Moss

I don't know why I bothered to plant moss when I could have waited a couple of weeks and just transplanted it...


Except that things never grow naturally just where you want them...

Geometry, Botany and Design

Pink and Yellow Peony. Beautiful, no? Here's something I bet you didn't know about pink and yellow: they do not "go together". This is a fact handed to me in primary school by, no not the art teacher, the maths teacher who gave me a really bad score in Tessellation because I coloured the triangles in my hexagon pink and yellow. Every mathematician apparently knows pink and yellow do not go together. Pink and blue? Fine. Blue and yellow? A+. Pink and yellow? C. What did I learn about geometry that day? Nothing, in fact my dislike of mathematics was born that day and lasted until I stumbled across the beauty of fractal geometry 25 years later. I did, however, discover I knew more about design than math teachers. And my love of pink and yellow remained, to be irrefutably justified by this photo.
Click photo to embiggen.

Uninteresting? Happy? Moi?

I've been tagged by the stylish From the Right Bank to the Left Coast to come up with six uninteresting things that make me happy - all those who think they already know too much about me and none of it could be called interesting, can just be quiet and those who say I'm rarely happy can move along. I'm in no mood for sarcasm today, I'm going to be positively full of joy!

In no particular order:


The water - coastline, lakes, bays, the ocean - it doesn't matter, to see the water every day makes me calm and happy


Snow - the first fat flakes falling out of the night sky and the crisp crunch of the icy crystals the following day.


Expressive flowers: blooms that beckon and sensual blossoms



The smell of old books: cloth covered or leather-bound and the age-stained pages of old encyclopedias


Seasonal food: A plate of fresh red cherries... or heirloom tomatoes ripened in the sun... or a simple salad


The clink of glasses, that happy sound that signals the start of a celebration, or a simple meal shared with friends. Cheers!

Now I'm tagging six inspiring people to do the same:
Nadine at Bouler Design Group
Another New Yorker Just Off the Taconic
Heidi at faboolosity
Jenni at ThirteenEleven
Kathleen from House Things I Like
and The House on Red Hill
All you have to do (but only if it makes you happy) is to find uninteresting things that make you happy, choose 6 people to tag and link your post back to me...

If only it had rained today...

I wouldn't have popped out to the nursery to get a basil plant to replace the purple basil that disappeared over the weekend and been seduced by


the sign that read "20% off Hostas",


the smell of catmint in the air


and the florescent green Irish moss.
I came home with a summer planter full of annuals, 12 pots of moss, three hostas, I catmint, 3 liquorice plants, and a large pot of basil. It's official, I have absolutely no will power.

Birds, Jellyfish and Sushi

Thursday wasn't just a successful day in terms of house maintenance, it was also the day I overcame one of my irrational fears.

I'm pretty sure my lunch partner had no idea I'm scared stiff of these things. After all, I managed not to do what I usually do when I find myself in close proximity to flying, flapping, feathered animals: scream loudly and run away as fast as possible.

I was sitting four inches from this scene so it was impossible to ignore mama bird feeding her babies. Every time we tried to take a photo she'd fly off but return a minute later with a tiny worm or caterpillar. It was just so darn cute I was fascinated and, because the nest is in a window box, protected from too close an encounter by the glass.  I have no idea what kind of bird it is but I'm guessing a warbler. Anyone know? Here's a couple of really quick videos of her hopping in and flying off. If you want to see them in person you'll need to go here for sushi.

We were supposed to be snapping shells and sea glass but between spending hours cooing over the baby birds and the earlier thunderous downpour we had to put those plans on hold. Despite the persistent drizzle we stopped at Huntington Harbor for a quick photo shoot.

There's always something to see, boats of course - or pedalos. This time the water was teeming with jellyfish. I'm not worried by sea critters (especially when I'm on land and they aren't) so I wasn't afraid to lean in close.

Of course no photo shoot is complete without a few shots of The Cool House and the yard in the rain. Lousy weather but a pretty successful day.

Check List: Monday PM

bees: hunted

weeds: pulled

beach: walked

weekend: complete

Weekend Achievements...

Monday AM edition:

 

pots of purple basil and oregano added to herb garden

  

Tomatoes, peppers, basil, lemon balm and cilantro in the jumbo container by the barbecue

  

Third attempt at setting the stone (if this doesn't work we'll be calling in the mason)!

