Posted by Ubi Dubium in Wow.
I don’t often write about gardening. The reason is simple, I have a very small yard, and most of it is shaded, so growing anything besides shade plants is very difficult. So I don’t really have much to write about.
Well, I adopted the plant, and planted it in a bed in my backyard. This yard has a tall fence on on side, and the neighbor’s huge shade tree on the other, and gets almost no sunshine at all. The daylily didn’t die, but it didn’t bloom either. It multiplied like crazy, sending off lots of shoots, and after several years I had a flower bed full of fairly sickly greenery, but still no flowers.
Then a neighbor cut down their tree in the front yard and that gave me one new sunny spot in the front yard where I could plant something. So I moved a clump of the daylilies there, and waited. I was hoping for something more interesting than the typical plain orange or yellow flowers. For the whole first year they grew happily, with tons of lush greenery and lots of new shoots. And still no flowers.
Wow! The flowers are orange with a lovely red and yellow center, and they are not just double flowers, they’re triple. Time to go look up what this is. I found two possible names “Kwanso” and “Flore Pleno” for this variety. Sometimes I found the names used interchangeably, but other websites were specific that Kwanso has double flowers and Flore Pleno has triple. So I have Flore Pleno daylilies, and I’m very pleased. Wikipedia says that this variety is genetically triploid, which is cool, but also means that it is unlikely to set seed. Which is fine, these things spread like crazy anyway.
So thanks to my neighbor for the gift of these amazing flowers, even if it took years of waiting. Totally worth it.
Posted by Ubi Dubium in Events, Wow.
Wow! Look at the color, and how few craters there are, and it even has a heart!
Then instead of saying “Pluto has a heart!” We’d be saying “Pluto is mooning us!” Which is probably a good reason for NASA to have the photo orientation the way they do.
Not a spectacular statue. A smallish Funerary Altar, where someone could make offerings on behalf of the deceased.
What struck me first was the carved relief. Not a powerful statesman, or a noblewoman with elaborately styled hair. No, this is a small boy. A pudgy little boy with funny ears that stick out, and he’s playing with his dog. I had to stop and look more.
I had four years of high school Latin, and still remember enough that I didn’t need to read the guide on the pedestal to translate this. To the spirit of Anthus. L. Julius Gamus, Father. Sweetest Son.
Oh, man. I just stood there for a few minutes because this hit me so hard. Then I moved on, but stopped and went back again. No political statement here, just the grief of a parent who lost a beloved child. I was connecting emotionally to an unknown parent who lived a couple thousand years ago. Someone who wanted to preserve an image of his son just the way he remembered him. And now I can remember him too.
Later that day I spent some time in the galleries of the Old Masters. And here is Vermeer, making an ordinary moment into something luminous and amazing.
I realized then that I was the only person in that room of the gallery. Vermeer painted this over 400 years ago, and for a brief moment I was the only person in the whole world looking at this painting. Across time, one human connecting to another human. Something so simple, but so much more meaningful than all the religious claptrap I have ever sat through. Wow.
Sometimes I get discouraged, reading all those great bloggers out there and seeing all their accomplishments, advanced degrees, and professional experience, and I don’t have any of that. I don’t teach science to kids, I haven’t made a great discovery, I’m not an experienced speaker, sometimes my life seems pretty ho-hum.
But last night I made this, and it came out perfectly, and I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself right now.
It sliced well too, and we served it with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. Needless to say, it’s gone now.
A few months ago I had an opportunity to spend a long weekend participating in musical events with composer Morten Lauridsen.
Yes, I know that Festivus is supposed to be for Airing of Grievances and Feats of Strength. But this song has been refusing to get out of my head for the past several days, so I’m going to Share Some Happy for Festivus instead.