two green bicycles

Definitely a sustainability metaphor here!  Since these were on campus, parked outside the School of Social Work, quite the best thing about them is that they were stationary, and not part of the battery of wheeled objects that hurtle towards one with students on them.  

 

tree shadow

Coming out of Taper Hall this evening, I was stopped by this beautifully framed shadow.  I feel there ought to be a metaphor lurking within this ...

 

the poet's wife

She's starting to wilt, somewhat - who can blame her in this unseasonable heat? - but I picked these two flowers that were drooping over our fence and onto our neighbor's property, and brought them inside where we can enjoy them.  It was a somewhat perilous climb to get them - perilous because a neighboring rose had aggressively sharp thorns.

I wish I could remember more about the little blue and white vase.  It seems to me that I've always known it: it was among a small number that lived in the bottom of the corner cupboard in the dining room - one of the vases that was habitually used for the miniature posies and couple of stems that my mother delighted in.  But where did she get it?  Was it a junkshop find; a gift from her mother, or ...?  Whatever, it's perfectly balanced, and looks perfect with the yellow roses.  

Also, none of the horticultural websites that sing the praises of this David Austin rose seem to worry - unlike me - if she had a name of her own ...

 

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.