Thoughts provoked by an old house in need of renovation, its garden, a marriage lived within its walls, and of a retired Thoroughbred race horse named Fibs and Flannel.
I just have to put this one in. A friend on Environmentalists for Obama emailed me to say, "Favorite still the "crystal-meth driven smurf" they call (!) Dennis Kucinich. He is amazing." I had to go find it on YouTube, and I am so glad I did. Newspaper reporting just can't do justice to Dennis Kucinich!
Watch for yourselves, if you haven't yet...
Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio DNC 2008, Denver, Colorado
Up with Kucinich!
I have got to do something besides obsess over this election and the convention. Help! ....
Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. D-Ill. DNC 2008, Denver, Colorado, August 27th
I'm sure that Dr. King is looking down on us here in Denver, noting that this is the first political convention in history to take place within sight of a mountain top.
On the day that President Johnson submitted the Voting Rights Act to congress, he said, "At times history and fate meet at a single place, at a single time to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was [a century ago] at Appomattox, so it was [last week] in Selma, Alabama." Tonight I would add, and so it shall be in Devner, Colorado with the nomination to elect Barack Obama to be president of the United States of America. [Cheers and applause over his last words]
What a remarkable thing it is that a man who came to this convention four years ago as the keynote speaker is returning this year as our party's nominee. But for those of us who've known Barack over his decade in public office in Illinois, the yearning for change, the hunger for unity that he's tapped into across this country has a familiar ring.
I remember when Barack first decided to run for the United States senate. He had a remarkable career in the state senate, reaching across the aisle to put a tax cut into the pockets of working families, to expand health care for more children and parents, and to take on lobbyists who had so much influence in Springfield. But despite this record, most in Springfield didn't take his candidacy all that seriously.
The party establishment was skeptical of of this young leader from the south side. They didn't know what to make of a man like Barack, with a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas, and a funny name. They didn't see how this former community organizer could possibly defeat candidates with more money, more name recognition, more backing from, quote, all the right people.
But here's the thing, that race wasn't going to be decided in the halls of power in Springfield, or [i]n the lake front high rises, it was not going to be decided by the the power brokers, or the opinion shapers, it was going to be decided by the people of Illinois. Illinois is America. America, we need you to be with Barack Obama. [applause and cheers]
It's great cities and small towns, it's old factories and new industries, it's timeless Midwestern values of faith, of family and hard work. And, its black and white, Latino and Asian all living together as one Illinois family, as one America. And, the people of Illinois were hungry for change. From the old factory towns of our industrial north to the farms of our agrarian south, families had been struggling to make ends meet in this global economy, and more often than not, they'd been harmed rather than helped by economic policies that failed to help them get ahead and reach their dreams.
But what they heard from Barack, as he traveled across the state, was a message of hope, whether he was upstate or downstate, whether he was talking with folks who'd been laid off and seen their jobs shipped overseas, or families struggling [my correction of "struggling families'] to keep up with rising costs, whether he was talking with recent immigrants who wanted to know that America had a place for them, too, whether he was talking to African-Americans who were falling further and further behind, Barack spoke of a powerful idea, the idea that's at the heart of who Barack is, the idea that the heart of who we are as Americans, and the idea that's at the heart of this campaign, that we all have a stake in each other, that the well-being of the "we" depends upon the well-being of the "he" and the "she", and that in this country we rise and fall together as one people, as one nation. [Applause and cheers over last words]
And what I saw in this campaign is what I'm seeing today, ordinary men and women of all races, all religions, all walks of life coming together to demand a government in Washington that is as honest and decent and responsible as the American people. [Cheers]
Fellow Democrats, this is a historic moment. I know. I grew up with the lessons of another generation, the Selma generation, my father's generation. I know his stories of struggle and sacrifice, of fear and division. I know America is still a place where dreams are too often deferred and opportunities too often denied, but here's what I also know.
I know that while America may not be perfect, our union can always be perfected.
I know what we can achieve when good people with strong convictions come together around a common purpose.
And, I know what a great leader can do to help us build common ground. America we need such a leader, a leader who can heal the wounds of the last eight years, a leader who knows that what unites us is greater than what divides us. America, we need Barack Obama in the White House.
....
So, and with that, another great voice has written in the pages of our history. We're making some these days.
As I was playing the speech bit by bit, again and again, transcribing it here, Sam walked through the living room from the petit salon to get a snack, and asked, "Who's that?"
"Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. He's a congressman from Illinois to the US congress."
