a metaphor, this 4th of July

On the next street, an American flag attached to the mailbox, decidedly inelegantly, by some strips of duct tape.  Or duck tape.  I've never known which ... and on checking, I find it was originally duck tape, invented during WWII to tape boxes tightly so that they can be carried safely through water.  Then it started to be called duct tape, and used - well, maybe used, on ducts.  It shouldn't be used on ducts, because the heat melts it, and it turns into a sticky mess - but there again, I don't suppose it should be used on ducks.  In any case ... the flimsy precarity seems about right for this particular 250th birthday.

 

bobble head

This is the inside of a Blanket Flower (gaillardia grandiflora), after it's bloomed - it has a fringe of yellowy-range petals before hand.  It's a member, roughly speaking, of the daisy family, and it's the state flower of Oklahoma - a fact that I've known for about five minutes.  I can't claim that I particularly like it (gardening here is a compromise: Alice likes yellow flowers - as well as others - my choices are always white and blue and pale pink and purple) - on the other hand, it is, as my father would have pointed out, Cheerful.  He did, mind you, call all yellow flowers daffodils, as a matter of course.

 

a relaxed attitude

This is what I had to contend with today, by way of example, or assistance, as I tried to move onwards with book revisions.  Their sense of energy, focus, commitment ... it's not infectious.

 

bzzzzzzzz

A very happy, very furry bee on one of the earliest sunflowers to come out this year (all on the very same plant!) - just down the road.

 

moonscape

It's very beautiful out there tonight: a bit of wind, a bit of drizzle coming back from town, but then this.  Admittedly this took several photographic tries and googling, and I did manage to take a couple of images with an absolutely clear, no-flare moon - but then nothing else is visible, either.  So this is a pretty spectacular way for June to exit.

 

Los Lobos open the Summer Bandstand

You'll have to take my word for it, that Los Lobos (bringing LA to Santa Fe, including a Dodgers cap) are in there, playing away ... a somewhat strange set, with Something For Everyone - rock and roll to TexMex to psychedelic sub Grateful Dead, but so long as they played Can The Wolf Survive? (which they did) I was happy (at least until the slightly weird guy standing in front of me started his wolf-howl).  How wonderful to be in a town where Los Lobos play for free, and cram the Plaza, to open the summer bandstand series...

 

the first of the season

And so my Morning Glory horticultural obsession rolls round happily for another year's blooming.  As usual, Grandpa Ott is the first to make an appearance.  Usually they wait until they've climbed a little higher, but it's wonderful to have a flower before we've even been here for two weeks ...

And for good measure, our first good sunset of the summer ...

 

Farmers Market

A very quick break from The Recalcitrant Chapter to go to the Farmers Market, which is just coming into full swing: sunflowers, and many onions, and apricots, and lettuces, and and and - and, most miraculous of all, the woman selling smoked onion powder.  This is a sensational ingredient to - well, anything savory or vegetable-full.  I told her how happy I was to see her there, and that I'd looked for her in vain last year.  Well, she explained, she can only smoke onions for this purpose early in the year, because they get too tough later on.  That's a useful fact to remember - assuming I've used all three packets that I bought today by next June.

and a reminder, walking past SITE Santa Fe, EVERY AMERICAN FLAG IS A WARNING SIGN.

 

smoke? steam? evening mists?

After a reasonable amout of stormy rain this afternoon, I'm hoping that the McCauley Fire - over on the Jemez, has been very damped down.  It's currently at over 700 acres, churning through brush and ponderosa pine.  Impossible to tell whether this is thin smoke rising from it, or, I'm hoping, steam and general moisture.  At least ... I thought this is where the fire was, and I just looked at the map to see how far away it is, as the crow flies (about 70 miles), and I think my geography is skewy - it's a bit further north.  Probably.  Anyway, it's a pretty evening, whatever the climatic conditions ...

 

growing

A couple of days ago, I thought that this pot contained an apple-blossom geranium, and two slightly sulky marigolds.  But ... Whereas when we arrived this summer I thought that quite a few of the pots contained the usual, welcome signs of just-sprouting morning glories - and that was a relief, because we were late this year, and there hasn't been a whole lot of rain -others seemed seed free, and so, with a top-up of potting soil, were ready to receive new plants.  Which I watered.  And look what's happened!  With luck, it'll be another bumper summer of MGs - the only thing, other than catmint and edible herbs, that I seem reliably good at growing, here.

