moments to contemplate on that scenario).
And to imagine, this plant has had a place in my home for years. I greet it every morning and have looked on it rather fondly, up until now. Obviously it demands some respect. Knowing its potential, and having had dealings with its unpleasant cousin in the past, my relationship with this imposter cactus has immediately shifted.
Euphorbia is outside on the porch at the moment, looking rather spiffy in its new pot. The poison it has wept has almost dried. Regretfully, unless someone is interested in taking this plant home, tomorrow it is going to be gently wrapped in newspaper – this done with gloves – and going straight into the garbage.
instantly came to mind. With that picture burned in my brain, I finally took the plunge and decided something better be done about it. Suddenly not wanting to wait another moment, and assuming that slow and easy summertime would make this as good a time as any, I decided now is best to get it over with.
g to myth, the twin founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, rested under a fig tree.
pedigrees and personalities. I could spend hours engrossed in the fantasies of my little horsey world. One of these horses was a jointed model whose legs would “walk” when you scooted him along the carpet. If you pushed on his withers, his head would drop down as if he was grazing. His body was made of chestnut-colored plastic, with a flax mane and tail that you could comb. He came with a saddle and bridle and a little horse blanket. I had made bandages for his legs out of toilet paper and tape so he looked like a polo pony. I named him Buck.
middle for the turtle to bask on, some gravel on the bottom, and a little green plastic palm tree. What she had named it now escapes me, but she kept it in our shared bedroom, which had taken on that reptilian smell that turtle bowls tend to get when they are not too clean. The turtle itself had started to get some kind of moldy green fungus all over it. Because of this, my sister had decided to wash the turtle and scrub the slime off it’s back with a toothbrush.
decoration, there is a gold medallion with a dragon on it. There were large, outdated Chinese pin-up girl calendars in a few of the rooms.
ced it out on the back porch until I could find a home for it. The next day I discovered that the Significant Other had placed the Jesus in the barn window, facing back towards the house. Every time you looked out from the kitchen or walked outside, Jesus was looking back at you, watching. Eventually we found Jesus a new home.
harm away? Nobody I spoke with had ever quite heard of this. While I found it curious and a little spooky, the SO easily dismissed the package as no mystery, convinced that whoever did the construction on the bathroom merely finished his lunch and then conveniently built his trash into the wall. He says it’s done all the time. So much for romanticizing.
bowl.
icked into action, ran out and bought another blue Betta to replace Stanley. The thing is, nobody wants to tell her it’s not the real Stanley, but I can’t imagine how she will not know. This faux Stanley is a radiant blue with almost a turquoise hue to him. His fins are long and luxurious. The original Stanley was almost anemic by comparison. I will be interested to see if she will realize right away that something is a bit off.
was already up and had discovered that Petal had vanished. I explained the situation. She was at first a bit taken aback, then rather philosophical about it. She named the new fish “Petal-too” and embarked on a lengthy, very chatty discourse about the new fish (“Honey! Grab the video camera!”).
wheeled, wire laundry basket who makes serious business of sorting through the trash as he takes his time with each item. There is the lady on the bicycle pulling the cart, who will show up in the dark, aim her bike’s headlight towards the “goods” and then fervently dig through everything. There are those who take it to an even higher place, driving right up next to the pails to quickly toss the refundable bottles and cans into their cars. Sometimes they come as a team, so one drives while the other collects.
this point it’s not worth the gas to drive over there to do that for the small amount we have. I also realize these people are doing it because they must need to. Given this, I have tried to make it as easy as possible for them by separating the cash bottles out neatly so they don’t have to dig through the bins and cans – even going so far as to put them in their own little six-pack cartons and placing them out in front of all the other trash. This way they can clearly see them from the road and just scoop them up, avoiding extra work and allowing them to move quickly on.
rough until almost the end of November.
us chicken, which walked up to the edge of the pavement, backed off, and then bobbed up again as the traffic whizzed by. Everything in this chicken’s own yard appeared just fine; there was probably nothing across the state road that it really couldn’t get at its own place, at least nothing that seemed risking its life for. I was too far past it to see if it actually attempted to cross, but that chicken probably did not have much of a chance if it did.
