Dahlias and a Rodent Houdini

Our first dahlia blossom of the year has appeared -- one of the "Bishop's Children" variety. It was a race between that one and this:

Remember how I said the "Iron in the Fire" dahlia appeared to have died over the winter? Well, I think that (above) is "Iron in the Fire," which means the dahlia that died was actually the purple one -- "Dalaya Dark Aruna." (You can see them both here.) I'm not broken-hearted either way, and I guess we won't know for sure until the flower opens, but that bud sure looks more like an orange flower than a purple one.

I spent yesterday almost entirely indoors. It poured rain in the morning, which was fantastic. It's cooler out there than I'd like it to be but I'm so happy for the moisture. I stayed on the couch reading about Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, and in the afternoon I watched "A Summer Place," which is definitely a melodrama but better than I remember. I learned that the real-life house used in the film -- which was in Monterey, California, and not Maine as specified in the plot -- burned down last year. A shame.

Apropos of nothing, here's a quote I came across yesterday from author Michael Chabon, who wrote "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" and "Wonder Boys" and "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" and "Telegraph Avenue," all of which I enjoyed:

"Every morning I wake up and in the seconds before I turn my phone on to see what the latest news is, I have this boundless sense of optimism and hope that this is the day that he's going to have a massive stroke, and, you know, be carted out of the White House on a gurney."

Let's just say that struck home.

And here's the sight that greeted me when I looked out the window yesterday afternoon. I don't know if you can see what's going on there, but that squirrel is head-down in the plastic interior tube of that bird feeder. Having emptied the peanut feeder, Houdini-squirrel found a way to unlock the lid of this one, which is supposed to be squirrel resistant. I can't turn my back for a minute!