Soleded Gutenberg is Dead. She was a Chia Pet.

Soledad Gutenberg is dead.

She was a Chia Pet.

Yes, I named my Chia Pet 'Soledad Gutenberg.

The reasoning for this lies within my own warped sense of humor when my my German friend who married a Mexican gave me the 'Hello Kitty Chia' as a silly but endearing birthday gift. Her married name is now Franziska Fuentes. The German-Mexican melding of language has such a lovely ring to it. It rolls off your tongue. Franzzzziiska Fuuuuuuentes. Lovely. I thought I would give the Chia a Mexican-German name as an ironic salute and thank you to Fran. And so "Soledad Gutenberg" was born.


If Soledad was a human she would have kicked some major ass. That's an ass-kicking name.

 Anyway, she's dead now.

I threw her out today.

But she was a fighter, I tell you.

The first attempt to grow Sole (pronounced "Sole-ay" as I nicknamed her) was met with marginal success. She did alright, but she was spotty and bald in most places, as only limited chia sprout had occurred. After a few weeks, I tried again with the leftover chia seeds. You keep some in reserve, you know, I learned that from the last time I grew Chia Pets. Don't use all the seeds at once! Aside from the fact that you're not meant to use all the seeds in the application anyway, what if you want them for later when and if you decide to have another go at Chia-ing?

So I had the seeds (lesson learned) and I tried to grow her again. This attempt was better. I had paid more attention to the areas that I had missed the first time, I made sure the seeds settled into the grooves as they were supposed to, I took extra care to water her every day, to make sure she wasn't thirsty, I did for Sole what I could do. But in the end, she still had some bald spots. She was fuller and brighter than the first attempt....... but it is hard to grow a Hello-Kitty Chia Pet.

CHIA PETS ARE NOT EASY.

The thing about a Chia Pet is that it has a shelf-life. You know from the get-go that it's not supposed to last forever. You have all that fun getting it ready to go, watch in excitement as it blooms and grows, you look beyond the areas that don't grow in, and you secretly hope that your Chia Pet might last forever, but...

Chia Pets only last about 4 weeks.

You can try to keep them going for longer, you can keep watering and fussing and adjusting, but when something isn't meant to last past a certain point, it can't survive even with the extra effort. You see, what happens is the Chia starts to wilt. It even grows a white sporey looking moldy/fungus thing on its body. It's pretty gross. The Chia is still partially green, but the damage is done. The spores have infected the whole thing. The Chia is essentially dead.

I continued caring for Soledad, denying that she was actually on her way out, I kept her around, kept watering her, kept fussing. But in the end, there was nothing I could do.

Soledad's time was up.

She looked at me, I looked at her. We saw the spores. And we knew it was time. We said our goodbyes and then I threw her in the bin.

Farewell, fine Soledad Gutenberg! You were a feisty little critter, a kooky combination from two different worlds.  You were a blast while you lasted. Fond memories abound.