Preparations for a plant sale

Browsing the CA natives...

A Douglas Iris



Salvia apiana. Smells like liverwurst.



Salvia spathacea. Smells fantastic! Hummingbirds love this plant.



Another one the hummingbirds love--Mimulus gutatus, commonly called "Seep Monkeyflower". Kind of weedy-looking for me, but a nice flower.



Coreposis gigantea. Usually considered "a weird-looking plant". I have two of them. The one in a container is doing much better than the one in the ground.



Ceanothus 'Julia Phelps'. One of my favorite ceanothus. This isn't a very good photograph of it tho'.



Ceanothus 'Centennial' is not a favorite, but I like the picture.



Moving on from natives...

The rock garden succulents are fetching.









I love succulents in general.











Wisteria... I plant I enjoy in other people's gardens.



Protea (Leucospermum, more correctly). I'm ready for the debut of dwarf varieties. Why hasn't that been done yet?





More tomorrow...

Said about vines in the garden, but applicable to everything:

"Gardening is a continuing excursion from ignorance to ignorance, as what's familiar becomes hackneyed." Link.

How can people who wouldn't dream of drinking in a pub called Gestapo cheerfully hang out at the KGB Bar? If the swastika is an undisputed symbol of unspeakable evil, can the hammer-and-sickle and other emblems of communism be anything less?

...

[P]erhaps the strongest explanation is the simplest: visibility. Ever since the end of World War II, when photographers entered the death camps and recorded what they found, the world has had indelible images of the Nazi crimes. But no army ever liberated the Soviet Gulag or halted the Maoist massacres. If there are photos or films of those atrocities, few of us have ever seen them. The victims of communism have tended to be invisible -- and suffering that isn't seen is suffering most people don't think about.

"Communist chic?" The blood of 100 million victims cries out from the ground. To wear the symbols of their killers is no fashion statement, but the ultimate in bad taste.

And it's terribly unhip to point that out.
Link.

A lesson on cuttings:

"But something important was missing; I felt I just had to find a way to keep that rosebush. I couldn't very well dig it up. My only option was to take cuttings and try to propagate them. I didn't inherit my parents' gardening skill or, more important, their confidence, and I approached the task with energy born of sheer desperation. It was summer, not the optimal time to propagate a rose. But it was now or never.

Just days before the real estate closing, I gingerly snipped six or eight cuttings and carried them carefully home in damp newspaper. I put them into a hand-thrown pot (also from my parents' yard) in sand and perlite, watered them and covered them with plastic to keep in the moisture.

Every day I visited the pot -- all through the hot, dry summer. One by one, the cuttings dried into brown sticks. But two of them stayed green. I talked to them, stroked their leaves, watered them and shifted them around so they'd get just enough sun. And finally, new green leaves began to unfold on them.

Now Ethelred stands in all his enigmatic glory beneath the redwoods surrounding our patio. Just this morning I looked at my 'Perle d'Or' and there were two tight, slender rosebuds, just about to open."

Link.

It's really about desperation and [feining] confidence. So just do it!

Take spring cuttings, strip the leaves off green (new) stems, and stick them in a thoroughly wetted mix of two-to-one perlite to vermiculate. Keep in bright shade. Keep your fingers crossed.

I saw this movie today; it was hilarious.

Happy Birthday!

Today is Kitty's 17th birthday!

(No, we didn't let her eat all that tuna. And we blew out the candle right away.)

The promise of new life.

I found the bulb for this emerging amaryllis in my closet. I don't remember buying it.

"In my opinion great loss of life resulted from men and women becoming stupefied by liquor and being too tired and exhausted to get out of the way of the fire."

Link.

"Oh Mimi. You're wearing a cropped demin jacket as a shirt, and you appear to have stolen your boots from Chewbacca. Don't ever change."

Link.

The best news I've heard lately:

"The heavy storms that are drenching the [San Francisco] region today and have done so nearly every day in April will finally relent, said forecasters, who predict that next week will be filled with clear skies and sunshine." Link.

It's not just April. We had rain all March too. After a spectacularly sunny and warm January. Go figure.

Math equation for a perfect ass

Link.

