Life of Wry

Our front yard was a sight to behold this Spring. It was a bit of a messy mess, but it was colorful and just packed with wall-to-wall flowers. Our irrigation’s been off for nearly a year because of the remodel, and we knew we were going to re-landscape the front and back, so just let things happen. And things were magnificent:

So, starting last weekend, Ruben got to work.

This is Ruben. He’d just finished removing– besides dense flora and flowers–a recalcitrant motilija poppy bush, a bunch of aged nandina and a very stubborn redbud, and was about to move on to the pluot tree at right (loaded with pluots).

This weekend, he brought his brother and son. And a rototiller. And they removed the last of everything.

And this is now.

The boulder wall was not even visible before.

Then they dissembled the path and will use the stones elsewhere in the front and back yards.

We now have a tabula rasa.

It’s a bit shocking. Our yard’s been though numerous iterations in our 24 years (this month) on A Street.  We’ve had prolific vegetable and herb gardens and a wide array of flowers over the years. We’ve had lemons, loquats, peaches and almonds. We had a charming fence (thanks, Jim!) with overhanging abutilon, then took it down 5 years later (sorry, Jim!). We even had a lawn with a huge raised stone planter in the center that held a gargantuan modesto ash when we first moved in. (It helps that our house was twelve feet shorter along the entire east wall.)  I feel sad for the loss of some of those gardens of the past, especially some of the more beautiful flowers, but now we’ll start yet again and hopefully create a whole new look that we will also love.

Got on a bit of a nostalgia train this afternoon, hankering for a 50-50 bar… and made myself a facsimile thereof.. sorta.. a liquid 50-50 bar, of sorts.

Vanilla gelato and some oranges…

Blended with a little bit of milk to make this:

Texture was a bit odd with bits of orange pulp that wouldn’t quite pulverize, and actually could have been both sweeter and colder. Will work on it.

As seen in front of the Natsoulas Gallery …

I’ve got some pretty good fear and rage going today… it doesn’t take much, does it? Just read a little news and presto… you’re there.

I have notes on some of those feelings.. but let’s not. Let’s just go gentle tonight.

Spring walks are about as good as life can get, literally.. as spring is that time when new life emerges, activity and color return to the world, cuteness abounds. In Davis, that starts happening at the end of January, so we’re nearly four months into our Spring lovelinesses. And I’ve displayed a lot of what I’ve seen in my blog already.

But have I done baby ducks? I have.. but baby ducks walking on the path by the creek flanked by their protective parents?

How about squirrels peering around the trunks of trees?

That makes me feel a wee bit better.

Where are we today?

Trump and his right wing loony tunes media have fully turned on the scientists. Fauci, in the last couple days, has become the scapegoat for the administration’s failed response (right up there with China and Obama). Fox personalities decry, “He’s not even an elected official! How can we trust his advice!”  It’d be great satire, except it’s not. And, it appears, the administration is dragging its feet on the release of the CDC guidelines for states’ reopening. They may never release them. They want to leave no trail of accountability, I guess. They may not follow up on any large scale roll out of testing and tracing. They are working to suppress the release of death data in certain regions. It all just piles up… the crazy chaos; the whole inept, dysfunctional, incompetent circus. Textbook Trump.

So.. Mother’s Day .. three days ago .. He spends (I hear) the entire day watching TV (as usual) and rage tweeting — something like a tweet every 7.5 minutes. His usual angry, aggrieved, petty, petulant self.  He made accusations against everybody, and including journalists (of course), even suggesting one was a murderer, and he (yawn) blamed Obama for everything (again) and even accused him of committing the worst crime in history (OBAMAGATE!), though has yet to explain what, exactly, Obama did. (In a press briefing yesterday, when asked what crime Obama committed, he sneered smugly, “You know what he did, everyone knows.”)

Not that I read a single one of his Mother’s Day Marathon of stupid tweets, but I heard that he said nothing about the people who have died or about assuring the country that he recognizes the pain people are going through and that he’s got a plan… or anything leadership-y like that.  To anyone who still supports him (mystifying), is this really what you want from a president during a pandemic in which tens and tens of thousands of people are dying and the economy is collapsing? Is this the steady moral leadership you feel comfortable with? He who routinely overrules the experts. Can you trust him with your life? I sure don’t.

Anyway. 

How’s about some memes:

My bad.. that’s not a meme… it’s real life communique from the president*… spelling and grammatical errors, and all. It’s a beaut.

And.. messaging straight from — or at least encouraged by — the Oval office:

His in-plain-sight priority:

Really. I’ve had it with the conspiracy guys who think this is all somehow a big giant infringement on their freedoms.. and think the mask wearers are brainwashed sheeple. We are fearful and weak!

Enough of that.

Here are some funny takes on the state of our lives right now…

Life is one great big zoom call…

And my favorite:

I was looking out the kitchen window around 7:35 last night… and saw that the sun was peering through wet, stormy clouds. Went looking for a rainbow… there wasn’t one… but the light was just gorgeous.

