Ks Are Wild

I’ve been reading The Secret Garden to Kosette and Kellen a little bit here and there and explaining the plot in detail as we drive to school in the morning.  Well, I happened upon the soundtrack at the library and we have been enjoying it while in the car.  There were a couple songs that I could remember and sing off the top of my head before refreshing my memory such as Lily’s Eyes and Come To My Garden but I had forgotten about two of them that I quite like now that I’ve become somewhat of a gardener – “Winter’s On the Wing” and “Wick.”

Today, despite the cold, bite to the air, the daffodils are blooming strongly, the pussywillow’s catkins have burst open, the tulips are headed up, and the maples are impersonating the cherry blossom trees with their salmony colored tender leaves unfurling like blossoms.  Winter is on the wing….we can feel it.  And so do the customers, because work is buuuuuuusy.  In all of your day-to-dayness don’t forget to “stoop and feel it and stop and hear it”….all those little signs of life swelling on branches and emerging through the earthen crust…this cursory time in season’s transitions.  It’s fun to find those bitty signs of life.  Before gardening, all I really knew was it’s cold so it’s still winter, but since we have warmish days here and there and I knew spring was coming.  Or I’d see the daffodils bloom and know it for the obvious sign that springtime is near.  But now my more trained eye is attuned to so much more.  It’s like someone gave me these magical glasses that I can slip on and now I can see all the secret things that other people are oblivious to (I see dead people = I see spring coming).  There’s no going back now.  My visual world has been forever changed and winter no longer feels so long now that I can note its passing with each bud swell or seed germination.

The Secret Garden Cast – Winter’s On The Wing Lyrics

DICKON:
Winter’s on the wing,
Here’s a fine spring morn’
Comin’ clear through the night,
Come the day I say.
Winter’s taken flight
Sweepin’ dark cold air
Out to sea, Spring is born,
Comes the day say I,

And you’ll be here to see it.
Stand and breathe it all the day.
Stoop, and feel it. Stop and hear it.
Spring, I say.

And now the sun is climbin’ high,
Rising fast on fire,
Glaring down through the gloom,
Gone the gray, I say.
The sun it spells the doom
Of the winter’s reign,
Ice and chill must retire
Comes the May say I,

And you’ll be here to see it.
Stand and breathe it all the day.
Stoop, and feel it. Stop and hear it.
Spring, I say.

I say, be gone, ye howling gales,
Be off, ye frosty morns!
All ye solid streams begin to thaw.
Melt, ye waterfalls,
Part ye frozen winter walls.
See, see now it’s starting.

And now the mist is liftin’ high,
Leavin’ bright blue air
Rollin’ clean ‘cross the moor
Comes the day I say.
The storm’ll soon be by
Leaving clear blue sky,
Soon the sun will shine,
Comes the day, say I.

And you’ll be here to see it.
Stand and breathe it all the day.
Stoop and feel it. Stop and hear it.
Spring, I say.

No posts because I couldn’t find my password to update my new computer.  Too stubborn to reset the password because I knew I’d find it.  Finally surrendered and came up with a new one.  Feeling a bit sheepish about it.

I just wrote a very lovely post about Kellen and his birthday party.  You won’t be reading that because this *&*^#^#(*&&$*&& just reset as I was hitting publish so it is all lost.  ARG!!!!!!!!!!!!   Now all I’m going to say is Kellen turned five this week and we’re throwing him his very first birthday party tomorrow.  So I’ve been busy, and will be extremely so today, readying the house and stuff for it.  Maybe I’ll even sew him a costume if I have time.  Yes, it is themed.  Yes, I’m going all out like I did with Kosette’s 5th, Fairy themed.  I don’t even know if more than 2 kids are coming at this point which is frustrating.  Could be a potential of 12.  That’s a wide margin of absences/attendees to plan for.

I’m happy for Kellen who is so excited….he has been counting the days, and now is counting down the hours.  His sister demands so much of the attention around here, that I look forward to him having the chance to shine and hog our focus for a day.  We will be his minions, as is your due when it’s your birthday dontcha think?

I wasn’t in any rush to leave the hospital.  It’s so much easier to adjust your position of your legs and back with the remote control.  But it is nice to be home.  I’m holed up in my bedroom napping when I feel tired, going with silence or soft music when I need it and starting to check my email and maybe even post a little.  I miss my kids and my puppy but I know they’re having a good time with my mom and lots of daddy time.  They come in and say hi sometimes but I have been leaned on while they tried to get off the bed – they’re trying to be so very careful it’s cute.  I wish I could see Kosette’s progress with Irish Dancing and Kellen with his Karate.  They had JUST started their lessons for the first week when I went in.  It’s good that my mom gets to see all this because she hasn’t been around them as much as the other grandparents, although she desperately wanted to.  I swear she teared up as she watched Kosette through the door peephole.  She always wanted us to learn how to play the harp and irish dancing.  It’s through her lineage that we get our Irish, scottish, and French.  County Mayo my peeps are from.

