Trail's End

You know that path that runs along MoPac just north of the river? I tried to get to that today, but I couldn't find it. How do you get there?

I don't know why I'm asking you. I've got Google Maps same as you have. And I call myself a geographer!

It's fun to enjoy the hike-and bike trail from a different perspective for a change. Normally, of course, I walk on it, along a very specific stretch - as far as I can get from my office and still be back in one hour. My path includes the Statesman, the Congress Avenue Bridge, the South First Bridge; Auditorium Shores, wet dogs, and Stevie; the railroad bridge, pedestrian bridge, and Lamar Bridge; up to Lou Neff Point and back. I scaled it in Arc once - the round trip is about three miles.

On a bike, of course, you can go a lot further, but you have to watch out for obstacles like double-wide strollers, joggers engrossed in their iPods, and dogs - who aren't terribly concerned about whether you run them over or not. The dogs along Auditorium Shores bring down a lot of bikers. But this is perfectly normal, and nothing to be concerned about.

When I ride my bike at lunch, I turn around at the pedestrian bridge under MoPac; but I've always wondered where the trail goes from there. It turns out it doesn't go far, petering out altogether at Eilers Park. What a pity - what I was really hoping for was to find that trail along MoPac and maybe hop up to Camp Hubba Hubba and drop in on Tony and Pinche Robert, who actually went in to work on Texas Independence Day. And they call themselves geographers!

Patriots, I meant to say patriots.

No luck there, but it was still a good day for me. I bought a new pair of shoes - flats, I'm sorry to say, but my jogging shoes were wearing out and there are some things even I won't do in heels. Then I had to go on a nice long walk around the neighborhood to break them in. Keep moving... keep moving...

And I did in fact move all the plants in the world back out front to their summer headquarters, so I hope the weather won't let me down, unlike old blind Romeo, who I can't help noticing is pooping in a potted basil as I type this. You probably don't want to eat pesto at my house.

Happy, happy spring - if it is spring! Here's to new beginnings.

Out in the Cold

It snowed a lot in Alabama today. I went to high school in Madison, and during all my years there I only remember one solitary snowfall sparsely dusting the ground with dirty white. Cue all the usual phenomena: those unaccustomed to the sight are awed, not to mention immobilized - schools and businesses shut down, while those who have lived in more northern climes take grand pleasure in scoffing at the natives. "Look at that!" we say, oh so worldly and superior. "Why, when I was in third grade I walked to school in two feet of snow."

Once, I think, because I'd missed the bus and Mom was about up to her ears with me. I don't remember it being uphill either way.

Meanwhile, back home, I'm annoyed to find that the weather forecast calls for a freeze tonight. Day before yesterday it was ninety degrees. Once again, the plants come inside, all 327,964,898 of them. Tomorrow they'll all go back out again, hopefully this time for good, or at least until December.

The bromeliad cluster from my ex-mother-in-law (this would be a band name, except it's much too long - perhaps one day I'll use it to title a novel) got all excited about the warm weather and is sending out several buds - so the expectant mommy is safely ensconced in the laundry room for the night. I'll have to get a picture when they bloom, because the flowers are strange and beautiful: bright red buds that bloom into electric blue blossoms edged with vivid yellow; alien, unearthly. Spikey, the crack weed from Corpus, produced a gigantic floral cluster about a month ago, and now has babies all over the flower bed. The aloes are burstingly fat and the ivies all need trimming. I love my potted garden, and I'm so glad it's a long weekend for us government-employee types: tomorrow I anticipate spending a happy day rearranging everyone in their proper places on the front porch.

Tonight it's cold, but tomorrow's another day. Tomorrow will be a good one. I'll make my garden grow.

On Second Thought

Okay, so it turns out there's just one slight flaw with enclosing the back patio with plastic sheeting for the benefit of the plants; namely, that the back of my house faces a direction from which the sun does not, strictly speaking, ever shine.

So what this means is that the back porch is now shrouded in impenetrable gloom, which it turns out is an environment generally contraindicated for plants. (Mushrooms aren't plants, they're a fungus. And I am not growing those, so don't even go suggesting that I am.)

It also gives you the uncanny impression, when you look out the kitchen window, that you have suddenly become a character in Stephen King's "The Mist," which frankly is not very high up on my list of movies I'd like to be a character in.

Being a character in a porno seems like it might be fun, though I've never seen one and actually I suspect it would just be really gross. Also, I hear the music and lighting are terrible. Never mind.

Anyway, it's time to go to Plan B: either rotate my house about 87 degrees to the north, which might raise some objections for the neighbors, not to mention the landlord, or build a greenhouse in the backyard. I don't think I have any other option.

Look! I Did a Thing!

