the final round of our birthday celebrations

... and yes, it is late February, but it was warm enough to eat outside on Connie's deck, with Lydia, and we feel so wonderfully stuffed (salmon, red cabbage, mashed potato, Erewhon's terrific kale and white bean salad, a Tartine brownie, ice cream) that we may never move, let alone eat, again - or at least, not for another twelve months.  

 

a very large pot with a very small hole

Of course there are some tricks of perspective here - but nonetheless, this is a large pot - maybe the height of my elbow - one of two that had citrus trees in them (one lime, one Meyer lemon).  These fruit trees were doing - well, not brilliantly, but were ok, until our gardener decided that the rosemary and oregano that was also in them needed to come out, since they were sapping energy from around the roots, and the trees needed repotting in special citrus compost.

This didn't work.  Somehow, the pots then didn't drain at all - we think their tiny, inadequate drainage holes must have been flat against the ground, and over time, and some really drenching rains, the water has been an inch or so deep at the top, forming swimming pools for bees.  The trees hated this; their leaves started turning yellow and dropping.  This is not the California dream ... So now the trees are planted in the ground; the pots will be raised off the ground on bricks, and, once the spread-out soil has dried out, planted with bay trees and trailing rosemary.  Keep your green fingers crossed.

 

workspace

One of my favorite work spaces - or if that's a bit too specific, because of the lack of shade at this precise spot - locations.  I had to go to a meeting at the Getty today, and stayed on a good few hours to inhabit the quiet of the library, despite the howlingly great volume of graduate studies business.  And yes, the sky really was that blue - only we have a heatwave barrelling towards us, and I'm apprehensive for the fate of my carefully cherished California poppies, which are (judging by precedent) about a month from blooming.

 

is that a moth?

No, not a Moth - she's sitting at the other end of the counter, claiming indifference - but a lepidoptera specimen.  I've already explained that we keep non-feline-friendly flowers outside, on the table in the front yard, but we brought them in briefly this evening to change their water, and a brown, speckled moth - about an inch long - hitched a ride inside, and fluttered up to the ceiling.  Gramsci is, clearly, riveted.

 

flowers and the kitchen sink

One excellent thing about us having had two birthdays and one party within the space of six days is that there are lots of flowers everywhere - and these ones arrived with this morning's vegetable delivery.  We do a good deal of Googling to check that various blooms are safe for cats - which these are! - the others get banished to a table outside the kitchen window and, happily, were being visited by hummingbirds today.

 

illuminated orchid

Strange, how an orchid in front of a pillar lamp with semi-opaque sides - are they very thin marble? - that's the general effect - renders the light insubstantial, like a projected beam.  After the excitements of the past few days, one would have thought it would be a tranquil day - but somehow, trying to cram in too many catch-up errands, and an eye appointment for Alice, it didn't feel that way, at all.  It really isn't a good thing that the entrance to the parking for the USC eye clinic in Glendale is somehow mangled up with a Macdonald's drive-through, and both Macdonald's and USC have scarlet and gold as their chosen colors.  Errors can happen.

 

various yellows

First and above all - so many thanks to people who wished me a Happy Birthday today!  It was a wonderful, sunny day - a very welcome quiet day, after yesterday.  It included a walk (admiring other people's lemon trees - ours shows no signs of blossom, let alone fruit, but we're hoping that will change this week when it comes out of a pot and into the ground);

working (that's Moth, behind the sunflowers); and having dinner at a very good Mexican restaurant, Mirate, on Vermont: next door, indeed, to where I had dinner back in 2004, on my first ever visit to USC - that's now a sports bar.  Calling that lump of ice "yellow" might be rather a stretch - more like - well, what? Pale seaweed? - I think it may be frozen pineapple juice? - whatever, it contains a wondrous little hollow holding avocado and cilantro oil.  Yes, I know - that's maybe a tad pretentious, after margaritas that we know and love in New Mexico, but it was, like the tacos, extremely tasty.