"The novel that means most to men is about indifference, alienation and lack of emotional responses. That which means most to women is about deeply held feelings, a struggle to overcome circumstances and passion, research by the University of London has found."

Link.


Where does Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls belong?

Because I'm remembering it as a man's book under this criteria.

The Centennial approaches...

San Francisco in 1906 was the largest city and most important port on the Pacific Coast, the financial center of the West, the ninth-largest city in the United States. The Palace was the biggest hotel in the West.

San Francisco had the most populous Chinatown outside of Asia, the U.S. Mint at Fifth and Mission streets was the largest in the world, and in its vaults was $222 million in gold, one-third of the country's gold supplies.

San Francisco had been a U.S. city for not quite 60 years, but by the turn of the 20th century, it was world famous.

Link.

And let's not forget this:

Rich San Franciscans drank pisco punches, and poor ones drank steam beer. San Francisco was on the cutting edge of drinking, and bartenders claimed they had invented a gin and vermouth concoction they called the Martinez cocktail, a drink now known as the martini.

Or this:

In 1906, San Francisco had five daily newspapers and half a dozen others in foreign languages, 42 banks and 120 places of worship, but also 3,117 places where liquor was sold.

Last post on the 1906 earthquake here.

San Francisco gets a Michelin Guide

"If obnoxious and smelly French people show up in your restaurant and make a scene, just accommodate them kindly."

Link.

Some spring planting.

Dahlia imperialis, "Tree Dahlia".



The pot has no bottom. When the trunk grows, I'll break the rest of the pot and remove it. For now I like having the plant roots slightly raised for better drainage. The soil in that area of the yard is heavy clay.

Nursery catalogs describe Dahlia imperialis as rare, but you can buy a stalk like this at the San Francisco Botanical Garden plant sales for $10. It to grows up 10 feet in one growing season (winter in California). When it goes dormant, you whack it back to 8 inches and start all over again. Eventually, the base gets broad and multi-trunked, and it will obscure the cement foundation behind it--hopefully without causing a structural issue.

Echium candicans, "Pride of Madeira".



This grows all over the place in California, but I don't often see it containerized, especially in this small a container. I have root pruned it once--reducing the root mass by about 30%--and it seems to be doing fine. The plant has remained a nice, small size. It gets verrry thirsty on hot, windy days here on my roof. The flowers are starting to open.



Salvia spathacea, "Hummingbird Sage", sometimes called "Crimson Sage".



One of my favorite California natives for the smell of the foliage. Some native sage enthusiasts find the fruity smell a little overwhelming and prefer Salvia clevelandii 'Winifred Gilman' above all others. I don't disagree too much.

From the J.L. Hudston catalog: "The famous African tree with a huge, swollen trunk up to 30 feet in diameter, and not more than 60 feet tall. The thickest trunk in the world. Large, white, hibiscus-like 6" flowers are pollinated by bats. The foot-long, gourd-like fruits are filled with refreshing, lemon-flavored pulp and edible seeds. Leaves are often eaten like spinach. The trunk stores considerable water, and is used as a reservoir, sometimes being tapped for as much as 1000 gallons. Hollowed out, they are used as rooms. Worshipped as a fertility tree."

That's Adansonia digitata, better known as the Baobab.

The Rooftop.

Vodka, lemonade, and...thyme.

My plant ID teacher mentioned it tonight. Sounds delicious. I can't find it online. Can't be that hard to devise tho'.

"That reads like a satire, written in the 1960s, about what nostalgia would be like in the future."

Link.

It is even more disturbing to learn that, while Mr. Hashemi sailed through Yale's admissions process, the school turned down the opportunity to enroll women who really did escape the wreckage of Afghanistan.

In 2002, Yale received a letter from Paula Nirschel, the founder of the Initiative to Educate Afghan Women. The purpose of the organization, begun in that year, was to match young women in post-Taliban Afghanistan to U.S. colleges, where they could pursue a degree. Ms. Nirschel asked Yale if it wanted to award a spot in its next entering class to an Afghan woman. Yale declined.

Link.

I’m writing by the light of the burning city. The fire is still twenty blocks from my house, but we came out here to spend the night because we have been afraid since the first earthquake shock. Then, the house swayed and creaked and trembled; rose and fell like a ship in a tempest. I couldn’t walk on the floor at all — had to crawl to the door on my hands and knees...

