I’m out of lemons. I told Fuzzy this as we were en route to the Kinko’s in Arlington, but he didn’t grasp the impact of my announcement. In fact, he still doesn’t really understand why this is a major Thing and not just a fact.

It’s not just that I had to use a tangerine on the Dover sole, tonight (which wasn’t quite the flavor I was going for, but was still tasty), it’s that without lemons, I can’t drink water. I’m bad about drinking water, but an unofficial resolution was to be healthier this year, and water is a key component of my twelve-month plan. Except that I hate it, and it always feels like I’m really drinking lead.

Then, last weekend, I realized that if I pop a slice of lemon in the bottom of one of my pretty bottle-green tumblers (each of which holds 12 ounces of water), and keep refilling the glass, refreshing the lemon every so often, I’m able to drink water all day long – without the lead feeling.

And now we’re out of lemons.

Which, while bad enough, is compounded by the fact that I left my Meyer lemon tree in California, when we moved. (In my own defense, it wouldn’t fit in the car, and a month in storage would have killed it.) And I miss having the delicate scent of lemon blossoms waft up at me whenever I step out the back door, just as I miss the convenience of picking a lemon whenever I want.

I spent some time doing research today, finally figuring out that the DFW region is in USDA’s zone 8, and that lemons and limes can, in fact, be grown here, as long as they’re either protected or brought inside when it gets below freezing.

So now, I’m looking at pictures of lemons, in bowls, on trees, intact, sliced, alone, mixed with other citrus…

I’m having lemon lust.

Note: image from iStockPhoto

Onesome: The next- What would be your idea for the next great reality tv show?
Before this month, I’d have said, “Queer Eye” for women, but that exists now. I’d love to see something like “Runway” done with writing, but there’s not much that’s visual about a bunch of people stringing words together. Maybe a behind-the-scenes at a magazine?

Twosome: American- What do you think of as typically American? Mom and apple pie? Afternoons at the ballpark watching baseball?
Lime green polyesther. Seriously, aside from our serious knack for conspicuous consumerism, I’m not sure what qualifies as quintessentially American. Jazz and coffee houses, I guess.

Threesome: Idol- Who’s the one person you admire the most and why?
This changes on a daily basis, but the list generally includes: My mother (really, there’s more to her than the Hurricane Susan persona I complain about), K&L in San Francisco, Liz, my aunt P.

I heard this poem read by Martin Sheen, on a re-run of Inside the Actor’s Studio, and fell in love with it.

Where the mind is without fear and the head held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

The poet, Rabindranath Tagore is a Nobel laureate (literature, 1913), and composed the anthem of independent India, among other writings.