 

book revision

I wish I could say that it went well today, but for various reasons, it didn't ...

 

green on blue

Give these another couple of weeks, and these will be startlingly yellow sunflowers against the blue wall at Cafe Fina.  Lunch there was very welcome ... a respite from revising, rewriting, etc.  Sunflowers aren't, I know, dandelions - but they are yellow ... I was procrastinating by looking in the Bridgeman Images collection for images that I almost certainly won't use (but in case of emergencies, it's good to know where one might be able to lay one's hands on something at the last minute), and found this exquisitely awful painting by the Swedish artist Sven Richard Bergh, The Knight and the Maiden (1897), which is simply too good not to share ...

 

another mailbox (and other people's hollyhocks)

Another very local mailbox.  I can't imagine that the hand is waving two fingers while someone yells FIGHT ON, because when these relatively new neighbors moved in, their car number plates showed that they were from Texas.  But one never knows ... In any case, I think the fingers indicate the house number - 2 - and aren't intended to cause trigger responses in any passing Trojans.

This was a very quick walk before having a start-the-week breakfast at Harry's.  I'd hoped this would set me up for a hard day's work, but it would take more than that to super-charge me for re-punctuating footnotes and paying for images ...

 

forked wings

Here, on Monte Alto, is an avian change on the top of a mailbox from the customary black crow.  It's a ... a quail?  A completely fanciful bird?  Whatever it might be, fork heads have been resourcefully deployed, albeit in a way that ultimately suggests a strange designer handbag rather than a pair of wings.

 

the trees made it!

When I came out here in late April, it was just after a very heavy frost, and - some of you may remember - the locust tree blossom was all shrivelled up, and it looked touch and go whether the leaves would perish as well.  I was enormously relieved when we rolled up earlier this week, and they were as green as they usually are at this time of year.

I've been staring out of the window at this view a lot, today, because I'm trying hard to grapple with getting my bibliography into something resembling official Chicago Manual of Style.  

 

dandelions, and more

Book revision, so far, hasn't really touched on the dandelions chapter, which is one of the better ones: I'm still trying to give seaweed a better shape, argument, point.  But it was a wonderful surprise to see dandelions on sale at Agua Fria Nurseries today!  Very healthy, flourishing dandelions, in the herbs section - but at the same time, they were looking like a book illustration, not least because they had the battered plastic of the greenhouse covering behind them.

It was the annual, start-of-our-summer plant shop - and I had a notably smaller cart than usual, and it was notably more expensive than even last year.  But I always love going there, even if I do seem to take photos of the same things (though the dandelions are new!) year after year.  This time I'll strip the lilies and seed-heads of their color ...

but I think I should keep the bright green of the nettles (tea! soup! I remember once having nettle and barley soup at a long, long ago health food cafe and shop on the Cowley Road, Uhuru ... a cafe long ago, to be sure, but I see that they are still going after fifty years! as a food shop.  Fifty years!  Congratulations to them.  They opened in my final year as an undergraduate... which I realize makes it fifty years since I did my Finals examinations, which remain pretty vividly seared into my memory.).

 

Moth would like you to know

that she is supervising my final book revisions, and she has a number of suggestions to make - most of them critical.

 

buffalo gourd

It's the annual resurgence of the buffalo gourds, bringing splashes of bright yellow to the verges, and starting off on their quest to bring into being the most bitter (and for that matter poisonous) fruit possible.  I know I've commented in the past that they have their uses (as purgatives, or for making soap), but I think I'll content myself with the knowledge that their function is to be cheerful.

 

from one house to another

Over the decades driving between LA and Santa Fe - or New Jersey and New Mexico - we've kept up the tradition wherever possible: flowers from the garden of one house go into a little vase or jam jar, wedged in place in a cup holder by paper towels, and then taken out once we've arrived at our destination.  So here are geraniums and basil and rosemary and ferns from LA, gracing our kitchen window sill in Eldorado.

