A final farewell

This weekend, at the top of my to-do list is "Go to the cactus store."

My family of succulents is still thriving, but George, my most favorite miniature cactus? Well, he's not doing so hot. In fact, he can't feel hot anymore. He can't feel cold either, because George has passed.

You may recall that I started worrying about George a few weeks ago when he began leaning to the right and eventually toppled over, revealing an ooey gooey center.

The day before I left for Portland last month, I checked to see if George's pieces had miraculously fused together, but alas, he had begun to melt into a puddle of green, like the Wicked Witch of the West. George, you never deserved such a dastardly fate.

The day I returned home from Portland, a friend and I enjoyed heaping bowls of soup in my little bungalow before spreading out on the floor for a good chat, because lying on the floor and talking is one of the best things of life. At one point, I yawned and stretched my arms across the carpet above my head, when I felt something bite my hand. I flew upright and cautiously examined the floor, looking for a ginormous man-eating spider of some sort. That's when I saw the prickly culprit: George, or what was left of him anyway.

He was just a little nub of a cactus looking like an itty bitty porcupine, or a sea otter's nose, or a caterpillar that ate one too many steroid-injected cherries, or one of the Wicked Witch of the West's warts.

I'm not sure how he got from his little glass pot on the table onto the floor, as the house was locked up the entire time I was in Washington. No windows were open, and no humans (or pets) were around. Perhaps he knew his days were numbered and sky diving was on his bucket list, so he bravely took the dive from table to floor.

I hope your last adventure was a grand one, George. You deserved one heck of a last hurrah. I sure will miss you. You're going to be a hard friend to replace, but I'm going to try anyway. Because warm-hearted, hilarious cacti are great to have around.

I hope your weekend is restful and punctuated with surprising adventures, my friends.

-SJ

P.S. Come on over one of these days. We can watch the sunset together.

If I had edited this photo, then it might have looked a bit more like the sunset looked in person. But I didn't. So you'll just have to imagine this sunset was approximately 1,000 times more spectacular in real life.

© by scj