This is what I call my dad’s eucalyptus tree — the one across the street that shades the large concrete bench we bought in his honor (so glad we did this) (the bench is not visible in this pic, but it’s below the bottom of the V in the tree there…

And… whoa… looking at this picture now… I DO see a rainbow! Whattaya know!

I’m sitting here in my new favorite place to work. (Work… well.. you know.)  (Hang out.) And I’m looking at a drippy, wet, very overgrown backyard. It’s pretty lovely, overgrowth notwithstanding.

I like this view of my work space, too… because Phil Gross’s painting just fit right in and made itself at home.

Regarding the yard: as of yesterday, we’ve taken the first steps on landscaping (if you don’t count the near-year it took to work with Claudia to design it…).  Ruben spent six hours in the front pulling, grinding, cutting, hacking.. basically removing everything except the 1) sycamore, 2) magnolia, 3) Japanese maple, and 4) two crape myrtles. He has a little ways to go yet, then will shift to the back yard and do the same.  There, we have a substantial amount of hauling to do, as that’s where remnants from the remodel ended up, now a great habitat for black widows and other creepy stuff, no doubt. Ruben will rototill, grade, re-lay irrigation lines… and then we’ll see where we are. The plans are ready to go… but we’re going to take it piece by piece. A little hardscape here, a little planting there… someday it’ll be done.

In the meantime, the view — if you don’t look too carefully — is lovely enough!

Speaking of lovely. Here’s a collection of pics from my last couple trips around the arb… Saturday and yesterday walks. While some of these shots seem redundant to photos I’ve posted before, the blooms are actually different, as this place just seems to change by the day. It is so very thoughtfully designed; there is always something in season, popping out and adding a new splash of color or texture where there wasn’t any the week before.

( ^ Neat, huh?)

And the motilija poppies are in their full bloom right now. Speaking of which… it was this very stand of giant white poppies that inspired me to plant a motilija in our front yard. People warned me, I ignored them. These things, while dramatic and gorgeous, are also relentless spreaders and are very woody and hearty and thick… and during the non blooming season are not much to look at. So Ruben removed them! A tiny bit sorry to see them go, but they do take over everything.

Caught this fellow busy at work…on whatever these are.

Jim made us waffles this morning and made his 22nd annual Mother’s Day card and picked some flowers and it was all very sweet and wonderful.

And we missed Peter like crazy… he IS the reason for the day, right?  Without him, there’s no Mother’s Day. He’s the light of our lives.

Reminded me of a waffle Sunday long ago… Jim was waffle man back then, too (of course). He made a waffle house for Peter; check out this masterpiece!

This was before barnyard animal waffles!

It was so funny.. Peter called this afternoon (so wonderful) and I mentioned his waffle house of yesteryear… and he did not remember (he was five). I sent him this picture and he loved it.

Love him so, so much. It is my life’s joy to be his mom.

She’d have been 91 today. I’ve been thinking about her all week. May’s kind of her month.

The young mom.. probably about 25. I’m going to guess this is in Manhattan Beach —  a photo taken sometime just after they’d relocated so dad could take the job at TRW. It’s probably before I’m born (she was 26 when I came along).

Here’s one, age 84, enjoying the view of that ocean like nobody’s business…

And here’s one just a few months before she died. I think she’d be bummed that I chose one of her in that wheelchair… but I wanted a photo at the beach as close to the end of her life as possible and this was a good one. She was not proud of that wheelchair, but it made covering a lot of distance so much easier… and that part she liked.

Jim and I had “mom’s chicken” tonight in her honor. As much as I use all the right ingredients, I can’t seem to duplicate the flavors.. but I’ll keep working at it.

The wine was actually hers. I grabbed the bottle as we were closing up the house.. she just loved this inexpensive Riesling from Trader Joe’s.

It’s just ridiculous how much I miss her. (I know it’s not ridiculous, but it sure catches me by surprise.)

To you, mom.

I don’t think I’ve ever gone a day where I didn’t make my bed. I’m sure it was something that originated with my mom, who made us all of us kids do it (and she did it, too), and maybe the habit of doing it developed because of that. But regardless of its origin, it’s something I have always done pretty much every day of my life because I must. I absolutely must. I could no more let my bed remain unmade than I could spend a day in pajamas.

During a quarantine (a semi quarantine, as this is), it seems especially necessary. It lends a certain normalcy and structure to the day. That normalcy and structure lets you know all has not gone to the wolves. You get up, make the bed, get on with your routines — whatever they are. It’s about order, self-respect, respect for a future that awaits, hope for a return to some semblance of a normal life. Perhaps it’s about preparing for something that’s better when all is said and done.

Be ready for what comes.. today, and in a future tomorrow.  Alert, observant, on top of it, ready.

Just make your bed.