like shiny black beads of onyx, looking worried and vulnerable. My first response was surprise. I didn’t exactly say “Eeeek”, but I froze for a few beats there. Opening a kitchen drawer and finding a mouse will usually catch you off guard. Following this discovery, I suggested that we move them outside. I mean, this was a kitchen drawer, and cute as they were, I didn’t think it was a very clean situation. But Hikey said “Let’s leave her alone until the babies grow up and leave”, and he shut the drawer. OK, I know, that’s kind of weird, but that’s how he was and it was his place, so that is what we did – it just became part of the fairytale, little country mice living in the drawer of the magic cottage. Svengali spoke, I stayed quiet.
children’s home-made Christmas ornaments decimated by mice who gnawed through the storage box in the attic, which has enraged me. The spines of books chewed. In one place I lived in, I could not find my favorite gauze shirt from India. Eventually I located it – the mice had pulled it out over the top of the lower drawer and dragged it to a hidden space under the bottom drawer of the dresser and turned it practically into lint, creating a beautiful Mysore patterned nest out of it. I have read that they have the capacity to make themselves almost flat in order to squeeze under a closed door. They proliferate and they are a nuisance. I don’t care how cute they are, they are still rodents. Cats can help, but we had dogs. Hikey was not into traps. You can imagine the field day they were having in that cottage.
the coffee pot to reheat it for Hikey the next morning, I guess it boiled up the mouse with his coffee. And Hikey drank all of it. Mouse coffee.
oothpick. All legs and ribs and a late bloomer. That was me. 
mostly in the middle. As my arms and legs are long, I am starting to take on the build of a spider. I have incrementally managed to artfully camouflage the rolls for quite a while, but cannot anymore (see 
alked in the door, the Significant Other gave me what I imagined was almost a wicked smile before immediately opening a large bag of blue corn tortilla chips and a container of salsa….. and began to indulge right there standing in the kitchen. I didn’t even have one minute of respite before the temptation began. Demon.
either side. Aside from the lack of privacy, I find this fence to be tasteless and depressing. It’s the kind of thing you would see around a vacant lot, except that it’s lower. It practically screams “junk yard”. You would almost expect a couple of Rottweilers to be hurling themselves at it with bared teeth.
mostly obscure the chain link fence between us, to enjoy a glimpse of her world. 
o enjoy it. It’s often so noisy that it disturbs the neighbor on the other side of our house. In addition, their little dog, who is actually very sweet, tends to pee through the fence onto my plants. I have been laying plywood against the fence where I grow vegetables to protect them. Lastly, when I look out the window over the kitchen counter, I have a nice view of their garbage pails.
keeps mysteriously disappearing off of it. I have a basic cell phone with a conventional keypad and am very slow on keeping up with all this texting that everyone seems to be doing now instead of making voice calls. Not up to speed with the latest tech stuff, I wasn’t totally sure what an iPad 2 was, beyond knowing that it has a touch screen and is like something out of The Future. 
nd even laughed) the conversation has swiftly moved on to the next concept or topic. Because of this, I usually will not chime in with a comment; when I do, I have often found that I have entered the dialog with a total non-sequitor. A couple of beats behind, I am out of synch – I have missed the conversation bus. The blank stares, the occasional smirk, the looks between others, or worse, being totally ignored as if invisible tells me so. Because of this, I am now usually a passive participant. Because of this, I am on the outside of many social situations.
disconnected by “Never Mind”. 
avigate. Big parties don’t work well anymore. Places with constant, loud music or crowds are no longer fun. I get lost in busy, chaotic scenes. Given this, there have been a handful of people who have graciously, either consciously or unconsciously, shown incredible patience, tenacity and creativity when we are together, and who continue to seek out my friendship, regardless of the extra efforts it might require. They have been willing to work through or overlook the frustration. I thank those who have easily slipped into the habit of rephrasing amid conversation, or those that step forward to make things clear when I am looking a little lost, and those who offer help or give cues before I have to ask for it. I thank those people for their kindness and for being real friends, for it lets me know that our relationship is valued. You know who you are.
I was such a brat.
and din.
photos of myself. After such rude and irrefutable proof, there followed the panicked realization that I have let my hair go for waaaaay too long without a hair cut and it has become a bit outrageous.
