I don’t know if you have noticed, but it is quite warm out there in the land beyond the front door. Our ten day forecast here in Paradise goes like this:
Yesterday I had to make some hard choices. You remember my tomato plants? Well, I finally had a lucid moment about the whole thing. I had twenty gigantic plants, with hundreds and hundreds of little green spheres growing all over them. As I saw it I had three choices:
- Throw half the plants over the back fence
- Find new homes for half the plants
- Keep them all and go buy hundreds of dollars worth of canning supplies. Then learn how to can tomatoes according to the manual written by Dr. P. Tomaine
- Run away
There I was, shears in hand and about to commit herbicide as the plants turned their soulful faces up to me and tried to smile even as they grappled with bravely accepting their fate. “The children,” I could hear them whispering, “think of the children.”
I couldn’t do it.
I ran out into the front yard and grabbed the t-shirt of a neighbor sitting on his porch and begged him to take some of the plants. The poor fellow was blind-sided and nodded “yes.” Before he could change his mind I had placed six specimens on his doorstep.
A woman was walking her dog past our house and ended up with four. Another guy took two. And it was done. I could handle the rest.
When you give someone a plant you give them a job to do, and after some reflection these fine folks may decide that they want nothing to do with an instant garden and its responsibility. They may quietly and under cover of night consign them to the trash. That is entirely up to them. I’ve done what I had to do. Just like Pontius Pilate, I have washed my hands of the matter.
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Toady Of The Week Department
Once again, our nominee is Senator Lindsey Graham. He was giving a speech to a MAGA crowd in his hometown in South Carolina, the place where he was born, and he was loudly booed. Do you think he gets it yet? He has made himself into a living, breathing, caricature of a politician that is a completely empty suit. There is no longer anything inside there at all.
One day the clothing will collapse and that will be the end of his story. Can’t wait, actually. It’s painful to watch.
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We drove to Durango today, going the long way because of construction activities on the Million Dollar Highway. There is no plan for any day of the remainder of my life that would include my navigating that road if it were narrowed down to a single lane.
The route we took was beautiful. Not much traffic at all once we got past Telluride. Forests, mountains, creeks and rivers and not a lot of civilization.
On an evening walk, we saw three young deer, all of them bucks. They were striplings, with bodies that had yet to attain that massive muscularity of an older male. When you see one of those guys, you marvel.
Of course those handsome beasts are prime targets for a lesser sort of creature, the hunter. On that same evening’s walk, we passed an open garage door, and there, mounted on the wall amidst a din of clutter was the antlered head of what had once been a magnificent animal. A pathetic display for certain, but only what you should expect when you make a sport of killing.
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To the opera Friday night, in Santa Fe. Overheard this faux conversation, which I took as directed at me:
Doyenne #1: Here, dear, let me open that car door for you.
Doyenne #2: Why, thank you for your kindness
Doyenne #1: Don’t look right this minute, but behind you is a man exiting his car wearing shorts and sandals … and old sandals, at that
Doyenne #2: You met that aged fellow? With the spiderwebby leg veins?
Doyenne #1: That’s the man. No pride or consideration for others, that’s for certain
Doyenne #2: Well, dear, it was inevitable. One of the shortcomings of living in a democracy is everyone thinks they can come to a performance wearing any old thing they choose. Standards are out the window when the hoi polloi are involved .
Doyenne #1: Too true, too true. Let’s do go in though, I’m tired of looking at him. Now where did I put my lorgnette?
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A few pix from the Santa Fe Opera. Photography is not allowed during performances.
Little Home In The Valley 