My roots are not hermetically sealed in this bag, they have access to gas exchange with the cabin air. My roots are thus exposed in this transparent bag, naked to the universe. Embarrassed, it took me a few days to get over the idea that anyone can see my roots without any dirt covering them.
My gardener fusses with my leaves. I am not sure if I like that. I now have four and I do not quite understand why he behaves this way. He sticks his nose up against them. Does he take me for some sort of a handkerchief? Apparently he takes pleasure in my earthy green smell. There is nothing like the smell of living green in this forest of engineered machinery. I see the resultant smile. Maybe this is one of my roles as a crewmember on this expedition.
I have a call sign. I guess a call sign is a fighter pilot thing and was surprised that I could earn such a title. At first someone suggested “Four-Leaf”. I was a bit embarrassed when I heard this since I still only sport four leaves and feel a bit sensitive to this fact. My gardener intervened and said that would not do. He gave me my call sign – “Rose”.
My gardener made special arrangements for a two way video conference with a special Earth-flower. When all the arrangements had been made, he took me from my window and placed me center stage in front of the video camera. She was a very attractive flower all neatly dressed. He said to her, “I can not offer you much; I can only give you a space zucchini.” The image of my orange blossom was beamed across the void between spacecraft and Earth. Her heart melted. I felt as much a rose as any rose could ever be.
I don’t even know. It’s from a book about languages my friend’s been reading. (it’s creepy that I can understand it …)
It was actually invented with that purpose: anyone who spoke any European language should be able to understand esperanto. It was meant to be a lingua franca.
STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING Y’ALL AND TELL ME IF YOU UNDERSTAND THIS
I,understand about a half of it, I speak some dutch
“What Happened? Did your computer catch a virus? Did you suddenly develop BSE [mad cow disease]?”
Between German, English, Latin, a bit of French, Dutch, Spanish and Italian that was actually pretty readable to me.
I speak English and a very little spanish, and I can read it.