Welcome to Gaia! ::

((Only Songjewel and Japi may post here))

The door to Songjewel's office was wide open, and a warm light shone from the closed blinds behind her cherry desk. She crossed to the chair behind the desk and beckoned toward the two seats she was facing.

"Please, have a seat."

Her desk looked like it had been recently tidied, while a hint of hastily-stacked papers peeked out from the edges of drawers. On her desk sat one plain manilla folder and a pocket-sized leatherbound book.

Song sat down and smiled warmly at Japi.

"Alright, it IS Japi, correct?" she asked. "I believe you are the first new parent chosen in awhile. Would you mind telling me why you want to adopt a plant? Most people would rather have an animal that they can interact with."

Songjewel nodded knowingly. "Ahh, I see," she said, even though she really didn't. "Well at least you'll have plenty of time to take care of your new plant."

She leaned forward and pushed the file folder toward Japi. "Here is the file for your new plant. It's a catnip plant, and I'll be showing you where it is in a little while...it's in a pretty delicate part of the Arboretum, so you'll want to be careful when you walk around out there. Right now, I'd like you to take a look through the information and let me know if you have any questions."

Inside the folder was a photo of the plant, paper-clipped to the front. Opposite it was a fact-sheet, including care instructions, for the plant.

"Uhm..." Song contemplated quietly for a moment. "I suppose that depends on how the cat plays with it...cats are fond of eating catnip, so I suppose that wouldn't be very good for it. However, losing a leaf or two isn't going to hurt the plant. They're very resilient. And catnip grows very fast, so you could even prune it to get it realy bushy and let a cat play with the stuff you clipped off.

"I would just be careful with it...keep an eye on the plant, if it looks like it needs anything then attend to it. You can do lots of things to help it grow; they should be listed in that file."

((By the way, building the file is your own responsibility. You can do some research to find out what catnip likes if you wish.))

Cringing, Song tried to explain why that would be a bad idea. "Well, the purpose of this program is threefold. One is to educate the general public about the value of plants, and another is to get the plants here taken care of. We also want to encourage people to regularly visit the arboretum, so we have 'parents' who come here to take care of their adopted plants. Your plant is actually rooted in the Quad, so it would be extremely traumatic for you to take it home with you...you would have to dig it up, which would break lots of roots."

"Right away if you'd like," Song grinned. "If you can wait in the waiting room for a moment while I check with Natasha, we can go visit your plant shortly.

Rolling her chair back from the desk, Song caught up the leatherbound book as she stood. "Now, this is a journal. You don't HAVE to use it...but I'd strongly encourage you to write down any thoughts you have in here. It's yours for as long as you're taking care of Catnip."

She handed Japi the book, which had empty lined pages inside.

"You can put anything you want in there...drawings, pictures, whatever. Sound good?"

((Closed.))