Tales of Testosterone and Murder on a Rainy Morning

I think it's time to kill, and I'm feeling nerves.

No, it isn't my students. They're doing well, and even if they weren't, they're almost no longer my problem.

It isn't my partner in crime. We're actually in the formative stages of house shopping (where you look at the pretty pictures and dream even though you won't start looking in earnest for 6-9 months). I still have time to convince him that a library and walk-in closets are essential to our happiness.

It isn't even the canine and feline testosterone junkies vying incessantly for mom's attention. BACKGROUND: The passing of Booger means that I am now the only woman in my packed house, except for two very aggressive clown loaches who NEVER back me up when I need them to. Additionally, Bub (the feline testosterone junkie) has decided that he now needs the run of the house. When he had Boog for company, they were generally content to stay in their bedroom and hang out provided I came in for frequent Buffy the Vampire slayer, My Name is Earl, or Dexter marathons (always happy to oblige, especially during hockey/basketball/baseball season). Now, he feels the need to wander aimlessly through the place, stopping only to swipe my dog across the face for looking at him weird. Both animals have been neutered, but I think both are currently growing their lost parts back. There's a lot of posturing and growling and hissing.

My partner in crime has yet to realize that his "Dog Whisperer" tactics do little to impress the cat (who apparently sits and stares at the Crimefighter when he's sleeping, waking him up at 3 am as if to say, "You won't last. *I* am the man in her life. Talk to me when you've made it 15 years, asshole.")

Still, it isn't any of this. Today, it is the vegetables I must cull. Pretty soon, I have to go out to my seed pots and decide, much in the fashion of a medeival king or an American Idol judge, who gets to live, and who gets to die. I don't think I can do it.

I'm the daughter of the greenest of green thumbs I know. My father can stare a seed into sprouting. I, however, have no such gift.

Long story short, I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and decided I needed to grow something.

I really need to stop reading books, even if my summer project is to read down the piles I've accumulated throughout the year so that I can once again to see the carpet. Teaching 6 classes a semester doesn't leave a whole lot of time to stay on top of books when you buy them as much as I do. It took me 2 weeks to begin recouping money from my Barnes & Noble member card..... 2 weeks to get $250 worth of books.

The Crimefighter listened intently to my entire argument that where books are, dirt can't get in thus meaning my addiction actually saves energy and therefore the planet and our energy bills by meaning we vaccuum less. He doesn't buy it. I thought it was GENIUS.

Anyway, I decided to grow tomatoes and cucumbers on account of they are supposed to be easy and I am too heavily influenced by a good writer and a passionate tale. I had visions of myself learning to can and freeze and get us through a Massachusetts winter on the sweat of my brow.

OK, I never went that far, but I felt the need to get my hands dirty.

I bought one of those 50 seed pot starter kits and some seeds (this is more difficult than it appears, but it's a story for another day) and went to work figuring, with my gardening disability I would get about a ten to fifteen percent return. The directions said they would germinate in 6-10 days and grow in a few more weeks. 2 weeks passed and NOTHING. Not one little green shoot to tell me I wasn't a gardening buffoon.

Not one to be mocked openly by plantlife, I decided the problem was that I bought commercial seeds. I clung with fervent hope to Barbara Kingsolver's rant against commercial seeds. I went out and bought ANOTHER 50 seed pot starter kit and heirloom tomato and cucumber seeds.

Take THAT Burpee and American Seed Company! I don't need you and your terminator-gene-having seeds.

10 days later, all 100 plants sprouted..... um.... woops.

Did I mention I don't actually HAVE a garden? That I was intending to do a container garden? This you CAN do up here, but not with 100 plants. If I go out and buy those little hanging planter things from the TV, or now conveniently the Lowe's, my backyard is going to look like I'm attempting to channel aliens or attract my crazy gardening neighbor. Neither is an attractive option.

So, today is the day that my Dad tells me I have to choose the strongest plant from the seed pots and cull the rest out. The problem is that I have no idea how to choose the strongest one. I keep walking out there with the scissors and standing over them ("Bring me the runty one on the left; he no longer amuses me!) and thinking they all look fine to me. Who's to say one will do better than the others?

I'm reminded of the lady on Grey's Anatomy who wouldn't selectively terminate any of the 56 fetuses growing inside of her even though they would probably all die if she didn't.

And then I remember that they all lived.

And then I start thinking that too much time on my hands is not a good thing, and maybe I need a real job this summer, if it's Day One and I'm having a dilemma over tomato plants.

OK, I'm off to judge and then murder vegetables. Simon Cowell, out.