Kicking Some Botanical Ass

You never really notice your living room getting dimmer, because it all happens so gradually. Then, one day, it occurs to you, hey, wait a minute. Isn't this room half windows? You know it is because you remember, when you moved in, what a bitch it was finding wall space for all the bookcases. So why the hell is it so dark in here?

Then you spy the tendrils of ivy snaking their way in through the windows and the screen door, and you can almost hear them hissing, and you realize, holy shit. You're mere decades away from being devoured in your own home! And you get out your pruning shears and start committing crimes against botany.

Well, that's what I did, anyway. And in the process, I liberated this hapless victim. See how relieved he is!

It's still a bit overgrown, what with these bushes in the front. They're flowering right now, clusters of little tiny white and yellow blossoms, but there will be small red berries later in the summer. I don't know what other people call them, but I call them goosebushes, because of what they did when I climbed through them to get at the ivy on the windows. Let's just say they're not quite as tall now as they were an hour ago.

Yesterday Robbie and I headed to The Great Outdoors, where I was unable to resist this adorable specimen; and if Anna doesn't coopt it to cuddle up with at night, I'll plant it next to the ferns in the front flowerbed. It's Lamb's Ear, and it's just as huggable as it looks, and the helpful staffer at Great Outdoors assured me I was highly unlikely to kill it.

Well, as long as it doesn't piss me off, anyway, the way the ivy did.

You do not want to piss me off.