Flowers on the road home

Home at last! We had quite a trip over the Memorial Day weekend. We stopped in St. Louis to celebrate my mother's 96th birthday with her. She tells me that she is slowing down. Now, she only participates on a dozen boards of directors. Her contacts and business acumen are widely sought.

Then we headed up to Chicago for the wedding of our former neighbor's son. All three of their kids grew up in both of our houses. We love them and their parents. Mitch married a wonderful girl, just right for him. I posted a description of the wedding last night.

On the way home, we were deluged the first day, but the second was alive with wild flowers, like this clump of native prairie daylilies. They grow along side of the road from Chicago south and are found everywhere in Arkansas.

Another lovely orange flower is butterfly weed. It's in the milkweed family. Unfortunately, it is usually a singleton plant and all of the ones I saw were beside the Interstate. Even I am not dumb enough to stop on a 70mph highway to photograph flowers. You want to see it? Look it up.

But the Queen Anne's lace was plentiful. It's a relative of the carrot. The carroty aroma is obvious if you pull it up. In fact it's called "false carrot" too. A word of warning here: There are two false carrots, the European and the American. The European false carrot is poisonous and I don't know how to tell them apart.

Another seasonal road flower is coreopsis. This is a HUGE family of flowers, even larger than the daisy family. They are related to sun flowers. Most of them have red or brown centers in their yellow petals. They are reliable bloomers for late spring.

As you can see, in large patches, they are spectacular.

There was quite a bit of brown grass along the roads we drove. I'm not sure if this is a run away grain plant or a weed the farmers call "cheat".

You can see that it is headed out just like wheat or rye. Not sure if it's edible. I'm going to ask our county agent.

The Illinois roads were bumpy and potholed. The Arkansas roads were just bumpy. Fran suffered through it, but had to go to bed immediately when we arrived at home. That kind of pain doesn't go away at once. I hope she sleeps well. There is only one impediment beside the road residue: our AC is only working partially. The house is not insufferable, but the temperature is about ten degrees (Fahrenheit) warmer than strictly comfortable. I'll probably stay up until too tired not to sleep.

The wedding

I'm in a hotel in central Illinois. Fran and I spent the weekend in a northern Chicago suburb watching the son of our former neighbors and still friends get married. It was a wonderful wedding.

The rabbi's talks was kind, romantic and funny. It was a more or less traditional Jewish wedding. But there was enough English to keep all the gentiles abreast of what was going on. Many of the groom's friends had visited us during his time in Little Rock and remembered us (and our house) fondly.

There were drinks and hors d'oeuvres and drinks before the ceremony so any of the itchy adults were able to stay in their seats. The kids, on the other hand, were little balls of tuxedoed energy. One of them started to cry when her mother, the maid of honor, passed her on the way to the platform. An emergency "mom fix" took care of that for long enough to get my friends hitched.

They are both friends now. I think I fell in love with the bride the first time our neighbor brought her by. She is bright, gentle, kind and funny. So is he.

There was dinner after the ceremony. The only problem was that the photographer was continuously chased by the room manager to hurry. The same room that was used for the ceremony was for the dinner and post prandial celebrations. As hotel staff grabbed and stacked chairs, the photog herded the wedding party onto the platform, waited for the kids to stop doing summersaults and rolls on the floor, and snapped some pics. If my judgement is anything to go on, they were good ones.

After the dinner and toasts came the dancing. The bride danced with her father. The groom danced with his mother. Both couples were obviously talking about the past and future. It was quite touching. Then the wedding party was told to dance to a very bouncy tune. When that was done, the music immediately switched to a hora. The hora is a traditional dance and the recording was perfect, moving from the swaying beginning to the frenzied end. Bride and groom were elevated on chairs and were together only by the handkerchief they both held. But the guests soon tired of that, put the chairs down and them in the center of the three circles that had formed to dance. A couple of the men gave an excellent demonstration of the hora footwork as the music got faster and faster. Then all of us joined in for the end.