But today, I suddenly looked in the mirror and realized it had to come off – immediately. It has reached the point where from behind I look like a geriatric “Cousin It” when I wear it down. When it’s up, the effect is somewhat like a fountain of white spray sticking out of the top of my head. I realize I have been wearing scarves and hats and elastic bands in my hair for months.
in my Cousin It Phase distress, she literally cut about five inches off it and seriously thinned it out. When I looked on the floor, the remains of my hair lay there in a giant heap which resembled an animal; kind of like a dead possum, or at least a possum playing “possum”. But when I looked in the mirror, I could still see a woman with a massive amount of hair on her head.
When Facebook came along, my kids told me it was just for college students to connect, that it was much cleaner and mature than what was happening on MySpace, and that was where they would now be communing. I was relieved. I was told No Parents Allowed. But slowly it seems everybody has jumped on the FB boat. I resisted for a long time, until the desire to be connected to what was going on with my kids from afar found me finally caving in and joining the masses, albeit with privacy restrictions and blocks in place.
lecturing my children to show sagacity; sharing stories about weirdos and stalkers and human resource departments doing a search on job applicants, about employees who have not used sound judgement in their posts or photos and the repercussions of such, all to drive home the point. For example, if we were considering hiring an applicant and discover that he is flipping the bird to the world in his Facebook profile picture, there is a good chance there will be serious reservations about employing someone with that attitude and lack of maturity.
but I wanted to try it and see what it was about. I shared this experience with a group of other travellers in the middle of the afternoon, sitting in a sunny public cafe filled with people having tea and coffee. A man came to each table with a little bucket and tongs and put the flavored tobacco and coal into the bowl of the hookah. He would occasionally come around to turn the little log of tobacco to make sure it was still burning It was tasty, as tobacco goes – like apples! – but my first smoke after decades made me a little light-headed. It’s not a habit I will be picking up – you won’t be finding me frequenting any hookah lounges in the future. It was a kick. I urged my friend to take a picture for the archives. Subsequently, it was posted with the rest of the travel pictures in my FB album as part of the experience, with a little caption beneath it explaining what it was, and forgotten.
ust have “friended”. I guess she was enjoying my travel photos. And she showed her husband. My direct supervisor, who supposedly is blocked from my albums, also saw it and highly suggested I remove the Misleading Photo, which I did. Then I had to contact other friends on FB and ask them to please remove any Possibly Offending Pictures. Because even if I am not “tagged” in the photo, it’s still out there. It’s me. And I am an administrator and a professional……of sorts. Misleading Photos can create all sorts of Perceptions. And I think that stuff is out there forever, isn’t it?
about my new friends and their lives, to be part of things, was at times daunting and exhausting. Having enough trouble hearing English, trying to communicate in Turkish was interesting. I carried around a small phrase book in which I pointed out words in as much as attempted to say, often pantomiming rather than speaking. When all else failed, I had a little note to show that said I could not hear well (Benim işitme pek iyi değil). This was especially helpful in the hotel and airport, as well as with merchants. People were understanding and kind. Because I cannot hear a motorcycle or taxi roaring up behind me, a couple of these younger friends also took me under their wing (unasked) and steered me across streets of insane traffic madness. I felt like an old granny as they looped their arms through mine and rushed me across. I am not that old, really!!! But I was glad for their concern and support.
the next room for the last week and a half (at least), where things have rotated in and out of it, chosen and then discarded. What’s worse, it is filled up to the very top. What every happened to the free-spirited me?
oon as I hit “Send” I knew that it would be me. As I exited off the freeway and cruised down the ramp, they answered my call and told me I had won Chrissy Hynde and the Pretenders tickets. I wasn’t the one going to the show, but it was still exciting, and it was a first.
ds to a dinner celebration in her honor. I watched the mother/daughter interaction – their body language, the way they moved around each other, their inherited mannerisms, the way they looked at each other….their dance. Seeing this young woman together in the same space as her mother, so similar and yet not the same, the contrast suddenly manifested itself as quite clear. Suddenly I saw the “outer” K, and then myself, for the true age in years that we have become, parallel to our timelessness. Another piece of who we are. It was a brief moment of dawning comprehension and I actually felt our place in time make a shift. It really is all relative.
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