"Wasn't his father a baseball player?" he asked.
"No, you're thinking of --"
"Oh, right, that's Reggie Jackson," he interrupted me, putting Nutella on something.
"Right. His father is the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, who was part of the Civil Rights movement, who ran for president in 1988, and who supported Hillary Clinton in the primary."
President Johnson also said in his speech to the full congress for the Voting Rights Act: There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem.
And we are met here tonight as Americans--not as Democrats or Republicans; we're met here as Americans to solve that problem. This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose.
LBJ was a part of the great story of American struggles with itself in the 1960's that has brought us another son of that generation, Barack Obama, like Jesse Jackson, Jr., to carry on the work of our nation, begun by their fathers, with their sisters. That's my generation.
....
Guess what? I think I'm heading into Paris to spend the night in a bar (yeah, I know, I do it all the time, -- ha! Not.) with a bunch of other elated Democrats to watch the convention and Barack make his acceptance speech from Invesco Field.
Hey, here's your invitation to tonight's gathering (party):
Young Democrats Abroad France invites you to come out and watch Senator Obama's acceptance speech Hideout 32, rue Dauphine 75006 Paris (metro: Saint-Sulpice -line 4-) Convention begins at 1h00 (Young Dems will begin arriving around midnight!) ....
A little -- something to say!
This is one moment in history that I don't want to sleep through, or spend alone.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton Democratic National Convention 2008, Tuesday, August 26th
Part 1 of 3
Part 2 of 3
Part 3 of 3
And here, in the last third of her address, Hillary is at the top of her formidable talent -- she was brilliant.
If Bill Clinton ever fell out of love with his wife and hadn't fallen back into it with her again before last evening, he sure looks as though he did then. He'd have made a wonderful First Gentleman, after all, I think.
I did. Twice. I am getting ready to read it a third time. I guess it's good journalism because no one really gets off free, except Michelle and the kids. By the way, her dress wasn't green. It was (well, appeared to be) turquoise, exactly the same color as the DNC graphic behind her and on the placard on the podium, and while we're at it, orange is the *complementary color of blue. * "Complementary colors are useful when you want to make something stand out." http://colortheory.liquisoft.com/
Yes, Hillary stands out. Intensity. She has it.
Focus. She never loses it.
Determination. She's defined by it.
Intelligence. It's hers in spades and to spare.
Watching her and listening to her, I would have voted for her without a regret, and with pride, had she won the primary, and were she to have been the nominee. I even felt some that I will not be able to.
MoDo, I think felt it, too, as much as she was never for Hillary Clinton. She also never came out in direct support of Barack Obama, like some of her colleagues who also earn their living typing columns of opinion editorial for the New York Times.
The PUMA's. Go look them up. Néo-cons (I can't take credit for this beautiful alignment in French and English, someone I admire came up with it) in Hillary-supporter clothing, able to convince some among her own that they really are some of hers, and not the reprehensible agents of the right wingnut agenda.
Worst of all, those among her most recalcitrant supporters who have been tricked -- and if I am wrong about this, it would be one of my greatest disappointments -- do her and the Democratic Party, -- which, if you want to place it at the top of one column and the Republican Party at the top of another, while coming perilously close to looking nearly as ridiculous on occasion, has at least the merit of actually trying to work for the people of the Unites States of America, and not thoroughly manipulating them into believing that serving the interests of corporate America, and its representatives in the legislative and executive, is somehow working for their best interests -- , the disservice of perpetuating ugliness in American politics.
I know that Hillary Clinton's supporters are not characterized by this extreme, and that they far outnumber it. I also know, as Patrick Healy writes in his article in today's New York Times, that it is Hillary herself who holds more sway with them than Barack Obama, that it is she who can bring the Obama/Biden ticket their votes, not Barack Obama himself. I also believe that most of her supporters, as angry and as disappointed as they have the right to feel, are above all committed to the causes and the values of the Democratic Party, and could not bear to see what 4 more years of Republican control of the White House, as that party stands, would do to Americans and our country. Her, their and our best chance will be with all of us shouldering together to do the nation's business as we believe it should be done, and according to the will of the majority of the people.
The PUMA's are an indication of the measure of the desperation among the neo-con leadership of today's Republican party, and the presence of Republicans in the listservs of the Barack Obama campaign, who say they are there because they "feel that the Republican Party National Leadership has betrayed Republican principles and have gone so dirty" acts as its yardstick. These Republican Obama supporters say that "most Republicans don't agree with [the Republican Party national leadership], even if a lot of Republicans who don't agree with them vote Republican out of habit and fear".
