Would It Please Stop Storming?!?!

                                        

This weather is crazy!! We were awakened at 1:30 by an amazingly loud, nasty, brilliantly evil thunderstorm. A real record smasher!

I am hoping everyone made it through that storm unmolested; I worried about middle-of-the-night tornadoes. Late afternoon tornado was bad enough... I seriously don't want trees crashing and roofs leaking at midnight and beyond. (Not that I want to see damage.)

                                             

And it's doing it again!! The sky is crackling and heaving and there are ginormous puddles in our usually well-drained yard. I am sick of opening the windows to get some air in the house and then running around slamming them all shut because torrents of rain are washing our floor. (Well, it does need washing!)

                                    

 And tomorrow, we're expecting Tropical Storm Elsa to pay a wet and windy visit. Heavens help us!

My Cousin Johnny

 

 I have only done this once before: written what I guess is a eulogy. That was for Mommy. (I still miss her!) This time around, I am compelled to memorialize my cousin Johnny who played a bigger part in my childhood than anyone will ever know.

Johnny was two years older than me which- when we were kids- afforded him a sense of wisdom and gravitas. He got me to do and believe all sorts of pretty crazy stuff because of this age advantage. Like the time he paid me a dollar (in pennies) if I would eat an entire raw onion. (I did it.) 

We lived in New Haven while our parents built their house on property contiguous to my grandmother (Gramma) and my aunts and uncles. Every weekend, we would drive to Durham so that Mommy and Daddy could work on the house. I would immediately run across the field to see Johnny. We spent most of our time roving the woods, building forts and bridges and somehow not injuring ourselves too badly. Our toys consisted mainly of tools: saws and hatchets and other sharp implements stolen from our parents tool boxes: real child-safe approved stuff.(*1) Also frequently starring in our escapades was Johnny's bee bee gun. (Oh boy did I want one!) We shot at all sorts of things, most often missing but sometimes hitting one another. I still recall the day I limped home with several round holes in my knee, trusting that Mommy wouldn't ask too closely what had happened.

Johnny and I founded The Kongatowa Club. (*2)It was named for a large stream flowing through the property that abutted our family's woods; I don't know that it had an "official" name but we christened it The Kongatowa River. It afforded passage to vast tracts of swamp and forest, which in turn led to a dirt road that approached The Pig Man's Farm. We often dared each other to climb the rise that hid the (literal) Pig Farm from view. The smell was frequently overwhelming but it was thrilling to catch a glimpse of the hidden farm or even get chased away by the farmer. We in The Kongatowa Club lived dangerously.

After these exhilarating and exhausting excursions (*3), we'd repair to Gramma's house- nicknamed The Tea House- for a cup of milky tea, graciously provided by Gramma. The mismatched teacups themselves provided entertainment: who would get the cup adorned by a pheasant (referred to as the "Fozzent" cup), or The Daniel Boone mug? There were also Gramma's mysterious Cabinet of Rocks to admire and a strange wooden dachshund painted green... all sorts of oddities. Johnny, Cathy and I spent hours visiting Gramma, who enjoyed our company until we resorted to one of our favorite pass times. This consisted of spitting (often some of that milky tea) into the large furnace grate that covered part of her living room floor. A satisfying sizzling noise arose from the unseen depths of the basement and satisfying words of surprise and anger erupted from Gramma. (*4) 

These are the things I remember about Johnny and our childhood escapades. I didn't see Johnny, or his wonderful wife Chris, much in adulthood, but I know he was happy making music and traveling to Block Island and Jamestown and working on his house, which I recall having been transformed into a playful space with nooks and crannies and cats. The last time I saw Johnny was at Mommy's funeral and gathering. He seemed well and it was nice to catch up. The last time I talked to Johnny was last year. In COVID time, he had been admitted to the hospital with a recurrence of cancer. (*5) When he returned home, I called him, hoping he'd sound okay. He was weak and tired and realistic about what was happening.

