One of those things

I love flowers and beautiful gardens. Every year I make my pilgrimage to the nursery and buy plants that I think will survive lousy soil and sunless conditions in my yard, hoping that this year I’ll get lucky. And this year has been better than last. The caladiums are thriving and my designer geranium came back. Several hosta returned, one noticeably smaller than last year, and several did not. And my miniature rose has only skeletal leaves now, even after spraying. Truly strange, the white impatiens are blooming, but the coral ones are not. ?! Not exactly great results.

So it was with some surprise and a little rancor that I looked up through our bathroom skylight and caught a glimpse of green coming out of the brick chimney. A pretty little pale green plant is flourishing in concrete and brick on a roof that gets nonstop sun all day and only whatever rain that falls to drink. No food, no gentle pruning, no TLC. Sigh.

The Fourth

We spent the evening of the Fourth of July doing something very American. We went to a baseball game. Of course, I went to the game to see the fireworks. My husband went along because he had no other plans and he likes fireworks too. My daughter actually wanted to see the game. UR offered free tickets last week and Laura wanted to go. Well, you can’t beat free (free if you don’t count the $25.00 for parking, hot dogs, popcorn, cotton candy and snow cones) when you are trying something out, so we went. She was transported! And, I must admit, I didn’t mind it as much as I thought I would.

So, when we thought about where to see fireworks for the celebration of our country’s independence, we thought we could please everyone at the Diamond. The weather was pleasant and the shuttle bus from the DMV (the fireworks took up the Diamond parking lot) was right there, and even though we arrived in the middle of the game, we found seats only 6 rows from the roof. I had remembered to bring cushions, we ate before we came, and we were all in a pretty good mood thinking there was only about an hour to fireworks.

What fools we mortals be. Behind by three points, the Braves scored three in the 9th inning, tying the game. That was about 9:15. Five, count them, five innings later, the other team got two runs and the game finally ended. That was 11:00 PM. Then the fire marshall for some strange reason delayed the fireworks another 30 minutes while we watched the grounds crew pimp the field. When the crowd was just about to get ugly and my bones had almost worked themselves through my buttocks, cushions notwithstanding, the fireworks finally began.

Those of you who know me know what a softy I am, so this won’t be a surprise. Though I knew it was cheesy, manipulative, and smaltzy, the combination of Sousa marches, Lee Greenwood, and the Star Spangled Banner combined with one of the most spectacular fireworks displays I’ve seen in a long time, made me choke up, get misty, and wish I had a flag to wave. And it doesn’t hurt to have a couple of thousand other people around you cheering for the same reason. Made me remember what it was like to be proud of my country. Hooray for baseball.

Thoughts

I don’t really have any deep thoughts this morning–at least none I want to share. Except this quote from a deep thinker.

“Outside of a dog, a book is a person’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”

–Groucho Marx

How true.

It begins.

Well, here I am in cyberspace, actually writing a blog.  That is something I never thought I would do.  Never thought I would have anything to say.  And I don’t!  But this could be fun, once I get used to it.