You must be talking about someone else. We live in an old house, drive an old (yet somehow, not fully paid for) car. We wear ratty clothing (it’s really because of the dogs — nice clothing would just get covered by hair, so what’s the point?). We live in a town where you couldn’t buy a luxury item for love or money. No one sells luxury items unless you count the lumber yard or Walmart as luxury purveyors.
You know what’s really weird? I have never had any interest in impressing the world with my goods. I occasionally envy someone’s location. They live in a particularly beautiful place or near an ocean … but of all my sins, envy isn’t one of them. I come from a family where comparing things you bought is not about how much you spent, but how much you saved. As in: “I got this $400 suit for $25 on the super clearance rack!”
That’s bragging. Telling people you paid the full price for any item? Why would that impress anyone?
It’s probably why we aren’t rich. To become wealthy, you have to care about money and we’ve simply never cared enough. These days, though, I wish we’d cared a little more.
I’ve been watching for a new orchid. Every day I check. Did another bud open yet? Today, there it was. The third flower is in bloom.
I got all excited. I was going to go take pictures, but it turned out to be four o’clock which is the dog’s dinner time, so I had to stop and feed them. As soon as they finished choking down the food — they really eat as if no one ever feeds them — I grabbed two cameras. First, the OMD with the macro lens and the tiny Pentax Q with its fast “normal lens.
It was a bright day and I hoped I’d have enough light to get clean shots with the macro. The Pentax Q was my fallback position.
“I’m so excited,” I told Garry. “I didn’t use to get excited about plants.”I stopped when I said that because I realized I was lying. When I lived in New York, my whole first floor looked like a greenhouse. I had hundreds of plants. Hanging and standing. Tall and flat. And they were literally everywhere you looked.
I had special stands made on which to put the plants in which I could put water so the heat from the radiators would turn to mist and keep them from drying out. People I didn’t know would leave me cuttings on my porch. I was, in fact, know as “The Plant Lady” unless it was someone to whom I had given a cat or dog, in which case I was the cat or dog lady.
To say I didn’t get excited about plants was an out-and-out lie. No one who doesn’t get excited about plants grows a few hundred of them indoors.
“Okay,” I said, having rethought my original statement. “I guess I do get excited about plants.”
Garry remembers the house on Dikeman Street. I didn’t have curtains. The plants covered the windows in every room on the ground floor. I had a miniature hose which attached to my kitchen faucet so I could water them in a couple of hours.
I had started out with maybe three plants, but there were clippings and the arboretum had a sale. And people gave me plants. Cuttings. Ferns.
And all I did was water them when they got dry and make sure they got a reasonable amount of light. When I left for Israel, I had to give away my plants. I had one hanging fern that was about five feet around. I gave to friends as a wedding present. They looked puzzled. A fern? A gigantic fern?
“Water it when it gets dry and be sure it gets light. It doesn’t need full sun, just light.” I have no idea what happened to it because the next day, I was on a plane to Israel where I had to rethink my plant choices. The balcony on which I grew my plants, was on the south side of the house. It got hot, semi-tropical sun from mid-morning until dark. Most plants fried in that kind of sunshine.
It turned out the only plants that could cope with it were petunias, hanging geraniums — which have simply got to be the most versatile plants available — and cactus. Everything else burned to a crisp.
So here I am, 41 years later. I still get excited about plants. I don’t have as many of them — indoors, just a half-dozen. I don’t have the energy to maintain a huge indoor greenhouse. Moreover, we don’t have enough light to grow most of the plants I grew in those less golden olden days.
If Renoir lived here …
I did get a third blossom on the orchids, though. That makes up for a lot, even if my outdoor garden is a terrible mess.
It’s dusk. From the 33rd floor of the State Street skyscraper overlooking Boston Harbor. Not an easy shot as I’m dressed for a wedding and the only camera I have is a rather pathetic one in my not-so-new mobile phone.
Yet it’s a magnificent sight. I’m glad I’m able to get any pictures at all.
You can see many rooves along the harbor, from 250-year-old warehouses to other tall building. But this building was the tallest of all!
Well, the theme is ROOFS (or rooves if you prefer). Your roof can be;
A – Any type, any condition, any size, and in any location. B – It could be a shot across rooftops, of one roof like today or even a macro C – You might prefer to spend some time under the eaves and in the attic, or enjoy the view from above as Brian has already done today.
This is one of those frequently used terms that’s often misunderstood. Literally has nothing to do with literature. I’m sure the “lit” part comes from some Greek or Latin root word but is not a literal interpretation of the expression “literally.” Figuratively speaking.
Speaking literally means that what you are saying is true. It’s not an analogy or something that’s similar to something else. If you say “That is literally what happened” you are saying this is not an exaggeration or some other kind of relationship to the whatever it was.
It’s what happened. Really. No kidding. It’s the news. Maybe it’s the news roundup. It is true.
Remember true? Literally is true, just like I said it.
Boston has many trains. Commuter trains as well as trains to DC. Florida, and other places. More interestingly, it has trolleys: small trains that run through several towns used by local commuters.
Everyone loves them because unless the standard commuter trains, the trolleys run on time. It’s your job as a car driver to get out of the way when they come!
Trolley tracks in Boston streetsX – Crossing the tracksGrafton train tracks
I have to admit, these days, it takes a certain amount of good ole’ gumption to get myself out of bed at all. It has been a frantic month and I can count on a frantic couple of months to come. I’m feeling the stress.
Finally, after relaxing enough to enjoy retirement, I feel like I’m back on a treadmill. I suppose I should feel good about it because it will have — I believe — good results and make our world a better place. Nonetheless, it has been a rough road. I’ve worked hard at unknotting the stress mess I’d become by the time I quit work and realized I wasn’t going to do it anymore. Now, it’s back.
Gumption is a great word and one you don’t hear much anymore. I remember when it was quite common, but our language has turned into a kind of internet shorthand and all the gorgeous, rich words seem to be disappearing. “LOL” and “OMG” and the like will never give us the feeling or wealth our previous language allowed.
These days, it’s had to have the gumption to just get on with it and survive. From a relatively peaceful world — which had its problems, mind you — we have been tossed willy-nilly into a nightmare world where everything we believed before makes no sense.
As I said: It takes a fair bit of gumption to just get up in the morning and face the day.
Does anyone think it is going to get easier? Yesterday, they actually locked up Manafort. I think that was the first thing all week that made me feel almost good.
World? Throw me a few crumbs! I need hope to keep on keeping on!
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You must be talking about someone else. We live in an old house, drive an old (yet somehow, not fully paid for) car. We wear ratty clothing (it’s really because of the dogs — nice clothing would just get covered by hair, so what’s the point?). We live in a town where you couldn’t buy a luxury item for love or money. No one sells luxury items unless you count the lumber yard or Walmart as luxury purveyors.
