Revenge of the Mint-Killer

The incident with the mint should have taught me a thing or two about my father. Namely, if he offers you some spare plants for your garden, you may want to consider planting them directly in the ditch lest they take over every inch of cultivated ground you have. And don't piss him off, or he'll douse you in gasoline.

I learned the former point the hard way, when two summers ago he offered to give me some daylilies. Sure, I said. Why not? Daylilies are beautiful and carefree and even edible.

And it's a good thing, because treating them like a crop is the only way you'll ever keep them in check. He gave me two varieties, a creamy yellow one and a large burgundy variety with a gold throat. Pretty. And unstoppable. In the rush of late-season harvesting, I left the donated lilies in the garbage bag they arrived in, through the heat and drought and then insanity-causing rain that is fall in Connecticut. And then I remembered them, and felt guilty for having neglected them, and gave them a spot in my hallowed garden space to over winter.

The next spring, I spent a good part of my "weed control" time digging out daylilies. They were EVERYWHERE. I try to like this quality in a non-poison-ivy plant - invasiveness - because, well, it's just so darned endearing, that cheerful assertiveness. Think you got rid of me? Whoops! Here I am in April in the peas! and in May in the lettuce! and on through to the squash and tomatoes at the end of summer...

I should BE so resilient.

And this spring I transplanted another of my father's gifts - Johnny Jump-Up violas. Wow. Also edible, also invasive. Also cheery, thank God. My father is either trying to keep me well-fed or ensure that my garden doesn't out-perform his.

So this year I think I'll return the favor. I'll start with some of those damnable violets that invade my garden every spring and then prick my hands with their guerilla seed pods each fall. And maybe some redroot pigweed which I'll dress up and call "wild perennial amaranth".

And all those daylilies? I gave some to my friend Chris. Along with four types of mint. Her garden was looking a little too promising this year.

Revenge of the Mint

I like to think of it as Revenge of the Mint. When I was a kid, I used to wait for the school bus next to a granite boulder alongside my parents' driveway. Sometimes, on chilly mornings, my dad would let me sip his coffee. No matter how much cream and sugar he had put into it (and the man has quite a sweet tooth), it always tasted bitter to me. But I drank it anyway, because coffee was verboten and therefore exciting. It still tastes bitter to me, but I don't drink it anymore because as an adult, coffee is plebian and dull, a symbol of all that is quotidian.

I mean, I would drink it if I liked it, pedestrian or otherwise. But since I don't... And besides, coffee makes me poop.

Anyway, back to the granite boulder, which was really more of a middling rock with boulder aspirations when viewed through child-sized eyes. It was a nicely rounded hump of granite, sparling pink and white and black, and completely overrun by mint. Fuzzy, fragrant, silvery green mint.

Or, to my parents' way of seeing things, that goddamned mint, rangey and unstoppable. So my father (I suspect my mother's hand in this) ripped it out. I was indignant. Why, why on earth, would he rip out the mint? It smelled good! It was pretty! It wasn't hurting anyone! I felt much the same way about his method of taking stray dogs for a "drive out into the country" (we already lived in the country) or plucking out my unsuspecting wobbly tooth when he swore he was only going to look.

And then he threw the mint into the ditch. I don't know that it was actually an open sewer. It seems hard to believe, in these days of fastidiousness and antiseptic towelettes, but at the time, in all the rural areas, the yards were bordered along the street by big ditches. They were full of standing water, mosquitoes, and - as a direct result of the mosquitoes - obese burping frogs. Ours were scary, housing all manner of dark goblin-esque creatures. Friends who lived in a development sufficiently nice to have tidy grass-lined ditches (But not so nice as to have no ditches whatsoever) used to wait for summer thunderstorms, when we could all turn out and play in the roaring splashing water that sluiced through the ditch. Back in the day, we were too dumb to know about the dangers of being sucked down storm drains.

And ditches, apparently, are where despised plants went to die. Cattails, of course, and weedy-looking things, but also tiger lilies and "ditch irises" - tall butter-yellow irises which, unfathomably, only grew in ditches.

And mint. Before the summer was halfway to August, our ditch was full of mint.

"Well I'll be dipped in shit," my father muttered, scratching his head head and staring at the mint, resilient and triumphant, clambering over the banks of our ditch. Because it wasn't only there, of course. Oh NO - the fuzzy little herb surrounded the granite hump once again, smothering it exuberantly and, if such a thing can be said of a herbacious spreading perennial, with just a trace of nya-nya insouciance.

