My Babies

        One of the things I was most surprised by following the wedding was the amount of people who ask you when you are going to have children. I suppose it is naturally the next big milestone in life following marriage but come on! I am 22! Regardless of how young I was when we got married doesn't mean that I just want to high-tail the whole process forward; someday...but not now. We have only been living together for a week and half for heaven's sake. Regardless of our plans, I had a suspicion/fear that many of the young couples in the military and on base would have children already and would think we were weird for not having any. I also had this imaginary expectation that there would be this creepy phenomenon where at a certain time each day/night on base in our neighborhood, spouses would come out to the culdesacs with their children and mingle with each other....almost a zombie-like desperate housewives situation, where I would just watch from my front room window (child-less) and feel them glaring at me. Well, I can tell you so far that I have not witnessed any zombie housewives yet, but there are a ton of kids living here! Maybe it is just because it is summer time, school is out, but there are a lot of children. Literally as I type, there are five young kids jumping on a trampoline across the street and two other boys running around with a small chihuahua and batman capes. Besides the children, there are playgrounds everywhere...I am not exaggerating when I say that there is a small playground on every street and large ones on several parts of the base. Is this to encourage child production?

Here they are! My new babies!! (Left to Right: Rose (Rosemary),
Tom (Tomato), and Basil (pronounced the English way with a short "a")

        Regardless of the base's subliminal messages, I do have babies of my own...they are just of a much greener, photosynthesizing, and soil loving nature. A few days ago, my husband and I went on a quest for plants. It has been one of my goals, in having our own house, to plant a garden. So to Home Depot we went! (It should be noted that it was a big deal to step foot in Home Depot because of my father's boycott of the chain after being screwed out of a rebate he legitimately filled out; however, I take the fact that our small town has a Home Depot to mean there is a little bit of civilization out here.) Walking into the garden section, I could instantly tell that the employee out there was not thrilled to be there. Looking at the garden starter plants, the basil was all bug eaten, there weren't many good tomato plants...I had obviously gotten my hopes up. After looking for a few minutes Ms. Un-interested came over to inform me that all the plants were fine, they would live and that she would even take some off the price for us to buy them. When I asked if the holes in the basil leaves were caused by bugs, she in a very sure voice answered no, they could not be because of bugs because then all of the other plants would look like that. WOW brilliant logic! My philosophy professors would have had a fit. Although I was convinced that I didn't like her, I wasn't convinced that I should buy at that moment, just didn't feel right. So we went to a couple other garden sections at other stores in the area, but none at garden starter plants. Well played Home Depot...my anger and judgement turned into determination, mostly after I called my mom to talk about the plants and she reminded me "you know they don't hire biologists to work there", so we went back to Ms. Un-interested and I made it my personal mission to bring this basil back to full life. Plants are resilient after all! We spoke to another employee there, which if you ever visit this Home Depot ask for Hektor! He rocked our world! So kind, considerate, informative and interested! When we asked him if the holes were caused by bugs he said yes, and even showed us some sprays to help combat the bugs....stupid illogical Ms. Un-interested. Long story short (oops) We took home with us a basil, rosemary, and roma tomato plant along with a pot for each and planted them.