Margie Sees the Whole Picture

I've been really lucky these past two years to work with Margie, my mentor and inspiration. We really hit it off despite our age difference and she's always good for a few wise gems during the course of a work day. As they come, I'll be featuring some of her best thoughts on my blog.

Margie's friend (crush) and our co-worker, Dr. Ethan, comes back from a meeting concerning methods of dealing with non-native species, of which Margie laments...

"I just don't understand why these people hate plants."
"Not plants, invasives."
"Oh. But it's the same. Killing plants. Killing animals."
"It would be terrible if I was sent back to Warsaw."
"What?"
"Shipped back to where my family's from."

Dr. Ethan walks away.

Dr. Ethan is a plant killer disguised as a plant lover! How dare he support the discriminate killing of certain species? Haven't they by evolutionary development earned their right to live? Just because humans brought over some non-native plant doesn't mean their descendants should have to pay the price. That price being their life!

I keep trying to tell Margie that she should forget about Dr. Ethan; he'll never change. He'll always blindly champion for the indigenous species. Six hundred years ago he'd be one to save Native American lives and go around exterminating the"non-native" explorers who were only searching for freedom.

That's all kudzu is trying to do: search for freedom from a topsy-turvy home life in the Orient. Brangelina would save kudzu.

E. Lazarus' words say it best:

Give me your natives, good and poor,
Your tangled masses of kudzu and salt cedar tree,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, phragmites and loosetrife to me,
I tip my hat to those whom plants mean more

America.

Fuck Yeah!

My Celebrity Crush

Party Foul

Just after opening a deliciously cold bottle of Samuel Adams Summer Ale, my life-mate, John-George, and I thought it would be a super idea to wrestle on the couch near the table on which my sweating beer was perched. Suffice it to say we did not think this action through. Bump went my bottom against the table, teeter-totter-thud went my beer and glugglugglug went the thirsty carpet beneath. As I gave the sandy colored berber a hateful glare, I came to realize two very important things:

1. I detest physical contact.
2. I like my beer.

This sad occurrence and the resultant recognition have led me to seek out others who enjoy malty, hopsy, barleyy beveragi and who would prefer to limit their communication and interaction with others to a series of ones and zeroes only. If this is you, please comment.

I welcome connoisseurs and casuals alike. Come you critics of Carlsberg, fans of Fosters and lovers of Labatt.

As found in a previously unreleased version of E. Lazarus' The New Colossus:

Give me your thirsty, friends of yore,
Your huddled masses yearning to drink for free,
The classy lady and the screaming whore.
Send these, be they of twenty-one, to me:
I lift my glass beneath the golden pour.