Even though it’s not as easy to adjust.  I love my bed with its cozy flannel sheets and fluffy down comforter and pillows.  And I love my animhouseplants and photos of the kids on the walls.  I love looking at the shelf with all the books I can’t wait to have the mental faculties to read.  And I love my cats who have acted as my personal heating pads – something that I have my  mom nuking constantly.  I really need to make another one so I can rotate.  You know what I also love, staring up at my ceiling and having it finally be finished painted.  It was partially painted in from the corners by a foot or so for over a year.  I knew reclining in bed for 3-6 weeks it would drive me insane to look at that.  Insane to want to paint it the second I could.  I’m so grateful Herma helped me finish that long overdue project.  I rest easier, I swear.

I woke up in the middle of the night and tried to read to get back to sleep, but was still awake reading almost an hour later so I took an Ambien.  I love the book, as I have all other, Barbara Kingsolver novels but this, Animal Vegetable, Miracle is just terrific.  I could underline practically everything.  So often I’ve written a notation about how incredible her writing is.  She really brings points around perfectly and wittily refers back to her initial comment at the end of a paragraph or as the final sentence in a chapter, in a way that is like a smackdown – THERE!  Take that!  Woops, percosets taking effect…

I came across this quote from Mark Twain that I just love.  It was just what I wanted to say, and close to my heart’s sentiments:

“For us, our house was not unsentient matter—it had a heart, and a soul, and eyes to see us with; and approvals, and solicitudes, and deep sympathies; it was of us, and we were in its confidence, and lived in its grace and in the peace of its benediction. We never came home from an absence that its face did not light up and speak out its eloquent welcome—and we could not enter it unmoved.”
—Mark Twain, 1896

Tee hee.  Totally juvenile but, come on, how fun would it be to serve this phallic shaped pepper up?  Maybe with the tip sliced off?  Or with the knife served sticking out of it?  How bout with a side of cherries and kiwis?  I wonder how big they get.  Yeah, now I really want to grow them since they say they’re spicier than a jalapeno.

\

100+ days. Capsicum annuum. Plant produces good yields of 2 ½” long by 1″ wide penis shaped peppers. Peppers are mildly hot and turn from green to red when mature. Plant has green leaves, green stems, and white flowers. United States Department of Agriculture, PI 593566. A variety from the USA. Plant Height: 24″ tall. pk/10

Home. Let the healing begin.

Surgery is over. Managed to keep my uterus after all. At least for another couple of years hopefully. It was a surprise surgery. I wasn’t sure which way it would go and had to wake up to find out what happened. After lots of shaking and tremors and lots of rounds of nausea (until night time), I’m finally round the bend. Waiting for them to administer the next round of pain meds but wanted to follow through with my promise to update. Thanks to everyone for their cards, plants, flowers, meals, and offers of assistance be it carpooling of playdates or making play dough so my mom can have another activity to do with them. I should be released some time tomorrow if all goes well.

It’s another one of  those “I-can’t-believe-I’m-posting-this” posts:

I’m a Gleek; a latebloomer (lack of tv), but instant fan.  And I couldn’t figure out how I knew of Matthew Morrison.  Yeah, I knew Broadway, but where exactly.  Turns out, I was most familiar with him in the Disney special adaptation of Once Upon a Mattress with Zooey Deschanel, Carol Burnett, and Tracy Ulman.

Well, I just couldn’t stop from searching out clips of him from there.

Well, here’s one that I was most definitely NOT expecting.  Turn your sound way down.  I can’t believe I sat through some person’s shaky cell phone capture.  But it Morrison doing “the Humpty Hump” sure did make me smile in this Broadway Bares 18, an annual benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.  And it certainly made me like him all the more.

But wait!  Here’s one from a different angle, straight on, with the whole skit.  Sorta worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QycWxUsAsM0

This looks like the BEST fundraiser to attend.  So much fun.

Bleh, I just feel dirty for posting that.  It’s like reading and spreading tabloid crap, or eating a candy bar.  It tasted really good at the time but now I just feel guilty.

Let me try to redeem myself by making up with something of substance….of quality….because that’s what Matthew Morrison is, not just a yummy morsel I’d like to devour…well, that too.  Figuratively, of course.  His voice is perfect for this South Pacific role.

On a side note, I can’t believe we’re the same age.  So much for my older man fantasy

My friend Kriste and I have the same birthday, we had some big medical issues going on at Da Vinci days last year, and now, we have surgeries scheduled for the same day this month, Friday, January 15th.  Too bad they’re not in the same hospital.  She, having already endured multiple surgeries in August and undergoing enormous occupational therapy with a professional and self-driven, is returning for her 5th surgery in Arizona.  She is a huge music buff and discovered her rally song to help her fight for survival and fight to regain a sense of normalcy and independence in her life.  She recommended I find one that works for me.  I was immediately reminded of my dad’s turning to “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong when he had cancer.  But that was his song.

