My scanner cannot do this. But I’m glad someone’s can

Any way the wind blows…..

When to stop gardening

Just so you know, when you see the yellowjackets start to sort themselves out of the dirt you just disturbed, THAT is when you should drop the shovel and just run for the back door.

I am fine, thanks, but I don’t think I’ll be planting that witch-hazel tonight.

Hmm.  Irony there, eh?

Yes, there’s still a garden here

I just haven’t been digging much this week.  I should have been; I think I might have fried the Clethra [Summersweet] via neglect.  But here’s what’s blooming now:

So here we see the raingardent all grown up — the lilies in the background, by the spent rose and lavender, the phlox, daisies and butterfly bush coming into their own in the forerground.  What you can’t see to the right and below these plants are a new red salvia, some asters I grew from spring cuttings, some victoria sage, and a nice blue mix of veronica and Stoke’s asters.

Now this next view is near the back porch, in between the pathway and one of the mighty fig trees.  I put this in last year to make room for some of the iris sale iris…. I thought it would be nice for some herbs [sages and thymes] and a few annuals [this time around it's verbena, lobelia, and some marigolds].

The iris sale is tomorrow, by the way, so my dear Midnight Gardener will get to find out what goodies I can snag him, along with the extra Devilish Delight rhizomes I’ve already set aside for him.

A memory of July 4ths Past

Picture this as white with no railings on the porch

We used to go up to New England over the 4th of July holiday, to stay at an old farmhouse and explore the Green Mountains.  Lugging gallons of water up the hill, before the running water was installed. An outhouse. God-only-knew-what in the barn. Fresh huckleberries fro the hillside in pancakes or muffins.  Each year we’d puzzle out where to go see fireworks, get lost along the way, and then finally find the town square or athletic field where the rockets were set to go off.

Signs of all sorts were read aloud ["Is that Rte 5?" "Did we need 12 or 12A?"], puzzled over ["Shouldn't there be an actual question to go with the question mark?"], or argued over.  But my very favorite interactions were the word games:

“What’s the opposite of ‘Public Comfort’?” — me, looking up at the words carved in the back of the Town Hall-du-nuit

“Why, ‘Private Distress’, of course….” — my mother, weary of searching for restrooms in every town.

Rewarding bad behavior

Apparently, there’s a bar in Wisconsin that will be holding a fundraiser for guy who was in a motorcycle crash.  He was driving.  He was drunk.  The woman riding with him was killed.

Here’s the story:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/49561342.html

Tavern sets the bar low after woman's death

Posted: July 1, 2009

A guy gets drunk on beer, climbs on a motorcycle and his female
passenger dies in a crash.

His favorite tavern, Fatties on the Lake, plans a fund-raiser.

For him. 

For Jay F. Taylor, the guy in jail facing drunken homicide charges.

And it's featuring free beer part of the day, though the flier makes no
mention of safe rides home for everyone.

Even by Wisconsin drinking standards, this is messed up. And it has
enraged relatives of the victim, Crystal Daly.

"Why are they sponsoring drinking and driving?" wondered Kari Hartl of
Milwaukee, Daly's cousin.

The prosecutor on the case, Kimberly Tenerelli, put it bluntly, making
it clear she was speaking personally and not for her office.

"I would hope in that situation that a bar would be collecting money for
the victim and the victim's family, and not the person who killed them,"
she said.

Maybe the bar could skip the bikini motorcycle wash, too. And the
bachelor auction might come off as insensitive, considering that it was
Taylor's girlfriend who was killed. Taylor couldn't go to the party even
if he made bail; the court ordered him to stay away from taverns.

The crash happened May 24 on Highway 67 in southern Fond du Lac County.
According to the criminal complaint, the borrowed motorcycle careened
into a ditch and tossed both riders. Daly, 31, flew into a pole and died
at the scene.

Taylor, 32, who also is charged with having no motorcycle license, was
injured. His blood registered an alcohol level of 0.14, a little under
twice the legal limit for driving. He has a 2004 OWI conviction in
Milwaukee County.

Even in his condition, Taylor understood that he faced dire
consequences. The complaint says he told one of the cops that he might
as well "shoot him right now and get it over with."

But then there's this aggravating detail: After he was treated at the
hospital, Taylor was accidentally freed rather than handed over to
sheriff's deputies. When they caught up with him later, tests showed he
had been drinking again, Tenerelli said.