Most of us quit the room for the bar and a little rehydration, but the records kept playing. The organizers had put a table full of various types of candy out, along with little paper bags so we could take the stuff back to our tables. When I returned, an early Michael Jackson song was playing. I'm not much of a dancer.... no sense of time or rhythm. But I watched as the others danced enthusiastically. Alas, the DJ turned the music up much louder after that. I fled, but my ears are still ringing.

Poor Fran!!! She had some kind of belly bug and spent most of the day in bed between hurried trips to the bathroom. She was still sick this morning. We had to cancel a barbeque that my cousin had planned and left Chicago early. She's feeling better this evening. But her stomach (and mine) are still in the "iffy" stage.

No pictures for this post, just a description of the best wedding party I ever attended. THANKS MADELON.

Golden hours

Our gumpo azaleas are creeping around the corner of my office. They're the last of the azaleas to bloom in spring. In fact, they are just getting finished when the blossoms of all the others have fallen and been moved or are compost.

What I thought was neat is the fact that they are moving by layering. Layering is something that some garden plants do. They expand to available soil when one of their branches is allowed to rest on the ground. That spot sinks new roots and, if the parent plant is cut away, will continue to grow and bloom on its own.

That is a bright spot in these final days of electioneering in Arkansas. I don't know how it is chez vous, but here, candidates have been invading every aspect of life. They stand on corners waving signs, post on Facebook, button hole people at gatherings and worst of all, have computerized telephone calls at any hour of the day or night. Nuts to them all say I. Maybe I'll just write myself in if there isn't a suitable candidate to elect. Certainly none of the ones who have been advertising all over the TV and invading my life otherwise seem to be people I want in positions of responsibility.

The days are getting hot and humid. That pretty well limits the time I'm able to spend outside cutting grass, pulling weeds or moving rocks. On the other hand, it might just give me the impetus to start writing more. Over the past weeks, I have been sitting around reading "comfort books" instead of researching or writing.

Comfort books are those I've read in the past and enjoyed completely. Authors like Diana Wynne Jones, Eleanor Farjeon, Dorothy Sayers, P.G. Wodehouse and L. Frank Baum are the ones I've picked on for the most part. There is an ease to reading them. I don't have to think much. Am I becoming stodgy?

Music in my head and elsewhere

I mentioned in a previous post that I usually have a piece of music or a single phrase that runs through my mind for most of the day. This can be as simple as one line from a song or as complex as a movement from a symphony.

I start with this because since the evening news, the "theme" from my local station's news broadcast has been running, repeating. It is a fairly simple phrase, quite dramatic (as if to show impending import) but short, five notes with a telegraphic sounding coda. That started me wondering: Who composes these themes?

Think about it. Almost all television stations that broadcast news have a theme to introduce the news. Most of them are quite catchy, certainly au courrant. But where do they come from? Is there a workshop of composers who specialize in writing these themes? Is it a single person banging out tunes on a tinny upright piano, a la tin pan alley? Do the stations hire advertising agencies to find the tunes? Perhaps there is an underground network, known only to TV producers that locates the composer.

I think this is a silly, banal contemplation. But it has grabbed me for tonight. If anyone out there knows, please post a comment.

Thoughts about Idaho

Shoshone Falls from two angles

rainbow over Idaho flats Snake River Canyon Twin Falls Bridge

I was going to Grinch today about one thing and another. But a Facebook friend muttered something about scenery in Idaho. I'm posting a couple of pictures I took up there two years ago.

That was actually one heck of a trip. Fran and I drove from Little Rock to San Antonio, TX (there's one in New Mexico too) along the Blue Bonnet Trail. Although the blue bonnets were only just beginning to show, the dogwoods were marvelous and quite a few other wild flowers were earlier bloomers than the legendary blue bonnets.

From San Antonio, we headed west to Las Vegas, NV (there's one in New Mexico too), thence north. We drove over the Hoover Dam. On the way there, we saw a herd of about 30 deer crossing the highway. Traffic in both directions had stopped to let them cross. I grabbed my camera and was so excited that I took a picture of the pavement instead of the deer. They just jumped the fence on the other side of the highway and disappeared into the landscape.