Link.


April 18 marks the centennial of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.

"Sliced, the array included bold, thick lines of deep color running the length of vertically cut carrots. When chopped round, one carrot showed a deep, brown ring, a layer of persimmon/pumpkin-hued inner ring and a golden core. The outer skins of carrots come in mottled, speckled and evenly distributed jewel tones. Some colors are muted and dusty, others tropical, fruity and striking."

Link.

I have a weird allergy to raw carrots. They make my throat itch and nose run. Cooked carrots: no problem.

"The smallest MP3 player yet."

Link.

Geranium maderense.

"You're so right -- San Francisco is that cool kid in the back corner with the fuchsia scarf, and that is why I will always love it the best. But Los Angeles is the kid of indeterminate ethnicity, seated front and center with a pierced belly button and a couple of tattoos, who smells faintly of the beach, peeling an orange and smiling to himself while he rocks out to an Ipod. He's not such a bad kid."

Link.

"Sad news for sex-positive folk in Mississippi: a federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by an adult shop challenging that state's ban on the sale of sex toys. In other words, it remains a crime for responsible adults to sell vibrators to other adults there, but a gun? No prob!"

Link.

I shit a brick, because I thought she was going to report me for trespassing. Instead, she embraced me, stroked my hair, and said, ‘Oh, my God—the Marble Faun has arrived.’ I had no idea what she meant, but I was enthralled.”

Link.

The San Francisco Public Library has a collection of old San Francisco photographs online here. You can search the database by San Francisco neighborhood here. You can see old pictures of Bernal Heights (my neighborhood) here.

I'll have to post some "then and now" pictures.

"What did enlightened people do to support the [Iranian] strikers? Very little. Most Iranian intellectuals, former Marxist activists included, were consumed by polite electronic debates over the Dutch cartoons. Hundreds of striking drivers were arrested, as the cameras of the world's biggest news agencies shot images of the couple of dozen government-paid hoodlums throwing rocks at the Danish embassy in Tehran. Wives and children, even distant relatives of the activists, were hauled off into detention to force the union leaders to turn themselves in, as India's Communist Party threatened to leave the ruling coalition in New Delhi if India voted to refer Iran to the Security Council. Clearly, workers of the world ought to postpone uniting until other scores are settled."

Link.

T-Show asked what adorns my walls. Either I'm madly in love with T-Show, I'm an unmedicated narcissist, or I'm just buzzed enough to comply. Either way, she owes her readers a tour of the art on her walls!

Okay, starting in the TV room where I am right now: we have a vivid Impressionism-style oil painting of a still life done by my S.O.'s brother, Steven, when he was in high school. It looks a lot better when the camera flash doesn't bleach out the color. A drunk driver killed Steven a few years after he finished high school. He left behind four big paintings--one for his parents, and one for each of his siblings.



My aunt made this stained glass "piece" in junior high art class. It looks awful in the dark--objectively awful. But it’s beautiful when the light comes through, and I love it because it reminds me of my grandmother's kitchen. It sat on her window sill for many years. (Sidenote: If you get really close, it smells like cat pee. That's not part of why I like it; it's just a sidenote.)



added: Here it is during the day



A Dali print my s.o. bought a number of years ago as an investment. Apparently, there are a lot of Dali forgeries out there, but this one's been authenticated--whatever that means, or doesn't mean. I don't know.



A small watercolor painting by Koko the gorilla.



Two small collage pieces by a local artist I know that also look better without a camera flash. I have three more upstairs similar to this, but different.





We'd get rid of this atrocious thing if we had something to replace it with.



Moving on to the library now. (We only call it that because the bookshelves are in there. "Library" sounds better than "bookshelf room". We're not pretentious weenies.)

Some oil paintings by a couple local artists. I forget the name of the night scene on the left (Carnival of Light, maybe) but I know the artist’s name is Kate Protage and I bought it at the San Francisco Art Institute art gallery for $350. Mmm, or $450. (ADDED: Thanks for coming by, Kate! The painting is called Light Carnival.)

The three small ones are by Adam Connelly. I really need to get those framed.