I don't mean to brag or anything, but it's not just anyone who can claim to have constructed a patio enclosure using nothing but leftover cloth diaper supplies.


The idea is just that I have this covered back patio that, due to the house having been rather haphazardly added onto a couple of times, is very small and narrow and enclosed on three sides. So rather than haul all the plants inside every time there's a threatened freeze, and drag them back out every day to get some sun, maybe I could just keep them here in the shelter of the porch for the winter. With poorly-insulated, eighty-year-old house on three sides, and a nice sheet of 2 mil plastic on the fourth, I doubt it'll ever get down to freezing back there. If it gets really chilly I could plug in a table lamp.

So today I climbed up on the landlord's insanely wobbly ladder and tacked Rip-N-Grip (like Velcro, but a different brand) hook onto the eaves, and then I stitched 12 feet of RNG loop along the edge of the plastic, et voilà! I have an enclosed porch. Tell me I'm not a genius.

Actually I had very little choice, because the addition of a gigantic, aggressive Christmas tree to the already cramped living room brought things to a fairly desperate pass. I can't line up the plants by the front windows like I did last time.

Could I have a Scrooge moment here, please, and state for the record that I do not like having a Christmas tree? Honestly. I'm so over that shit. They take up huge amounts of space, they shed needles that you're still cleaning out from the corners by the time next year's tree arrives, and the ammonia-laden aroma of pine induces the cats to do things that - well, you should probably keep your Christmas presents somewhere else, if you catch my drift. I think it would be fun just to festoon all the plants with tinsel and tiny Christmas ornaments, no?

No. We have to have, not just a tree, but the biggest, fullest, lushest, most magnificent tree on the lot. It completely blocks out the front windows, and now you can only move about the living room by edging carefully sideways. Well, I don't like it. And I just got this place clean, too.

Oh well, I can always hang out on the back porch with my plants. My plants understand me.

2 mil plastic might not be enough.

Halloween Pictures

Here, my baby sister Jessica demonstrates the importance, which can never be overemphasized, of well-thought-out accessorizing.

Isn't she clever? She does seem to be in violation of the thigh-highs-and-stilettos rule; but then again she's in Connecticut, where I don't think you can even have legs between September and April.

And here's my cousin Ivan:

This costume is so perfect for him. All the guys in my dad's family are definitely mild-mannered, easygoing and have a great sense of humor; but they're also very strong, principled, steady, and noble. So what could be more fitting than an exploration of the Clark Kent-Superman dichotomy? Not only is it profound and thoughtful, you also don't have to muck about with the cape.

While we're posting pictures, look! My bromeliad is blooming!

The Day Off

Could this weather be any more perfect?

Well, if you're not in Austin, you wouldn't know. So no, it couldn't.

My boss gave me the day off today. I was already planning to meet a good friend and former coworker for lunch; we get together maybe once a month or so, but an hour is never long enough, is it?

Two hours is much, much better. More than twice as good. I know that doesn't make mathematical sense, but it's true.

The rest of the day is given to sweeping up and rearranging the plants in what is becoming a really lovely little front porch garden. I'm so happy with it. Isn't this nice?


I have several new additions, courtesy of my ex-mother-in-law (listen, I don't turn down plants from anybody). I now have a big pot full of rather scraggly bromeliads, a scragglier fern (hanging from the mailbox, for the moment; it needs to be repotted not because it's rootbound, but because the pot it's in is plastic and green and very ugly), a pineapple plant, and a climbing spinach plant - very handy if I happen to feel peckish and don't want to make the grueling fifteen-foot trek to the kitchen.

And what cozy porch garden would be complete without a snoozing Romeo?

What a perfect day off.

Home Is Where the Vegetation Is

This is the part of my house where I feel most at home, so 100+ degree days are kind of a bitch.


I love the plants that have a story - in other words, plants that I've inherited, been given, dug up out of a driveway crack in Corpus, or otherwise rescued. I guess the lamb's ear from Great Outdoors had a story too, but it was an extremely short one.

Here's Spikey, the Corpus crack weed. He seems to like it better in Austin just as much as I do - well, he and his multitude of spikey offspring. I moved his pot into the dirt planter bed to let such of them take root as wanted to.


Here's another one from Corpus. I don't know what he is, but when we first moved there, a neighbor gave him to Eric - a bare, six-inch-tall stalk sporting a single leaf at the top (the plant, not Eric).


Next to him are some small aloe plants my ex-mother-in-law gave to Eric in a pot, neglecting to mention that they were not actually rooted in any soil. I planted them in a tin pail Anna was growing other succulents in for class. All of them are coming along pretty nicely. Another aloe wasn't doing so well and I'm experimenting to see if I can revive it in a cup of water. It seems to be working. The plant is sending out roots, and has changed from gray to green; I'll put it in dirt soon.