Johnny died this last week. I think his death caused me to reflect on the fragility of our lives and on how much time has passed since our childhoods. I hope that Johnny has crossed The Kongatowa River and is enjoying a milky cup of tea with Gramma at The Tea House.

(*1) I am not sure whether our parents ever knew exactly where all these tools had vanished to. Mommy and Daddy probably blamed each other for having carelessly misplaced them. It is possible they thought we were angels who would never do dangerous stuff like steal and lie.. hahahahaaha!!

(*2) My younger sister Cathy was a sometimes/partial member of this organization. She was occasionally allowed to accompany us on our adventures into the outback, but I am sorry to confess that one of the reasons for The Kongatowa Club was to keep it exclusive. Johnny and I therefore spent time and effort thinking up impossible tasks for Cathy to perform in order to achieve full membership. (Nice, huh?) More than once, we left Cathy to chop through a fallen tree with an extremely dull saw. We'd go off on exciting excursions and return an hour later to find my poor sister diligently hewing away. Kids are so cruel! I cringe now to consider this but at the time it felt great!

(*3) How's that for alliteration?!? 

(*4) Let's face it: half the fun of being a kid is irritating adults and pushing limits!

(*5) Do I need to say it? Fuck cancer.

The "Famous" Blue Garden

 

 

If I do say so myself, The Blue Garden (or "The Booze Garden" lovingly dubbed thusly because of all those delightful blue beer and wine bottles) is really looking good this year. When I am feeling overwhelmed by the amount of planting/edging/weeding/maintenance that the totality of our horticultural empire requires, I visit The Blue Garden and feel at peace. It's filled in, it has texture and color (blue) and flowers and foliage and it looks pretty great!

It's hard to convey just how blue things really are. There's tall Delphinium (here in the center but hard to see!) that are the same light blue as the sky (guess that's why this cultivar is named "Summer Skies".) and a nifty blue bird's nest spruce that looks spectacular this year (thank you Beatrice and John! a birthday gift a few years back) and my Blue Atlas Cedar- nicknamed "The Etch-A-Sketch Tree" as it's very narrow...

 

That's a detail of the Bird's Nest. And you can sorta see the truly brilliant blue of the Veronica directly above it (if you squint!) Blue is a notoriously hard color to photograph as it's recessive and tends to disappear... don't I know!

Slightly (?) better photo of the "Summer Skies" Delphinium and  the Blue Atlas Cedar (It's the ratty looking thing just to the left of the bushy Chamaecyparis in the center. I LIKE those spindly odd-ball trees!!) And of course, blue bottles in buckets and on stalks and edging the walkway...

And yes, that's the lovely Robin the Good photobombing on the mosaic walk way! She's very reticent about letting me actually photograph her; I'm lucky I got her tail end! (But she's never far away.)

Ooops! I shot this picture before I mulched the Agave with white quartz rocks; it looks even more dramatic now! But this sucker is mighty impressive! I had to wear leather gloves when I transferred it from the container I purchased him to this metal urn. Did I mention that I like spindly, spiky plants? I guess I also like chunky, spiky plants! And it really is a great metallic blue. 

I know in past years of posting, I have featured The Blue Garden but it really has matured. And I do keep having fun seeking out those elusive blue flowers. Still to come are Heavenly Blue Morning Glories and hopefully, some Bachelor's Buttons. Somehow I lost the seeds for my Forget-Me-Nots (Cynoglossum "firmament"): not sure if I threw them away or some crazy bird stole the packet but poof! they were gone!

In Which I Admit to an Art Error!

 

See? You can barely read that! That was a big problem and my first "mistake". The colors and textures were fine, but the text disappeared into the surrounding fabric... and this is after I pain-stakingly double stitched it onto the larger piece.

So I pain-stakingly undid all those double stitches and mounted it on a darker piece of nifty, pseudo- marbelized fabric and laboriously re-stitched it back onto the larger piece (which reads, by the way, "Uh Oh... Kleptocracy".)

