Buddy Aloe

Or why public transportation may be a very good thing, but is still kinda rough on plants.

Or why potting your plants at home is a better option.

Or why I really need to learn to drive.

Some context first.

I was working at my job’s Marina location when in the course of potting up an aloe vera for a customer I fell completely in love.

The plant itself was lovely and lush but it’s root ball was just scandalously beautiful.

It has all these baby plants growing out of the base, it had minimal sun damage- it was amazing. So of course I put a plant and pot on hold, and today on my day off I picked them up!

First mistake. I should have brought it home un-potted and done that at home. But no- I thought I’d save some time and do it at the potting bench in the store.

I live on the opposite end of the city.

I had to take the 43 home. This plant is heavy.

You can see that all of this was perhaps ill advised.

So at first I tried to keep it between my feet in a vain attempt to keep everything level. But we had some sort of incident near where Lombard goes into the Presidio where the doors failed and so our driver stopped to basically shake them into working again and all that rattling was… not great.

So as you can see we had a little damage. No biggie- also as today was oddly sunny and I did not wear a hat, I could just smear some goo on my sunburnt nose.

So then I tried to give the plant it’s own seat. The bus wasn’t crowded so I was hardly taking room from a person. You can see how the plant is sort of budding new aloe all around it. It’s a wonderful plant. But of course near Parnassus we sort of jerked and…

Sorry for the blur- was underground at the time. Now the second causality wasn’t too bad, it was a sun damaged leaf I was going to trim off anyways. The reason for being underground was that I decided I had to transfer to a LRV at forest hill- the ride is smoother.

So you know, just riding the Muni metro with my buddy aloe. Probably not the weirdest thing any of my fellow riders had seen that day.

Anyways the worst was walking from the stop to home- potted plants in terracotta are heavy!

But look at him! Honestly buddy aloe was worth it. Just look at him! Of course now there’s some issues as to placement as I want to keep those leaves green and not sunburnt like my nose. But that’s tomorrow’s problem, as I am tired.

And not too badly red thanks to the aloe goo I put on my nose.

Buddy aloe comes through for me.