Taylor had a Campbellsport residence, but after his arrest, he changed
it to a Bay View address where his family lives. Daly was going through
a divorce and had moved out of her husband's place in Cudahy and into a
West Allis apartment. They had no children.

License records in Fond du Lac County show that Taylor was a bartender
at Fatties on the Lake, near Campbellsport on Lake Bernice.

On the fliers it posted around that area, the bar says Taylor was in a
"very bad and tragic bike accident" but doesn't mention his role in that
crash or say exactly how the money will be used.

The flier says he can't work or get insurance. "We hope that you will
join us for some of the fun activities that we are going to hold to help
our friend down this long, hard road ahead of him," it reads.

The party is on July 11, and the bar opens bright and early at 8 a.m.
The person who answered the phone at Fatties quickly told me never to
call again.

I wanted to ask if she understood the twisted irony of a beer-fueled
tavern blowout to break the fall of a beer-fueled driver accused of
causing a woman's death.

I'm not surprised she hung up on me. It's easier than explaining why an
all-day drinkfest does anything but mock the terrible thing that's
happened.

I think Mothers Against Drunk Driving should have a fundraiser of their own — for every dollar raised by this Fond du Lac farce, people should pledge $2 for MADD.

An unexpected detour

Things Not to Do: jump into the only train on the platform, then realize after the doors slide shut that you are starting to move north, not south.

Now, the train I was supposed to get on was supposedly still boarding, but it must have left just before I thundered down the stairs, so it wasn’t completely mad for me to have thought I was getting on my intended train.  On the other hand, I met some very nice conductors who kept me from wigging out completely and got me to my destination after a hour’s high-speed (de)tour of the Eastern Seaboard.

Now if only the Vermonter ran overnight, I could ride north on purpose….

Quick — tell the philosophers!

The new method, Mendelian randomization, “is changing the way we think about causality,” Dr. Lauer said.

[see here]

Public abuse of silicone and butterflies

I know that Daniel Wurtzel is making a statement here, and I’ll admit that these things are impressive when they catch the light.  But the “quivering in the wind” part isn’t value-added for me…. [his work with actual Jell-o is more interesting]

These things were 5-6 feet tall, in groups of three — three with embedded butterflies [yes, real] and three without.

We had stopped on our way out of Bethesda, on a sunny afternoon filled with traffic.  The butterflies, obviously, weren’t going anywhere.

Miscellaneous

1)  My special gardening weakness — I cannot seem to get a weedwacker to work for more than 8 minutes before snapping the line.

2) Recent dinner items — coconut spice tofu with mushrooms, sobe noodles with sesame oil, soy, and broccoli; blueberry-rosemary chicken

3) And the 24 hour news cycle catches Entertainment Tonight and Access flat-footed — apparently only one major star is supposed to die during any given day. [RIP Farrah; as for Michael, I'm not sure that he hadn't died some time ago, and his brain from the Wizard just took a little while longer than expected to run down...]

Interviewer: “Why is it important to have a strong man?”
Farrah: “Why would anyone want a weak one?  What would you do with him?”

4) If a substance is supposed to be chemically identical to another, why would you take an unquantified, untested product with that substance rather than one of the many FDA-evaluated and approved products containing that substance?  And what sort of ethical healthcare provider would recommend that iffy product to his patients “just to see if it helps”, then suggest that if you ever stop taking it, the hot flashes will come back? [Translation: I am absolutely furious at my mother's Ob/Gyn -- he takes her off HRT to protect her, and then suggests she starts chugging his new "all natural", "bio-identical" concoction twice a day?  I cannot wait for 'his' product to launch so I can rant about it more specifically...]

5) I have worked out what to do with the various dregs in honey jars that accumulate:  pour in some medium-grade scotch or bourbon, and let the alcohol dissolve the honey. Then add sparingly to drinks, or even just to a glass of ice then filled with cold water.

Here at the Paradise….

Errr.  Some of you will know the song that lyric belongs to.  The rest, just move along to the actual text:  There is nothing like being one of 5 people in a movie theatre — two giddy couples and distraught projectionist — drinking beer, munching on corn chips and watching a reggae icon sing ‘Get up/Stand up’ on the big screen.

Oh, and the encore was Pink Floyd.  My ears are just getting around to forgiving me, but I wouldn’t have missed the experience.  It topped off a weekend of picnicking, festival-going, and having a wonderful time visiting with good friends.

Must remember to locate a copy of the Austin Lounge Lizards’ cover of “Dark Side of the Moon” for my neighbor….