Tulips and Dawg

Remember when Mary and I rescued some tulip bulbs from the dug-up gardens at Versailles? I think we each had five; I know I did. Three of Mary’s were taken by Customs (hope they planted them), but for some reason mine all came through even though I declared them. (I hope Customs people don’t read criminal blogs.)

Got them home, put them in dirt in an old yogurt container and set them on top of the fridge for safekeeping. Around September, they went inside the fridge so they could know that winter had come. About a month or six weeks ago, I planted them in the pot you see and waited. Waited. And now, look! They are coming up!

What will they look like? Worthy of Marie Antoinette? Or when they bloomed at Versailles, did they only look good because they were part of a mass of color in that classic garden?

The Little Prince (Saint-Exupery) searched for a way to protect his single rose, the one who gave meaning to his life, who complained about everything he did for her. Then he discovered a rose garden with five-thousand roses looking just like his rose. He was overcome with disappointment.

“I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all I had was a common rose, and three volcanoes that come up to my knees – and one of them perhaps extinct forever . . . That doesn’t make me a very great prince . . .”

As he is crying, the fox comes and teaches him that “[My rose] is more important than all the hundreds of other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen . . . Because she is my rose.”

The fox’s final lesson: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

No matter what my tulips look like, they will be unique because of where they came from and because of all I went through to get them back here. They were wrapped in paper that had formerly held lemon tarts from the patisserie, then placed in a plastic sack like you get in grocery stores but not for much longer if cities or states outlaw them. Yes, Europe is rife now with plastic bags, having followed our lead there as in many other things.

It’s our music that’s played in restaurants and cafes, sometimes soft rock, country or pop, but more frequently, Frank Sinatra.

Why did Europe follow our lead in bad lending practices, too? I always looked up to England as older and smarter, right? Or at least too stodgy to buy into bad loans. Now Britain is going through an austerity program and soon Greece, birthplace of anciently smart people, will, too. How about us? Austerity? Should we? Sure, but never in an election year. Politicians don’t want the backlash.

So my tulips arrived safely padded by paper, plastic, and PJs. I planted them and now they are growing on a stand far from nibbling Nibelungs. I don’t know what a Nibelung is, but Wagner did and he made a ring of endless operas about them or for them.

My kind of Nibelung (kinds of Nibelungs?) are deer, which devoured tender shoots every year that we lived in Boulder, CO, leaving us with oddly crooked but still colorful tulips.

Here in the desert, everything animal, rodent or bird is a Nibelung, but particularly desert rabbits, those wild long-eared high-hopping fast-running guys that outdo Dawg every time. The other day, one popped up not 5 ft from Dawg, almost bumping into him as if saying, “Catch me if you can!” and loped off. Dawg ran after, but lost the race. It’s the running and not the catching that will keep him young.

He’s one of a kind because he’s tamed me.