Succinctly Yours Week 204: The OTHER Thinker

Thank you to Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours, a delightful meme in which we are invited to copy Grandma’s compelling photo and come up with a story of 140 words or 140 characters or fewer to accompany it. The bonus word this week was “xenogamy.” Way to challenge us, Grandma! I confess I had to look that one up. I hope I’m using it properly…or that I’m at least close.

Thoughtful zookeepers gave Puddin’ the Silverback a nice big stick to keep his brain stimulated. He liked to lean on it while contemplating the xenogamy of zoo plants. 139

It was spring, and Daisy had the birds and the bees on her mind. Unfortunately, the only pollinating on Puddin’s mind was xenogamy…and not monogamy. 124

Remember, happiness doesn't depend on who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think. ~Dale Carnegie

Stop and Smile at the Roses

He was probably in his seventies when he moved into the house on the corner. I passed by every day, so I watched the way he dug into his south-facing front yard and planted roses—lots and lots of roses. He joined the garden club for a time and was the resident rose expert, shyly answering our questions.

He was quiet, but if you asked and listened, he’d tell. A WWII vet, he said. Casablanca. What a shock that had been to a boy like him, he once told me.

He was almost always out there, tending his roses. We both did the farmer-wave when I drove past. Those roses were pouty pinup beauties in every lipstick shade imaginable, kissing every season but the most cold. Every fall I’d watch to see how he gently tucked them in for winter. Every spring I watched to see how he coaxed them out again. They brightened so many drives for a good twenty years.

 I never once saw his wife, but he had one. When I heard she died, I sent him a sympathy note and mentioned in it how much I enjoyed his roses. I ran into him at the gas station shortly after that, and his voice broke when he thanked me.

He never slowed down and he never seemed to age. He only seemed to shrink, as if age had to diminish him that way because he simply refused to weaken.

Then one day I saw some slow-moving people in his yard. Younger people. Funny how you can see grief in a person’s movements from half a block away. I knew then that it was too late and I’d already missed the funeral. They dug up the roses and left only lawn where the For Sale sign went. It broke my heart. Now it’s a normal house again. No—not normal. To me it will always be missing something.

I still look for those roses. Of all the things that man accomplished in his long life, some were great gifts for me. He planted the ideas that it’s never too late to create bright spots in peoples’ lives, and we can do it in even the smallest ways.

Thank you, Mr. Donald Gemeinhart. You are most definitely missed.

He who dies with the least toys wins. Because the more you know, the less you need. ~Yvon Chouinard Patagonia 

Succinctly Yours Week 148: The Grass is Greener on the Other...Head

Another snow day here, so I am hanging out like a furry escaped convict (see previous post for that reference). 

Thank you to Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours! The idea of this meme is to use the picture to tell a story in 140 words or 140 characters. The bonus word was “quake.” I wonder if it still counts if you change the bonus word’s tense? Hope so. I have two this week, at 138 and 139 characters:

When Mama told me about the birds and the bees, her knees quaked and she blushed pink all way to her roots. My face went pale when I saw what was going on in the petunia bed. 

That's what you get, young man, from legalizing pots! You will quake down to your terra cotta toes when you sprout—what is that, you say? Legalize what? Oh. Never mind. 

That was a nod to the beloved Miss Emily Litella for those of you who remember her, and not a political commentary, I promise. This picture—not to mention today's snow—makes me miss summer!

Improper Poll: Gone with the Whim

Ahner's Greenhouse in its Former Glory

It’s been a summer of disappointments. The heat and lack of rain meant it was hard to go to festivals and outdoor concerts. Most of the Fourth of July fireworks were cancelled.

Then I found out two of my favorite summer products have been discontinued. The horror! Harry and David’s Strawberry Green tea is absolutely delightful iced. Why would they get rid of it? Especially when no one else I know of has a strawberry green tea?

