I believe in karma.
I don’t mean I’m a buddhist or that I have any sort of academic, philosophical, or theological background in the subject, I simply believe that people get what they deserve. It’s kind of a non-denominational spiritual justice really.

I’ve been told that I’m an “old soul” because my karma tends to be REALLY quick. For example, I once absentmindedly walked out of a newstand with a magazine under my arm, realized a block later that I stole it and promptly dropped the damn thing in a puddle.

I have endless stories that parallel that one.
It’s almost a joke in my life that if I screw up, something will fall from the sky and straight onto my head moments later. Because I suffer from a ridiculous quickness of karma, I’ve found myself questioning what I did anytime something absurdly unfortunate happens. Usually, I can identify something I said, did, didn’t do or whatever that will give further weight to ‘My life is a slapstick comedy for the powers that be’ theory.

This time? This time I have no idea what I did or said or who I pissed off.

Internet, the last 24 hours of my life has been held an impressive array of disgusting insects invading my personal space.

It all started last night. The Mister and I were both feeling a little crappy so we went to bed early.
As usual, despite being totally wiped out I couldn’t fall asleep.
I went for my usual method of dealing with insomnia which essentially entails pretending to be asleep and hoping sleep will happen. As is completely normal it wasn’t working.
I peeked an eye open just as a huge cockroach walked past my nose and over the rise of my pillow.
I spazzed out and jerked upright but managed not to scream bloody murder.
I knew the Mister was desperate for sleep and I try to be considerate of sleep needs since I’m pretty desperate for the stuff myself.
I considered turning on lights to seek the beast out, but I knew that really, it’s pointless. It’s midsummer in the tropics. We sleep with our windows open because it’s really hot. The roaches here? They ALL fly.
The occasional bug is a part of life and waking up my grumbly partner just as he’s fallen asleep to swat at a bug that will only fly out the window in four seconds wasn’t reason enough to risk the argument potential.

I decided to wait his dastardly grossness out from the comfort of the living room while complaining to twitter.
The moment I hit send on my bit of breaking bug-on-pillow-OMFG news, a hand-sized moth flew in the window and straight into my hair.
It was at this point that I decided I was never sleeping again.

Actually, that’s not true. I had to go back to bed, I was expected to get up early to pick up a car the Mister and I were borrowing the next day.
My darling husband doesn’t drive so facing a situation where I would be expected to operate a manual transmission with my left hand whilst driving the car on the opposite side of the road with added sleep deprivation? yeah, no thanks.
Also, all sorts of bugs were getting really excited about hanging out with me in the only lit room in the house and I decided I’d rather just sit in the dark and convince myself that roach already flew out the window, or into the kitchen or somewhere more interesting to roaches than MY FUCKING PILLOW.

Ok this is enough bug story right? Nobody wants to hear bug stories because bugs are gross and nothing sucks more than having to imagine a three-inch cockroach on your pillow.
So how about 300 jumbo-sized larvae all over your kitchen, hallway, and living room floor instead?

BECAUSE GUESS WHAT WE FOUND WHEN WE WOKE UP???

Holy shit internet, do you have any idea how awesome it is when you wake up, think “gee, the floor sure is dirty, I’m gonna sweep it before I even make coffee or, I dunno, put on shoes” sweep half the floor and realize wait. We’re not slobs leaving crumbs all over the floor, those are GIANT MAGGOTS.

NIGHTMARES! NIGHTMARES! NIGHTMARES!

Thankfully, our mango-stealing landlord was hanging around and I hysterically flagged him away from his trash can arranging chores to have him DO SOMETHING about the atrocity that is our apartment, that, by the way I’m happy to move out of, like RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

He came in and declared the slinking vileness (these suckers could really haul ass!) as butterfly larvae due to their large size and relatively small numbers, went to the corner shop and brought us back a jumbo spray bottle of Raid.

Now internet, I’m a vegetarian. I was vegan for over a decade.
I eat largely organic and do most of my household cleaning with baking soda, vinegar and elbow grease.
When I buy a six-pack of rootbeer, I don’t just clip the bird-strangler, I shred the thing into tons of little splintery bits.
I grew up reading Ranger Rick and hugging trees and feeding birds in the winter.

