Bloom, Dammit!

Although folks would be hard pressed to catch a glimpse of it now, there was a day when I was SUPER into entertaining and puttin' on the dog.  Southern Living and Martha Stewart Living provided my daily devotionals and, at times, I was able to channel Martha just by clicking my heels together three times and repeating "Use only the VERY BEST vanilla."

Southern Living has the best recipes out there, if case you're wondering.  Never made a bad dish from that magazine.  MS Living was chock full of ridiculous decor ideas that looked beautiful but required surgeon-esque skills and loads of specialty items.  I didn't even attempt those crafty things because I'd read the directions and my eyes would start to glaze over.

I did, one holiday season, buy a crap ton of glitter and made dozens of ornaments and candles with the stuff (Word to the Wise: don't do the candles...the glitter caught on fire.  I probably did it wrong).  When we decorate at Christmas, there are still traces of that sparkly endeavor in every box we unpack.

It slowly became...a problem.

I had butter molds of butterflies and acorns and unicorns (not really).  I combed the Colonial Williamsburg catalog for faux magnolia leaves and King Charles bedspreads.  I created holiday menus and printed them out...mainly so I'd keep on track, but - truth be told - also so I could practice my taste tantalizing verbiage skills...fresh hot yeast rolls, with sweet cream butter and assorted jams.  Homemade pumpkin spice with freshly whipped sweetened cream...

Very hoity toity.

But, then, after years of getting my kicks from all things fancy, I went into a self-imposed rehab.  Actually, I got bariatric bypass surgery and couldn't really eat all those things anymore.  So I tossed (or sold) all my butter molds, cancelled my Southern Living and Martha Stewart subscriptions and tried to develop some better habits.

Fast forward to last Saturday, when we were getting ready to come home from NOLA.  I bought a couple of magazines (Southern Living and Martha Stewart Living, of course) because - horror of horrors - out plane wasn't equipped with WIFI.  As I flipped through the pages of MSL, I noticed that they're still publishing Martha's monthly calendar of events.  And I remembered that it always served as a huge source of "Oh my gosh, can you believe she's doing that?" moments.

Once again, it did not fail to entertain.  Alongside her schedule of yoga, weight training and riding horses were her friends' and colleagues' birthdays, hair appointments, refrigerator cleanings, etc.

But...the one I love the most (and I remember seeing it on her calendar before...which leads me to believe the editors are cut-and-paste gurus) is the day she's set aside to force her forsythia and pussy willows to bloom.

Picture it.  A cold, grey, concrete room with a card table, one folding chair and a naked light bulb haphazardly hung from the ceiling.  Martha is in the chair.  A lone stick in a clay pot is on the table.

Tension fills the air.

In a strong, direct "I will not be dismissed" voice, Martha commands, "You.WILL.Bloom."

"NOW!"

"Or I will twist you in two, you ungrateful twig of a tree."

Martha fixes her steely gaze on the naked branch.  One minute passes.  Two minutes.  Thirty.

Finally, with a silent shudder and a spectacular clenching of its roots, a spec of yellow leaf begins to poke its head through the dormant bark.

Martha, her work completed, exits the room with a victorious stride, leaving the door open as a wide-eyed intern to timidly comes forward to finish the job.

Don't even try to tell me that's not the way she gets it done.