This is mine.  Nina Simone’s “Feelin’ Good”  It’s the song that made me go out and buy the Point of No Return Soundtrack, and consequently 2 more Nina Simone albums.  Kriste- this one’s for me and you:

2010: The year of the K.  Ks are wild.

Surgivus, TumorFest, you name it.  I’m there with you buddy.  Save me some of that nasty trifle.

This is now an older story (from the beginning of the school year but it’s still cute so I’m going to tell it anyway).

Kosette’s first days of school didn’t quite go as anticipated.  She sighed dramatically when asked about school, “I don’t want to talk about it.”  More prompting from me.  “Booooooorrrrrriiiiiiiinnnnnnggg  All they do is read and write!!  All day long.  Write, write, write.”

She switched the next day from being the excited, never-look-back girl (I kid you not – preschool and kindergarten she disappeared and wanted me to do the same when emotional mommy went back in to get her last hug), to dragging her heels and asking if she had to go.  It was sad to see, actually.  Really, I think it was just her getting used to that transition from super-fun low-expectations lots of music to having to do actual work.  This continued on for weeks.  I was beginning to get nervous.

But then, one day, while talking to Kellen in the bathtub, Kham overheard her say that she “I’m in love with Parker”.  I was sitting at the computer just a room a way with the door open and that made me stop in my tracks.  Kham asked my question, “What did you just say?”  “That I love a boy.”  Well I just had to come down the hallway for this little conversation.  “Of course you do, honey.  Kellen is your brother.  He’s family.  You can LOVE family.  But “love” is a very strong word and it’s not something that we want to throw around and waste on just anyone.   Wait until you think this might be the one you marry and you have to be at least 25.  But you can say ‘I LIKE Parker’.  That’s okay.  So…who is Parker.”  Turns out he’s a 5th grader!!!!!  Ruh-Roh!   If she’s anything like her mommy, we’re in trouble.  Next thing I knew she was excited to go to school again….to see Parker.  She actually saved her chocolate square of dessert and put it in her bookbag to give to Parker.  Ack!

I had one of these moments when I heard the initial bathtub love disclosure:

I wish someone had uploaded a bigger clip of the scene, but you can seen what I’m talking about.

Father of the Bride – Another movie I love.  The house looks like mine growing up, the yard, the neighborhood, the crazy outgoing Dad named George who loves his daughter and family and home to death and wants to see their dreams come true, and loves spoiling them with family experiences like concert tickets.  I’m going to have to watch that again.  Too bad it’s on VHS.  I don’t even know if my machine works up here anymore.  It groans like it needs to be “put down” like a horse.

Anyhooo, it was Parker this and Parker that for months!  Kham actually met the dude for a second.  Said he had a swarm of little girl followers.  Weird.  What Kosette has said, what little info. she’s revealed hasn’t necessarily yielded the best picture, but she’s not exactly someone you’d go for for a whole story.  Anyway, it gaves us a quick heart attack and an early taste of our future life of wanting to check this guy out.  I gave the quick, “whatever you do don’t poo–poo the guy off the bat or she’ll just rebel” speech.  Daddy might be the cool one now, but mommy might have to be the mediator when we hit the day-to-day stuff in teenager-ville.

For now, I’m going to soothe those nerves with memories of her saying “bemember” for remember tonight.  She’s still just 6, she’s just six, just six, 4 more years until the crazies begin.  I had better enjoy and document them more while they last.  Kosette’s first crush = Parker.  Whoever he is.  I should have somebody point him out to me one day.

If you really think of the year in the term of seasons, and the daylight length, and the plants that grow/bloom/ and epitomize those seasons, then Winter solstice is really the beginning of spring.  From December 21st onward the sun marches its way up into the sky staying around longer and longer each day until the equinox when it spends equal amounts down and out.  This is my way of prefacing a post I wrote back in MAY of last year but never got around to actually posting.  They are mid to late spring plants/shrubs/trees.  So understand, that this is coming from someone who is writing in the dizzying colored height of spring when I was practically playing a game of bingo for these things as I drove Kosette to school each day.  Why am I publishing now?  I want to clear out my cache and because I’m convalescing in bed.  Sometimes it’s nice to see a bit of color when you’re in the drollness of winter.  Although, I will admit that now that I garden, winter is a nice break from gardening. Plus, my more learned eye can spot the teeny signs of life, some perennials emerging from the ground, the patch wider than the year before, or teeny buds on my elderberries.  My cats have dug up a nice fat clump of daffodils.  Damned cats.  I swear, they do more harm to my garden than anything else.  Gotta love ‘em or else I’d wring their necks.  Wait, was I talking about the kids or the cats?  Just kidding.  Or was I

There’s a lot of cool stuff that grows in Oregon; plants with which I’m unfamiliar because they need the coolness of winter or require a lot of water so therefore, weren’t in LA.  Occasionally, I’ll see an awesome specimen and go “What is that?!”  And then I’ll start noticing it all over and feel like an idiot for having never noticed it prior.  So what might be a mundane, urbane, plant for here seems almost exotic to my droughty, xeriscapic, homeland.

