Touch-Me-Nots

She brought a little of the country into the city
in the pots of impatiens she had planted.
The petals white, pure, the opposite of color.
She had transferred the impatiens from the garden,
digging her hands into soil two parts fibrous loam,
one part leaf mold and peat moss and pushing
the roots into the earth. Despite the quality
of the soil - its rich decomposition of life -
still they would not last. The plants were hardy
and tender, with thick stems and dark green leaves,
the seedpods inside waiting to release, the air
awash in pollen. She looked into the flower
as into a pair of beckoning eyes offering
sustenance independent of a body, free floating
and regenerative and wholly belonging
to what was impossible ever to touch.


"Touch-Me-Nots"
by Jill Bialosky
Excerpt from Intruder
©2008 by Jill Bialosky

I've had this link for weeks. I only just now watched it, but it made me giggle. After all, shepherding is an art form.

March 10, 2001



Three crisscrossed daffodils
faint lamps in the rubble

where without any warning
I'm shattered by your absence

wondering will I always
blunder into this emotion

so large and mute it has no name
-not grief longing pain

for those are only its suburbs
its slightly distracting cousins-

summoned just now by these
frilled blossoms

butter yellow horns
on lemon yellow stars

indifferent innocent
charging in place

advance guard of a season
when I will join you.


"March 10, 2001"
by David Young
Excerpt from Black Lab
©2006 by David Young

Every year warsop links to the website of a woman who sells photos & cards & whatnots in order to raise money for research to fight breast cancer. Anyone else have that url handy? It would be much appreciated.

thanks,
~plantgirl

Perfection Wasted


And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market --
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their tears confused with their diamond earrings,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories
packed in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren't the same.


"Perfection Wasted"
by John Updike
from Collected Poems: 1953-1993
©1990 by the Estate of John Updike

Oh happy last day of the year, my friends! Watch out for the crazies on the roads you travel. Be well, be kind, and live lushly in celebration and wonder.

Hiya,

Who can recommend restaurants in Sacramento? I don't know the city, so anything open for dinner on a week night is a good thing!

Don't be constrained by it, but if you already think this-a-way, then places with gluten-free options are a goodness. Plus Mexican, Thai, & Vietnamese cuisines all bend well to the gluten-free diet, so if you can suggest anything in those genres, that's splendid.

Providing a price range and description of style/atmosphere is also welcome.

Thanks!

with undying appreciation,
~plantgirl

It's a beautiful, sunny, California day, December cool & bright. There's no rain predicted until this weekend.

However, I am inside instead of outside. I wish I were outside, planting johnny-jump-ups, lobelia, snapdragons, and Calibrachoa. My occasional craving for the lush and ridiculous exuberance of hibiscus bushes has taken hold of me, too, and I even found myself looking at Coleus the other day.

Indulgences, most of those. Bedding plants- annuals, or frost-tender perennials that are unlikely to survive what passes for a cold snap in these parts. I have no justification for them, except wanting to sink into their richness of color. Other people use paint to create their layers and color. I use plants.

Right before Thanksgiving, I asked if y'all knew, without looking it up, what a lintel is.

For those who are uncertain, or who didn't have a chance to look it up, it's a "horizontal structural member, such as a beam or stone, that spans an opening, as between the uprights of a door or window or between two columns or piers."

Twenty of you responded. Ten of you gave something that was the definition, or close enough for my tastes. Four of you knew it was architectural. Three of you wanted it to be linux running on intel. (*rolls eyes*) Two of you claimed to know what it is, but didn't give a definition. This was my fault, as you both answered before I managed to edit my post to specifically request that respondents provide a definition. (I could be a hard ass and say there's therefor no proof that you actually know what it is, but the two of you are such word junkies that doing so would just be silly). And one person said they didn't know, but upon reading the definition, realized they it was familiar enough he or she would have gotten it on a multiple choice test.

