My mom basically dragged me to the garden show at the edge of the university campus, several km away from our house. She initially wanted to buy orchids because she killed one, which was a native variety i.e. endemic to the Philippines. She blamed everybody for not watering it 🫠

So there I was acting as her purse keeper while she surveyed what she wanted to plant around her house.

I think she’s better off with succulents since she doesn’t really water her plants and she leaves them all to the househelp 🥴

In the end, she bought three San Francisco plants a.k.a. variegated croton plant (Codiaeum variegatum) while I bought pitimini roses to replace the one that died while we were in the hospital. Roses need full sunlight but I guess the constant rain flooded the roses. Some of my mini roses lost a lot of leaves but the stems are still green and are now growing purple leaves—new foliage that will be followed by rose buds. Some are still good, but I wasn’t able to deadhead them because I was away so the blooming stopped. But I see new buds forming now that the sun has been showing up again.

I bought another basil plant. The first one I bought lost all the leaves because apparently some insect loved it so much that it didn’t leave anything behind. My guess is aphids. But then we have a forest here so it’s fair game. Now I should keep my herbs on my staircase to keep them away from aphids. My celery plant and dill are not thriving so I must change their positions.

It’s hard to take care of plants and animals if you don’t have someone else to tend to them when you’re away. At least when we were in the hospital, I can remind Twin I to feed the cats and clean the litter boxes every night. But plants…she left it to nature 🤦🏻‍♀️

A person who can grow plants is special. I mean it’s not easy and it requires a lot of commitment. For someone like me who carries the weight of the world, taking care of plants eventually would result into murder—I may end up killing half of them because my commitment is sporadic.

But I like flowers…🥹 What can I do?

Oh yes, Europe is agog with news about the bedbugs infestation in France, which has sent the French into a tizzy.

Someone even posited that the bedbugs could be spread to other areas of Europe and N. America via the Paris Fashion Week.

And to make people more worried, someone even brought up the possibility of bedbugs becoming vectors for diseases similar to dengue or the Black Plague.

This is why I make it a point to air and expose my pillows and mattresses to sunlight at least twice a year. I just aired and dried my mattress under the intense noon sun on my sort-of balcony when we got back home from the hospital last month. I also vacuum clean our mattresses regularly to keep those nasties away. I change sheets and pillow cases every week and the duvet covers every two weeks.

So how often do the French clean their beddings?!