Thoughts on Iran

The once-glittery drag queen hyacinths are looking better and better. They smell great, too. I have them just outside the back door so I can see them from inside, and every time I step out onto the patio I get a whiff of their scent.

I've avoided writing about this Iran thing in order to give my thoughts some time to settle. I think it's a potentially disastrous mistake on Trump's part, and I'm opposed to what he's done -- as I wrote in a comment on someone's blog recently, I'm against starting wars on general principle. Call me crazy! But I'm willing to entertain the idea that this could ultimately lead to a better situation in the Middle East.

I'm kind of in the same position of uncertainty as Thomas Friedman. As he wrote in his most recent column, "Everything -- and its opposite -- is possible." We could wind up with a weaker Iran, less willing to meddle in the politics of its neighbors and less able to act as an anti-Western destabilizing force in the Middle East. Or we could wind up with chaos, as we did in Libya and Iraq following the US-backed overthrow of their dictatorial governments.

Bret Stephens seems to think Trump and Netanyahu have done the world a favor. It was interesting to read his take, given that I've felt sick to my stomach over the whole thing and he helped me see this action in a more positive light, but I still feel like that initial burst of relief is a little too easy. (Stephens is more conservative than I am on many things, but both he and Friedman have been Trump critics so I doubt they're toadying in any way to the Great Leader.)

Ultimately, though, I think Trump remains delusional and is biting off more than he can chew. Remember how he wanted to turn Gaza into a resort? And he's talked about running the governments of Greenland and Venezuela and now Iran? He has a real god complex and, on top of that, he's a blustering idiot. So if this does turn out to be a positive step for the Middle East in the long term, it will be a surprise -- and one that comes with the cost of hundreds if not thousands of civilian deaths.

Closer to home -- more pottery being given away on a garden wall down the street. I kind of like the two little handmade pieces, but I left them there. Dave will kill me if I keep bringing things like this home.

Emergency Primula Rescue

Another day of domesticity yesterday. I cleaned the flat, took the sheets to the laundry, archived my photos and took a walk to the cemetery in the afternoon. The ornamental plum tree outside the chapel is blooming away, as is the one in our garden.

I wanted to go see the daffodils at Fortune Green. It was an annual ritual for Olga to visit the daffodils and meander through them willy-nilly. To my eye, they look a bit forlorn and lonely without Olga trampling them.

The wild primroses are blooming in the cemetery, as they always do. I learned something new the other day when I referred to the Primulas in our garden as primroses and Gwynneth corrected me. Apparently wild-type Primulas are primroses, but cultivated hybrids are properly called Primulas. Thus, all primroses are Primulas, but not all Primulas are primroses. Have I got that right, Gwynneth?

Speaking of cultivated Primulas, I passed a trash bin in the cemetery that had about eight of these battered plants in it. Someone had obviously swapped out the annuals on a grave, but these plants didn't look quite done to me. They have so many flower buds still coming! So I grabbed the three healthiest-looking ones (and one sad fourth one) and brought them home and put them in a planter.

After deadheading, here's what they look like. Steve's Plant Rescue Service strikes again! If they survive their trauma they should keep blooming through the next month or so, at least. They may even survive to bloom again next year. And they were free, except for the cost of the Miracle Gro potting compost I put them in.

And speaking of plant rescuing, here are the teasel seedlings I plucked from that seed head a couple of weeks ago. As you can see, four of the six have survived and have little secondary leaves, so we may get some viable teasel plants.

Violets and a Final Squash

This violet grew of its own accord next to our patio. Signs of spring! I like violets but they do spread like crazy and they are very hard to pull up when they grow where they're not wanted (like between the patio paving stones or in a potted plant). The plant above is safe because it's growing in a good place.

Yesterday felt amazing. Just staying home, reading on the couch, cleaning the house, being domestic. I needed that so much!

I've had a mental list of small projects that needed doing, and I was able to scratch off some of those -- like repotting the "Wandering Dude" (Tradescantia) cuttings I took when the painters came and we had to cut back our existing plants. Now we have two new Wandering Dudes, which thrills Dave, who thinks they are basically weeds.

I know, I know -- don't I keep saying we already have too many plants?

I also baked the last of our front-porch squashes, which has been cooling its heels (do squashes have heels?) in the closet under the stairs for the last four or five months. I pretty much forgot about it and only remembered recently that it was there. Fortunately, it's a very hard, durable squash -- a Japanese variety known as a kobucha. I read online about how to prepare it and took the simple route -- baking with olive oil, salt and pepper. I had a wedge at lunch yesterday and it's good, more dense than a butternut but creamy and flavorful. Some people liken the flavor to chestnuts, and I can see that.

My Rhipsalis cactus is blooming once again! (I could not figure out how to take this picture without getting myself in it.)

I downloaded the garden cam, which has spent the past week on the patio. You'll see Ronald the Rat, various birds and squirrels, and a couple of quick drive-by foxes. Also, Tabby and Pale Cat make separate appearances, sniffing around the area beneath the bird feeder where Ronald seems to appear most often. Let's hope one of them catches him. (Sorry, Ronald.)

The most interesting moment, to me, comes at 2:06, when we see two tiny dunnocks in the lower left corner of the screen doing something that looks like a courtship or mating dance. One rapidly flutters its wings and tail, and the other hops around frantically behind it. If there was ever consummation, the camera didn't record it, which is just as well. Let's give the poor dunnocks their privacy.

Also, the fox at the end looks like it's hunting, and then it runs away with something in its mouth. The prey doesn't look like Ronald -- in fact it looks like a dog treat. Maybe the fox had a treat or a bone buried near the patio. They have been known to hide food like that. Who knows?

Drifts of Daffodils

I blog pictures of this housing estate in St. John's Wood every year when the daffodils come out, and I can't resist doing it again. I love the way they're planted in a long, curvy drift across the lawn. Monty Don on the BBC show "Gardener's World" is always reminding people not to plant their bulbs in rows, but in naturalistic scatterings. He recommends casting them on the ground and planting where they fall. This is a bit more calculated than that, perhaps, but still not overly regimented.

That's Leon's "Ideas" sculpture on the oxidized stone column in the middle.

And here they are at night.

Yesterday was another grind at work. When my boss asked me at 3:45 to start on another project (we close at 4:30) I actually complained to her that my job had become "relentless." I'd been busy all day covering books, checking out, helping change out two displays, working in the Lower School, re-shelving and other stuff. "It's a lot, I know," she said, and offered to help with this new task, but dear God, why do we have to be so non-stop? The atmosphere has changed so much and my workload is no longer commensurate with my paycheck. Twenty-three more days!

I had not one but two martinis last night.

Meanwhile, I have nothing specific to do this weekend. I'm hoping to do some reading and catch up in blogland, where I am way behind. (In addition to the laundry and gardening and plants and all that stuff!)

Luzon, Great Britain, Honshu, (Blank)

The other night I was getting ready for bed, turning out lights and checking doors and windows and that kind of thing, and I happened to glance across the street. One of our neighbors has a large TV, and they'd paused it in their dark living room with their curtains open, with the result that this face was looming in the darkness. I thought it made a pretty cool, if mysterious, picture. Anybody recognize the show? I don't.

Today I actually have something to blog about because I participated in a social event last night. I know! Rare enough these days! Who has the energy after a long day at work? And honestly, I wasn't all that excited about it, but a co-worker asked me to come and in retrospect I'm glad I did.

It was our school's annual quiz night, sponsored by the parents for themselves, faculty and staff. (No kids -- wine was on the tables!) Our team of eight did pretty well, mainly because one of our group was a complete quiz dominatrix, and we came in third out of eleven teams. Our main rival team came in second, and a team of alumni came in first, which made us all feel pretty good!

Here are some of the sample questions:

1. Which Egyptian city is the name of a Greek god spelled backwards?
2. Which ocean is at the eastern end of the Panama Canal?
3. Complete this series: Luzon, Great Britain, Honshu, ______.

The first one's not hard, but I'm including it here because it was my one distinct victory of the entire evening: Suez. I got other answers too, but usually concurrent with other team members.

The second one seems easy, but it's a trick question. The Panama Canal crosses the isthmus of Panama at a downward angle, and the easternmost terminus is actually in the Pacific. If you look at it on a map, you'll see what I mean. I suppose the giveaway here is the word "ocean," because the other end of the canal is in the Caribbean Sea, not the Atlantic. We actually left this one blank because it was in a round where we got docked for wrong answers and we weren't sure.

The third one was a complete mystery, because we weren't sure what we were measuring. Was it the size of the islands, the locations, some characteristic or what? We put Madagascar, thinking we might be going up in geographic size -- and that's roughly correct but there would be others in the series in between, so that's not the answer they were looking for. Turns out the islands are listed in order of increasing population, with the fourth and most populous one being Java.

So, anyway, that was a lot of fun. I walked home late and got in about 11 p.m. and immediately solved a household mystery.

Dave and I have occasionally noticed silvery slug tracks in the living room. They've been on the carpet, on the floor and even on the sofa. I have scoured the room trying to find that slug or snail, without success, but last night when I came in and turned on the light -- BAM! There it was, on the floor, caught in the act! I scooped it up and threw it out the back door. I'm impressed it's been able to survive in our dry house, but I suppose it stayed on (or under) the plants. Now it's back where it belongs, and probably relieved, if slugs are capable of feeling relief.

Primroses

Another sign that the garden is waking up from its winter slumber -- our primroses are blooming!

I haven't bought a primrose in ages. These are both hardy plants that have come back for us year after year.

Other than that, I've got nothing today. Yesterday was a grind. I am just running every second of every day. I swear I don't know what happened to my job -- it used to be so chill! Now I am just never caught up.

Daffy

The garden is a bit daffodil-crazy at the moment, with daffies on all sides!

Many of these are miniature ones that I collected here and there. I remember getting one pot of bulbs out of the trash in the cemetery while walking Olga, and another came in a big floral arrangement that had been purchased for a special occasion at school.

I like the miniature ones because they seem to clump together and bloom really well, though maybe that's just because of the way we planted them.

While walking around the garden taking these pictures yesterday morning, I discovered this big, sleepy bumblebee tucked into the trumpet of one of our regular-sized daffodils. It didn't seem to want to move. It was pretty chilly yesterday morning so hibernating may have been the sensible thing to do until the sun warmed things up.

It's encouraging to have both flowers and bees coming out. I have a bamboo pole wired to the trunk of the avocado to support whatever winter covering may be needed to protect it, and I'm thinking I might be able to remove that sometime soon -- but I'm still wary because in past years we've had pretty heavy snow in late February and early March. I probably need to leave it in place for another month or so in case the avocado needs to be covered again.

But we're almost done with this winter, I can feel it!