And Clean Sweet Layer was my absolute favorite of all the Clean fragrances by D’lish and one of my favorite summer perfumes. Sure, I can still get it online, but someday those supplies too will dwindle. Besides, fragrances don’t have the shelf lives that companies pretend they do. Stale is stale.

But one of the worst is that I keep finding out more beloved places around town have closed. The one that absolutely broke my heart was Ahner’s greenhouse and gift shop. I had no idea it had closed until I drove by it. What a shock! It was not only closed, but going through some kind of deconstruction process that had it all hollowed out like a monstrous carcass on the side of the road. Brought tears to my eyes.

Have you lost a beloved product or store recently?

They Also Wield Blog Awards

Thank you to Lynn of Present Letters for the lovely and coveted Versatile Blogger Award!! Lynn’s epistolary writing, addressed to the mother she lost when she was young, is moving and inspiring in so many ways. Lynn is also a fellow W.W.W.P. (Wild Women Wielding Pens), described in more detail below.

I’m supposed to tell you seven things about myself that are not included in my blog. So here goes (and if I’ve mentioned any before, sorry):

1.  My mother used to put our Great Pyrenees puppy in the playpen with me, so I literally grew up with dogs. In fact, if I speak a language, it would have to be a very small amount of Doggish. But only if my teacher is very patient with me.

2.  Am not originally from Missouri. We moved around a lot due to my former husband’s job, and this was the place we lived the longest. A few years ago I chose to move back to the St. Louis area. It’s not just the “Gateway to the West.” To me it possesses a sampling of nearly every part of the United States, and I love that. St. Louis has so much variety, there is something for everyone—culture, history, sports, children’s activities, outdoor activities, scenery, weather (ha!—maybe a little too much weather variety, but I’ve definitely lived in much worse) etc. And it’s affordable. Love it.

3. When I was a kid, I used to play Cowboys and Indians with a little boy on the next block named Stevie. Stevie and I got along well because he wanted to grow up to be a cowboy and I wanted to grow up to be an Indian.

4. I spent every possible moment of my childhood without shoes and have always felt fortunate that my mother let me.

5.  Also when I was a little kid, I thought clowns were a race. People still used the phrase “colored people” then, and let’s face it, clowns are colored.

6.  I have Hannibal Lecter’s sense of smell (without his sense of taste—ha!) and collect fragrant plants. Below is a picture of one of the delightfully fragrant viburnums that’s been blooming out of season since December because our weather’s been so warm.  This one is burkwoodii 'Mohawk.'

 And below is plumeria ‘Miami Rose’ that’s been blooming in my sun room all winter, followed by the orchid that a dear friend sent me for my birthday over two months ago. Not only is it stunningly beautiful, it’s still blooming!

7.  I once attended something called Laughter Therapy. The idea is that laughter causes wonderful things to happen in the body and the brain, so you laugh without reason if necessary. It was supposed to provide the body with the equivalent of several hours of exercise and leave you feeling refreshed. The small critique group I joined last year is like laughter therapy, but way better because the laugher (and the people) are genuine. Although our senses of humor range from the naughty to the nice—sometimes all in the same person—those brilliant, witty, talented, spiritual, raunchy, silly, wise, genuinely fun women provide the reason for the laughter in addition to first-rate writing advice. And sometimes, they even provide chocolate…which is another thing we all have in common. So thank you again to Lynn, a fellow W.W.W.P.

I believe I am supposed to pass this award to four awesomely versatile bloggers. The problem is that not only are all of you awesomely versatile, but some people don’t like awards. So I've chosen two who've given me awards in the past and are also awesome and versatile, too.  I'm hoping two others will consider it passed to them as well.

I love Trying to Get Over the Rainbow  because Jules leaves me feeling uplifted and refreshed by her amazingly unique—not to mention hysterically funny—perspective.

Donna’s Book Pub always has advice, opportunities, contests, interviews and other wonderful tidbits for writers. I'm always glad I stopped in.

Enjoy!

Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer. ~Ed Cunningham

Stuff From Around My Backyard: Lazarus Frog

I’ve mentioned before that my little pond is much too small to over-winter fish on its own, but this year I decided to buy a heater and net and give it a go. So far the fish seem fine, but the frogs are another story.

I once looked up the term for a group of frogs. “Army.” This year we ended up with an army of two. Then one frog apparently fled when the net went on. I made sure to cover the overhanging rock so that they could find their way in by going under the ledge, but that obstacle course was a challenge for them. Apparently only one of them passed froggy boot camp and learned to take the less direct route. That was only the beginning of the battles for this little army of one.

Then on a warmish winter day, I saw this (left). I was so upset! What had caused the little guy to croak? The fish looked fine. I consulted the internet, which assured me that belly-up is just never a good sign in the animal kingdom. I turned to my friend Fran for “Franalysis.” She is a master gardener and my consultant for all things nature-oriented. We both agreed he had pretty good color for a dead frog. She told me to delay scooping the body to see what happened. Good advice.

Long story shorter: I’ve taken to doing almost daily Frog Checks. The “body” disappeared, reappeared on the other side of the pond, and disappeared again. There is no current in there. Then on New Year’s Eve day (which was very warm here), I saw the following sight.

 I’m sorry if this is a boring post to the non-nature lovers among you, but I feel obligated to share with the world my completely non-scientific discovery that apparently frogs CAN hibernate belly up. And anyway…I don’t think it hurts to start the new year with a tiny miracle of sorts.

Good luck Lazarus! You’re one tough little soldier.

There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. ~Miracle Max, “The Princess Bride”

Ten Good Things About Getting Old

(Accompanied by garden pictures taken in the past couple of weeks.  The top is viburnum carlesii, and the bottom is passiflora 'Incense.')

1. Your face no longer breaks out. Unless you’re me, that is! But I mean if you’re normal, meaning not me, you probably stop getting zits.
2. The fact that you’re coloring the gray gives you an excuse to change your hair color often.
3. You and your hair have cohabited so long you’ve been forced to get along with each other. You’ve worn it poodle-permed and stick-straight. You’ve had almost every hair length, cut, and color that exists, so you know firsthand whether a certain style will make you look like Betty Boop…or poopy-doop. You even know exactly where to put the perm rods, how long to hold the hair in the curling iron, and which products make it look stringy. You have the home number of that perfect stylist who knows, via some sort of divine telepathy, exactly what cut you need even if you aren’t terribly sure yourself. You’ve had years and years to learn exactly how to subdue, control, and manipulate your hair in all kinds of weather. As a result, you have A LOT fewer bad hair days.
4. Young men no longer do favors for you as an excuse to get your phone number. They do favors for you because you look like their mom. Then they say, “You’re welcome, Ma’am” and go on their way.
5. You can be crabby and people sort of expect it.
6. Nobody heckles or grabs your rear end anymore.
7. Better friendships. Your best friend no longer breaks your plans to spend time with her boyfriend. She breaks her plans with her husband to spend time with you.
8. You can take a crisis better because you’ve been through only too many of them and know the pattern. You’ve learned that you are strong, and that this, too, really shall pass.
9. That whole wisdom thing. What you lose physically, you really do gain emotionally.
10. You can wear what you want because nobody cares. No one looks at your arms or legs, anyway, so you might as well go sleeveless and wear shorts! And make them purple!

“’Tell me one last thing, said Harry. ‘Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?’

Dumbledore beamed at him….’Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?’” J.K. Rowlings, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Midsummer Night’s Magic

 Here in Missouri there is usually about a week around this time when the lilies and jasmines and phlox and alyssum all bloom at once (with a few other things thrown in), and the summer breeze waves like a gentle baton that orchestrates their various perfumes.

