March 19, 2017
Well, it being Sunday and all, I had a “come to Jesus” meeting with myself this morning. All these years I pretty much thought that Martha Stewart and I were twins … not in looks but in our lives … but, alas, I have come to the realization that we are not. Sigh.
Deep breaths.
And how did I finally come to this earth-shaking revelation? Over breakfast this morning, I opened up my March edition of her Living magazine and on page 2, life, as I knew it, came to a screeching halt.
Perusing her “Martha’s Month – Gentle reminders, helpful tips, and important dates” calendar, I realized that the little bitch has out grown me! How dare she?! How dare I, her mirror-image, be washed (with a homemade vinegar spray and a chamois made from the hide of one of her dead barn horses) from said mirror?
I’m crushed. All those years spent making radish and carrot roses for garnishes … forming the dog food into the shape of a bone before giving it to the dogs for each meal … the gathering, drying, crushing and distilling of lavender oils to infuse into my homemade air freshener and linen water … all this time I was fooling myself.
I didn’t have to read further than the 1st day of her March calendar when I got a roiling in my gut … could it be we were no longer soul sisters … twins in spirit?
March 1st: Test garden soil for nutrients … I am not about to slog around in the rain with a nutrient tester device determining if my soil has what it takes to grow anything other than what is already growing. I feel myself fortunate that anything is growing in this soil (other than swamp plants) in the first place. During the rainy months my yard turns into a pond … in the dry months, my yard is a desert … my soil is hydrophobic (repels water). Need I say more?
I read the next day and the next … the churning in my gut getting more and more worrisome …
March 2nd: Start cabbage, brussels-sprout, and broccoli seeds. March 3rd: Schedule post-winter spa appointments.
Oh my god! First off, I wouldn’t be caught DEAD planting Brussels sprouts (and Martha, it’s a capital B in Brussels and no hyphen, darling) and I’m to schedule “post-winter spa appointments”??? WTF! Who does that?! Now, my stomach was flip flopping around like a fish on a dry dock.
My life was again flashing before my eyes … all these years I have folded socks (not rolled them into a ball) to let them rest … alphabetized my spices in my spice drawer lest I reach for cardamon instead of caraway … I put essential oils on my toilet paper tubes so that with every “go” the air would be like relieving oneself in a meadow.
How dare she leave me behind?! How dare she dry clean her winter coats at a green dry cleaner (who owns a dry-cleanable coat)? How dare she have her stables cleaned (do it yourself, woman!)! How dare she bake 1500 teeny tiny rocket ship shaped cookies and decorate them perfectly in one afternoon while prepping for a gala and checking her dogs for Lyme-disease?
I continued reading and between sobs and having to wipe my glasses off (with a hand embroidered hankie I made years ago with the lace edge – that I learned how to do from Martha’s online course – “Tatting in 157 easy steps”) I realized how far apart we now were.
March 8th: Jude’s birthday … March 16th: Bake Irish soda bread … March 22nd: Bring fresh eggs to office.
I sunk back into my chair (hand upholstered by me in my sleep), melting into it like an ice cream cone on a hot summer’s day (one preferably hand churned, from peaches gleaned from your own orchard and a waffle cone made fresh on your sizzling waffle iron) … I hate soda bread, I don’t have chickens or an office to go to and I don’t know anyone named Jude!
At the end of my rope and kleenex (in the hand-crocheted covered box) – I saw it … what I thought was redemption. Maybe this was just an “off” month. Maybe this last entry was one I could hold onto to convince myself that we really were still twins at heart …
March 31st: Wear sweatpants.
Oh my god … OMG! She and I are soul mates! She wears sweat pants … and so do I! Joy! Rapture! I am more than ever convinced that she is my twin from another mother.
But wait, my glasses are a bit smeared from all that crying and I wipe them off (with a natural, everything free, piece of cloth I tanned and made from an imported banana tree leaf) … oh dear god, the entry doesn’t say “Wear sweatpants.” . It says …
March 31st: Weed sweetpeas.
Oh, Martha! 🙁