It is geranium city in the dining room. Geraniums and other little filler plants. They are sitting there waiting for for me to engineer this watering, preparing and delivering pre-Memorial Day week. I may put them in the garage and make certain I keep the door down because I don’t want a raccoon getting interested; that happened two years ago on Mother’s back porch.

Counter space is limited in the kitchen and with the number of people here who actually expect to use that room for food purposes, it would be difficult to do a sink to counter to sink to counter rotation. Then there is the dirt – that which will be removed when I stick in a couple of fillers or transfer stuff to different pots completely.

Five pots. Five. I told someone in the nursery that being the youngest was pretty good when I was younger and pampered; now, it is just me and five pots.

So, I got a shallow combination pot for Mother because she is at Sturgis and I can get up there to keep track of it. For one thing, Sturgis’ fast food places are closest to the Scott house and about six blocks from the cemetery. That works with grandkids when you’ve dragooned them for rural work.

My Grandpa Shimp is buried in the same group of plots as Mother, but has a big stone urn so I will be doing that arrangement in situ: a couple of nice geraniums, a spike, trailing ivy – maybe a bit of asparagus fern.

Still I have to go to Kingman on Wednesday, coming back on Thursday with my dad’s flowers. I’ll be combining plants from a couple or three pots into one special one.  And Miss Alice, I can’t forget her geranium  to sit above her ashes in front of Daddy’s grave.

Now that leaves me with putting a spike and ivy in a pot of geraniums – some of which I will have removed  – for Grandma’s grave. Geraniums and fillers for  Auntie, who was the nicest person.

My uncle’s grave is supposed to have a perpetual care program, but I’m thinking that went by the wayside and so I’ll put flowers there. He was in high school when Mother was born and he’d come home and say, “Here, let me take her” and he gave her a whole dollar during the Depression to spend at Corn School.

But Der Bingle is coming Thursday night and I’ll be getting back from Kingman and rushing around cemeteries Friday morning doesn’t seem wise. Saturday is kind of last minute . . .

So I guess I’ll go to White Pigeon and Sturgis on Tuesday afternoon. But first I have to do the transplanting thing. And, oh yeah, I’ll need to wear nice clothes and a saucy hat – can’t have Grandma and Mother thinking I’m letting the team down.

Then maybe on Saturday we can drive through those two cemeteries and see that every thing is okay. And then grab a burrito at Taco Bell.