Fear of what, we ask. "Fear of change," comes the reply from Republican Obama supporter Chuck Lasker. "Change," he writes, "as in change from voting Republican," and continues:
"In general, Republicans will choose the devil we know versus the devil we don't know. That's why Republicans keep electing older candidates. Change like new social programs that cost too much and create more dependent citizens. Change like letting our moral base slide (something Republican candidates are good at making it sound like Democrats want). Change to something unknown. Honestly, Republicans have been so programmed to see the Democratic Party as evil, the party of free-spending, homosexual, free-sex, drug using socialists having abortions every week and cursing God while burning the flag, that it's hard to break past that. In a Republican view, voting for Obama is a massive risk that he will be just like all the other Democrats of the past.
As a Republican for Obama, I even feel strange when I go to the Obama campaign headquarters here in Indiana and see all the Democratic Party stuff, when someone in the office talks about "turning Indiana blue," when I see Ted Kennedy speak for my candidate, when I start liking Hillary Clinton (somewhat), etc. etc. It's like leaving a cult after 27 years - very hard to do.
I know that I'm on a path that will lead to my being either an Independent, or even a Democrat, eventually, like Susan Eisenhower just did, but it takes time!!!"
Fear makes the manipulation easier. Change begins in individuals who can't afford any more to fear -- we're past that, way past it -- and, those individuals coalesce together to make a movement for change. In this case, a change for progress, social, economic, diplomatic and legislative progress. It takes a critical mass to effect change outside of the individual, and that critical mass in a two-party society can only -- and Barack Obama knows this -- be reached by joining enough of the two camps, with their previously opposing views, to overcome the extreme elements who would prevent that.
But, this is the time.
Make no mistake that the single greatest contribution to the Obama campaign beyond his ideas and his ability to given them voice (enough on his limpidity, Mo, puh-lease) was the forum his campaign gave people who support him to come together, to exchange and argue and insult one another, and, finally let the strongest voices -- like Chuck's, among others -- tell us what is happening inside our own ranks, and let civility in political discourse demand its due because Republican, or Democrat, or Independent, sophisticated human life-forms possessing normal to above normal intelligence understand that our government has insulted it, the situation for our country is critical, and that we can't survive 4 years more years of under-preparedness and greed in and cynical abuse of our citizens, our soldiers and our institutions and our Constitution by the White House.
“Whether you voted for me, or voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose,” Mrs. Clinton said, beaming as the convention hall burst into applause. “And you haven’t worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership.” -- "Clinton Delivers Emphatic Plea for Unity", by Patrick Healy, August 27 New York Times.
No way, no how, no McCain.
Let's hope this signals a change of colors among the Republican leadership who still care about the fundamentals of their party the way the Democrats have not failed to continue to defend and to promote their own so that people who differ in opinion respectfully can find an opposition of integrity, with a willingness to work together with respect.
....
On that note, I'm taking my sorry behind out for a run. I saw those pictures my loving brother posted of me. I also remember the ones of me from nearly three years ago that spurred my last call to action. Sigh. If I don't ever actually look better -- which, by the way, Hillary Clinton is -- at least I feel better.
Senator Kennedy's remarks to the Democratic National Convention, Denver, Colorado, Monday, August 25, 2008:
Thank you. Thank you, Caroline
My fellow Dems, my fellow Americans, it is so wonderful to be here [laughter], and nothing, nothing is going to keep me away from this special gathering tonight
I have come here tonight to stand here with you to change America to restore its future, to rise to its best ideals, and to elect Barack Obama the next president of the united States.
As I look ahead, I am strengthened by family and friendship. So many of you have been with me in the happiest days, and the hardest days. Together we have known success and seen setbacks, victory and defeat, but we have never lost our belief that we are all called to a better country, and a newer world, and I pledge to you -- I pledge to you that I will be there next January on the floor of the United States Senate for me to give a great -- [final word drowned out by applause and cheering, chanting "Teddy, Teddy", laughter].
