Odd Happenings

I planted a bleeding heart plant in our yard years ago. I watered and waited. It never grew.

I figured any number of things could've kept it from growing. Temperature, soil, maybe I bought a bum plant. Every year I'd go to that corner of the year in hopes of seeing my plant grow. Mom pointed out a sprout and said that it must be it. The sprout never grew, so I doubted her.

I went back again this year to look. There it was. Small, but growing. Little pink hearts. Hot pink. My daughter's favorite color. I giggled and clapped like a giddy child and called everyone over to look at it. The kids didn't see the big deal. It was just a plant. The Girl noted that the hearts were her favorite color and went to do something more interesting. My mom said, "See? It was growing this whole time. It was just slow."

On my way back inside, I passed our dwarf orange tree. It had been blooming and everytime I walked past it, I bent down to sniff its blossoms. This time, I noticed that something else was growing, too. I saw little tiny oranges starting to pop out. This was another first.

Once again, I dragged everyone over to marvel at our orange plant. The kids didn't know what the heck they were supposed to be looking at and why I kept dragging them away from fun stuff to look at boring old plants. Mom was as excited as I was about the little oranges. I turned to her and said, "Looks like this is the year for growth, huh?" and she said, "You're not kidding! In more ways than one.."

***

Last night, after we cleaned up the dinner dishes, mom noted that she'd saved aside the wishbone from the roasted chicken we'd had the night before. She wasn't sure if we should give it to the kids or not. I voted not because both were horribly competitive and were prone to fits upon "losing".

I suggested that we have a go at it. We locked out pinkies around the bone, I squeezed my eyes shut, made a wish and pulled. I heard a snap and opened my eyes in time to see the top of the wishbone pop clean off and land on the floor. I looked over to see my mother's stunned expression and we both looked at our pinkies, each still gripping part of the wishbone.

"What did you wish for?" mom asked. I told her and asked about her wish. It had been the same as mine. We both laughed over this and then mom said, "That was a pretty big eff you from the universe, wasn't it?"