Athletic 'Feets'

D

(This sea glass jumbie did not run in today's race, much like us!)

So Triathlon has run right by us (me & Mu) again & though we might not have the enormous & deserved sense of accomplishment that accompanies that annual event, we feel pretty upbeat about what we have done instead. Mu has napped in 4 fave breezy spots, & as for me, I've been spinning gold into, well, gold. More accurately, gold filled wire into hand forged bamboo wrap links & teardrop earrings.

(Light amethyst/14kt GF/lavender sea glass necklace, in process)

So to all the amazing athletes from near & far who 'went for the gold' today, congratulations!
Oooh!  Mu has poured on the afterburner, pulled out all stops, & found a FIFTH nap spot. Now that's dedication!  She appears unbeatable in her napquest, so good luck to all challengers!

Higher Math

I spent my long day at my 'regular' job today, knee deep in the tedium of other people's decimal points. While I'm grateful for that job, I'm even more so for the shift to more fulfilling math that happened just now, at 2:20 am, under the misshapen potato of a moon.
I spent the shank of my day, from 7am to 4pm numbering 100 named accounts.  Obviously, this was the brainchild of accountants, not me. After work I let my fuzzy dog go free ranging around the yard, brushed her until she was sure having a dog was my choice (over having kids), & met a dear friend for dinner at an outdoor, roadside Latin restaurant.  

The dinner options there proved to be limited only in number, not in flavor. She had camarones (shrimp) in butter sauce con mofongo (a mashed plantain dish molded into a dome, & I had the mahi con mofongo & brought home enough for tomorrow's dinner too.
We each had a Cruzan dark rum & Coke, & it is that I'm blaming for the hour of this post. I conked out on the sofa-loaf in my studio, in front of  'To Catch A Thief,' & slept soundly through Grace Kelly's gold lamé Costume ball dress-for-days.  So when I woke after 2am, I still had my fave task of plant watering to do before any hope of sleep.

(The pineapple crew--best reason to water I've ever had)

Not being facetious here--I love my daily watering ritual.
So Mu (fuzzy doglet) & I were out in the breezy yard by the light of the weird moon & newly installed solar landscape lights, watering pineapples, orchids & new shrubbery, listening to dogs in the distance, faint wind chimes, & the chittering of mango-munching bats nearby.
It was too beautiful to go inside, so after I recoiled the hose I sat on the stoop, skritched Mu & started scheming.
Tonight's task--plotting a pleasing & functional planting for the next set of pineapple plant 'Tweens' (outgrown their nursery trays, but no room in the 'in-ground' pineapple patch).  Combining recycling with fractions & algebra (the only known use for that combo), I decided to cut 3 holes between each of the solar lights in the 'bouncy grass' on the slope above the stone retaining wall by my driveway. I'll repot the tween pineapples in the big pots leftover from the front landscaping (14 pots) & sink them into the turf holes. You'll only see the plant, not the pot & the drainage there should be great. It should minimize weeding & be aesthetically & architecturally pleasant. Solar up lights already in place at the base of that wall should highlight the peach-to-red leaves...& give me something else to sit outside at 2am & enjoy!  Good night all.

Five Boy in the Cabinet Curry

(This is the first of a series I'm calling 'C Glass Half Full.'  I'm thinking it will be a small island of optimistic bits & pieces bobbing around in a big sea of otherwise. )

Mu & I are here today, heavily medicated & happy as clams!

I'm taking a day off today, after a run-in with a Jack Spaniard (evil & potent wasp) necessitated a run-in with Prednisone in a bit too high a dosage. So after spending 3 days making new cord necklaces, new bamboo wrap necklaces & bracelets, I'm on the porch instead of by the pier. Given the breeze & the company, you'll forgive if I'm not too broken up about this unscheduled stop.

Bamboo wrap necklaces

So Mu & I weren't the only hooky-players today. WAPA decided a day-long outage two days ago wasn't quite enough, & when I got peckish an hour or so ago, power was nowhere to be found. Not wanting to open the fridge (in case this proved to be another powerless marathon), I consulted the cabinet instead, & the resulting curry was weirdly wonderful. 

5 Boy in the Cabinet Curry

Toss 1 1/2 C uncooked Jasmine rice in 1 TBS Olive oil with at least 2 TBS curry powder, 1/2 tsp ground cumin, 1/2 tsp whole cumin seed, 1 TBS granulated garlic in large covered pot or Dutch oven over medium flame. After 2 minutes, add 2 cans drained garbanzos (mine were organic, but either way) & toss all until well combined. Cover & heat another minute before adding one can of light coconut milk, a grating (generous) of fresh nutmeg, a couple grinds of pepper, several dashes of soy sauce or Worcestershire or both, & 1/2 C of dried cranberries. Rinse the coconut milk can & add that can of water plus another 1/2 can to the mixture. Stir to combine, then cover, reduce heat & simmer just until the rice absorbs all the liquid. Remove from heat, stir off the bottom, cover & let sit for a minute before calling the 5 boys. 