For me, this is a season of hope. New hope for a justice and fair prosperity for the many, and not just for the few. New hope -- and this is the cause of my life -- new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guaranty that every American -- north - south, east - west, young- old -- will have decent quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege. We can meet these challenges with Barack Obama. Yes we can, and, finally, yes we will! [Cheers, applause]
Barack Obama will close the book of the old politics of race, and gender, and group against group, and straight against gay. And Barack Obama will be a commander in chief who understands that young Americans in uniform must never be committed to a mistake but always to a commitment worthy of their bravery. [Cheers, whistles, applause]
We are told that Barack Obama believes too much in an America of high principle and bold endeavor, but when John Kennedy thought of going to the moon, he didn't say, 'It's too far to get there, we shouldn't even try.' Our people answered his call and rose to the challenge and today an American flag still marks the surface of the moon. [Cheers, applause] Yes, we are all Americans, this is what we do, we reach the moon, we scale the heights. I know it, I've seen it, I have lived it, and we can do it again.
There is a new wave of change all around us, and if we set our compass through we will reach our destination. Not merely victory for our party, but renewal for our nation, and this November, the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans. So, with Barack Obama, and for you, and for me, our country will be committed to his cause. The work begins anew, the hope rises again, and the dream lives on. [Cheers, applause]
You are still the one, Teddy, and I hope it won't take another 3 decades of repeating this refrain, this promise, this commitment for it to become a reality:
That every American -- north - south, east - west, young- old -- will havedecent quality health care as a fundamental right, and not as a privilege.
I'm glad that it's now in the open how much Obama is a cult. Usually whenever I encounter people this crazy, I smile and back slowly out of the room.
How do you demean a tremendous movement to make America beautiful? Call it a cult.
Call it what you like, but join us, or you will be left behind, wondering what swept past while you were looking back.
It won't matter.
I find myself relieved this wait for the VP choice is over, relieved that it's Biden, and looking forward to what they are going to do together.
The primary page is turned. Everyone can stop talking about their worries that Hillary would steal the show. We have a presidential ticket -- Obama - Biden -- that will win the election.
It boasts:
Intelligence Vision Decency Courage Articulateness (and vocabulary) Diversity of color and age Experience in foreign affairs and on The Hill Working class roots Multinational roots Hell, it boasts roots, real ones Commitment to Democratic ideals The capacity for reflection and thought Cool
Don't let me be a hog, add your own to the list. Leave a comment with your own.
Going forward, the Clinton White House is history from which we can benefit and learn as we continue our nation's work, "with these hands" look what we'll build.
Hillary Clinton will join the cabinet or remain in the Senate, and eventually replace Edward Kennedy as a senior statesperson and veteran lawmaker, or be nominated to the Supreme Court. Her supporters will vote for Barack Obama, because the alternative is unacceptable to them, too.
Bill Clinton will find his place as former president and possible adviser and deal-broker.
And, Biden. He will bring in new votes from people who were worried about everything he solves for the ticket -- connection to the working class and more conservative elements, who matter, too, and all who worried that Barack Obama was too new, untested and inexperienced, particularly to guaranty the nation's security. No one now can call it a romance with progressive America, it's a real, solid political team.
It feels right to move forward with a new ticket. It's why I couldn't bring myself to support Hillary Clinton, as much as I respect her, and would have had there not been another candidate I preferred. The 1990's and the 104th congress at ideological war with the executive branch were a nightmare in US political life.
The slate is clean, so let's write this story.
Let's bring jobs back to Americans and buy our country back from the Chinese and Saudi investors that own it today, and let's tell Americans that personal debt is their ruin at the banks' gain.
Let's bring our soldiers home from wars fought to enrich private interests and perpetuate access to oil we can learn to do without, because we aren't going to drill ourselves out of our dependence and vulnerability, financial and security.
Let's put our energy into making America run on 100% renewable sources like wind, solar and the hydrogen batteries running the cars Honda took the criticized risk to develop and is putting on California's roads.
Let's invest in public education that demands that children read and think critically, solve complex mathematical problems, imagine new technologies and use the science we can teach them to make them real to make America the leader it should be, drawing from the world over to make its people.
And, let's make the health care system Europeans enjoy as a right America's own, the only one that can work: single-payer, or at least HR676. Americans lives and our economy depend on it.
This.is.the.time
Yes we can. ....
To make a donation to help elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden, click here. Help me to achieve my modest goal of $1,000 for the campaign, with any amount you can contribute, and, please, send this on to anyone and everyone to help our movement grow and be strong.
Thank you.
(also posted on http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/jacquelineashtondefloris/gG5sNN)
Or, guess who slept on the forbidden armchair, and who forgot to put the rattan floor cushion on it so that she couldn't?
But can you really not understand the need to make art of misery? Is it not what so much art -- with the exception of Jane Austen -- has been about since before Van Gogh cut off his ear and Rimbaud debauched himself to death in the streets of London?
