life with talking trees

Ah, that may be a localised thing. Here in Australia, it was always used to refer to someone with cerebral palsy, because they have varying degrees of spasticity in their muscles. So we had the Spastic Society etc, and so using it as an insult is pretty rude here. (Especially since ignorant people use it as a synonym for stupid/idiot, even though most ppl with cerebral palsy don't have an intellectual impairment, or if they do it's separate from their CP.