Now it is time to review your power outage & make choices based on status. And time for a short aside. When I first arrived in St Croix almost 23 years ago, there was one very happening lunch spot where all the VIPs & politically connected business people dined. And dined was the appropriate term. The Comanche Restaurant sported a slightly elevated, breezy view of pool & harbor.  The more important you were, the bigger the fan back on your peacock chair. Lunch started with crudités & a basket of freshly baked corn muffins, redolent with fresh nutmeg & delicious enough to make you want to spoil the rest of your lunch by climbing right into the basket with them. After the preliminaries, most VIPs opted for the 1/2 roast chicken with rice & peas (read beans) that could have fed a small country. Moist & fall off the bone tender, it was enough food to guarantee 2-3 hours away from your desk & office, & if you were truly, 'big I important,' a mandatory, sleep-it-off coma nap after.
We were on a non-nap mission, however (eavesdropping for business opportunity crumbs being dropped from adjacent tables), so we'd opt instead for the 'Ten Boy Curry.'  The name came from the condiment cart, so full of options it allegedly took ten boys to pass them around the table. I'll no doubt miss some, but here are the ones I remember: toasted coconut, orange marmalade, chutney, sweet pickle relish, dill relish, chopped dry-roasted peanuts, Currants, chopped scallions, preserved ginger, & raisins.

So back to today's curry. My cabinet yielded peanuts, currants, raisins, & coconut & just as I was making do with those, the power returned & I added tart orange marmalade & the pickle relishes. Mu was thrilled with a couple spoonfuls of rice, & as for me...
I feel a coma nap coming on.

The Immovable Beast

I'm a bit concerned I may have just erected a temple to unfinished projects. One of my favorite renoporn sites posted a rendering of a workspace that caused my inter-cranial cherubim to take up harp & lute & convince me that this glistening, all white component system would be the PLACE WHERE I WOULD FINISH ALL THE AMAZING THINGS I'D BEEN PONDERING SINCE BIRTH. I was certain this arrangement of components was somehow cosmically targeting me, because I am cheap & already own functional & presentable equivalents for every component pictured.

Of course there were a few ever so slight differences I'm choosing to ignore:
 The picture is a designer's rendering, presumably unbuilt & untested.
Theirs was completely unspoiled by, say anything actually being placed on the virgin shelves. Every piece I planned to employ was already chock full of things mimicking lead.
Did I mention how shiny & WHITE their concept was?  Conversely, mine is to be fashioned of 3 tortoiseshell-effect split rattan cabinets, a distressed off-white hutch top (I had bought for $100 when the base unit had been destroyed in shipping), a humongous solid mahogany desktop, & 2 towering drawer chests, 11 drawers apiece, in--wait for it--matte-ish black.
This was a bit like trying to duplicate a 2 piece white meat KFC combo with a chicken foot, some tail feathers & a bullion cube.  Of course as I mentioned before I am choosing to ignore all this minutiae. And so yesterday first thing in the morning I started hauling crud out of that room (thus infecting all the other rooms) in an effort to a unearth said components.
And only 17 hours later, at 3:30 AM today, I had achieved something that looked like this and that I am now terming the immovable beast.
Please don't misunderstand. I am actually pleased with this progress. However, I had better be pleased because this stuff is never moving again!  So far I have actually managed to write in the space (actually dictate in the space), and eat a slice of leftover pizza. Once I've thrown in some sewing, I'll have covered the uses I intended.  Mu is still trying to figure out the best angle from which to beg with this arrangement. I'm sure she'll get the hang of it soon.

Catching New Ideas

Some people talk about 'dry spells,' writer's block, general doldrums & creative apathy. A lack of ideas (though granted they aren't all ready for prime time--evidently my enthusiasm for my invention 'Yonuts' (frozen yogurt filled doughnuts) was purely my own) was never the issue. Hours in the day--the real problem. 

When my ex & I had the used goods warehouse store on St Croix years ago, I had to train myself not to see potential in everything that walked in & out of the door. That evidently requires periodic retraining, because my house is pretty full of stuff that only I see as having possibilities.  I'm OK with being alone in that vision, as long as plans & ideas come to fruition every now & again. Thanks to some help (ranging from opinions to heavy lifting) from my friends, several plans are becoming real this summer:

1.  I finally exchanged the cursedly mundane brown trim on my little house for a refreshing dark cool grape.  

2.  The porch ceiling was my first foray into what I intended to do since I bought my 70's house in 2008--paint ceiling & beams all one seamless color. I'm so pleased that next week the rest of the ceilings will become one big creamy white united front as well.  

Then last week I used some stuck at home with respiratory crud downtime to polish off another lingering unfinished project--this one:

I call it 'Big Clay Pots Painted Green, topped with Plants & Filled With Sea Glass"

But you can tell from there they're full of ...potential!!!

Puzzle Prep?

Today's project--FULL of sea glass!