Northern Nevada is pretty grim. But March snow storms livened things up for us. By about four in the afternoon, it was getting dark and still snowing. We were just a few miles from Twin Falls. We made it there, checked into a motel, ate and hit the sack.

The next morning, we were going to meet Arielle's hockey team in Boise. As we were driving out of town, we crossed the bridge over the Snake River Canyon. The view was so spectacular that I got across the bridge, made a 'U' turn and drove back to the visitor's center. We learned (or were reminded) that Evil Kneivil had tried to jump it on a motorcycle and had to parachute to safety on his first try. Parasailors and bungie jumpers used the bridge as a "jump off" point. The canyon and falls were fantastic.

We decided that we'd drive west through the canyon instead of heading straight to Boise. It was a good decision. The canyon bottom is fertile land. Farms and ranches are strung out along the canyon bottom. There are hundreds of springs making falls down the north side of the canyon. It was simply beautiful.

That's a part of Idaho you shouldn't miss. The northern, mountains are quite another wonderful view. There are small lakes and wonderful fishing streams. I'm told that the hunting is very good there too. It's just rich mountain pine land and I love it no matter where I find it.

What next?

This is a difficult post for me. It concerns a case recently argued before the United States Supreme Court. In the case, the plaintiff argues that a cross erected at Sunrise Rock, on government land 75 years ago by a group of WWI veterans to commemorate the many dead who lie buried in foreign graves. The cross has been replaced several times to maintain it. A former park employee challenged the right of the cross to be on government land. A lower court found for the employee but the cross was not taken down. Instead, it was covered by a large box.

While the Supreme Court overruled the decision of the lower court, I am disturbed by the implications of the entire matter. This lonely memorial is seen by few people. It was erected in good faith by a group who had seen the horrors of war and wanted to memorialize their dead comrades. The fact that a man did not want that cross, which he saw as strictly a Christian symbol on government land is disturbing. That a court in California agreed with him is more so.

I believe that this case reaching the Supreme Court is the result of interpretation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. That states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free expression thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,or the press, or the right of people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

I do not see where the erection of a memorial conflicts with that amendment. There have been other cases, notably the plaque of the ten commandments in a state house, which have been decided differently. While the constitution insists on the separation of church and state, I can not find anywhere that it forbids the use of a religious symbol on government land, or even in government buildings.

While I am not a Christian, crosses to me, symbolize sacrifice and honor, not the religion. It disturbs me that such a case can make it to the Supreme Court. What will the "politically correct" demand next? Covering the crosses and stars in National Cemeteries perhaps? It just seems wrong.

If you want to look at this, the case is Salazar v. Buono, 08-472.

Weather changes things

left to right
salvia and iris
hardy orchid blossom

goldfish in a row

azaleas blooming above the pond

For the past few months, I've had the "blahs". I really didn't want to get out of bed and put off doing everything until the last minute, or later. But a few days of sunshine and nice temperatures, backed by a good evening rain storm seems to have turned the corner for me.

As you can see, I've been the garden a bit. After the rain, the weeds were easier to pull and we still had two years of weeding to do. When we went to Ireland last year, we missed all the decent gardening weather for the summer. We got a little done in fall, but there were too many other things on my plate and Fran's knees were bothering her. That meant a summer's worth of weeds were allowed full play everywhere.

It took me two days just to clear the paths of leaves. Yesterday and today, I hit the weeds in both the gardens and on the paths. I just about have the paths done. The gardens take a little longer. It helps that I am in weeding mode now. That means I walk around admiring, taking pictures and picking off weeds that come to hand. That can be a little embarrassing when I do it in friend's gardens.

I also weeded my in box. Now there is a manageable amount of "to do's" and I am working through them.

A very good friend asked me to write. I am literally years behind on my correspondence. Writing has been very dry for me, but I hope that this mood swing will get me back on track. I have a short story to finish and another to rewrite. (A terrific editor gave me her time and went through three of my stories. They are filled with suggestions to make them better and more marketable.)

I may even find the energy to post here more often.