June 19 2012

It's that time of year again - peony season is just about over, but as you can see, it was a great season. I was wondering if the very mild winter would affect the blooms, and while some plants seemed to indeed be affected, not these! Right now we're careening from 90's to 40's and back again regularly. Today I'm wearing a sweatshirt INSIDE but tomorrow it's predicted to be in the upper 90's. Our vegetables are not happy, though, they really need less change and more moderation (don't we all???).There are buds on most of the ecchinacea and day lilies and a few other nameless plants, but as the nights are cool they just haven't bloomed yet. So color in the gardnes is sparse right now. In the lower terracing, only the salvia is blooming now.






On the south side of the house, the hardy nasturtiums just started blooming. Last year they bloomed right through November, earning an eternal spot in my heart thank you, Jerry, for the seeds).







And on the upper driveway the primrose have really taken hold this year. Can you see how the piliated woodpecker has decimated the old tree stump? He spent most of last summer and fall jack-hammering daily... At least we didn't have to do anything about it, unlike our neighbors, whose window sashes were completely destroyed. I guess that's what you get for not leaving tasty large rotting logs around.









A week or so after Brian's birthday party, old friends who couldn't make it were coming through the area, so we had another smaller but equally happy gathering. I include this picture mostly as it's the only one I've been able to get of Sadie in her summer "do". As an extra attraction for me, Roger and Kay brought an ice cream cake instead of the requested fruit. Any time is a good time for ice cream!



And instead of doggie updates, as there are none, here are five of the dozen cats I "sat" for our neighbors for ten days while they went on vacation. The first couple of days were pretty hectic, not that the cats were anything but loving, but truly, herding cats is an exercise in frustration. As seven of the dozen are officially inside cats, my job mainly consisted of walking across the street several times after dinner yelling "kitty kitty kitty" and then trying to get whoever was cooperative enough to show up in the door without letting two others out. Plus one of the guys (Mr. Mushie, the HUGE black cat I always referred to as "Budda") is quite the projectile pee-er. There is a three foot perimeter of incontenance pads around the three very large cat boxes, and a good day was having to change them only twice. Several times just as I was going out the door, Budda graciously resquirted all the clean new pads; so back into the fray I went, with gloves, mask, and giant sized garbage bags. But I am absolutely not complaining; not only did I get to know them all very well, but it was my only paid gig in May. Unfortunately my dear calligraphy students are currently beset by fairly scary health concerns, so we're on hold till everybody is certified healthy again.

Next week I will go back to Mom's, as she is finally scheduled for her second hip replacement surgery (delayed far too long because of her fall earlier this year). She is such a trooper, even though the pain is severe enough now to have confined her to a wheelchair with aides in 24/7 until the surgical date (June 25). I can only hope that it will go as well as the first, couldn't ask for a better outcome. All prayers/thoughts/hopes welcome!

And this Friday will be the fifth (American) anniversary of my father's death. It's striking that for so many years when I was living at home, my dad, who came from Poland at age six on his father's passport, never had an official birth certificate (so I guess he really couldn't have been president). So we always celebrated twice, on December 27 for the American one, and the last night of Hanuka for the Hebrew. Eventually my mother realized that while great fun for Dad, pretty soon her daughters were going to request two birthdays, and put a stop to it. Now all these decades later, on the much sadder occasion of his yartzheit, we still have that duality going on. I'll light a candle this Thursday night, ahead of his June 22 anniversary, and again next Wednesday for the Hebrew calendar. And because the two calendars rarely coincide, I am struck that this year is the first time since he died in 2007 that June 22 is a Friday, just as it was when he left. And next Friday night I'll go to services at Gidwitz, the last congregation he participated in, where the Shabbos reading is Chukot, the very parsha read the weekend he left. Somehow this seems not only significant but very comforting to me. That's the very long of it from here. I hope all goes well there and that each of you is having the summer you want, with the folks you like best. More anon...