The world is comming to an end. I know that lots of people have been saying so for a long time, now, what with all these wars, disease, earthquakes and Democrats taking over the Congress....but yesterday I saw something that convinced me. It was an Abomination. It convinced me that the forces of evil have a true toe hold upon the earth.

It was a live poinsettia with cobalt blue glittering flowers. Yes, ladies and gentleman, it had been painted with glitter paint, and was an even worse color than those plastic fake ones. I wish I'd had my camera, because, truly, words fail me in trying to tell you about this thing. But you can see for yourself at Homestead Gardens located in Davidsonville, Maryland ( though I couldn't find a picture of the glittering horrors on their web site)....

Until yesterday, I never thought of that place as a hatchery of evil. After all, it's only a garden center, albiet a big one with airs and pretensions such as a gourmet coffee bar and jazz musicians stuffed in among the garden hoses. They have pretty good plants, some llamas, a helpful staff and plenty of Stuff that's fun to look at even if you can't imagine what you'd do with it and it's too expensive anyway.

My in-laws, whose home is nearby the place, told me that this is the second year for the gilded, unlikely freaks of nature. They chuckled at me - after all, they are sophisticated long term residents of the DC suburbs who get the Washington Post, which they said, carried an article on the monster flowers last year.

Look, I realize that I'm supposed to be a liberal and all. Almost all the time I feel if people want to do something that I may find tasteless, tacky, or just plain weird, as long as nobody gets hurt and everybody involved is an informed adult, well, they have their rights. But this! There's just something so fundementally wrong with real, live Christmas flowers, full of whatever spirit of life fills plants, in pots with otherwise perfectly normal looking leaves and stems suddenly appearing in crayola colors with enough glitter to stop a 4-year-old fairy-princess-wanna-be in her tracks.

This is where I feel I have to make a stand! This is wrong, wrong, wrong. Flowers to not need BLING! They're flowers! They are the standard that all that is beautiful in the world strives to live up to. Turning them into knock off's of the kind of frightening plastic flowers that line the back wall at Wal-Mart is worse than a crime - it's a sin!

Anyway, that's my soap box for this morning. I'm trying to mobilize my base - all five people who read this blog plus my mom! Steer clear of mutant poinsettias! Protect ponsettia's rights to be white or red or red and white or whatever they are. I don't care how much selective breeding you do, there is nothing to make them glitter! Send them back to The Island of Dr. Moreau! Or, better yet, back to the garden hose department to get a bath.

Because, jeepers, they were really ugly!