My friend took this photo of a sculpture illegally inside a local museum. It’s Shakyamuni (sp?), the last Buddha before enlightenment. No, we're not Buddhist. Just workin' the Pacific Rim action, that's all. I like his hands and the expression on his face.



This is an early Ruth Bernhard. She's a San Francisco photographer from the Edward Weston school of California B&W photography. She recently turned 100 years old. The landscape is Rockport, ME. I’m a native Californian, but my family comes from Maine. How I came to own this is a long story. (Completely legal, of course.)



Another illegal Buddha. This one is Simhavaktra, a guardian of gateways.



I don’t know much about this. Someone gave it to my dad who gave it to me. It’s painted on some kind of cloth and looks old. An art history student I knew in grad school told me it's probably not that old because blue was a rare pigment color in some parts of the world until not all that long ago. Plus, my dad's friend found it at a Goodwill in San Jose.

What’s going on at the bottom of this picture?



I love this painting on board of a California Mission done by one of my grandfather’s patients. It's got a great "Arts & Crafts" vibe. (I'm not sure which Mission...if anyone knows, please post in the comments.)



The Number One Best Thing I ever bought on EBay:



There’s my granddad! It’s his graduation photo from college or medical school…not sure which. He turned 88 in January and golfs nine holes twice a week at Stanford.



My significant other’s parents at their wedding reception. Dad-in-law served in the Pacific during WWII.



Into the kitchen. Please excuse the white walls. We’re going to remodel in a year or two when we have some money.

This is a Polaroid of a Doggie Diner head. Very San Francisco!



This is an Eric White giclee.



Something by one of my significant other’s ex-boyfriends. It doesn’t photograph well, but I really like it.



Into the foyer...

This is an old USGS map of San Francisco Bay and the nearby Pacific Ocean ca. 1960 that I found in the bowels of my grandparents’ house. I found a ton of old maps like this; I think my uncle took a geography class in college and the maps ended up back home. Anyhow, you can barely see it, but that trapezoidal area of ocean near the Farallon Islands is labeled “Explosives Dumping Zone”.



Last but not least. This is my other favorite possession that I would grab if there was a fire. Which would be easy since it hangs right by the front door. My dad took this photograph one day at the jewelers in the small town where I grew up. It’s seems very French to me…very Cartier-Bresson or something. My father is a photographer. I like this photograph because it puts the viewer in the omniscient position looking down at man puzzling over his precious constructs designed to measure something he can barely fathom...



Geez, am I a pretentious whanker or what?!

(No need to post a comment on that one.)

Maybe next time I'll show you the upstairs.


Added: Looking at all these makes me want to go buy some new art. All this seems so flat and still. Flat images of still scenes. I want some art with some sense of movement. Color combinations that won't let the eye rest. Lines to keep the eye moving. If I had real money, I'd buy Karen Davie. Top row, fifth from the right.

Where their 1,700-square-foot San Carlos home sat on a 6,500-square-foot lot and was located on a street with some crime problems, their home in Barrington is 3,300 square feet on a three-quarters-of-an-acre lot and is one block from the Atlantic Ocean. The price tag: $650,000 compared with a nearly $1.1 million sale price for their San Carlos home.

"Everyone we run into is moving from California, the Bay Area," said Peggy Crane, 35. "I thought we'd be exotic."

Still, the Cranes say other costs -- such as property taxes and food -- are much more expensive than in the Bay Area. Ultimately, the couple hopes to move back to San Francisco after their two children, now ages 2 and 4, go to college.

"Everyone is working so hard here to pay the heating bill and the taxes," Crane said. "In the Bay Area, people work hard, but they also play hard. We miss that."

Link.

Number Two on the list of "Ten Things Evolutionists Can Do To Improve Communication": Attitude.

Whenever you condescend [...] you lose the sympathy of your audience. Plain and simple. When evolutionists call intelligent designers idiots, its fine among evolutionists, but for the broader, less informed audience, it just makes everyone side with the people being condescended towards. It’s a simple principle of mass communication. Furthermore, even though Stephen Jay Gould was my hero in graduate school nearly 30 years ago, today he is culturally irrelevant for undergraduates at the introductory level. His essays, which I cherished as an introductory student back then, are now unusable. My students at USC literally asked me to never assign them his essays again. They find his style and voice to be arrogant, elitist, condescending, verbose … the list goes on and on.