But this morning, when I saw my landlord hand my husband a jumbo bottle of harsh toxic chemicals I was OVER-FUCKING-JOYED.
The Mister gave the house a thorough once-over with deadly poisons that will undoubtedly shorten my lifespan and affect the fertility of our grandchildren but at that moment? Whatever.

We dealt with the wreckage and hightailed it outta the city for a day trip.

Obviously, I need to make some amends. Somewhere along the way, I snapped at someone and they gave me an insect hex.
Further proof (like you need more): look who JUST came loudly stumbling in the door to hang out with my husband’s old adidas slides?

(Internet, Mantis. Mantis, Internet.)

So seriously dudes, I’m WIDE OPEN to suggestions. Do I dose up with more poison? Apologize to the universe for some bug-related sin I didn’t know I committed?
The only thing I can think of that I screwed up on recently was leaving our laundry on the line during a torrential downpour, but I don’t see how that would affect the world of insects.

When will this karmic debt be fully repaid? How many more bugs must fly in my hair? PLEASE MAKE IT STOP.

Internet, meet Ned.

Ned is a blue-tongue lizard that lives under my house and occasionally suns himself on the cement walk at the base of my porch.
Ned is a big guy, thicker than my wrist and 14″/35cm long. According to Wikipedia, he’s at the top of his class size-wise.

I met Ned myself for the first time the other day when I burst out of the house to check out an unfamiliar bird that I noticed through the window crash-landing into our frangipani tree.
I got about halfway down the porch, saw him, screamed and flew straight back up up the stairs.

Ned was not impressed with my display and continued to sit on the path, flicking his bright blue tongue around and relaxing in general.

Of course moments later the Mister came outside to see what the fuss was about, saw Ned and explained to me that he was harmless despite his giant-snake-like looks.

Since our fateful introduction, I’ve seen Ned nearly every day. Sometimes over by the garbage cans or in the pile of fence alongside the house, but mostly hanging out at the bottom of our steps, waiting for me to come out so I can get a start and he can smirk to himself that I’m such a sucker.

I cannot possibly express how wonderful it is to have a backyard after years and years of living in a 5th floor walkup with the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway outside my bedroom window.

I love New York, but I also love the smell of frangapani just after sunset, the silvery color of weathered wooden shacks, the heavily fruiting mango tree home to a colony of flying foxes (aka HUGE BATS) and iced coffee on the porch.

Dear Basil,
Today, you look OK. I won’t lie, it’s been a struggle.
You certainly had some contention with the last four weeks of extreme heat and humidity. No matter how much water and sunlight I gave you, your leaves were limp and slightly yellow. The ones on the bottom still don’t look too hot.

I honestly don’t know if it’s me, or if it’s you. It’s probably me, but I’m not sure how I can help you best.
I moved you from the bedroom window to the living room with direct but not quite blasting light. I’ve watered you daily and gave you drops of plant food. You’re still obviously not the happiest plants and I’m not sure if things will work out between us in the long run.

I do want to thank you for your contribution to my dinner the other night. I was able to check an item off my life list by preparing a meal made with an ingredient I grew myself. Still, I’d like to take things up a notch. The tomato, mozzarella, and cucumber salad was great with you in it, but I was surprised by how less fragrant your leaves were compared to the farmers market leaves I’ve bought in the past.

I’m not sure what to do Basil, but I hope we can work this out.

Love,
Shilo

~

So things are going ok with windowbox herb gardening 101, but just ok. not great, not really even good.

As you can see from my attached plea to my plants, I don’t know what to give them to make them happy, and suffice it to say, they are not nearly as chatty as the only other houseplant I’ve had in my life – an incredibly melodramatic Dieffenbachia I left on the west coast.

I keep on seeing things like this:

But I know that I have a tendency to throw money at problems which often doesn’t result in anything more than the accumulation of stuff I don’t use.

The Sky Planters pictured above have some sort of internal watering system that promises to make life with plants a billion percent easier, but really I mostly like the idea of never feeling guilty seeing my plants droop because they can’t droop! they’re upside down!

My struggle to grow the most basic of herbs is really messing with the idea of the life I want to build. I really want to be one of those people who grows awesome food and exclaims, Oh! herbs are SO easy! but yeah, not the truth.

So here it is: Give up my imagined future adulthood of herb-growing and bird watching and be content with the reality of buying all of my produce forever, the end? or take a new tack?

Is there really such a thing as a green thumb, or is it just a matter of learning the signals and paying attention?