Saturday

After returning from a satisfyingly adequate meal at Pacifica recently, we gave all of our plants away to Dan, a coworker of Sunshine's. What did I eat? I had fish tacos al pastor, the lobster burrito, and a tall malted glass filled with raw oysters. I drank a cappuccino. The waiter sort-of laughed at me when I did all that ordering--everyone else only ordered one thing apiece. I'll have that waiter know that I split the oysters with Dan, and I didn't even finish his half when he stopped eating. The house looks weird without plants. Mostly, our plants were leftover Earth Day geraniums Sunshine brought home a few weeks before I moved here. Back then, fifteen of them fit in cardboard tray the size of a case of beer. In the last eighteen months some of them have grown into four and a half foot tall, pinkly blooming goliaths I had to wire up with wooden stakes (I used barbecue spoons). Tonight, they took up two loads in Dan's SUV. I am surprised to discover just how empty the house feels without them. I know that we have been doing a lot of the heavy lifting towards moving this week. Because of that, nothing looks the way it used to. When I walk around the house, I'm acutely aware of the bare places where these geraniums used to be. Other empty places aren't as noticeable. These were the first things to be actually removed from the premises, and maybe this is why it feels so different now. But I suspect that they played as much a part in my new life as México, The Cat, and domesticity did, and their removal represents a little of the homesickness I'm going to feel when I am home again. [Cavin]