Link.

Art Spiegalman:

"A lot of what's going on with this cartoon contest," he said, "is part of creating a polarization that will make it easier to decide that America should nuke Iran. If they're so unreasonable, all we can do is irradiate them."

Link.

The Swearing Festival.

Sounds fucking righteous to me!

Link.

Two uniformed men strolled into the main room of the Little Falls library in Bethesda one day last week and demanded the attention of all patrons using the computers. Then they made their announcement: The viewing of Internet pornography was forbidden.

The men looked stern and wore baseball caps emblazoned with the words "Homeland Security." The bizarre scene unfolded Feb. 9, leaving some residents confused and forcing county officials to explain how employees assigned to protect county buildings against terrorists came to see it as their job to police the viewing of pornography.

Link.

For the politically correct Bay Area parent, the "Curious George" children's books are a minefield of cultural horrors through which to tiptoe. Imperialism. Animal abuse. Bad parenting.

Puh-leeeeze, George's defenders say. They're children's books, whose charm has not dimmed -- 25 million books and countless swag sold -- even if ideas about political correctness have evolved since the first George adventure was published in 1941. Sometimes a speechless, mischievous monkey is just that -- a monkey, not a metaphor. Besides, George's tales are no more un-PC than those of that royalist warmonger, Babar.

Both camps are wondering how "Curious George," the animated movie that premieres today, will translate details of the popular series of children's books for the more heightened sensitivities of 2006.

Link.

From my vantage, it seems like people who get alarmed about "imperialism" and imaginary animal abuse find themselves with fewer and fewer friends nowadays.

The PC-era is dying a sad, little death. If you know what I mean.

"We assure you that all the revenues will be spent on salaries, daily life and infrastructure," he said at a news conference, addressing international concerns that aid would be used to fund violence. Link.

They assure us.

We have their assurances.

A January walk...

on San Bruno Mountain--a "mountain" in name only. Unofficial site & official site.

The view north toward San Francisco.



A little farther along, using the zoom.



The dark skyscraper in the middle is the Bank of America building; it obscures the more well known Transamerica Pyramid behind it in this shot. That bald patch of hill in front of the BofA building is Bernal Hill, the neighborhood where I live.

The growing season begins in a few weeks, but some irises are getting an early start.

This is Iris douglasiana, an iris native to coastal northern California and in to Oregon. I planted some in my backyard under a couple flowering maple bushes.



Farther along, a January inflorescence.



And a dried inflorescence of something whose name escapes me right now.

"Regarding gay men hugging prior to deployment, who cares. We let ugly people kiss, so if you don't like it don't watch it."

Link.

"Frey's story about undergoing two root canals without drugs was obviously false. Not because such pain cannot be endured but because no dentist is going to risk his fingers in the mouth of someone who hasn't had an anesthetic."

Link.

Must. Have. The. Slanket.

Link.

"If you're worried about the Federal government getting your search-history out of Google, Yahoo and other search-engines, there are steps you can take to keep your personal search-history private."

Link.

What is wrong with people?

"A mysterious man appears at Edgar Allan Poe's grave every year on his birthday, January 19, and leaves flowers and cognac as a memorial. It's not known who he is, nor how he gets in, and every year his ceremony gets more difficult as crowds of gawkers crowd around the cemetary, hoping to catch and unmask him."

Link.

Leave the secret alone!

Araucaria araucana

Also at the San Francisco Botanical Garden, January 10, 2006.

Garrya elliptica

The coast silktassel bush, a California native renowned for the male plant's dangling winter catkins, as seen today at the San Francisco Botanical Garden. I planted a small one of these in a sorta shady front yard container. I hope it grows.

Email from a friend

From an elementary school vice principal, with the subject line "Best Day Ever!!!":

Today a child wrote "I Love You" on a bathroom stall wall...in doo-doo. I have already begun to collect handwriting samples and interview the usual suspects.

As I have been saying for the last few hours: I love you was the message; crap was the medium. How powerfully the statement has resonated with me all afternoon!

"This is cool: Italy is planning to put a telescope on the moon."

Link from Dean Esmay.

