It was at 2:30pm eastern standard time yesterday that I became an old southern lady apparently.
Let me make a short story long.
A woman who worked part-time for me recently moved to NC. She and her husband sold out their old house to make room for a subdivision. She invited her friends (other ladies in their 50's or so mostly) to take her plantings or cutting from her plants as "pass-alongs" before they tore the house down. She left instructions for one lady who works near here to start some cuttings for me.
Yesterday, I got the call that the cuttings were rooting and ready to go. So I drove the few blocks over to pick up my cuttings of Confederate Rose.
Is that politically incorrect for a name? War of Nothern Aggression Rose? Nah, that's no better. Red-neck Rose? Hmmm. Maybe "below the mason-dixon" rose.
Regardless, I arrived to pick up my cuttings of...that plant. As I did a few of the ladies who work in the office (again older southern ladies) started discussing the plant and other plants. I felt right at home actually. Chatting about how my gardenias finally bloomed after I moved them to the south facing part of the yard and how the daylillies were incredible this year.
Wasn't it just yesterday I was a hip dude in a band? One of the cool people? And now I'm more at home with 60 year old women discussing Hostas?
As I left the office and got on the elevator, an elderly woman with a cane got on behind me. She looked at my cuttings and asked if it was a Confederate Rose. I told her that indeed it was. She smiled and nodded approvingly and said "that's a great pass-along, I give them to my friends all the time".
I looked at my watch to note the time. 2:30pm July 1, 2004.
It was the moment I had officially became an old southern woman.