Ks Are Wild

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:

Such an ugly word for the beauty it can describe; especially the beauty that can be seen on a daily basis around Corvallis and the Willamette Valley in general.

bucolic

Translations: Etymology: From bucolicusLatin, bÅcolicus < Ancient Greek (polytonic, ) (boukolikos) “rustic, pastoral; meter used by pastoral poets” < (polytonic, ) (boukolos) “cowherd” < (polytonic, á) (bous) “cow” + (polytonic, -) (-colos) “keeper, tender” + (polytonic, -) (-icos) “-ic”.

PASTORAL

Main Entry:

¹pas·to·ral

Pronunciation:

\ˈpas-t(ə-)rəl\

Function:

adjective

Etymology:

Middle English, from Latin pastoralis, from pastor herdsman

Date:

15th century

1 a (1): of, relating to, or composed of shepherds or herdsmen (2): devoted to or based on livestock raising b: of or relating to the countryside : not urban <a pastoral setting> c: portraying or expressive of the life of shepherds or country people especially in an idealized and conventionalized manner <pastoral poetry> d: pleasingly peaceful and innocent : idyllic2 a: of or relating to spiritual care or guidance especially of a congregation b: of or relating to the pastor of a church

— pas·to·ral·ly \-t(ə-)rə-lē\ adverb

— pas·to·ral·ness noun

agrestic, Arcadian, bucolic, country, georgic (literary) idyllic, rural, rustic, simple

Every day that I drive to and from Kosette’s environmental, place-based school in Corvallis, I practically have pinch to remind myself that I am indeed awake and not dreaming.  It is just gorgeous in Oregon and my area of the Willamette Valley.  No matter how rushed or grumpy I might be, I ALWAYS thank my lucky stars to be living in such a beautiful place.  But my daily commute forces a gradual wake-up, almost meditative, so that I’m centered and focused by the time I reach my destination.  I imagine that this was exactly was some Asian companies had in mind here in America when they purposefully designed their parking lots a great distance from their office buildings to force their employees to walk more.  And in so doing, they stroll through lovely landscaping and gradually their minds release their home problems and transition into their work personas.  I don’t remember where I heard or read that exactly, but it made an impression on me enough to retain it to use in my blog at least a decade later.  I think they really have something there.  The time of my commute and the pleasant smells (save for my tooting son in the backseat) of grass, rain, and coffee, and the lovely pastoral scenes through which I drive recalls imagery from bucolic imagery from Jane Austen films.  We’re about to enter into that electric green time of year when all the young, tender grass shoots (remember, this is the grass seed capitol of the nation, therefore, there is a ton round these here parts) go from looking like bad green hair plugs to a lush carpet.  I find myself listing synonyms and making up analogies to describe the multitude of different greens you can see here all the time.  It’s as if “green” would be Corvallisonians equivalent for our moss and leaves and grass to Alaskan’s 100 words describing snow.  By the way, that’s an urban legend.  I looked it up.  I love how NPR has a commitment to – dang – how did they put it – our “verdant” world?.  But here are some other words for the color: vert, verdant, viridian.  V words are the best.  Well L words are really good too; like Lascivious.  But these  are cool synonyms for green when using it in the young/new/blooming adjective sense: bosky, budding, burgeoning, callow, developing, flourishing, foliate, fresh, grassy, growing, half-formed, immature, infant, juvenile, leafy, lush, maturing, pliable, puerile, pullulating, raw, recent, sprouting, supple, tender, undecayed, undried, unfledged, ungrown, unripe, unseasoned, verdant, verduous, youthful

Just writing it makes me shake my head at my traffic ridden, frenzied, hurry-up-and-wait, smog-laden, gamble of should we take the freeway or go surface streets?, grumpy, surliness that was my morning commute in LA.  10 miles or so that would take at least 20 minutes.  (Everything’s 20 mins. away when you live in the valle, even if you’re just 5-10 miles away.)  Oy, it gives me a headache just thinking about it.  Thank the stars, I live here now.  My lucky stars.

My cats are shorthairs.  )You soooooo thought I was going “there” didn’t you?  That’s what she said!!!)

My black poodle is hairy high and low.  Don’t ask me why – don’t know.  It’s not the lack of bread, like the Grateful Dead Darlin’.

Actually, it is the lack of bread.  Do you know how expensive professional grooming is on a regular basis?  Yowsers!  Luckily, my parents, packrats that they be, still had the Oster electric clippers from my old Shelty, Muffy (I kid you not!  That was…wait for it…HIS name.)  And yes, for those who remember him, he did die when I was in the 5th grade.  Not gonna do the math for you folks, but that is quite a longass time to hang on to such an item.  I wonder if they’re going to sound like an old-fashioned vibrating bed they’re so old (the clippers, not the parents).  But you know what?  Despite my quipping, I’m grateful.  I needed electric clippers for Maude.  They saw it on my Amazon wishlist and they probably hunted it down in their crazy garage.  That was probably a lot of time and energy to do that so it was sweet of them to go through the effort and the cost in shipping them to me.

Maude’s pretty shaggy right now.  It’s interesting in that there’s more of the dumb dog jokes that get thrown out when she’s shaggy like this vs. when she has the poodle cut with the long ears and pom-pom tail.  Then she’s “cute” and “dainty” and “girly.”  Thank heavens she’s black so she doesn’t show all the mud on her lower legs and paws.  It is IMPOSSIBLE to keep my floor clean right now.  Whatever the case, I love to weave my fingers through it.  I miss having a longhair cat though.

If I let her ears and poof grow out again in time for next Halloween, I could stick a cool hat on her, roll a fat looking blunt out of a paper towel and tuck it in her collar and call her a Rastafarian tripping guide dog.  Seriously, she could get the dreads if I let her.  Their hair grows so fast!