So my father, knowing when he was beaten, poured gasoline all over it.

There Once Was a Woman Going to Cape Cod...

...Who thought it exceedingly odd
That her map called the route scenic
When in fact it seemed carcinogenic:
Fast food and putt-putt, a New England facade.

OK, so that wasn't the best limerick ever, but I couldn't find any scatological references that rhymed with "Cape Cod." SO a little bit of advice for those of you planning a New England Vacation: Do not take route 28 across Cape Cod. Ignore the green dots on the map, beckoning you along a scenic coastal byway. Route 28 through Cape Cod is scenic in the same way that Gatlinburg, Tennessee is scenic, which is to say if you could somehow travel back in time, back before the advent of 20 feet tall fiberglass putt putt gorillas and bargain basement clam shacks and snow globes hand made in CHINA by five year old orphans who don't understand the irony any better than American tourists do, well then it was probably very scenic indeed. But right now it sucks.

So instead take my advice: take route six straight through the "bicep" of Cape Cod. If you're into shopping and good food, stop by Chatham. If you're into bargain shopping and good food, stop by Orleans. There you will find no less than THREE rather nicely appointed thrift stores, after which you can eat at Mahoney’s Bar and Grille. The food is incredible, just perfect, and the live music is not overwhelming. Plus they offer a peach-flavored kir royale! The genius of it! Which is perfect if you are traveling with a girlfriend but not quite appropriate if you are accompanied only by your abstemious husband, who feels compelled by duty to remind you what you are like after that one glass of champagne does directly to your addled head.

Then head north and drive to Provincetown. Provincetown was nothing like what I expected it to be, which was described to me by a friend as "the most flamboyantly gay-pride town I have ever been in." Then again, she voted for George W. Bush and I - well, I sure as hell didn't - so perhaps there's a difference of perspective. But I think it actually had more to do with the time of year we visited - now - pre-season - than anything else. Which is also why you should take me double-serious when I say to avoid Route 28, because if it's a four-hour stretch of hell in the off-season, imagine what it's like when the population of Cape Cod increases by 300 percent and a few more Kennedys.

Anyway. Back to Provincetown. Go to P-town. Take the "Dolphin Fleet" whale watching cruise, which is staffed by naturalists from the Center for Coastal Studies - folks who really know their whale shit, so to speak. The cruise is an exhilarating 4-hour ride out into the Bay. We saw finback whales, the fastest and second-largest in the ocean, lunging over and over again as they fed. It was breathtaking, I tell you. And if you don't believe me, just ask my husband, who was so overly stimulated he had to retire below-decks for a hotdog and coke.

Then wander through the streets of Provincetown, where there are so many restaurants you won't know where to begin. If you want The Best International Award-Winning Creamy Clam Chowder (there are international clam chowder contests?), go to Bayside Betsy's. Stay there if you want excellent cocktails and funky beach-house decor with a terrible, terrible retro-80's soundtrack.

If you want anything else, like say a burger for less than $13, go elsewhere. And by "elsewhere" I mean somewhere other than Cape Cod. And don't forget to take Route 6, which is plenty scenic even without the gorillas.

I'm Back!

OK, thanks to all of you - ahem, *both* of you - who noticed I had been delinquent on my blogging. I would love to say that I have a fabulous excuse, but I don't, except that - you know - life happens.

That said, it is at last glorious spring here in New England, which may in fact be the REAL reason I haven't been keeping up on my writing. I have been gardening, and hanging clothes out to dry in the fresh, sweet, manure-scented air; I have been playing with the kids and - better yet - encouraging them to play on their own.

Life, in short, is sweet.

But as is usual when life is going so well, I can feel it whisking by me. Leaving me in it's wake, sort of - I mean, GEEZ. My baby is three now - that's right, three - and my oldest is poised to graduate from Kindergarten. My New Year's Resolutions are now almost six months old, although by objective adherence standards they appear to be a tad retarded.

Which is precisely when I feel it most necessary to write. Other people have camcorders, I have a pen and notepad (when I can find the blessed thing amongst the seed packets and soil blocks) and a horrible burning urge to catch the river as it flows past and nail it down to its very banks.

Usually, with overblown prose and terrible analogies (see above).

But then again, that's the beauty of revision - a luxury we're rarely afforded with life.

So check back often, it's good to be back!

- Erica