Confessions of a Pack Rat

Moving is always a bit overwhelming. Every time I walk into my old condo, there seems to be so much to do, I don’t know where to start. The other evening I was there sorting through paperwork, and here is the proof I am a terrible pack rat: I found notes from a classmate of mine when we were in middle school! So of course I had to read them, and boy, were we shallow back then! I did save a couple with really interesting references to life in the 80’s and funny doodles on them, but why I had saved all of them for so long, I really can’t say. They were mostly my friend complaining about other girls in her class, her parents, the teachers… you know, the usual things middle school kids complain about. Plus how she wanted to go eat junk food; it seems like we all ate junk food in the 80’s but we were thin. Now I rarely eat junk food, and I am not thin. And it can’t be just an age thing either, because now there seem to be so many tubby kids. Back when my friend Jennifer (that was 50% of girls in the 80’s, and the other 50% were Heather) and I were writing notes to each other, there would be one tubby kid in the school, and he or she would be teased mercilessly. I wonder if tubby kids still are, now that they are in the majority? Maybe we walked more in the 80’s, because I remember walking all over town with Jennifer, and Heather too. If we wanted to get somewhere further away, like the swimming pool, and our parents couldn’t/wouldn’t take us, we would bike there. Boy, am I starting to feel middle-aged, discussing how things were “in my day.” So moving not only is a big pain, it also reminds you of how old you really are.

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Yuri the Hibiscus

This morning Prairie Man, Luxuli, Richard Bonomo, and I went to Pinnacle Health Club on the Square. It is much smaller than Harbor, and the equipment is different, so Rich had to spend most of his time showing me how to adjust and use it. Also, we met at 6:45 but there is only free parking downtown until 8 am, so my workout was pretty brief, but I am sore anyway. Neither Rich nor I care for this location as much as Harbor, and Travalon refuses to even go there because they don’t have a pool, so we’ll see what transpires in the future with UGGH Club. Rich has suggested tomorrow at Harbor at our original UGGH-y time of 6 am. Sigh…

The committee seems to have come to a consensus on the name of the hibiscus. I want to thank Ma and Pa Hat for their four very good submissions, but Kathbert suggested Yuri, short for urine, because the hibiscus has piss-yellow flowers, and we thought that was too funny to pass up. Plus I ran the two top contenders (Colonel Mustard and Yuri) by Handy Woman, and she said Yuri was a no-brainer. Rich wouldn’t mind Greg and Yuri sticking around in his perfect plant room. They are more reasonably sized plants than, say, Jolly Bob, which sprawls all over the place and now has shoots coming up in several directions. Moving it to my solarium is going to be an interesting challenge…

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New UGGH Club Schedule (and Location?)

Yesterday Richard Bonomo, Luxuli, and I experimented with a slightly less ugh-y time for UGGH Club: we got up at 6:00 and got to the club around 6:30, thus achieving an extra half hour of sleep. Travalon got up and came to the club too, but he swims instead of participating in these Unearthly Gyrations and Gym Horrors. Then we all got done just about the same time, so we headed to a coffeehouse near my job for breakfast and (obviously) coffee. This new plan seemed to go well, because I got to work almost on time, just five minutes late and that was because I took too long saying goodbye to everyone.

Luxuli would like to start going to a health club downtown that has reciprocity with ours, since it is really close to her place, close enough for Rich to bike now that the Bonomobile is dead, and more on my way to work than our original health club. Yesterday I went to get the paperwork for reciprocity, but the guy at the front desk wasn’t sure I would qualify, since my premiums are at a very old rate. Later he called me at work to say I could get it, so I should just stop by for the paperwork anytime. I was going to go swimming this morning with Travalon and pick it up then, but for some reason my alarm didn’t go off, although it was set. Strange – it went off yesterday… So tomorrow I will not be able to do UGGH Club at the downtown location unless I get a chance to stop by the original health club today.

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Fourth of July Weekend

Hopefully my readers had a wonderful Fourth of July weekend. I certainly had a great one, spending lots of time outdoors. On the Fourth Travalon and I went for a hike on Governor’s Island (which is actually a peninsula), then we went to Prairie Athletic Club, since we have reciprocity there, and swam in their outdoor pool. I forgot sunscreen but somehow escaped getting burned to a crisp. Luxuli and Prairie Man came over to watch the Brazil vs. Colombia game, and Richard Bonomo joined us, then we all went over to the Nau-Ti-Gal for dinner out on their deck, and OK Cap joined us. Afterwards Luxuli, Prairie Man, Travalon, and I joined some of our neighbors in watching fireworks from our condo association's pier.