See how effective this addition of an under color was? See how the text pops and you can easily read it? See how I made a big mistake? No, I didn't see it either until I hung the entire panel on my wall and... holy cow?!!! How could I have not seen that? I reversed "uh" and "oh" and came up with a piece of gibberish. Second mistake! (*1)

So I (for the millionth time) pain-stakingly unstitched the words, replaced to top layer as the edges were now seriously fraying, and re-sewed it on. Looks great now!

Here's the entire, correctly spelled piece: 

 Not sure why this piece seems to want to photograph really darkly... could be all we've had is dark, rainy days for what seems like weeks! And this piece looks tiny but it's actually quite large; probably six feet tall and eight wide. I'm still working on hemming all the edges- which is a cinch as the material is thin and silky. (Not like the other piece I'm working on which is like three layers of pseudo ostrich leather and forces me to punch holes in my poor bloody fingers every three seconds!!!) Interestingly, this piece also weighs a ton as there's beading on top of all that fabric. And hidden underneath is a section of ugly old table cloth, acting as an unseen support as the thin silky, Versace-inspired background fabric is very thin and would never support all the work on top. My work is starting to require structural support...

I guess the upside of the chilly rainy weather is that it drove me back inside and got me to finish up several in -process works. A couple of (fully vaccinated) friends have visited and it's refreshing to be able to admit them to my studio and show off what I've been up to Lo! these many quarantined months. Enough work for a good sized show...

 

(*1) And we all remember a previous art mistake. I was beading images of my credit cards and accidentally omitted the "P" in "American Express". But that one turned out happily, and the mistake remained and made the piece unimaginably more charming. Wish I could find that image to demonstrate but it's on a flash drive somewhere...

Good to See Friends!

 

One obvious definite positive about having been vaccinated is being able to safely visit with friends. (*1) Bob and I- and I'm supposing most people- are suddenly enjoying the company of OTHER PEOPLE! On Monday, I delivered over-due birthday gifts to my sister and her partner (Hello Beatrice! Hello John!) and enjoyed a delightful luncheon on their back deck. I had not seen them in an entire year... you don't what you're missing until you realize an entire year has passed. Talking on the phone is certainly no substitute to in-person visiting. Thank goodness for Moderna! Pfizer! Even Johnson & Johnson!

And last night we entertained two other couples. It was almost overwhelming. I was tired anyway from not having well slept for two nights, and then seeing four other people in chairs! In our garden! On our terrace! I was shaking and twitching by 9:00 and slept the sleep of the overstimulated but very happy last night. We have more friends lined up in the coming weeks.... making up for lost time!

We've been lucky: Bob and I have weathered the pandemic and quarantine in fine form. We haven't run out of things to talk about yet! But it's nice to cross-pollinate with other people. I know we're all eager to create a new normal. We're still being vigilant about variants but seeing friends across the picnic table last night and allowing them inside (once the mosquitos and other unidentified flying offenders) descended was... weird! And good! 

(*1) All you anti-vaxxers out there consider this: you can safely visit with friends after what? Fourteen months?

That Time of Year!

 

In case you've been wondering where I've been (besides recovering from our unfortunate highway incident!) take a look at the following pictures; they explain a lot! And ol' Trusty the Accord may not be the biggest car in the world, but boy can I pack the plants into him! (*1)

That's just yesterday's haul above. Our good friend Bob the plant guru called and asked if I'd like to go shopping with him. YES! was my resounding answer. Off we went... visiting a total of six nurseries and garden centers, spread out over quite a state-wide are. This was doubly an interesting day because it was the first time since last fall that I'd even seen one of our friends in person, due to COVID. Now that we're all vaccinated, in-person visitation is possible... without masks! Up close! Yay!!! (*2)

Bob and I are such plant geeks that we play "stump the stars" and often confuse even the employees at nurseries with inquires about what that one unlabelled plant is. Yesterday was no exception. The owner of the first nursery we stopped at noticed us perusing his "unusual" plant corner. "I'll give you this plant for free", he crowed, "...if you can identify it!" Of course we did, as it proved to be a Mukdenia (a member of the saxifrage family). I got the freebie as Bob already had a Mukdenia in his collection.

