The Adventures of Cornelius

As salaam alaikum,

And now, for something completely different...

As I write this, it's Sunday. I'm currently in Seattle, awake at 6:34am their time. This is my last day of the apartment hunt, and I have two open houses to get to, a couple of people to meet up with and one house I'd love to see today, if at all possible. May not be, but I'd love it to be so. The moving process over the past couple of weeks has been harrowing, but I love it. I'm really opening my life up to new possibilities, and if meeting up with future faculty and my older co-residents is any indication, the next three years will be awesomely supportive...

But moving from Brookline was pretty stressful. I shipped stuff using UPS. The first shipment went smoothly. It all went to hell when I tried to ship 12 boxes. I ended up spending hours in my apartment waiting for UPS to come pick up my stuff, which otherwise would have been tolerable, had the apartment not been completely empty! I went crazy while in there, seriously...but, all the scrubbing and cleaning I did paid off. Got my full deposit back...

...and spent it promptly paying off my credit card. No riba on that so-in-so, man...

But the thing that brightened my day the most in my last full day in Boston was the transport of Cornelius, my corn plant, from my place to my friend's place, where she will be plant sitting.


Cornelius is my corn plant. He is descended from a branch of my mother's corn plant that split from the rest about three years ago. My father thought to put pieces of the branches in water, and sure enough, baby Cornelius was born in three parts! My mother asked me if I wanted one one year when they came up to visit me, and I said yes! I took Corny with me on the T, the blue line to the green line, and we've been together ever since, now through two repottings!

So, I searched online and saw that no one will ship a plant for you. Darn. So, since my parents are driving to graduation, I decided to give Cornelius to one of my friends to watch and water after his recent repotting and until my parents can come to pick him up.

And so, the adventure began.

One morning, after I finished packing, I repotted Cornelius with care. I went to my back porch (that I never used), put down an old, opened Trader Joe's paper bag, got my Miracle Grow potting soil, and went to work. I wanted to make sure that Corny was in a healthy (and more spacious) place before passing him off to my friend.

I was giving a bunch of stuff to Good Will, so that was all in my hallway so the apartment could be empty. My landlord had his eye on a few things I was giving away...my desk chair, a few shelves. I told him I would put the things down in the basement for him to do whatever with later. I actually preferred the stuff to go to charity than to sit in his basement, but whatever.

When I got back to the place my last day, I saw that he had already taken it upon himself to move some of the things he'd requested...the office chair and one of the shelves was gone. I thought that was inpatient of him, but whatever. I went ahead putting more of my Good Will stuff in the hallway so the apartment could be completely cleared. I then looked toward the window where I had set Corny to see how he was doing.

And he wasn't there!

I was like, wait, my plant!

I scanned the house, looked in the hallway...I didn't push panic yet, though. I looked in my phone (that was dying), looked up my email and called my landlord, hoping for the best.

"Hi, [Mr. Landlord], how are you. Umm, I was wondering...do you know what happened to my plant?"

"Yes, it's in my house!"

In your house? Seriously? He then went on to say that I didn't say I wanted to take it with me. What? No! I clearly indicated that I wanted to take the plant with me, that I was going to have a friend watch it, and that it would be out by the next day. He clearly wasn't paying attention.

"You want me to come all the way over there...for plant?"

Hahahahahahaha! I didn't ask you to take my plant! I think it wouldn't have been as funny if he hadn't dropped the article on that one...

So, eventually, he relented and brought Corny back. I thanked him a lot, told him to take care, and hopefully that's the last I'll see of Mr. Landlord...

So Corny was back! We waited hours for UPS to come, just to be informed that the driver would be there between 7 and 8pm. Ugh! Eventually, my friend came at the same time as UPS, nearly, so it was time to transport Corny to her house.

She was like, "Whoa...it's big!"

People apparently don't pay attention to house plants. I've had this plant for three years, and it was in plain view for everyone who visited me. Yes, it's big. It's a corn plant. They get to be the size of trees! And then, they flower...

No, these are not, like, plants that grow corn. Entirely different thing.

Anyway, I had some books to drop off at the medical school that I was donating to whoever wanted them, so I put Cornelius in the granny cart with the books and we walked out of my place and to the medical school. We ran into people my friend knew along the way. They were so amused that I was so concerned for the welfare of my plant as the wind began to blow it! I'm like, what, am I going to let my plant that I took care to repot, that I retrieved from my sticky-fingered landlord, to get destroyed in a freak bout of windiness? I think not!

After dropping the books off at the medical school, we caught the shuttle to Cambridge, where Cornelius would reside with my friend and her husband. People on the bus were so baffled by the plant! This one woman was like, "Well, it's not a baby..." Hahahaha!

I guess people usually don't have plants this large...?

Once I got to my friends' house, her husband also expressed surprise. He was like, "When I first heard this story, I thought we would be watching a house plant. This is a tree!"

And so, after a busy day, Cornelius assumed post in my friends' place, where he will be picked up and taken home with my parents upon graduation. Sadly, I cannot take him with me to Seattle, which just means that I'll have to buy a corn plant when I get there! And if I leave Seattle, I'll have to leave the plant with a trusted friend...

That was my lighthearted story in the midst of the stress of moving. Oy! I definitely will find some community acupuncture upon arriving in Seattle...that really helps to calm one down...