"If our passive trust was a benefit you wanted to enjoy, that's all the more reason we should be suspicious of you."

Link.

"The most dangerous idea is the only dangerous idea: The idea that ideas can be dangerous."

Link.


Other "dangerous ideas" here.

"Investment bank Piper Jaffray & Co. predicted in a Jan. 3 research note that the [Google]'s stock would climb to $600 before yearend."

Link.

As my boyfriend put it, it's like the dot-com boom all over again, but this time with just one company.

After breaking up with [Harvey] Keitel, [Lorraine] Bracco married the actor Edward James Olmos in 1994 but handled her own finances. "With Eddie it was separate" because his business interests were in California, she said.

She and Olmos were divorced several years ago in the wake of the court battle with Keitel for custody of Stella. It ended with Stella in Bracco's custody, and with Olmos banned from seeing Stella alone, Bracco said. An assistant said that Olmos was traveling and could not be reached for comment.

Link.

Sooo...like what happened between Eddie and Stella? Yikes.

"As I mentioned a while back, I'm in Mexico now with Michelle's family.

The views are nice.

And the house is absurdly opulent.

I do have one complaint, however.

Our bedroom decorations include the following... "

LINK.

"Yahoo is moving toward people and community, while Google is focused on science and machines."

Link.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to my random visitors.

I took these pictures on a walk Christmas Eve day at Allied Arts in Palo Alto.





And this one heading south on Hwy 280.

"One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed." Link. (See "No. 11")

Also:

"More than food-scroungers, though, [German] IKEA workers fear lazy parents. Around 150 three- to 10-year-olds are deposited daily at the Hamburg-Schnelsen store's play area -- a complimentary offer to allow mom and dad to wander in peace through the showrooms. But many people misuse the service as a free babysitting service." Link.

Fifteen months after Mount St. Helens reawakened, the volcano is continuing to release massive amounts of lava in an unusual geologic display that in some respects confounds scientists.

Roughly every three seconds, a large dump truck load's worth of lava — 10 cubic yards — oozes into the mountain's crater. And with the sticky molten rock comes a steady drumfire of small earthquakes.

The unremitting, monthslong pace is not common, said U.S. Geological Survey geologist Dave Sherrod. Experts say it is unclear what the activity signifies or how long it will continue.

Link.

The 25 Most Interesting Web Cams of 2005.

Link.

Also:

The best fonts of 2005. Link. (via Metafilter)

So he faked it.

Link.

I'm not surprised; the Koreans were reporting suspiciously fast progress.

Well, at least the USA isn't as far behind in stem cell research as it seemed.

The question now is, where exactly are we?

"Who wants to go get rum balls!

It's not really a question so much as a rallying cry."

Link.

"[H]ow to use Google's translation service to see sites that are forbidden by your company's firewall; ask Google to do an English-to-English translation." Link.

Top Ten Signs You're A Gay Cowboy

Link.

A Board of Supervisors committee approved legislation Monday that would give city officials wider powers to protect large trees in San Francisco, including those on private property.

[...]

After landmark status is granted for a tree, it could not be removed without a public hearing and approval from the Department of Public Works. Cutting down a landmark tree without permission could bring a fine as high as $1,000 and a requirement to pay for replacement of the tree.

Link.

But over in Oakland:

Take a stroll around the lake and you'll find red-tagged trees everywhere you look. Some of them are coming down because they are dead or dying; others are so old and heavy they've become a safety risk; still others have to go to make way for widened and improved paths and jogways. But others seem to have been condemned for entirely arbitrary reasons. And we're not mollified by the city's plan to plant more trees than it cuts down: We know the difference between a tree that's stood for sixty or more years and a sapling that will need to be held up by wooden poles for its first five years.

Link.

Currently, the biggest house on Santa Clara County's tax rolls is 19,951 square feet.

``When is it enough?'' said resident Robin Robison. ``We've seen it inch up: 20, 25, 30'' thousand square feet.

More generous than several affluent towns, Los Altos Hills allows people to develop 6,000 square feet for every flat acre of land. A 12,000-square-foot home could fit on two acres, 18,000 on three acres and so on. Woodside, Los Gatos and Palo Alto generally cap main residences at 6,000 square feet no matter how large the lot.

Link.