I was vacuuming (you can already admire my fortitude where others would long since have given up and settled to live deep in settled animal hair), when it occurred to me that I ought really document how bad it gets. In a day. An afternoon. A night, even. I go to bed, all is nearly well, or as well as it can ever be 10 minutes after a vacuuming, I get up, and I begin practicing my resignation exercises, ignoring the horror until Sam comes down.
"Mom?" he says, "the chair is covered in dog hair." Thanks. I hadn't noticed. He wanders off for a bowl of cereal while I try to ignore my environment another 15 minutes.
He returned from Spain the other day, Tuesday, full of stories that he had not thought to take the time to call me while he was there to share. I put 15 euros on a calling card for him to use to keep him from having to run up his cell phone bill, which I always make him regret, for about a nanosecond. Sooo, let's see, he called home about 3 times for an average of 6-9 minutes each time. Let's say 24 minutes at 0.27 euros per minute... he still has 8.52 euros on the card, and I think that one of those calls was from his cell phone before I signed up for the card. (He wouldn't even have called one of those times had he not tore open the instep of his right foot on the peddle of a racing bike, when he got off it wearing only espadrilles. That was 3 stitches and 8 staples. Well, they said staples, but I think it was something adhesive, not staple-y.)
Among those stories was Lydia and Pablo's house, where he stayed in Gelsa. It was almost brand new. It was immaculate.
"Mom, Lydia would take Monday mornings off from work [she works as a hairdresser from her in-home salon]," he recounted almost breathlessly, no punctuation in the recital of the household perfection that was Lydia and Pablo's, "and cleaned the whole house and Pablo when he gets home from work he cleans the house too it's spotless not a thing out of place when I took a shower they asked me to always use this product to wipe the glass doors after." I got the idea; you spray it, you wipe it, and, shwoop!, dirt is gone!
(Okay, I made that up. He used punctuation beautifully. For emphasis.)
"Mom, Pablo is a freak about his car. Everyone there has brand new cars, BMWs, Audis -- "
"What kind of a car does Pablo have?"
"An Opel Zafira, and when I closed the car door, he would get worried and tell me not to be so brutal with it --"
"And how did he tell you that?"
He made a gesture with his hand, as though to slow an on-coming child going far too fast on his scooter, or a policeman telling you that you are passing a work zone at an entirely unacceptable rate of speed, "And he'd say something like 'Calm, calm'."
Tranquillo.
That's how I tried to feel looking around my house when I got back home and Sam added, "Mom, [that's what he calls me] they would have a heart attack if they came here." He might as well have added, "It's such a pigsty!"
"I need to be more like Lydia." And Audouin to be far, far more like Pablo. And no kids around the house, either.
("Oh, actually, they have two nephews who are there all the time. Almost like their own kids." Sigh.)
"No, you don't understand, their house is brand new. It was built in 2004, and everything is new and clean, not old and dirty, like here."
Oh. I felt much better after that.
When I walked into the petit salon to see if his camera was there, I saw it sitting next to a wrapper from his Spanish vanilla-coated Oreos, which I know he finished before this noon, when he got up, just above his cereal bowl, posed on the paper tray of the printer, Sam seated sans t-shirt at the computer playing some bubble-bursting game, IM'ing with his friends in Gelsa. I reached for the wrapper and the bowl.
"Sam?"
"Unh?"
"I could use you a little more like you must have been at Lydia and Pablo's." He grinned. No chance.
Kids are like cleaning ladies, they keep the house the way they knew it when they first saw it.
I gotta' go vacuum. Hasta luego. ....
The culprits, pictured at right. (No, I didn't yell at them.)
"I suspect," said Elinor, "that to avoid one kind of affectation, Edward here falls into another. Because he believes many people pretend to more admiration of the beauties of nature than they really feel, and is disgusted with such pretensions, he affects greater indifference and less discrimination in viewing them himself than he possesses. He is fastidious and will have an affectation of his own."
"It is very true," said Marianne, "that admiration of landscape scenery is become a mere jargon. Every body pretends to feel and tries to describe with the taste and elegance of him who first defined what picturesque beauty was. I detest jargon of every kind, and sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in but what was worn and hackneyed out of all sense and meaning."