Saturday I met the Rosary Ladies (Luxuli, Jilly Moose, and OK Cap) for coffee along with Richard Bonomo, Travalon, and some other people, then we ladies prayed the rosary while Travalon took a long walk with Rodney the Poodle. Luxuli had to leave before lunch, but Jilly Moose, OK Cap, Travalon, and I sat outside along with Rodney, enjoying brunch at The Fountain. Travalon and I went to the Mallards game and saw something unusual: the Mallards getting demolished, 1-7. Usually they win! And they are (were?) top of the league, and the other team (from Michigan) is second from the bottom. How humiliating! We ran to the health club between the game and the fireworks afterwards to walk laps in the pool, returning at exactly the right moment to catch the fireworks. Afterwards the cops shut down the road for like twenty minutes, so we were stuck there. Oh well, otherwise it was a very good day.

Yesterday after Mass and brunch, the Rosary Ladies and Travalon went over to Botanist 53’s house to help her put stuff away from her yard sale before the impending rain that never actually arrived. She gave us some stuff for free, and Travalon bought an antique cabinet from her. It needs some work but could be quite lovely once it’s fixed up. Travalon and I hung out with Rich for a while, then we took Rodney for a walk at Tenney Park, which includes an island, lots of bridges (one is out of commission right now), and a dam you can walk out onto. It’s a really beautiful park. Then we had dinner out on the pier belonging to our condo association, and the president of the association happened by and explained our condo fees to us, as well as telling us some colorful history about the neighborhood. One of the houses on the lake belonged to a guy who had pizza delivery cars stop by every day. Turns out he was a drug dealer, and he ended up being murdered. Our current neighbors are (thank goodness!) not nearly that exciting, except possibly the crane family (two adults, two young ones) who have been known to go after small dogs. So far they haven’t tried to attack Rodney…  

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Coral Hibiscus Blossom

Yesterday I mentioned feeling a little foolish about purchasing another plant, even if it was a hibiscus for only $3. Today that feeling evaporated the moment I stepped into my office, because the bloom had opened, and it is spectacular! Check it out:

It's almost as big as the whole plant! And I love the color.

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Another Famous Hat Contest

Trader Joe’s has the best plant deals, and so today I bought something I absolutely do not need: a $3 hibiscus! It has some buds on it and looks like it might bloom a pale coral, which (as my astute readers will remember) is one of my wedding colors. (The other one was supposedly teal but in reality was ivory.) This is a very small hibiscus; at Richard Bonomo’s house there is a much larger hibiscus that Luxuli rescued from the street and Kathbert babied until it recovered enough to bloom. I saw the bud forming before my wedding and realized it would bloom while I was in Ireland, so when I returned, I asked Rich what color it had bloomed. His response: “Did it bloom?” Kathbert said it was an uninteresting dirty yellow. The hibiscus is very happy in Rich’s ideal plant room, with its high southern exposure windows and a skylight to boot. It is sitting there with my plants The Professor, Jolly Bob, and Greg (Dr. Cheung is now in my somewhat ideal plant room with floor-to-ceiling eastern exposure windows), and a plant belonging to Mo-Girl. It does not have a name, but this is where you, my readers, can help out. What should we name the hibiscus in Rich’s house? Put your suggestions in the comments, or email them to me, and Rich, Kathbert, and I will vote on the winner. What will you win? Enter and find out!

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Calla Lily Seeds

My black calla lily still has one bloom that is going strong, and when I inspected it, it appears to be producing seeds. So I did what anyone would do in my position: I looked on the internet to find out how hard it is to grow calla lilies from seed. The answer is: not hard at all. They did agree that with these newer cultivars, you never know what you are going to get. That only made me more curious to try. After all, it’s unlikely my calla lily got pollinated sitting in my office, since there aren’t really bugs around, so it probably got pollinated back at the grocery store where I bought it. And since there were all sorts of other colors of calla lilies sitting around it, who knows where the pollen came from? Not like I know enough about calla lily genetics to know if pink or yellow would be dominant over black, or vice versa. And like I need another plant, right? But now I’m too curious. I have to try growing a baby calla lily and give it three years to mature enough to bloom, and then I’ll let my 5.6 regular readers know what color the bloom is. Maybe I’ll even have a working camera by then and so could post a picture.

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