In the past month or so, I’ve fallen in love with those flowering plums or is it flowering cherries (Still don’t know the answer to that previous post), the red flowering currants, euphorbias (because they look good practically all the time), the big leaf maple tree, and now pink flowering dogwoods.  I find someone who knows what it is and then I find out as much as I can about it.  The lilacs are all blooming too so they’ve been turning my head.  My daffodils are nearly gone, the tulips are all in bloom, some now past their prime, 3 of my 4 lilacs are blooming, and the wands of wisteria are opening up.  The roses are budding up, the elderberries have big blossom buds developing, and my tall bearded irises are starting to unfurl at their tips.  Oh, and one of my clematis (Mrs. P.J. Truax) just bloomed.  And my peas are over 2 feet high now.

I wish I had some peonies though.  Bowl of Beauty – It certainly is.

(Yes, I’ve finally come to embrace the color pink.)

It’s a crime to be without them because they do so well here and are such an icon of late spring and harbinger of the summer to come.  Besides, I like having plants that I associate with friends or family members and evidently, peonies were Kham’s Great Grandma Welte’s favorite flower.  I grow a couple of huckleberry shrubs in honor of his family and our wedding (his grandparents carried a large container of them all the way from Spokane, Washington to top our wedding cheesecake with)

as well as an oakleaf hydrangea ‘Alice’ (after my Auntie Alice),

and Maureen tulips,white (Niece of my grandma).

There’s a Lavon peony (name of my grandma on maternal side, and grandpa on paternal side), so I’ve toyed with that but I have limited space and “it’s not my favorite” – to use my daughter’s expression.

When I do finally purchase a peony it will be from Adelman Peonies since they are a local, independent, family owned grower and I’d like to support their business.  Plus, their stock is wonderful and I had the pleasure of wandering their fields last mother’s day weekend.

I already talked about that pink flowering tree in another post.  Still waiting on an id there.  So onto the next thing that caught my eye – the red-flowering currant.  It turns out it’s a native shrub which is an added bonus.  This thing has been blooming it’s full head off for over a month and is still going strong.  Kosette’s school has a lovely specimen featured in their butterfly garden.  The birds seemed to seek refuge their in the winter and are now active about its branches.  They provide the first nectar of spring to returning hummingbirds.

Yep, definitely going to make some room for that one somewhere.

Big Leaf Maple or Acer Macrophyllum:  Another native – SCORE!  There’s one in the “forest” behind our house, it turns out.  It’s not as nice as a couple I’m in love with that lean over the road in a very picturesque but dangerous way, but nice to have one so near nonetheless.

http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/library/documents/treebook/bigleafmaple.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acer_macrophyllum

http://www.rainyside.com/features/plant_gallery/nativeplants/Acer_macrophyllum.html

I realize now, in trying to find pics of it on the net, that I’m just going to have to take a shot of what I see.  It reminded me of the old Banyan Tree in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii.  And before the leaves grow big, the huge panicle clusters are most of what you see on the branches and it is absolutely spectacular; like a gigantic hops tree with the hops cones bigger than Wisteria blooms.   These pics also don’t convey the giganticness of the leaves; thus, its name “Bigleaf.”  I need to pull over and pick a leaf to show the scale.  It seems like the equivalent of three of my hands with fingers spread wide open.

As for the flowering dogwoods, there’s one at Kosette’s school becoming encompassed by a nearby pine, but that has cute almost lemon yellow with a green eye flowers.  And there’s a salmon pinky peach one about town that is fantastic.  Unlike the light pinks of the flowering cherries/plums or the dark pinks of the crabapples, this pink screams a salmony pink against the grey skies.  There is no missing it.  Don’t know how long they bloom but I’m sure going to enjoy it while it lasts.  Don’t think I’d grow one either because I think they are plagued by anthracnose disease problems, but I’ll appreciate them in the yards of others.  All the pictures I’m seeing online are clearly pink so I don’t know whether it’s a different variety I’m looking at, the effect of the color house behind it, or the lighting so I’ll try to take some pics myself.  Here’s a site, that I stumbled upon for lots of good pics and info: www.paghat.com/dogwoodpink.html.  And here’s a pink one I found online to give you an idea: