More Blooming Things

Dave and I went out to sit in the garden yesterday after work, and we noticed a few new flowers. Our snake's head fritillary has come up once again, with its reptilian patterns.

And this little flower, which I have been erroneously calling a snowdrop, is a first for our garden. It's a Leucojum, or snowflake. I bought it a couple of years ago at Waitrose and planted it near our snowdrops, and although it came up last year it didn't bloom. This is the first time we've seen a new flower. Don't you love those little green tips on the petals? The world's best engineers and product designers could not have come up with a prettier blossom.

Indoors, two of our Thanksgiving cactuses are producing another round of flowers. I don't know what triggered this -- it's only the bright pink ones, and only on the side of the plants closest to the window. I don't remember it happening in previous years. A blog pal told me several weeks ago that hers was blooming again too. Something about the mild winter? Would that affect an indoor plant?

I'm reading an interesting memoir called "Love, Africa" by Jeff Gettleman. He's a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, and the book is basically about his lifelong infatuation with Africa and its charms. The funny thing is, I've met Gettleman -- not when we both worked at the Times, but at a party once in Florida. He was a young reporter at the St. Petersburg Times -- based in Brooksville, of all places, which is north of where I grew up in Pasco County -- and I was working at the Herald-Tribune in Sarasota. I went to a party in Tampa with some college friends who worked at the St. Pete paper and I remember chatting with Gettleman about our common interest and experiences in Africa.

I admire his youthful focus on getting back to Africa and working there. He made that his goal and St. Petersburg was a stepping stone in that direction. I have never been much of a goal-setter, myself -- I tend to drift along until an appealing opportunity presents itself, but I never know where I'm going to be in five years, much less 20. I've done pretty well with that methodology, but I am impressed with people who set long-term goals and make them happen. Somehow that is not a talent I ever developed!