Sunday news (revisited)
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
I neglected to mention that Someone did an interview with a Channel 46 reporter, discussing the smart recycling of the Dogwood Festival….
Musings
Floral drama
Monday, 19 April 2010
For complicated reasons, we transplanted a couple of the tomatoes (Rutgers) we planted the other day. I was very happy to see that the roots were already shooting out sideways. Excellent!
We now have yellow/gold globe tomato plants—never found any of the pear tomatoes we loved last year. Wonder what the new crop will be like. Yeah, yeah, I’ll wait and see….
Dogwood festival excitement
Sunday, 18 April 2010
We strolled the Dogwood Festival about mid-day, which was before it got really crowded, although we mingled with LOTS of people. This corner was relatively depopulated because the crowd was off to the left watching and listening to music.
Meteorologists in this town are currently using the word “comfy” in heavy rotation, as if it has some specific weather meaning.
I’d say the weather was about perfect today…and that’s better than comfy!
Music education
Saturday, 17 April 2010
Electronics sure gather dust without even trying; this mini is from a clean house (not mine)….
Today, I learned there’s a genre of music called dream pop. It has a subgenre called shoegazing (heavy on guitar effects with distortion, WikiPee says…). I discovered this tidbit while listening to “Sound Opinions” on NPR. They interviewed a duo called Beach House. If I’d known of them by name, I would have checked them out on that basis (or I’d like to think so)—that’s a resonant title for me….
Flavoring your Friday
Friday, 16 April 2010
My Friday is basil flavored. Well, the eye candy part.
The dinner menu doesn’t include basil. Bison-burgers (JCB’s with cheddar) without basil. Or a bun. But with oven fries and a big sah-lahd….
Perhaps later in the week, we can pare back the basil a tad, maybe make a bit of pesto. After all, the insects are already sampling it!
Micro-evaluations
Thursday, 15 April 2010
This household needs an executive assistant—part-time, at least. Would help if s/he did windows,* too! (the glass ones, not the MS kind…).
* The only time I ever volunteered to do windows was on a small sailboat with about two square feet of them…. As it ended up, I never did the windows, but I did get sea legs(? wobbly, anyway) when I disembarked! The first-and-only time—of course, it still is the only time I stayed on a small vessel overnight—and geeze, was that weird!
Tidbits and the h-word
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
We were supposed to spend today driving to the central time zone, to attend the SAAs in St. Louis, until we changed our minds about 2.2 days back. Mostly we were looking forward to visiting with friends…. I detest those hotel meeting room chairs—they’re hideously uncomfortable after about 20 minutes, and I was facing all day, as in from 8 am to 10 pm (minus food breaks) in one on Thursday. The presentations would have been interesting (some of them, anyway), but the endurance-contest part would have been taxing. Still, the people part is uplifting. Have fun, those of you in Missouri!
On the natural history front: another dramatic earthquake—and, remember, the tremors continue in the SoCal area. The new one in China, as I understand it, has a geological relationship to the big one they had in 2008, almost two years ago. I had been thinking the Pacific Rim has been experiencing the shaking, but this one is quite a ways from the Rim of Fahr (Southern pronunciation). I will stay tuned for the next one, and for the laymen discussions of the patterns by the geologists….
In household news, we got the Prius back from the body shop yesterday, and my heart filled when I saw it in the driveway this morning. Cars are mostly just machines to me, but that one I have a soft spot for!
On to the blog entry I drafted this morning….
Let’s be frank. Calm frankness is okay. (Don’t drop the PC card on me!)
So, let’s be frank.
Ms. Palin (T-party, AK) rails against public money on health care. Except for her aging parents (I’m guessing)—love that Medic-air/aid, whatever. And for her youngest child. Remember, that kid is on the dole—okay, I don’t KNOW that, but I’m guessing. Special programs. Subsidized by people from far away, who may actually outright pay for them. People from a long way from AK (pronounced ack). Be assured that I don’t begrudge this, I am merely noting it (frankness again). All too often, special needs, in this country, means special demands on the taxpayer.
So, she rails against the Prez’s/Congress’s new plan. The rest can stand. She can see how those near and dear to her benefit from those public plans.
And, this Woman of The People has high standards for herself. If you hire her to give a speech, you will, too. The CSU Stanislaus Foundation at the California State University Stanislaus used wiggle room to contract with Ms. Palin to speak there at a $500 per plate fund-raising dinner, according to the SF Chronicle. Notes a NYTimes blogger:
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the documents do not specifically identify the “speaker” as Ms. Palin, but the contract included specifics on travel arrangements from Anchorage. The documents state that the speaker must fly first class from Anchorage to California if she flies commercial. If not, “the private aircraft MUST BE a Lear 60 or larger …” The Associated Press reported. Other perks include a suite and two single rooms at a luxury hotel near the campus. The contract, however, does not specify how much the speaker will be paid for her services.
And the NYT blogger also notes: She-Who-Has-Been-Played-On-TV-By-Tina-Fey must have “water bottles with “bendable straws.”” No tea for her!
The h-word looms large.
Look at things differently
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
I canted the camera skyward to get this view of (I’m pretty sure) a columbine (Aquilegia spp.). So, that out-of-focus object in the upper right is an eave/soffit. I didn’t even notice the insect until I looked at the picture (not at all uncommon for me). A type of lacewing (Chrysopidae family)? Aha, and there’s a second insect…maybe more…maybe I’m better off just looking down at these flowers….
Early Girl
Monday, 12 April 2010
Sometimes I shouldn’t check Wiki-Pee. I was excited to report that this fine specimen of Early Girl tomato has settled in well. Since its specialty is the short growing season, meaning we should have tomatoes off it sooner than the Rutgers I grouped nearby, I was stoked to add it to the assortment. I thought of it as related to Burpee’s famous Big Boy and Better Boy tomatoes.
Now, I check that famous online group memory and, pfft, the air goes out of me when I read that Early Girl is a Monsanto product—since 2005, anyway. While we’re at it, the cultivar “is a medium globe type F1 hybrid”. And, a nice bonus, and more related to why I found it on the garden shop shelf: it’s “reliable and prolific.”
Sidenote: the “F1 hybrid” modifier means that it is a first-generation cross. I think. And, BTW, don’t confuse variety and cultivar. They’re both lower in the botanical hierarchy than species, but differ. But you have to be deeply into taxonomy to sort it all out, as near as I can tell.
Anyway, sometimes it’s better to avoid the reality recorded in Wiki-Pee. I think.
Milestone day
Sunday, 11 April 2010
For a couple of years we’ve missed the rhodo down in a corner of the front yard (front garden in Britain). We finally got a new plant for the empty spot. The blooms are supposed to be purple (not a color from the wild, I suspect). I think, if our new specimen settles in nicely, we shall see if that is true this year….