These are, left to right, some clippings from a variegated sweet-pea plant I bought at Great Outdoors, and a rescue plant abandoned by one of my sister Margie's ex-boyfriends. I actually purchased the sweet-pea as a gift for Margie, but took clippings before I gave it to her.

Hers promptly died.


The rest of the gang includes the large, water-loving lily I got as a birthday gift from a client in Tennessee, a succulent box garden given to Eric by his grandmother, a hanging basket with clippings from yet another plant abandoned by Margie's herbicidal maniac ex-boyfriend, a very tiny cactus from Robbie I just brought home from the office yesterday, ice plant clippings from my former coworker Butch, a shrub Robbie and I picked beside Blunn Creek at lunchtime one day, and more pothos ivy than you can shake a stick at.

Can you imagine a more perfect place to enjoy the shade of a giant oak tree on a sweltering Austin evening?

The Garden Quite Contrary

"Oh, Lamb's Ear is easy!" breezed the chick at Great Outdoors. "It's impossible to kill! Absolutely! Buy the lamb's ear!"


This plant is not merely dying. This plant is staggering theatrically around the room, clutching at its chest and uttering heart-rending cries of distress, pausing only occasionally to cast a reproachful glance in my direction, just to make sure I'm paying attention. But God help me, I've tried everything.

Why is it that the plants I've inherited, found, been given, dug out of a crack in Corpus, or started from clippings always grow like crazy, but if it cost money, it almost immediately dies?


Plants! Can't live with 'em, can't survive in a carbon-dioxide rich atmosphere.

Kicking Some Botanical Ass

You never really notice your living room getting dimmer, because it all happens so gradually. Then, one day, it occurs to you, hey, wait a minute. Isn't this room half windows? You know it is because you remember, when you moved in, what a bitch it was finding wall space for all the bookcases. So why the hell is it so dark in here?

Then you spy the tendrils of ivy snaking their way in through the windows and the screen door, and you can almost hear them hissing, and you realize, holy shit. You're mere decades away from being devoured in your own home! And you get out your pruning shears and start committing crimes against botany.

Well, that's what I did, anyway. And in the process, I liberated this hapless victim. See how relieved he is!

It's still a bit overgrown, what with these bushes in the front. They're flowering right now, clusters of little tiny white and yellow blossoms, but there will be small red berries later in the summer. I don't know what other people call them, but I call them goosebushes, because of what they did when I climbed through them to get at the ivy on the windows. Let's just say they're not quite as tall now as they were an hour ago.

Yesterday Robbie and I headed to The Great Outdoors, where I was unable to resist this adorable specimen; and if Anna doesn't coopt it to cuddle up with at night, I'll plant it next to the ferns in the front flowerbed. It's Lamb's Ear, and it's just as huggable as it looks, and the helpful staffer at Great Outdoors assured me I was highly unlikely to kill it.

Well, as long as it doesn't piss me off, anyway, the way the ivy did.

You do not want to piss me off.

Now What?

A hailstorm is scary when you have a metal roof. It sounds like the 872,435 Hamsters of the Apocalypse. And your outdoor plants look like they've been munched on by same.

It's strangely quiet back at work today. I am no longer sure exactly what it is that I do; and just when I was really getting the hang of it, too. I'm told there's a lot of back work that's been waiting until conference was over and that I'll be extremely busy. Well, tomorrow's another day.

What is fun, and really nice, is an influx of emails I've gotten from people I've just met, and with whom I'll be working closely in the future. They're a cool bunch, and very friendly, and so gosh-darned happy to make my acquaintance, I feel like I have a whole new family! And who couldn't use a whole new family? The 67 hours I put in last week are excellent practice for the time management skills I'll need to juggle my new double life, too.

Welcome to whoever you are at the City of Beaumont who has apparently stumbled across this blog, by the way. I hope it's clear that I had a wonderful time there and really hit it off with everyone I met, no matter what odd grammatical constructions they may have used. It was loads of fun, and I feel very lucky for my first conference to have been such a good one!

Best of all is that the weather kept nice for us all week, only raining briefly on us while we were on the buses, and keeping the really scary stuff for when we got home, safely under our own, gawdawfully noisy metal roof.

I really should have brought the plants inside.

Going Down, Arrr!

Okay, somebody needs to write my stanza for the 3-Martini Marauding Group pirate poem. Because you can’t write poetry about yourself. That’s just conceited.

It’s my last week and I have not really been able to get in the kind of slacking off that I feel is appropriate for a short-timer. Which is okay. I don’t mind work per se, but today I had to cover the division phones for two hours. I hate this. I can’t believe I got roped into doing it on my last week! What’s next, a staff meeting (Robbie calls them “pointless fish meetings”) on Friday afternoon during break time?!

