Beautiful Bush

I found myself staring at a bush a few nights ago while sitting in the outside dining area of our local Thai restaurant.  Stars glittered above, palm trees swayed in gentle breeze, a large white duck preened in a gurgling brook.  But I was focused on this bush.  I don’t know why.  It wasn’t in my direct line of vision and it wasn’t particularly attractive.  It was just your typical boring patch of greenery nestled between two leggy cement paths.  But as I sat there I wondered:  How much bigger would it get?  If it encroached over those legs of cement, would the gardener do a little trimming?  Did it like living close to that chemically infused imitation stream?  Did it enjoy smelling Tom Kha Gai Soup and Massaman Curry every day or would it really prefer Italian?  Other than to convert CO2 to oxygen for me what purpose could it possibly have?  Where did its' motivation to live come from?  I went through a huge bottle of beer thinking about it before moving on to my next thunderous bullet train of thought:  my jade plant.  Now THIS is a beautiful bush:

I call this “my” jade plant because I bought her when I was in college and she’s been with me for almost 45 years.  Her role in our relationship is to inject a little beauty into my life.  My role is to make sure she stays alive and healthy as she endures the bondage and discipline I impose upon her being. You see, I make her live in a pot.  That way I can keep her with me when I move…which is often.  I won’t free her to the earth…not yet.  

We've been through a lifetime of change together, she and I:  I've shrunk about half an inch in height.  She used to five inches tall.  I've gained a few pounds.  She's become humongous.  I want to keep growing, mentally anyway, and she keeps getting bigger and bushier.  I’m a father of two. She has a dozen or more offspring.  My jade is brittle and when she loses a branch I just stick it in a pot or in the ground and a new jade is born. Every time I move her, an unsolicited amputation begets a new relative.

My train of thought derails here:  Is this new relative really her offspring or is this just her in a new location?   Can two be one?  If she dies in her pot, will she essentially live on as this other plant?  If this process keeps repeating, could my precious jade achieve immortality?

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Please excuse my anthropomorphism.   It’s just a ruse.

Do plants think, see, smell, or feel?  Read this:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=do-plants-think-daniel-chamovitz

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© Steve Stewart and SeeNextRock, 2013 Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Steve Stewart and SeeNextRock with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Scum Ball

I live, as do many of you, on a planet we call Earth.  Earth is a wonderful place to live.  However, when you think about it, it's a pretty weird place to live too.  Consider these few examples:

1.  Our planet's circumference at the equator is 24,901.55 miles and its' diameter is 7,899.8 miles...less if you measure through the poles as the Earth is not perfectly round.  These seem like big numbers but  how big is a mile really?  We've imagined a distance and assigned a number to it.  I think we can cross off distance as a universal truth.  Anyway, if you compare our planet to the "known" universe we're living on a tiny speck of rock that has a creamy molten center- kind of like lava cake but not as chocolatey.  The true size of the universe is something I've never been able to get my mind around.  Some people think the universe is shaped like a figure 8.  It just wraps around itself.  OK, what's outside this figure 8 then?  If you know, please tell me.  As an aside, Mel Brooks once said that 13 out of 19 people revolve around the sun.  Sounds reasonable. (1)

2.  The highest point on Earth is the top of Mt. Everest at 29,035 feet.  The lowest place on Earth is at the Dead Sea: 1,369 feet below sea level.  Human Beings don't do very well at these extremes though.  Generally, we thrive between sea level and 6-8,000 feet.  8,000 feet is only about 1 1/2 miles.  Think about what landmark is 1 1/2 miles from where you are at this moment.  For me, it's about as far as the nearest cheeseburger from McDonalds.  I could walk there in 20 minutes or so if I wasn't so lazy.  Our livable space then is shockingly thin...as thin as the skin on that sweet Walla Walla onion you're peeling to chop up for tonight's salsa. (2)

3.  We are surrounded by other living things we call "plants".  The tallest plant we have on this planet is a coastal redwood named The Mendocino in Ukiah, California.  It's 367.5 feet tall...a little bigger than a football field if you include the end zones.  The smallest plants in the world are Duckweeds.  They measure 300 by 600 micrometers and weigh only 150 micrograms.  They float on or just beneath the surface of fresh water ponds.  Put a lot of Duckweed plants together and you have what you might call scum.

4.  When you are in a passenger jet flying from SF to NYC what is your altitude?  Let's just say, on average, around 30,000 feet.  When you're that high and you look straight down what do you see?  You see varying shades of green and brown.  On a hazy day it looks kind of scummy and moldy.   People don't even look like ants from that height.  We're too small to see.

So here we are.  Tiny beings living on a scummy rock spinning around a giant white hot ball of flame.  Just saying...fellow scum people.

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(1)  From the recording:  The Two Thousand Year Old Man by Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner

(2)  Fresh Salsa Recipe:  chop these ingredients to your size preference and combine in a large bowl:

One medium sized onion, two medium sized tomatoes, one bunch of cilantro, and 2-3 Serrano peppers. Don't bother cleaning out the seeds- you won't notice them.  Add a pinch of salt and lime juice to taste.  I usually use one lime.  That's it...delicious and spicy hot...scooped up with warmed tortilla chips...a taste you had long ago at your favorite Mexican oceanfront resort before you were afraid to travel there.  A small table on the sand at sunset, a canopy of palm fronds waving overhead in a gentle breeze, the pounding surf, a cold cerveza......perfect.

© Steve Stewart and SeeNextRock, 2013 Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Steve Stewart and SeeNextRock with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.