Mallory's Camera

Dreamed the Little Store was reopening!!!!!

And I was thrilled. Except that Ben had already begun selling stuff out of the shop, and the shop was not yet set up for selling stuff, no functioning point-of-sales system, no bubblewrap, no bespoke Slow Burn bags. There was inventory, though—hot sauce and the most cunning miniatures you can imagine, shelves & shelves of them.

Ben had special-ordered a bottle of Marie Sharp's carrot habanero hot sauce (in my never-humble opinion, the finest hot sauce in the world) for an Asian woman, and she was standing there patiently waiting for the order to be processed—except I couldn't process it because no POS system! And I was running around getting more & more hysterical and madder & madder at Ben—how could you put me in this situation??? Throughout my hysteria, the Asian woman remained very calm—and this only made me more hysterical because I kept wondering, What secret judgment is she passing on me???

Part of the dream was our homelife—RTT as a nine- or ten-year-old to whom I kept trying to explain, We can't afford to do this, not yet. But maybe after the Little Store officially reopens...

And on the very top floor of our apartment building lived a painter-cum-magician who had gifted us with multiple fish tanks in which lived the most magical fish! In particular, I remember the elephant fish—they had perfect tiny trunks & pillar-like legs and gills behind their large floppy ears...

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In other Ben-related news...

The peace lily I took from Ben's apartment after he died (can it really be...?) six years ago appears to be dying itself.

Peace lilies are supposed to be really easy to grow. I have never found them so. They look the same whether you are overwatering or underwatering them: Their leaves develop big brown spots.

Anyway, this particular plant has never done well under my care, and, of course, I fantasized that when Ben's soul fled his body, it took up occupancy in the peace lily, so in essence, I have spent the last six years slowly murdering my feckless X.

It is down to its last four green unspotted leaves now. Should I try to replant it into a smaller pot? Or should I just let it die? Decisions, decisions!