So call it 12 people out of 20 who know what a lintel is to a fair degree of accuracy, 4 who at least know it's something architectural, and four who were just being geeky, or who aren't familiar with the word. :)

There was no good reason for the poll, except that while scrubbing dirt off of lintels last week, I realized that maybe not everyone grew up knowing what a lintel is. I then learned that I wasn't entirely sure what it encompassed. 'Cause it turns out that while I knew doors have lintels, I didn't realize that windows do, too. (I would have called that a sill, or a top sill, or molding).

Now I know.

And with that, here's my random cleaning tip- if you dust your lintels every few months, or even once a year, they don't build up that horrible layer of greasy gray-black grime that takes ages to clean off, so it's not so scary if & when you do need to clean on or near them for any reason. It's much easier to maintain a state of clean than it is to get clean something that's been neglected.

Plus a random security tip- don't leave the key to your place on your lintel. It's so common darlinks, that any decent crook will look there, just in case you've offered such easy access.

Ta.

"We never toasted Gabby," Beth said.

"Of course we have," Elly said. "We toast her every day by doing just what she expects of us. We persevere. We carry on. Is there something more to life? I guess we're never done. I used to resent that - having something be over before I was done. I've decided that's a gift. Never getting done means there's always something left to do, some challenge yet to face, some thrill still to seek. Gabby would like that."

An Airbus A320 owned by Air New Zealand went down in the Mediterranean Sea. Six people were on board. They have not been found. One of them is (was) an airworthiness inspector named Jeremy Cook. I hope the irony of his life, and imminent death, amused him, when he realized they were going down.

I made the mistake of reading the news today. In addition to the many many noteworthy events happening around the world, two items from the US caught my eye.

In New York, a temporary Walmart employee was crushed to death this morning. When he opened the doors for their holiday sale, the thousands of people waiting outside the store surged in, knocked him over, and trampled him to death.

Police say that they will not be able to press charges. There is no good way to determine who the hundreds of people who stepped on him were, given that thousands of people were present, and that many people were merely being swept along by the crowd. Part of me hopes that they would charge every single person who was there. I'm sure it's not legally feasible, and it's certainly not fair to the people who did not push, or were forced forward by the people behind them, but perhaps there should be responsibility in being part of a mob, if that mob then hurts people. (Yes, there are legal issues, there. I'm strongly in support of the right of people to assemble, but I have a hard time feeling that the right to assemble in order to purchase cheap goods is nearly as important as the right to assemble to speak, or protest, any particular issue. And I do not believe the right to assemble grants the right to take part in manslaughter. If nothing else, I hope they charge Walmart with negligence. The store had security people on site, but not enough to control the crowd. (Feel free to comment on any aspect of the above. I'm posting this so shortly after having read the article that I have not thought through the issues in any thorough way. I'm curious to get other perspectives).

The second item? Police in Florida discovered an 84-year-old woman living in a house with no working heater, no working toilet, and sinks that don't drain. There were also 50 cats, 20 ducks, 15 turkeys, and a dog. No, there was no pear tree. Just a house fouled with piles of feces & the stench of urine, & an elderly woman with congestive heart failure & a poorly-working oxygen machine.

She had been left to live there by her 54-year-old daughter.

I am grateful that the elderly woman is now in protective custody, and her daughter is under arrest. I hope the daughter does not get jail time, as she does not deserve better housing than she provided for her own mother, but instead must perform many, many hours of community service.

*sigh*

Despite these stories, and the horrible & sour taste they leave in my gut, I choose to continue to believe that the majority of people will behave with care for others in most situations. I think the evidence on that is mixed, but I find the world a much more livable place when that is my outlook. None of can individually save the world, but we can make sure to take care of whatever parts of it we encounter. At least, that's my take on it. What's yours?

"With Mom at Aunt Darlene's this year, I'm not getting a Thanksgiving. I guess maybe it's just as well."

"Well I think that's a shame. I love a ritual sacrifice."

"Not really a one of those."

"To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It's a ritual sacrifice, with pie."

~conversation between Buffy & Anya,
"Pangs"
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 4

Out of curiousity, how many of you know (without looking it up) what a lintel is?

Edited to add: please include your best guess or definition in your reply! :)

Answers screened to prevent spoilers. :)