Happy purple bromeliad on a new table

Before Sudoku, before the Rubik's Cube, before Space Invaders, there were these little puzzles with plastic tiles in a plastic frame & they would slide in only 2 directions (evidently diagonal hadn't yet been invented in the late 60's). I don't remember the object but my fingertips have a memory of how the puzzle felt in my hands as I pushed the tiles up, down, left, right. It was really rudimentary.

Who knew I was learning such a useful life skill?  In a small house with a lot of stuff I spend a lot of time trying to create, improve or relocate some mode of storage. 

Today's project was to paint gigantic clay pots bright green & fill them with the sheer tonnage of sea glass I've collected here over the years & have been storing in tarp-covered under-bed chests on my porch. Once full, I covered the pots with sheets of plexiglass & placed some of my many plants on them. They make wonderful side tables & plant stands & they aren't about to blow anywhere in a storm. And now I can get rid of those ugly plastic chests. I used 3 med-lg & one enormous pot today & offloaded the contents of one large & almost 2 medium plastic chests. It worked so well I'll be back at Home Depot tomorrow buying 4 more pots & four more sheets of plexi. I have enough paint. 

I know these numbers will be enough to hold the contents of the remaining 3 chests because in the 70's & 80's I learned another outmoded skill: Algebra. My favorite formula is 'this is to that as that is to 'x'.   When you live in a compact home, you use that one a lot.  

Oh, & the final result of all this puzzling & calculating should be a cleaner looking porch with more usable, non-plant-covered tables. Drinks will have a place to rest, & there will be room to serve dinner for 6.  And when I'm ready to sort sea glass for my next batch of angels, jellyfish, crabs or Jumbies, I'll have a lovely & practical way to do that....and more time to play Scrabble!

Plants That Do Tricks

I love plants that can do tricks. I prefer those that come by their talent naturally & willingly to those tormented, grafted & twisted according to the will of people. (Exception:  espalier. Love me a great flat, wall hugger of a tree, but I detest topiary. I see green 'poodle-puff cuts' on a shrub & I want to scream 'Let my foliage FREE!')
Instead, I admire any one plant that produces several different colored flowers. Nasturtiums, for one. I also like Lantana's concentric ombré effect.
But my favorite 'cirque de foliage' trick is any GREEN flower. So refreshing & unexpected. In Annapolis I lived in the postage-stamp sized guest cottage of a narcissistic plastic surgeon who thought he was Georgio Armani, but more closely resembled Spaulding Gray. From the sleeping loft (up a ladder, 2 twin mattresses in a hirsute railed adult 'crib' arrangement), you could peer through the rail to see what was directly beneath you, cooking on the stovetop. Did I mention it was small?

This one really does tricks--from innocuous green bud to spectacular pink orchid!

It had 3 'pro's:' 1.  A huge skylight directly over the bed, through which was a wonderful view of treetops.  Raccoon families would regularly take time out from garbage can raids to look in on my slumbers. 2. My first experience with Jalousie windows which acted as a funnel for sound. I always

The mostly finished porch!

 

left the windows cranked mostly open, & since I was situated uphill from the little neighborhood dockside beach bar, I was lulled to sleep by the soft metallic clang of sailboat riggings & strains of my first experience with reggae--UB40.
But the third & most wonderful thing about this unassuming, glorified garden shed was the 2 disproportionately long window boxes that, when combined spanned the whole exterior wall by the door. Mind you, there was no window above them, only rough dark brown wood siding, but in my eyes the empty boxes had such potential.
Maryland had wonderful nurseries full of lush plants & I had spent many weekends wandering their gravel  paths, dreaming of gorgeous massed plantings for which I would never have space or landlord permission. Now I had a place for a bit of what I'd been longing for, so I went to 6 different nurseries, drew various schematics, priced plants...became completely overwhelmed with choices, & went home & planted seeds. I planted bells of Ireland.
Within a remarkably short time, their gorgeously healthy green  spires were tall enough to touch the eaves & the flower boxes were so full it looked like the cottage was off-balance & in danger of rolling over.
So I added trailing purple lobelia to the front edge.
I loved the wave of cool colors that hit me when I came home after I commuted through the infuriating sea of duh traffic, having spent my day doing a type-A job For which I was completely unequipped. I'd unlatch the pixie-height wooden gate & step down into my tiny Eden. I'd grab an iced tea & my book & flop into the single, basic outdoor chair to read until it was too dark to make out the words on the page. It was only my second adult home, & those ethereal green spires made it mine.
Fast forward a couple of decades & the same things affect me the same way, but I 'go much bigger' (& stay home) now. I'm just completing (for now--I have a deeply held belief that when we cease to tweak, we die) my second total redo of my front porch since I bought my little house in May, 2008. Unexpected furniture paint & upholstery colors, a freshly painted tiffany blue beamed ceiling & dusky, dark aubergine fascia & trim against the sandy, buttery wall color make a happy backdrop for all the orchids, whether blooming or not.
But the big joy this morning was this green Dendrobium beauty, blooming over the blue rail & greeting my across the street neighbors. Lucky them.  LUCKY me.