A Flower Blooms in Hyde Park

Very obligingly, my geranium decided to bloom and has sent out not one but two flowers since my relocation. I take it as a sign that although this new life I've set myself up for is different from anything I've ever experienced, some things - like the happiness you feel when flowers bloom - will always stay the same.

For those of you who aren't acquainted with my geranium, we go way back - to the beginning of my junior year as an undergrad, as a matter of fact (OK, so that's only two and a half years, but considering that most people can kill a plant - even a geranium - inside a month, I think it's pretty good). I had just returned from the relatively mild December of southern Germany into the teeth of one of the fiercest Wisconsin winters I've ever experienced. My mother, who knows that I don't really like winter, gave me a geranium for my broom-closet - I mean, dorm room - and we've been together ever since. I take care of it, and it takes care of me.

We have not always been on terribly good terms, I must admit. During spring break of my senior year I left the geranium in my dorm while I went off to Virginia and came back to find that the poor thing had been steamed to within an inch of its life. It had dropped half of its leaves, and dropped more in the week after I returned, each one crisp with reproach, as though to say "You left me, without companionship (or, more importantly, water), for more than a week, during which I pined away and dropped half my leaves, because I simply couldn't go on. And now I'm going to be fragile and sickly, and drop more leaves, to make sure you never leave me again."

What can I say? Botanical coercion works. We haven't been parted since.

The geranium is not alone in my apartment (I'll introduce you to the other plants at some later date). Unlike my other plants, however, it has resisted naming ferociously since day one, as I can't bear to call any living thing "Gerry." Another name has not been forthcoming, so mostly I just call it the geranium. Though perhaps, out of respect for its preeminent position among my plants, I should begin calling it the Geranium, capital G, instead. Thoughts?