"I am convinced," said Edward, "that you really feel all the delight in a fine prospect which you profess to feel. But, in return, your sister must allow me to feel no more than I profess. I like a fine prospect, but not on picturesque principles. I do not like crooked, twisted, blasted trees. I admire them much more if they are tall, straight and flourishing. I do not like ruined, tattered cottages. I am not fond of nettles, or thistles, or heath bottoms. I have more pleasure in a farm-house than a watch-tower -- and a troop of tidy, happy villagers please me better than the finest banditti in the world."
Marianne looked with amazement at Edward, with compassion at her sister. Elinor only laughed.
Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen. Oxford University Press, 1988, pages 97-98.
....
Auduoin says that with me, it is a form de manie; I see, and I have to do it through my camera lens and take pictures of it.
It's true.
At least I do not do it in museums. Take pictures of the paintings rather than lookingat them, that is. ....
The Hedera algeriensis 'Gloire de Marengo' in place
syn. H. canariensis 'Gloire de Marengo'
Looks pathetic, doesn't it?
It will grow and make lots of leaves to cover the wall. You'll see. Stick with me here.
From Classygroundcovers.com:
"Hedera algeriensis 'Gloire de Marengo' has bright, glossy, variegated green leaves and smooth, deep red leaf stalks [true]. The three-lobed leaves are 4-5" long and heart-shaped, glossy and have cream to white margins and gray-streaked centers with speckles in the cream-colored margins.
This evergreen, self-clinging, vigorous climber is a popular ground cover for steep slopes and is often grown on walls to visually soften or add an aged look to the architecture [well...]. It climbs over rocks, tree trunks, walls and trellises, and carpets the ground. Its small aerial roots cling to everything as it naturalizes and spreads throughout the landscape [oh oh].
Often used to brighten shady areas [yup], it will be less variegated in full shade as the light beings out the variegation."
I don't think this corner will be particularly shady anymore, but I figured I'd cover my bases. There is also some similar cream-margined ivy growing on the wall along the length of the pool, mixed in with dark-green ivy. I thought it might be fun to pick up on that theme, and it's a lovely ivy, period.
It took me about 4 hours to plants them and tie them to the wire-grill. It mattered to me how it grows in, so I took pains to spread the main branches with a sort of movement across the wall. I suspect that it will entirely disappear once the ivy is mature and fully leafed out.
I also moved the four climbing hydrangea plants to make them work a little better. There are two Hydrangea anomala ssp. petiolaris and two Schizophragma hydrangeoides, or Japanese hydrangea vine.
I suspect that one of the latter is going to move over to scramble up the last cedar tree that I left, behind the pool shed. It can grow to 30-40 feet high! It's also possibly more beautiful than the H. anomala ssp. petiolaris, and there is a variety, I just learned, that offers larger, pink flowers, 'Roseum'. Got to find it!
Next step is to install wood trellis on the top of the wall to give it more height, and more room to run for the ivy and climbing hydrangea.
You can't see it? Click on the photo. You'll see that it's there. All long the wall.
We assure you.
Audouin came home early (ish) and found me sitting on the sofa, looking more miserable than usual. My elbow and hands were killing me, not to mention the throbbing burn on my left index finger and thumb, where I had grasped a burning hot masonry drill bit a little earlier.
"I can't drill the holes for the mollies and screws," I sulked.
"What do you mean?"
"I hit the aggregate stones in the concrete blocks and the drill bit gets loose all the time, and --"
"Let me help you. That's why I came home early. I had more paperwork to do, but I left it off to help you." I tried not to look as thankful as I felt and continued to sit on the sofa while he went to put on a t-shirt and headed down back behind the pool. OK, so I am prideful.
After three or so whirs of the drill, and a few moments of silence, I saw his head bob past the window and he appeared in the living room French door, "It worked fine."
"What do you mean! How?"
"I had no problem making a hole." I didn't tell him that I had no problem making one of the few I managed painfully, either. "There's some that can, and some that can't," he smiled, not too terribly pridefully and not too unkindly.
I dragged myself like a miserable toddler down after him and we got back to work.
So, alright, we is sometimes better than I.
Tomorrow, it's ready for me to plant the three ivy plants and train them along the wire-screen. ....
Untitled study of dog hair on beige, 2008
La falaise d'Aval
straight and flourishing. I do not like ruined, tattered cottages. I am not fond of nettles, or thistles, or heath bottoms. I have more pleasure in a farm-house than a watch-tower -- and a troop of tidy, happy villagers please me better than the finest banditti in the world."
The Hedera algeriensis 'Gloire de Marengo' in place
grow and make lots of leaves to cover the wall. You'll see. Stick with me here.
Plastic-coated wire-screen trellis in place
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