Self-Congratulatory Drivel

Boy, you just never know what’s going to happen on a Sunday morning. Today I checked my e-mail after breakfast and saw that garden blogger Erica Bess Duncan had posted a comment congratulating me on my New York Times review.

What New York Times review? Are you kidding me?

I suppose I should be calm and rational and well-behaved about something like this, but honestly. The New York Times.

I’ll just pause for a moment and catch my breath.

OK, I’m back. As you can imagine, I rushed out to the grocery store around the corner and bought several copies of the Times this morning. Everybody there knows me because I practically live on food from their deli, so when I announced that I was in the Times, the clerks dropped what they were doing, grabbed copies of the paper, and started flipping through it, looking for the review. We covered two checkstands with newspaper until finally somebody spotted it. I'll save you the trouble: in the national edition, garden columnist Anne Raver’s “Cuttings” is on the last page of the sports section, next to the chess column. It’s a nice geeky spot for a few words on a book about worms.

She also reviews a new edition of a book I particularly like, the beautifully illustrated Keeping a Nature Journal by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth. This personable, friendly art-and-gardening book inspired me to start taking art classes a couple years ago. If you’ve ever thought about keeping a journal of your garden, take a look at this book.

Well. What a morning. I’ll cut out the review and set it aside, then spend the rest of the afternoon devouring the Times, that delectable Sunday treat. When I’m done, I’ll tear each section into strips and bury the worms under all the news that’s fit to print.