 

morning, afternoon

Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, would it?  Alice managed a chemically-enhanced sleep, last night, pinioned in place with Gramsci on her feet. I had to cope with Moth wanting - well, what? - all night long.  She has a pretty little soft mew, but not when it continues all night.  Yes, little helpings of kibble shut her up for a bit, and then, just as I was back asleep and dreaming ... mew mew mew.  And then, in the early morning, she shifted into meditative Egyptian mode.

Safely back in Eldorado, at last.  We just missed most of this storm.  And now, it's flat out for me for the next six weeks, getting my book ready to send off, in final form, at the end of July.  Eeep!  Minimalist contact between me and the rest of the world, for a while.

 

on the road again (with cats)

Just as happened almost four years to the day when we turned up at La Posada, the car park was full of Corvettes (and the dining room full of their occupiers), en route to the Grand Canyon.  

The cats had no problem settling in - Gramsci is back on his favorite armoire, and Moth roaming around somewhere -

and I had no problem settling into a margarita, with a strange Route 66 centennial logo on top, and a background that has come out very oddly, and without deliberate input, like a David Hockney iPad painting.

 

the dream of the great outdoors

There is, of course, a screen between Gramsci and outside, and in any case, the window is never open as wide as this except when someone is in the room.  However, the only way to cool things down effectively is to have the window open in the early morning, run the ceiling fan, and - well, hope that the effect lasts.  We broke down today, and turned on the AC, in the end.  I think Grams is hoping that the birds are still nesting on the balcony: little does he realize that that's something which is unlikely to happen again, after the Mitigation Measures.

 

the unfurling of chrysanthemums

We've got to that point of the summer when we turn to a form of frenetic spring cleaning, and weigh up the contents of under-explored cupboards, and other things.  This year has been particularly fraught since Alice's office decamped into the house (I dread the contents of mine arriving too, one of these years ... but I'm sure space will be found).  At any rate, the results of many, many book purges over the years - 21 boxes of them - went off for rehoming through BookPickUp LA.  I don't know what happened to Rebookit, who never responded to my emails or calls, but these guys were terrific - prompt and efficient and helpful.

And then - the collection of teas.  Out went something that sounded tasty, but had an expiration date of 2015.  And a couple of years back, a rather strange student of mine gave me some chrysanthemum tea for Chinese New Year (strange, not least because he would come to office hours; did in-class exams perfectly respectably; didn't turn in take-home papers, at all, and then stopped coming and responded to no one).  The tea remained undrunk, which might have been a mistake, because by now it was definitely older than one might want ... but I couldn't resist seeing the flowers unfurl.

 

the annual opening of the trumpet plant

I've known this trumpet plant for over twenty years, and it moved with us from Hoover Street to our current house - we wouldn't have taken it to New Jersey, because of Frost.  I have to say ... it's been healthier, and although we usually expect some caterpillars, it's usually somewhat more festooned with blooms.  However ... this seems to be this year's offering, and, as ever, it's magnificent.

 

dinner being prepared

The actual process of ordering and picking up dinner from Xibei, on Sunset, was a little chaotic and slow (you'd think it might be impossible to be both, but no ...).  However, their food is delicious - may I recommend the vegetable shaomai (dumplings, basically), and the crystal cold noodles?  Alas, their sweet and sour soup wasn't on the menu, but maybe it will return ... You can sit down to eat there, too, and some people were making their way through absolutely enormous bowls of noodles.

 

a hummingbird rescue

This afternoon, Alice found a baby hummingbird - to be more exact, an adolescent hummingbird - in our front yard.  He was alert, but not moving.  So she fetched him some sugar water, and fed him some from a tiny syringe.  By then, he was stirring from the dish - and I gave him a long piece of wood to sit on, too, and at one point he wandered back and I fed him - so poignantly adorable to see his tiny long tongue coming out to suck goodness from the end of a dropper.  No sign of any parents.  It was becoming obvious we had a tiny feathery problem.  Alice called a bird rescue number in ... Santa Monica; who contacted a bird rehabilitator in Silver Lake, and we drove him over there in a shoebox with holes in the lid.  His biggest problem by now may be shock, but the first assumption all round is that he hit his head.  I suspect we'll never know if he makes it or not, but I so hope he does - he was the sweetest young thing.