Bob's car was so stuffed full of greenery by the fourth stop that we went by my car, parked in a commuter lot and off-loaded the first haul. Then on to more nurseries!!

Look at this giant agave! It's big and blue and spiky! Love those exotics!

And a charming assortment of individuals for our containers! there's Bacopa and Angelonia and Calibrachoa and Spilanthes! I get goose bumps thinking of all my new friends! Interestingly, there seems to be a pink component to my selections this year; my palette does shift a bit seasonally.

I also have these plants from my first solo trip out last week- a couple of great Coleus and even a tri-colored Plectranthus! 

And how could I forget to mention the seeds I started myself?

                                    

Yes, Nasturtiums and Zinnia... See? I have been busy and this isn't even counting the plants tat Bob gave to me or that my friend Elanah sent! So many plants, so little time!

(*1) And yes, Beatrice and John. I carefully cover Trusty's seats in plastic before attempting to stuff him full of horticultural delights.

(*2) But it was weird, too! I haven't been in any other person's car in so long... except for that ride in the police car!

Bob 'n' Rita's Awful Adventure

                                                     

Well, that's what we were supposed to be seeing last Tuesday at The New York Botanical Garden! The amazing and inspiring polka-dot vision of Yayoi Kusama. A "funny" thing happened on the way to the Botanic Garden...

And it was such a perfect day! Warm and sunny; we were cruising down Route 684 (with a load of Bob's now famous peony rings to be delivered to the Botanical Garden), merging onto the Hutchinson River Parkway when POW!!! there was a huge boom. Don't ask me how Bob carefully steered the truck onto the highway edge as he had little control. The only thing that really saved us from a huge pile up was that traffic had slowed to a crawl at the merge. We both thought "flat tire" but when I carefully crawled out of the passenger door and peered around all sides of the truck, no flat was to be seen. I called AAA.

(That's my jacket on the highway rail.) The cars are zooming past us at a million miles an hour, I'm trying to hear what AAA is telling me and I'm this close to having a major meltdown. All I can decipher is: 1.) Because of COVID, you can't ride with the tow truck operator in the cab so you'd better call an Uber or a Lyft 2.) I've been connected to the police (!?!?!) in Westchester and 3.) come to find out that the Hutch is a "private" road, owned by the State of New York and they don't allow just any old tow trucks on it. There is only one contracted tow company. (Mob connections anyone?)

So now we're waiting for a police person (*1) and a tow truck and wondering WTF we're going to do. The police man shows up and is perfectly nice and sympathetic. When I ask him if we're going to be abandoned at the side of this busy highway he says no, he'll give us a ride to a train station or the towing place or a car rental office. We opt for the car rental as I have no idea how to hail an Uber.

 After the tow truck driver arrives, he says we can have the truck pulled off the highway and "dropped" (like somewhere random at the side of some road) or taken to the tow place in New Rochelle. We've been assured that AAA reimburses us for this tow. Okay take it there, we'll have AAA pick it up and tow it to the garage we use in Connecticut. The police officer delivers us to the Enterprise car rental company-  it's my first ever ride in a police car! and he's driving at like a zillion miles and weaving in and out of traffic. We're all smooshed in the (very hard!) back seat and Bob points out there's no handles on the door; I guess so that we couldn't get out if we were criminals. We do get to the car rental and surprisingly, this goes without a hitch. They rent us a vehicle remarkably like our broken one: a red truck. (This encounter has a moment of levity when Bob and I prepare to drive home in said rental truck but we can't figure out how to operate it it. There's no shift lever. I go back into the rental office to explain that we're beyond old school, drive standard shifts and have (ahem) absolutely no idea how to get the car moving. (I'm sure they had a good laugh at our expense!)