And then there are those magical few moments during summer twilights when the various scents of day and night briefly mingle just as the lightning bugs start to glow and the cicada rhythm pulses and the sky turns a rainbow of sunset-colors. When that time of year and that time of day happen to collide, there is a summer concert of senses so magical that life itself takes on an almost transcendent quality. I think these must be the midsummer’s eve moments of lore, as rare and fleeting and exquisite and uncapturable as fairies. All you can do is sit outside on a glider at twilight and just…breathe, trying to become one with it.

All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One. ~Black Elk, Lakota religious leader

Happy May Day

While taking a break from spreading mulch (a job I dread every year), I realized IT’S MAY DAY!!! I grew up in an old, very Catholic neighborhood in Omaha, where the children traditionally celebrated May Day by exchanging May baskets. It wasn’t until I was grown that I found out other parts of the country didn’t seem to have this charming tradition. Seems to me I read somewhere that it’s Lithuanian in origin.

One of my friends’ moms was a decorator, so her wallpaper scraps were wonderful. You shape them into little cones (or rectangles with sides), glue or staple, and fill them with candy, little bags of popcorn, and flowers...I seem to remember lots of limp violets and dandelions. Add a long handle, hang them on your friends’ front doors, ring the doorbell and hide.

I don’t have a picture, so here’s one of the wisteria brachybotrys in my garden. I love this time of year.

I think taking a coffee break now would add to my stress.......boy, that really sounds silly, but only women would understand that. ~ Becky Povich

More (Fragrant!) Bulbs...OR...Don't Just Feed a Cold; Suffocate It!

When my daughter was little, one of her first (and only) attempts at gardening was to plant a few cloves of garlic one fall. The following summer, we had a bumper garlic crop so impressive that it would have made any farmer (or vampire slayer) proud. When I asked my daughter what she planned to do with all that garlic, she shrugged. Turns out she doesn’t actually like garlic; she only wanted to see if it would grow. Enter this soup recipe, which requires an impressive 44 cloves. The roasting helps keep it from tasting like Death by Garlic. Really. Still, I’m sure it’s plenty pungent.

Can’t say for sure, though…. A long time ago I discovered that it has marvelous expectorant properties, so I’ve begun making it when I have a cold in order to ward off the evils of congestion. I’m convinced it dispatches those strength-sapping viruses tout de suite. A side benefit is that you can’t smell the garlic at all when you’re that stuffed up. My biggest concern was that the little Girl Scouts might pick this weekend to deliver our cookies and faint at our doorstep. (They didn’t.)

By the way, though it’s many years later, my daughter’s garlic patch continues to produce each year…mainly because we just never pick it all.

Note to Girl Scouts: The air has cleared here! We’re ready for you!!!


Roasted Garlic Soup

26 garlic cloves (unpeeled)
2 T olive oil

2 T (1/4 stick) butter
2 ¼ c. sliced onions
1 ½ t. chopped fresh thyme
18 garlic cloves, peeled
3 ½ c. chicken stock or canned low-salt chicken broth
½ c. whipping cream

½ c. finely grated Parmesan cheese (about 2 ounces)
4 lemon wedges

Preheat oven to 350°F. Place 26 garlic cloves in small glass baking dish. Add 2 T. olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper; toss to coat. Cover dish tightly with foil and bake until garlic is golden brown and tender, about 45 minutes. Cool. Squeeze garlic between fingertips to release cloves. Transfer cloves to small bowl.

Melt butter in heavy large saucepan over med-high heat. Add onions and thyme and cook until onions are translucent, about 6 minutes. Add roasted garlic and 18 raw garlic cloves and cook 3 minutes. Add broth; cover and simmer until garlic is very tender, about 20 minutes. Puree soup until smooth in blender (in batches), or use a hand-held blender. Add cream and bring to simmer. Season with salt and pepper. Can be prepared a day ahead and refrigerated at this point.

Divide grated cheese among 4 bowls and ladle soup over. Squeeze juice of 1 lemon wedge into each bowl and serve.  Serves 4.


"Good soup draws the chair to it." Ghanaian Proverb