 

tall houses

One very real problem with a tall house is that there are certain maintenance jobs that we're certainly not prepared to tackle ourselves, especially anything that involves, as here, getting up on a ladder on a balcony.  Here we are having a birds' nest removed (safely out of nesting season) from a high ledge under the roof, where for some years now a very sociable family of house finches have tried raising their brood.  It's nicely sheltered from owls and hawks - on the other hand, strong winds can lift the nest right off that ledge, so it's not always successful.  And now ... a row of discreet thin spikes has been inserted as a deterrent.  This means that we'll be able to use that balcony in the spring time - it's been decidedly off bounds for several months each year.  On the other hand, the cats will miss their annual entertainment.

 

Hidcote lavender

Occasionally, I get adamant about something horticultural.  One of these things has been having some Hidcote lavender in the garden - lavandula angustifolia "Hidcote" Our gardener duly sourced and planted some - possibly the smallest lavender plants I've ever seen.  Truly, it's bonsai lavender.  But today, the very first flower.  It looked a little improbably broad and spread out, but I fed this image into Plantsnap, and I'm reassured as to its identity.  Maybe its diminutive companions will take encouragement from this ...

 

Gauchos of Griffith Park

From time to time, we see people riding in Griffith Park - usually park rangers.  This morning, something rather different down on Crystal Springs Drive: a whole posse of guys about our age, all riding Western (and looking very comfortable); all on really good looking horses.  I guess one could pretend that the trash bin could be adapted, or adopted, for barrel racing ...

 

Home!

That was 27 hours travel, door to door.  And now, reunited with Gramsci (not to mention Alice, and Moth), I plan to sleep.

 

an unanticipated day in Buenos Aires ...

It was raining this morning, which means that my last piece of unworn clothing - my raincoat - was brought out of my luggage.  I thought (and the hotel agreed) that the only way to be sure that I'd sorted out my travel arrangements (the "real" flight is now scheduled to depart at 7.15 tomorrow morning ... I wonder ...) was to go to the American Airlines office downtown, and they were super helpful, thank goodness, and I should be leaving at 10.45 p.m.  This meant I took a commuter train in from San Isidro to Retiro, the one last major Anglo-influenced building I'd yet to see properly - and yes, it's an Edwardian station! At least, the main part of it might as well be Victorian - I might as well have gone to Paddington.  All the parts were manufactured in Liverpool, and shipped out, and assembled in BA.

The booking hall concourse can't have changed much ... there are, of course, precious few places to buy tickets to, any more -

and other aspects are less retro than never changed.

And the buffers are from Ipswich!  They say 1913 on them: of course, after that, the company responsible, Ransome's and Rapier, were making war stuff.  As a company, however, they had a terrific history, making essential railway parts for all round the world - China, especially - and dam gates and sluices for India: there's a research project here howling to be done.  I am forever an engineer's daughter, I guess.

Airline business conducted, I walked to my favorite building, noting that some of the (many) pet shops were entering into fervent World Cup spirit,

and I did hold out hope that I'd get inside, this time.

And yes, it was full of people paying their water bills, and sorting out their water problems,

with a tiny, tiny number of artifacts on display.  They are clearly proud of their history, but alas, the museum was still firmly closed for renovation, and the guards and I agreed that yes, this was a pity.

Might as well have a bowl of guiso de lentejas while looking at the Palacio ... lentil stew has probably been, overall, my favorite Argentinian dish.

And back to the hotel, passing this sign on the walk from the station.  My spoken Spanish isn't very good, but it exists in a functional way (now, of course, probably disastrously modulated by Argentinian colloqialisms).  I don't know how I'd have managed without it - people in hotels often have excellent English, but that's about it.  I've been puzzled how very few signs I've seen offering English lessons - usually in non-English countries I'm used to seeing language school after language school promoting itself.  This one ... looks as though it mightn't use the most up to date methods.

And one last wave from my lovely, quirky, old-fashioned San Isidro hotel.

I'm delighted to report that I'm writing from the airport lounge, with a suitably strong vodka tonic in front of me ... with luck I'll arrive at Burbank (that's a bonus!) in about 24 hours time.