I should not even type that out loud.

In preparation for moving, I trimmed up my plants, and ended up with several containers full of clippings to give away. So I sent the following email out to most of my division yesterday afternoon:

Do you find your cubicle bare and colorless? Do you wish you could brighten it up a little? Have you always dreamed of having an office you couldn't get into without a machete?
 
Well, this is your lucky day, because (in the interest of portability) I have pruned back my plants.  Several yards of lush green foliage are available for all your cube decorating needs!
 
Pothos ivy loves fluorescent lighting and is practically impossible to kill: just add dirt and water! It grows quickly! It's vibrant! It's beautiful! It lifts the spirits! It freshens the air! It even eats unwelcome visitors!* Supplies are limited, so stop by and get yours today!
 
—---
*As long as they sit very still for a really long time

By 9:00 this morning all the clippings had found homes, so those who weren’t quick enough will just have to eat their own unwelcome visitors. But I’m pleased: the greenery went to some of the fresh-faced, up-and-coming young mappers, to an admin in another section, and to the one I will miss most of all: the one and only, the matchless, the incomparable Bubbly Bitching Nonsmoker. So I feel I’ve left a legacy that will keep on long after I’m gone. It’s a good feeling.

Abandon ship!

A Low of What?!

There's nothing else quite like idly checking the weather forecast right before bed, only to discover that you need to spend the next half-hour frantically shuttling plants indoors.

Is this not the most inviting utility room ever? All it needs is a rattan chaise longue.

Now I'm all awake.

Tending Life

I think playing in the dirt is very therapeutic. Cats generally think so, too, though for somewhat more immediate physical reasons.

Slappy White intrudes, here, on what was supposed to be a portrait of Spikey, the crack weed from Corpus, who's been making babies like mad. A couple of weeks ago the top of him broke off, so I stuck it back in the dirt. It resumed growing, and the bottom half took off in a new direction from the break. I guess if you can make it in a driveway crack in Corpus, you can make it anywhere.

So this weekend I got a new bag of soil and a few pots, repotted some rootbound plants, and finally got around to planting these clippings from Margie's birthday present, which have been rooting frenetically in a bottle of water at my desk for a month and a half. They don't seem to know quite what to think of being suddenly earthbound. I hope they'll survive.

I'm concerned about this guy:

He was a birthday present to me, two and a half years ago, from a client. Did great in my office in Corpus, did okay in the apartment, but here at the house he does not seem to be content either inside or out. I thought maybe he was rootbound, and repotted him, and this morning he looked a lot perkier. But now he's all droopy again. What's it take?? What does a girl have to do to make you happy?!?

Cats are easier to please than plants. All they ever really want is just to be on the other side of the nearest door.

Saturday Ramblings

I swear, I can quit blogging anytime I want.

Last night baby Anna climbed into bed with me and snuggled up close. She stroked my arm. "You have smooth skin, Mommy," she said. "Like a hot dog."

My skin is also delicious, apparently, as I'm being eaten alive. Still, it's a perfect day for sitting on the front steps with the plants, an entirely ineffectual citronella candle, and my iBook. Margie's moving over the next couple of weeks and I'm plant-sitting for her. Her plants are much cooler than mine.

If mosquitoes are so repelled by citronella, how come I find drowned ones in the melted wax? Remind me not to sit out here in daisy dukes anymore. I'm going to be incredibly itchy in some really embarrassing places tomorrow.

It's also a perfect day for installing my happy new hood ornament.

Ah, the Crazy Hedonism of the Weekends

I love when I have the house to myself, because then I can listen to as much Prokofiev as I damn well please.

And give myself a manicure and a pedicure, uninterrupted. And play in the dirt!

This guy was starting to get pretty root-bound in his nasty green plastic pot on wire hangers. I don't know what kind of plant he is, aside from the kind of plant you can get at HEB. I've had him about two years now.


My honeysuckle is in bloom!


I didn't want anybody to think the picture I posted yesterday is representative of my plant-tending skills. That hapless creature was left here by the previous tenant, and had about four more leaves when we moved in than it does now. I've been watering it and trying to save it, I swear.


L-R: planted clippings from the hanging-basket HEB guy (who has another flourishing child at my office, by the way, and another vase full of clippings ready to plant - anybody want them? Perhaps he is a member of the zucchini family), another abandoned rescue plant which is doing much better now, some clippings from a coworker (icicle plant?!), and newly planted clippings from yet another abandoned plant I rescued and have nursed back to rampant health, but don't know how to identify.

Don't you love Prokofiev?

Is There a Horticulturist in the House?

This guy's not looking so good.

Do you think he'll pull through?