You are a Glutton.

That's only four words ilima!
I liked your story at the other place by the way, very GG Marquez.

Dear Santa,

Ive tried my hardest to be a very good gardener this year, even though it was very hard while enduring an extreme drought. So IÂd like to ask you for one little thing, okay Santa?

Please bring me big ideas and the resolve to carry them out. (Oops, does that count as two things?) I need a big idea to inspire me for the woodland garden that I want to create, and boy, will I need that resolve to get in there and change that glorious space from a burdock ghetto to the vision that flits through my mind.

I could also use those big ideas to help me with my writing. I was just thinking this morning that IÂm really not too bad at this 400 word stuff, but I have a hard time coming up with longer things. You remember that when I was in college, I could take a 400 word idea and fluff it out to fill ten pages when so assigned. But while that trick worked well to get good grades, I know that if I want to really be a garden writer I need to have more substance and not a lot of fluff.

It would be easy to fill that woodland with a hundred or so Hosta albomarginata, but that wouldnÂt knock anyoneÂs socks off. And it would be easy to take a small idea and pad it out to three or four pages, but most readers would be asleep long before the end of page two.

So bring me some big ideas, Santa, and a strong will to match.

Have a safe journey Saturday night, and Merry Christmas to all!

Love,

Veronicastrum

Christmas Present

ÒCBS Ó it said in big yellow letters on the side of the red truck that was parked across and blocking my drive but I couldnÕt see the driver anywhere. I went to the other side of the truck and the sign on that side read ÒClaus Baking SocietyÓ Òand Gardening etc.Ó in smaller letters.
My neighbour was shovelling snow and I asked him if he had seen the driver, Mr Claus. ÒBig blokeÓ he said, Òred hat and white beard?Ó
ÒThatÕs him.Ó I said, guessing.
ÒNope, havenÕt seen him since I was a little kid.Ó the neighbour said with a look on his face resembling a little kidÕs.
Jim, the neighbour had a heart attack from shovelling snow last Christmas and I donÕt think the blood circulates all around his body effectively. I suggested that he bought a snow blower but he said that he was waiting for someone to invent one that was combined with a lawn mower, a yellow one. DonÕt ask why yellow, I did and I thought he was going to have another heart attack from laughing so hard and now the Big bloke in a red hat, no wonder he looked so pleased with himself.
I found Mr Claus up the street, a tall thin guy in a torn anorak, he was delivering flyers.
ÒCBS ?Ó I asked, ÒWhat exactly are you selling, bread or bullsh*t?Ó
He handed me one of his red flyers with big yellow letters ÒWe Knead the Dough, you Need the Bread,Ó on one side and ÒYou can tell Mr Claus has been, Why? because the grass is greenÓ
ÒPeople see the CBS on the truck and think they are going to be on TV and never complain no matter where I park.Ó he said.
ÒWell I am expecting a delivery, a Christmas tree as it happens so can you move it?Ó
ÒSure,Ó he said with a jolly laugh Òand I can help put up the tree too.Ó
I called my wife on the cellÕ phone and told her that Mr Claus was helping me with the Christmas arrangements. I should have been more explicit in retrospect but I had in truth engaged Sam Claus to put up the tree and decorate it and a splendid job he did too, he was also going to make mince pies and Christmas pudding, clear the snow off the drive and cut the grass next summer. Who needs Santa when you have Sam?

O^INKO^,

You need to find some new way of doing quotation marks and apostropheO^s. They show up on here as big OO^s with thinga-ma-dohickeyO^s above them. It took me a bit to figure out what they were. Or use less of them in your writing.

It makes for very O^bumbyO^ and O^disjointyO^ reading.

Oh Oh Oh OOOOOOK

ilima

Don't rush to judgement, Ilima. I like thinking that Ink uses a cello phone, which surely has a more pleasant ring tone than some I've heard.

V.

Oh. Those are supposed to be quotation marks?

I thought they were (INK)blots.

Nell

Is it really that difficult to read? I had no idea because it comes out perfect on my computer, well not exactly perfect but you know what I mean. Should I post it again differently? I think I will leave the cello 'phone in though.

Happy Christmas Eddie and Veronica, Ilima, Poppa and Katy, Nell and all I hope you have a 2006 of abundance free of INK spots.

I was surprised to learn that it was supposed to be quotation marks. I found them rather charming, and interesting. I am kind of disappointed.

How do you do that, anyway? I saw a question mark upside down the other day. How did she do that?

I hope everyone here had a wonderful Christmas, and if you don't celebrate Christmas, I hope your holiday was wonderful, too. And for each, I hope the coming new year brings joy and contentment.

Janie

She talked and talked and talked. I grunted uh huh, yes and an occasional question to try and change the subject or move it along hopefully to the conclusion. This went on for an hour and a half and it was one of those phone conversations where half the time the phone was not placed anywhere near my ear. I listen because she needs to talk and there is no one else but me it seems to hear.

Finally I had to go. This was just talking to no end or purpose. Politely I made my exit. I sit by the window ready for no voices and the sound rolls down the drive and into my ears. The neighbors above have gathered family for the holidays on their covered open air lanai and they talk loudly, animated. The children are scattered below in the yard playing and being minded from above. The little plastic car with its plastic wheels scrapes the cement.

The cottage below this house is also alive with more rambunctious kids and the verbal and vigilant adults managing their movements. The real cars come and go up and down the adjacent driveway. The children scatter in squeals. The doors to the cottage open and close, open and close. The floor raised in the air above the level of the ground echoes the footsteps of all inside.

Directly above me there is that familiar call again. She calls for him needing to give instructions from a different room on the far side of the house. I hear it down here. He ignores it. She calls two more times. Finally he calls out in response. Neither has moved closer to the other and a short irritated conversation of need and reluctance between the two ensues. It rolls right into my window, right into my head.

Faintly audible below this drumming human noise and sometimes bursting through is the chirp and the coo, a squawk or a tweet, the sound of an abundant population of birds. In the quiet morning this sound is a joy. As a midday undertone it becomes more symphonic discord. No sirens yet. No unknown passerbys to set of the dogs. Full harmonic symphony has only begun to build. The sirens begin. First one then two as they draw closer and race along the highway several blocks below. The sirens end. The crescendo may come early or late but it will come. For now it is steady with different instruments having their turn together and alone. No empty silences in between. It is too loud to go outside.

The phone is going to ring again later today and the other she is going to need to talk and talk and talk. I will be there to listen but my head already hurts. A dog barks.

It starts around sunset just a couple of pops. By 9:30 the sound grows more steady, long strings of jagged pops, single loud bursts and the wail of launched missiles. Mommeeee, mommeee, eeeeeeeee, Jasmine, Jasmine! Eeeeeeeeeee! Theyre back. The chorus begins anew. I know the Hawaiian firecracker drill. Permits and restricted sales, drought and pleading firemen have not been able to stop a tradition imported from Asia and enthusiastically joined by all. By 11:45 the separate choruses of an entire town will join to form a rolling thunder, like the most horrendous thunderstorm when a wall of water adds its own sound as it crashes to the earth. Dogs chime in barking in unison. The storm will last until midnight and then slowly ebb until like drops of rain from the roof they stop.

In the morning I will be able to go outside and hear the quiet calming sound of my garden again. The Holidays are over.

ilima