200 Questions

I'm sitting here with a blank brain this morning. Could I write about the cucumbers, marigolds and kale and their leaning tendencies?

About all I could say is that all my little plants are leaning off to a 45-degree angle. They've been doing that for days, only because I haven't turned their pots around.

You see they're sitting on shelves next to the sliding glass door, and there are so many of them lined up along the shelves and such a good chance that if I started turning them around, one by one, some could fall off the shelf, hit the floor, make a big mess and surely die from being jolted and most likely uprooted from their safe little home in the potting soil.

Homeless plants. Now, that's a concept.

The plants will continue to lean toward the outdoor light until I move them to the green house. I do have concerns that they'll get so used to pointing one direction that it could be permanent.

Lovestead's leaning garden. Now, there's a picture.

Corn stalks, 'maters, peppers, zinnias and marigolds, leaning toward Nellie's all over the Lovestead. It could be a phenomenon for visitors to come and behold.

Yup, that's how blank my mind is as I consider what I'm going to write about in Slight Detour this morning. But leaning plants make sense, don't they? After all, they're taking a slight detour from the norm.

I also thought about "Hail Mary's" in the bathtub. Some people chuckled at the museum yesterday when I told one of them that I pray for his well being by saying "Hail Mary's" in my bathtub.

It IS the truth. What better place than the solitude of sitting in warm water and a quiet bathroom with doors shut to pray! Works for me, and since they told me long ago that God is everywhere and God can hear everything, I know he's listening. Cuz, some of the folks I pray for in the tub are getting better, and that is wonderful news.

Still, imagining anyone uttering "Hail Mary's" in the bath tub cuts quite a picture.

I was talking about those "Hail Mary's" yesterday in the museum research room while thumbing through a book about memoirs. See, I have to look like I know something about memoirs for a seminar here in the next month or so. So, I've been doing a lot of this and a lot of that to make it look like I know what I'm talking about.

My sister-in-law Mary was nice enough to send me three samples of memoirs, which, by the way, Mary, I have started reading. I like the comment, made as a disclaimer, by former First Lady Barbara Bush that what she had to say in the pages ahead was "slanted," much like my potted plants.

Yesterday at the museum, I was looking for questions besides all those I've already listed which deal with what everyone wants to know about everyone's life. I found 200 of them in a booklet dealing with people's uniqueness by Frances Marks. So, now, I'm typing them up---on my other computer.

Many are questions already on the list I've been preparing, and then there are some to add.

And, this morning I may even have a few more after I think long and hard about the vacuum in my brain.

How about:

Why do you say "Hail Mary's" in the bath tub? Don't you have a God tree for such things?

What is the weirdest outcome you've ever experienced with a leaning tomato?

What do you do when you face a computer screen on a Friday morning in late February and you have nothing to say?

Answer: You go to the bath tub, say a few "Hail Mary's" and hope something comes of it all.

There. Done.

I'll skip the bath tub, go across the living room, stand at an angle and water my plants.