Wednesday, September 01, 2004
This afternoon, I was reminded of my hilarious propensity for needlessly complicating things while overlooking simple yet effective solutions.
It concerned the niggling problem of my periwinkles, which have grown and flourished beyond the water-carrying capacities of their pots, such that they now require at least 2 generous waterings daily: once in the morning and the second time during the sun-scorched late afternoon. Despite all my good intentions and efforts, however, it takes a shockingly short period of time for the plants to wilt once the afternoon sun invades the common corridor. Too little water-retaining soil to too much foliage, resulting in an excess of transpiration over water uptake. This problem is particularly vexing as my sister and myself will be away at Bukit Batok and hence there will be no one around to see to my periwinkles' survival for a good part of the September holidays. In anticipation of the crisis, I made some tentative attempts at designing devices for the storage and controlled release of water, preferably timed to coincide with the hot late afternoon. I brainstormed various theoretical models and field-tested a prototype plastic mineral water bottle that could release water over approximately 25 minutes and thus was quite useless for my purposes.
Finally, I related this intriguing scientific problem to my sister. She suggested that we brought the plants indoors. After all, a few days of mild sunlight deprivation wouldn't kill them, whereas subjecting the hapless things to an equivalent period of drought certainly would. Her commonsensical solution left me feeling frankly ridiculous. So much for technological innovation, hey?
....
I call the above piece of semi-farcical autobiographical nonsense my regular pre-GP anxiety management tactic. I have to check if I still can write.
words were spilled on Wednesday, September 01, 2004