| "Hi!" said my impromptu visitor. "Do you grow gardens?"
Um, yes.
"Why don't you ever visit us anymore? I'm the guy at the corner, with the kid who likes your dog. You never visit us anymore."
(Ah. Tony. The guy with the big lot and all of the vehicles, dead or alive, and buildings and so much other stuff that I can't ever take it all in, and signs and the drop-dead gorgeous Hispanic-African kid who almost never speaks, and sometimes lives with his mom in ABQ, but who always did like my dog.)
"You used to come by and visit and you never visit us anymore."
Maybe I will.
"Do you grow tomatoes?"
Yeah...but hard to say, I could lose everything, with this weather, the City could make me stop watering.
"Yeah, it's so hot. We love tomatoes, and nobody grows them anymore."
Okay; I'll keep you in mind.
"Ah, you probably think I'm some kind of a pervert."
No.
I know who you are.
(long pause).
Okay, bye!
&&&&
Actual conversation more or less, with my responses unquotationed. Yeah, I don't visit them anymore. I could. I don't know what would happen. But this is, I think, a sort of invitation, and who am I to ignore invitations?
I live here in my incomprehensible little world, and they live there within eyesight, in their incomprehensible little world.
Maybe I will visit. I don't have any tomatoes ripe yet. My tomato plants are still alive, which is amazing all by itself. The fact that some were still setting fruit relatively recently is even more amazing.
But they have kind of gone into stasis lately, and I expect that is because of photosynthesis shutting down in the heat.
I do have a few heirloom acorn squash of a white variety. Perhaps I will bring them a squash. Maybe some Italian parsley, some basil. Maybe my dog. Maybe even me.
(crossposted from Kos) |