Still to do this afternoon:

  

more weeding needed

and it's time for the annual carpenter bee hunt. Those guys will be going down. Spotted four so far, two dead (from the white powder I dusted in the holes last month) and two bent on making the siding into a holey mess.

Certain traditional Memorial Day activities will not be happening:

 

The pool is covered with a layer of pollen and only 73 degrees. Brr

So far...

the weekend has had...

a little of this

a limited amount of that

one of these...

and a lot of...

The weekend: Highs and Lows

A quick round-up of the weekend:

Highlights: Dinner with Mme Faboolosity and Hubby in the old 'hood, followed by Jill Sobule concert at The Landmark on Main Street. Spent evening coveting Jill's red velvet wedges.

Sunset on the deck in Huntington Bay, appetizers for dinner. (Cell service at the beach!)

Taking photos of the yard followed by best BBQ spare ribs and black beans ever.

Lows: First ever failed fairy cakes. I took this as a personal insult! (N.B. Failure does not mean inedible. There are only four left and I don't eat cake...)
Not fun yard work: weeding, removing thorny suckers and sucky vines; pruning the dead twigs from azalea bushes
Thousands of tiny caterpillars discovered the day after weeding - all over clothes, bedroom floor, bathroom. (The Guy had said the previous evening he thought ants were crawling over him and the zyrtec he took hadn't helped...)

Hitting head on outside lamp while taking close ups of planter... two of the three bulbs are no longer working but I have lump the size of lightbulb where I smacked it...

Busted!

Those are not your toys, Hermes.

Designers' Lunch

Two designers and one person with definite ideas on design (moi) sat down for lunch today. You'll have to imagine them at the table because two are camera shy, and as usual at The Cool House there was a lot of running around with the cats and dogs and zero time for picture posing. But it was my pleasure to introduce The Awesome Designer to The Kitchen Designer over a little salad, some wine and a very satisfying raspberry and apricot tart. There's something about a pseudo-working lunch on a Monday that makes it both illicit and relaxing. Lots of fun anyway, and then a side trip so The Kitchen Designer could check out The Awesome Designer's kitchen, which was as stunning as always. A very enjoyable couple of hours for me. What did you do today?

My Random Life

How far do you think I drove before I realized The Guy had draped the eco-friendly shopping bag over the wing mirror? The shopping bag I had spent 10 minutes looking for inside the car before I gave up? Let's just say the car is black, the bag is black and the I didn't generate enough speed to make it fly until I'd left the Incorporated Village.
Message to The Guy: Honey, how much extra effort could it take to open the car door and throw the bag inside? It's not like we lock the Beach Car anyway. Grrrr.

Tweet, Blog, Tweet, Blog, Tweeeeet

The observant amongst the blog readership will have noticed the Twitter link that has appeared on the upper right side of the blog page. I resisted this for a really long time, partly because my pre-iphone cell was not made for frivolous texting, but mainly because I asked myself how interesting could it possibly be to tell the ethernets that I just fed the cats? Or the damn owl will not shut up and it's only 3 PM? Or I was planning on early cocktail hour?* Of course, back then I was at the first stage of grief twitter acceptance. I progressed pretty quicky through stages two through four and now I'm happily ensconced in Stage Five - microblogging.
The issue for me is that I need everything in my world to be interconnected but for each part to keep its essential integrity. So while I love that my blog posts are fed immediately to my twitter page, I'm less thrilled that they also bounce back to the right sidebar of my blog. Are you with me so far? When I publish this post it will be the first tweet under the Twitters header. Tautology, do you see? Copycat posting. Overload.
Of course there's a way to solve this problem. I simply have to tweet three more times and the offending blog post is confined to the trash can of twitterlife. Fine, but some days it means I'm reduced to twittering about what I fed my cats, the damn owl and cocktails. Speaking of which.....

*yes, all true tweets, sadly enough

My Life with Cats

With two dogs and four cats it's a constant battle here to keep the animal fur at lower than ankle level. But occasionally, after the surfaces have been dusted, the floors swept or vacuumed and the beds changed, just for a little while it looks like a normal clean house. Yesterday was one of those days, fresh duvet on the bed, flowers in a vase, it looked pretty good. That lasted a few hours until I noticed that a cat (difficult to pin down just which one, but it wasn't Mr Cassis) had thrown up on the bedcover. I sighed, stripped off the cover, threw it in the machine and climbed into bed.
It wasn't until I got up this morning that I realised that the cat had also thrown up on the sheet. The one I'd been wrapped in all night. Luckily, it seemed pretty much contained on The Guy's side and he was away. But still. Yuk, yuk , bloody cats, yuk!

