4/21/2007

Another walk. This time, in the rain, stoned.

Special brownies.

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I've eaten, like, 75% of a whole pan. Guy's out of town again. I went to school this morning (I'm taking 'Summer Vegetables'--today we looked at Fabiaceae and Curcurbitaceae. Then I came home and, ahem, had lunch and gardened for a bit. Now, I want to go for a walk.

Outside, this is the first thing that catches my eye.

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It's not like I know where I'm going to go when I go for a walk. I just look for something interesting and let it string me a long. From halfway down the block, this is what attracts my attention.

And off we go.

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(It occurs to me that if I was a really tacky smoker, I might stub out my cigarette out in this planter. File that away as character resource material for the novel...)

A Fremontodendron against a north facing wall. Interesting.

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Must remember to come back for this over the next several months. Fremontia want full sun. Full, hot sun, in nutrient poor soil. A signature plant of the American west.

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So far this year, northern exposure promotes lusher growth and fewer flowers. We'll see another one later on.

The house isn't leaning, I am.

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I really feel a gardener's spirit in this yard. Not my spirit, but a kindred one I feel love for.

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This yard has a white picket fence (Stone walls or white picket fences are the only ways to go.) The flower's leaning on the fence like a bored kid or an eager puppy. Let me out! (Behind it is Melianthus major, Honeybush. Looks really good in Los Angeles!)

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Interesting, tiny house.

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It's good to have your car match the trim.

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(I'm kidding.)

Double parking to get coffee.

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This is the main drag in Bernal Heights, Cortland Street.

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When I first moved to San Francisco in 1989, I volunteered for the Shanti Project, an HIV/AIDS support organization. I had a client on Cortland Street. Shanti volunteers provided practical support to people living with AIDS. That is, I cleaned people's houses, did their laundry, picked up groceries, etc, etc, when they couldn't do it anymore. I learned a lot of important lessons doing that every week for two years as a 19-year-old college drop-out. (Certainly more than I would have been learning in college.)

A lot of my clients were end-stage sick. I saw a lot of that up close. I also saw people go from apparent health and vigor to weakness and waste in weeks. I didn't see a lot family around. Not in 1989.

Life is precious, in many, many ways.

Anyhow, we're on Cortland Street because I just picked up a double espresso and now we're going to the video store. If I'm going to be stoned on pot brownies all night, I need a movie.

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Inside, they're playing Golden Girls! Woo, woo! (No--I'm not a huge Golden Girls fan. Well, I like it as much as the next living breathing human being; I'm hooting to be in the spirit of things. And who doesn't love Betty White? No friend of mine, that's for sure.)

When Guy and I get kittens after the kitchen remodel, we're getting two girls, and we're naming them Betty and Doris [Day]. We decided that last week at the wine bar.

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I get A Scanner Darkly.

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At night, she's a wine bar serving wine. In the morning, she's a bakery serving bread.

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Enough of the main drag. Back in to the 'hood.

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Cymbidium.

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Virused.

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Eucalyptus sideroxylon. I never noticed these trees have the same architecture before.

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"California."

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Parietaria judaica, spreading pellitory, judean pellitory. From the Urticaceae, the nettle family. Terribly weedy. A recent arrival to San Francisco, I'm told.

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Dodonaea viscosa (Sapindaceae). That will become a nice small tree there.

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"Two-ply JUMBOTEX"

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This shot gives me the giggles right now:

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That other, full-sun Fremontodendron.

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Geraniums are the perfect plant to complement this era of architecture.

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Yellow mimulus coming through white picket fence. More kindred gardening spirit.

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Lagerstroemia alternating with Maytenus boaria.

At this point, the rain is starting to come down.

Gotta go!

14 comments:

Christopher C. NC said...

Oh My!

Let's see. What about the classy smoker who squeezes the fire from the cigarette and puts the butt in their pocket. Novel material?

Has that bright orange sofa been on the sidewalk since the late 70's?

The Shanti Project sounds like a wonderful thing. More kids should do volunteer things like that now.

Get male cats. Females are bitches. Trust me I know. You can still name them Betty and Doris.

My what a big city you live in. A person could get lost there.

chuck b. said...

That's not as trashy. To be trashy, you have to leave the butt there.

(Literally!)

Anonymous said...

I just love tagging along on your meandering walks! Why don't I just go for a walk in my neighborhood? too many telephone poles and no trees. Yes, I could walk one block over to the Park, but I'm lazy, besides I like to bitch about the telephone poles and absent trees.
By the way, female cats may be bitches, but male cats squirt stinky stuff.

Christopher C. NC said...

Male cats are not as likely to squirt stinky stuff if you nip it. Nip it in the bud.

lisa said...

I'm surprised you felt like going for a walk after those brownies! The only time I ate "special brownies" was in high school....all I could do was sit and laugh-it was WAY more potent than just smoking. But of course, that might be due to the fact that the guy put an entire OUNCE in one brownie mix! (Back when an ounce of good green was $30)...those were the days...

Anonymous said...

I'm not a big partaker of the herb. In fact, the lst time I had such an experience was probably in the early 80s.

But I'm way uptight and very Type A. A friend of mine (a huge success and a worshipper of the herb) told me that I should give it another shot. It has to be better than bourbon.

GREAT GREAT GREAT walk-about.

chuck b. said...

"Partaker of the herb"--lol. The early 1980s called, they want their pot lingo back. :)

I'm really not a big "partaker of the herb" either. (If I was, I wouldn't bother to blog about it.) And I've never smoked anything.

I don't recommend getting high to relieve uptightness or type A-ness (I don't necessarily dis-recommend it either); I feel if an attitude or behavior needs to be eased, best to confront the situation head on soberly. But then I'm not very uptight or Type A.

I do it a few times a year because it's fun. The brownie thing does take all day tho'. I would prefer to be "done" by the time I go to bed, but that rarely happens. It is done when I wake up in the morning tho', which isn't always the case when I drink. :)

Unknown said...

"I really feel a gardener's spirit in this yard. Not my spirit, but a kindred one I feel love for." I love that comment... I know how that feels.

I'll be back with a more coherent comment later. Right now I have to scroll back up and DROOL some more over those purple echiums. Holy shit.

Unknown said...

Oh, but seriously... Betty White?!!! I prefer my Golden Girls with a swift kick in the ass a la Sophia... *grin*

Anonymous said...

In the early '90s, a coworker of mine used to grow it, um, en masse, in his basement. He was too happy to dispose of the shake by giving it to me. I used to carry that shit around by the grocery bag full, take it home, and melt it into butter. That shit turned forest-green, I'm telling you. Then I used the butter to make the brownies.

It never occurred to me until much later just how busted I could have gotten for carrying that much marijuana on me. I'm guessing that "but it wasn't bud, it was just shake" is much of an excuse to a judge.

Now I rarely indulge. Maybe once a year, maybe.

Christopher C. NC said...

I ain't cop'n to nothin.

Anonymous said...

Probably smart.

OMG:

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/04/24/canadian_professor_d.html

What are we doing?

chuck b. said...

I recently read about US citizens being denied entry to Canada for having a misdemeanor conviction for pot back in the 1970s or something. It seems like there's some tit-for-tat going on. Where the adults are, I don't know.

Anonymous said...

Yeah. But a conviction is one thing, and a mention on Google is another.