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Monday, February 1, 2010

Abby

If you don't know Abby, then know this. You are missing out on something beautiful in your life. Abby first appeared to me as a string of ungrammatical English words within a gardening forum thread. There were few full stops, no commas and no capital letters to start the sentence. (Oh dear... Abby, if you read this, please don't take offence!) Nonetheless, one should not underestimate Abby. Never judge a book by its cover alone, nor ever judge a forummer by punctuation.

For Abby is the Earth Mother of the GCS forum.

I am convinced that every plant that Abby touches trembles with pleasure and bursts forth into a profusion of joyous leaves and flowers. And when I carted off the 5 pots of Japanese Bamboo that Abby had given me, they were still sobbing uncontrollably in my car when I got home... and now they sit forlorn and unhappy in my rooftop disliking me and hoping that Abby will take them back somehow.

But they're mine now because Abby the Earth Mother who gives away plants (with a generosity that my poor selfish heart cannot comprehend), gave them to me. There are 5 pots whose roots overflow the pots and I intend to divide each pot into 2, to get 10 pots of Japanese Bamboo. These 10 pots of bamboo will act as privacy and sun screens for my master bedroom in the new house.

The thing about Abby is that she has absolutely no airs. If you think of the forthright, straight talking but immensely kind and generous village girl... that's Abby. Gu niang Petunia asked for some dainty tissue paper to wrap seeds in. Abby gave her an incredulous look and said "Go there to the toilet and get some toilet paper". So I trotted obediently to the toilet, half-amused, half-embarrassed and but still very pleased about the generous mound of ulam raja seeds Abby had thrust at me. Who cares about tissue paper when you know each seed will grow into fragrance that will magic your salad all the way to Pandora, the land of the Na'vi?! Yum! Yum!

In sum, it's impossible not to like Abby. I mean, if you don't respond to her generosity then surely you would respond to her delicious produce, no? She fed us giant bananas full of sweetness. I badly wanted to ask for some to bring home and make banana cake but well... I am a gu niang after all, and was shy. So I obediently ate my banana and watched The Husband's eyes go wide with each chew.

And then I said "thank you" to Abby nicely and went home. You see, Petunia writes better than she speaks because up close and personal Petunia seems cold and aloof. Some things can be better written than said. So Abby, thank you again.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

totally agree ! when i started out in gcs, abby gave me alot of shui mei plants to work with as well ^^ shes d kind and forthright person alrighty hehe

Blur Ting said...

Oh, so well written! :-)
You do have a way with words.

Anonymous said...

She's such a kind mother hen person! =) Are you going to show her this post, Pet?

I like her a lot too. =D