Laiki--I GOT A GARDENIA--Thursday

I've hit the wall again. It's terrible timing. We have a friend coming to visit next week, I have 12,000 ideas I'd like to try, and Bella still prefers to go outside to pee, rather than use the toilet. If years of watching horror shows have taught me anything, at some point in the next few days a demon/witch/alien disguised as a friend will offer me a chance to tap into an unlimited source of energy. I'll eventually figure out that the source is the blood of innocents, but by that time it will be too late, and I'll be the villain in the story until the protagonist comes along and, I don't know, kills me, or something. That just sounds exhausting.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to laiki this week, but I went, and I'm glad I did. Feast your mortal eyes-ahem-feast your regular eyes on this:

Guess how much this cost me. Do you like this game? I love it. All of this cost me $19.75.  Nineteen-freaking-dollars-and-seventy-five-American-cents. I paid in euros, but I had Google do the conversion math so I could rub it in your face.
COP here is insane! That's my acronym for cost of produce, which, for me, is the equivalent of cost of living.

In a passing thought that would prove to be prophetic, I briefly hoped that my laiki vendor friend might be selling strawberries this week. His produce is not the cheapest, but it's always good. Last week I had to buy my bananas and kiwis from someone else because he wasn't there. It was painful. In the summer, I'm able to buy nectarines from him in addition to my bananiwis. For weeks, I've had to collect my strawberries from other sources. Lo! The man had strawberries this week! 

I am not embarrassed to tell you that while I was inhaling the strawberries, they were falling out of my mouth and onto my shirt. Judge me if you dare, but we'll see how you do when your favorite seller has one of your favorite fruits.

In case you missed it the first time around, I decided to buy another plant from laiki this week, in spite of the fact that I've killed nearly every single other plant I've bought since we moved here, except for the cactus. The cactus is doing all right. Now, before you lump me in with the same class of people who buy a menagerie then get bored and abandon the lions, let me just say that I feel really positive about the future of this plant because I actually know what it is.

It's a mother******* gardenia.

I was staring at the plants, trying to will myself not to buy one, when I saw this one. "Is that a..." I started to ask in a reverent whisper. "Γαρδένια," the woman responded. If you click on the word, it will take you to the google translate page, where you can actually hear what I heard. It will be like you're living my life with me. Very interactive.

I love gardenias. I've loved them ever since I was a little kid. My grandma had a small gardenia plant that she'd bring out to the porch in early summer. I loved the smell, and would shove my whole face into the bush to try to suck down as much of it as possible. My grandma would very kindly warn me not to mess with the flowers and make them turn brown. She was a saint. If it had been me, I would have been like, "Get your stupid face out of my precious gardenia." 

As much as I love gardenias, I'm very nervous. These things are temperamental, and not well-suited to negligent gardeners.

They're also toxic to dogs, so this is actually bad gardening, and bad pet parenting on my part. And documented, so I'm really screwed. Look, don't call the ASPCA. She didn't eat it, and I won't let her. 

Phil keeps a written list of funny English taglines on European shirts. Here are two he added to the list the other night:

Shout. The American fever. Bad Girls go everywhere. 

My personal favorite of the two:

"I think you're totally my life. We should hang out more often."

We really should, though.