Rhymes with lavender

I woke up this morning with my pillows around me instead of under me and a truly awful crick in my neck. I still have it you know, the crick. I'm having trouble tilting my head back and it is annoying because I get a twinge every time I look up at something. It's a small thing, a crick in the neck.

There were amaryllis bulbs in genetics today, and since I was one of the last ones out I got two. They're the pink ones, commonly known as "naked ladies". I was told that if I plant them around now they should flower this October. I think my mom will like them. She loves bright, warm colors. If given the chance she'd prefer a garden with splashes of red and golds in neat squares, and a pragmatic little vegetable plot with a symmetrically trimmed dwarf fruit tree tucked in the far corner. We've compromised with the vegetable plot but I gave her splashes of red and golds crowding into yellows and creams, spilling into each other and onto the pavement. It's another little thing. Leave the plants where they may thrive. I promise to take care for them and trim them so they don't get too out of hand.

We have spent close to ninety dollars on three thousand bags in the greenhouses, where we harvest and bag the plants for further analysis. Stripping the lavender of their leaves was a pain because they have so many leaves, and the stem breaks easily at the tips. There will be more loquats and coral trees and what is called Rhus lancea scientifically, but I don't know the common name to. Mike the caffeine addict went and got us drinks from Starbucks. I sipped iced-tea lemonade and contemplated the plot that I had to take care of for the club. A potato has germinated and promptly got all of its leaves gnawed off. The speed of the pest in that general area is astounding.

Hippo sprawled over my leg while I translated Latin, and the poppies I've brought back in the vase's dying, because poppies don't make good cut flowers, they do best on wild sunny hillsides in California. I've two more classes and four more meetings and I've lost another eraser. I'm tired and there's still a crick in my neck.

It's all in the little things today, for these moments in time.