Froggin' Winter Colds

I have a frog in my throat. I felt so good yesterday, cooked a damn fine meal, only had one bad coughing attack all day - I thought I was cured. Hah, little did I know this guy was waiting to ambush me at 1 AM


and his buddies are all hiding in the closet ready to jump out at a moment's notice.
Even if a feel like a wreck, at least I look better than The Guy who has a nasty case of conjunctivitis and should be wearing a patch so we don't have to look at (warning, not for the faint of heart, or stomach) this.
I'm absolutely, positively, completely done with winter and the viruses it brings. We've all had enough now. Move on.

This is our life

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Without the horses. Cowboy hats and boots, however, have been worn on occasion.

Darning the Sofa

The sofa. Gorgeous pink 1968 sectional. Let's get in a little closer, shall we


The damage. This isn't the worst, I couldn't bring myself to show the internets the worst bits that I had to darn to keep the batting in place.




The culprits. Junior cats Maya (top) and Hermes. Butter wouldn't melt, right?

Resentment

A tip for The Guy: checking the garage door sensor to see if one of the wires has detached is preferable to telling me (when I'm already in bed) that we need a new garage door opener. It saves you from explaining how you had to open and close said garage door manually (yes, I do know that it's really heavy) and having me patiently explain to you (once more) how to see to the problem. Stating that you will see to it in the morning means you actually have to do just that. Failing to take care of it and LEAVING IT TO ME TO FIX AGAIN leads to wifely resentment. Just saying.
This also applies to the following: lights, alarms and strange noises

Fall with a hint of Guacamole

Just a few of the chores we accomplished this weekend:
1) Stained post Cabot Cardovan Brown. We would have liked to stick with Pacific Redwood Clear Coat but this wouldn't disguise the wood filler we had to use to repair the damage caused by the damned woodpecker. However, it covers beautifully and matches the protected part of the siding under the overhangs which is much darker than the rest of the house. We'll see how it weathers before deciding whether to stick with it when we next stain the siding or go with something more translucent.
2) Also stained under the overhang where The Guy filled in some missing wood and then dropped a ladder on my head. Was not crazy about holding said ladder this time but escaped with only a few drops of brown stain on my T-shirt. Whew!


3) Treated with wood hardener one windowsill and one threshold that had a spongey feel or rot. Painted another couple of frames and gave the garage door a second coat. Filled the holes, the enormous holes, holes big enough for a family of badgers to take up residence. Will have nightmares about this, guaranteed.
4) Cleaned the house from top to bottom
5) Made nachos with homemade chili
6) Dropped a pot of guacamole as I opened fridge, covered myself, fridge, floor and cabinets in green goo. That stuff can really fly. Stood dripping for a while. Eventually The Guy yelled from the yard "That sounded just like the thwack of a tub of guacamole hitting the ground". How prescient of him.
7) Cleaned kitchen, including inside of fridge, again, washed green clothes.


8) Took this photo of The Guy, still laughing.

Crisis, Panic and The Weather

Well of course it rained over the weekend but we managed to get the death out of the pool and the guys are closing it up as I type. I sent The Guy up on the roof to clear the gutters and resisted the temptation to remove the ladder while he was up there. Why would a contemplate doing such a potentially dangerous thing? This is why. See, you couldn't blame me, could you? Anyway, when push came to shove I just couldn't leave him up there and besides I needed him to get back up the ladder to fill in the woodpecker damage to the pillar on the front porch. It looks a whole lot better now and it will be almost invisible once we can stain the whole post. We couldn't do that on Sunday because
a) it rained
b) the local paint store only had a gallon of stain and we wanted a no more than a quart
c) the other branch they sent us to that had quarts available (they checked on their computer) was CLOSED on Sundays. They didn't check that on their computer for us, did they?
We were forced to postpone the Met visit, and more seriously, our forthcoming trip to Europe. Obviously the weather was to blame for the former, the latter we can attribute directly to the global financial crisis. Instead of getting on a plane in a few hours I will be staying home learning to weave warm blankets from discarded animal fur and making soup out of nettles.