Bob driving rental truck. We were afraid to touch anything as it was all computerized and foreign. I finally stopped shaking and drooling and yes, we made it home. Then began my several hour, truly Byzantine effort to get the damned truck back.

(This was affixed to the dashboard. Don't ask me why but I became fixated on reading it over and over and over again. I guess I was nervous enough to think maybe Clorox could wipe away our truck troubles! So I took a nonsense photo...)

 A funny detail is that we thought to call the Botanical Garden and offer that they could pick up the peony rings (which they really wanted/needed as they'd already been sold!) at the tow place in New Rochelle. They actually went and got them so at least that part of our mission was accomplished! (*2) 

Anyway, I call AAA and try (key word) to get them to say simply, "Yes, we'll tow your truck" but there's the small obstacle that we're here and the truck is there and there's the tow fee that needs to be paid. So I call Safeway Towing and the gentleman (who sounds like Tony Soprano) says, "We don't accept credit cards over the phone no more. It's gotta be paid in person in cash or a credit card." He says, "Make arrangements." We tried everything... why did I think that AAA would simply cover that $200 and I'd reimburse them with a credit card? Sounds simple? Nope. Their suggestion was that we drive back down to New Rochelle (!!??!?!!?!) and pay the fee. (*3) So I recall Safeway, talk to another (very nice) guy who tells me to find out which local garage is going to tow the truck and "make arrangements" with them. I finally did find out that C & C in New Rochelle would pick up the truck. But AAA didn't seem to "get" that the lovely woman at C & C had AGREED to front the $200 tow charge and we'd reimburse them here in Connecticut. (*4) This took several hours on the phone with the totally unhelpful AAA woman continuously insisting that she was NOT a supervisor and could never approve this. I repeatedly said that AAA was not even involved- except for scheduling the call to C & C and could I please talk to a supervisor?!??!!?!?!? 

Finally I got a more informed supervisor (Greg) who straightened everything all out in one quick phone call to C & C. Our truck was released and got a ride home to Southbury on the back of a truck. Bob met the driver at our garage, gave him the $200 and that was that!

We spent the evening admiring our own Botanical Garden, complete with flowering Magnolias and sculpture, courtesy of Bob. But we were spent! Drained! But yes! Glad to be home, safe and having- in an odd way- completed our initial mission. The truck is still awaiting repair. Apparently, the entire back end sort of blew up! (*5)

(*1) Hate to say it, but both Bob and I turned to one another and said, "I guess I'm glad we're not Black" because after all the nightmare stories of Black citizens being shot when pulled over for minor things, we realized how much safer we are being White. Sad, isn't it?

(*2) Funny how this part came off without a hitch. The two guys sent from the Botanical Garden simply drove up and transferred the metal work from our truck to theirs. I was sure that the towing company would say something like, "We can't release any property from your vehicle without written permission." But they just let the work go. Surprising.

(*3) Does that make sense to anyone??!?

(*4) Blessing on the lovely woman at C & C who said they'd do this; all we had to do was meet the tow driver at our local garage and give him $200. AAA made so much complication and this woman just cut through the crap!!! And she told me I wasn't the only one having trouble with AAA.

(*5) And I have some questions for AAA: we have a "gold", upgraded plan with 100 miles of towing and we still couldn't get towed? Please send us a list of roads that you do service so we can avoid the limited service roads in the future! And it didn't help that one "supervisor" that I talked to LAUGHED at me when I suggested I pay AAA with my credit card and they have their driver pay the tow company. I was furious as well as incredulous. "You're LAUGHING?"I said, "I'm entirely stressed, our trucks somewhere in New Rochelle and we're in Connecticut and you think this is FUNNY!??!" Talk about lack of empathy! I always had such good experiences with AAA but this trip prompted a different response from me. Corporate, unimaginative and really unhelpful!