WHAT I ENJOYED THIS WEEK . . .
- The first year we bought our house, which was only two years ago, I realized just what a stupid flower the peony is. They grow up tall with a round ball on the top, meaning they’re top heavy. Therefore, you have to put a metal thingy around them to hold their heads up or they just lay on the ground all stupid-like. The ball is covered in wax or something, which ants must the swarm to chew off the wax so this pitiful flower can open. Finally, the flowers bloom and are beautiful for about 3.48 days or so, and then they fall over, dead and brown. But you can’t cut the dead brown stuff down! You can’t mow it over. No, it must stay that way, this giant, flaccid plant, so the brown leaves can take in nutrients all summer and repeat the process come spring. Well, I have a middle finger for that. Nick and I labored all last Saturday to dig up the peonies we have in the yard (some of which a failing to thrive because there is too much shade anyway) and moved them out back right near the farm field. Will they survive their vicious eviction? I don’t know, but I tried my best. I definitely spent the rest of the day itchy from tussling in the grass clods.
- Here is a happy sunbeam Kitty:
- I had a hard day on Friday, so Nick took me out to dinner where I proceeded to eat French fries. What I said next apparently endeared this me to this man even more, and maybe you can make sense of it. This is what I said: “I love French fries that have the skin on them. They might be my favorite. But I do love crinkle cut fries, too, you know? And then there are waffle fries. Those are the best. Oh, and crispy hashbrowns.”
- Typically, in the spring I go to the front of the house where the previous owner had a little landscaped area and rip out anything that could be a weed. This year, I did not do that. I just let it go. Turns out, I may have been ripping out a blanket of violets every year, because now there is this:
- I see another plant growing that I threw in there last year that someone gave me for free, but I have no clue what it is. I’m just letting it all go. Secretly, I wish Stefanie would bicycle over and take all the thistles out of the yard and eat them, though. They are out of control.
- Biscuit sent me an early birthday present. I requested a copy of the book Growing Joy by Maria Failla because it takes time to read through and has activities that help you care for yourself through paying more attention to plants.
- Speaking of, compare how the new baby planty was doing last time I shared a photo with today:
- It’s hard to use the word “enjoy” in this context, so I will say I am deeply moved by the audiobook Knife, read by Salma Rushdie, about the attempted assassination he survived, what followed, who his wife is and how she cared for him, and his feelings about the recovery and the assassin. I’m not quite done yet, but it is brilliant.
WHAT I LEARNED THIS WEEK
- I may not be doing an internship in Dallas. The coordinator there mentioned how the agency is already in talks with students about the spring of 2025, meaning there may not be an opening. I’m looking again for new places to apply to, including in Arizona, Ohio, Missouri, and Alabama.
WHAT I WATCHED THIS WEEK
- Good Burger 2 (2023) — because if you have a chance to revisit the 90s, why not. It has a 59% on Rotten Tomatoes, which blows my mind (as in, how is the rating that high for a notoriously snooty site?)
- It’s a Wonderful Knife (2023) — horror twist on Jimmy Stewart’s famous holiday class. I enjoyed it, especially Justin Long’s character.
REACTIONS TO MY REVIEW
Is it weird to say I feel like we’re building up steam? As I celebrate National Deaf History Month, I am sharing a range of what it means to be deaf or Deaf or be balanced between the hearing and deaf worlds. Including people who have hearing loss who turn away from Deaf culture may not be totally in the spirit of Deaf History Month, but historically, lots of people wanted to pass as hearing. If you’ve read Nella Larson’s novella Passing, and many of you have, you get the idea. Now exchange black/white for deafness/hearing. Anne M. Bolander’s I Was Number 87 is hard to read, but it is part of history, so I thank each of you for reading about her, despite my early content warnings. One of the great benefits of Deaf culture is welcoming everyone in to a space that makes them feel seen because they are proud, capable individuals, and I want that for deaf people as soon as they are diagnosed.
FORTHCOMING REVIEW
SHOPPING AT THE LIBRARY IN MY TBR BOX PHOTO
This week is a combo. I still have some library books I’ve picked up here and there, but I also got a load of audiobook CDs for 5o cents each from the Friends of the Library sale. Sometimes I get tired of hooking up my phone to use the digital audiobooks, so I grabbed a bunch of nonfiction CDs to listen to and learn from while I commute. They should last me a while!
Grab the Lapels 
Oh those poor peonies! I know they get all floppy and everything, but where I live they are the biggest most extravagant flower I can grow. I have only one and really enjoy it. Did you know you can make jam from the flower petals? I’ve not been able to try it yet, but maybe I will this year. I so want to know what a peony flower tastes like!
I love all the little purple and white violets! Did you know the flowers and leaves are edible? You don’t even have to cook them, just pick the smaller leaves and toss them in a salad and top off your salad with a few pretty flowers! You can make a pretty purple jelly from the flowers too but you have to pick a lot, so I’ve only ever eaten them fresh. I would totally eat your thistles, but I would also make you have some too 😀
Oh, I would like to read Knife. Glad to hear it’s good, er so engaging and moving. Is WTF Evolution by the same people who did the Tumblr? I used to love that Tumblr. Maybe it’s even still around?
On a side note, thanks for all your catching up comments! I will try to catch up with them as soon as I can especially since you ask some good questions!
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I’m starting to think I can just eat everything if I embody the grazing animals enough! I do love the violets, too. They’re lovely, and I can’t believe I was accidentally ripping them out. Shame on me. You’re right about the peony being a big, bold flower, but it’s so short lived. And then Nick has to mow and weedwhack around them, and I’m not about go to out there and pull grass, etc. I know this is a lot of lawn care, which you are against, but I got two acres that stick out and isn’t wild (yet). The previous owner was big on seeding, Miracle Grow, etc. to make the lawn Very Green. Now, whenever we see a dead patch, we’re going to to dig it up and plant wildflowers to slowly unlawn the lawn.
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We’ve been so conditioned to believe that we should only eat stuff packaged from the grocery store that we no longer consider other things we might eat that also turn out to be so much more nutritious to boot. I love your idea of planting wildflowers as the various parts of the lawn die. Nothing wrong with a little bit at a time!
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Thanks! Eventually, my yard will be a happening place for the bees.
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but be careful of mushrooms … there are some things you just should not eat without knowing what you are doing!
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Most definitely WG! I do not go mushroom hunting because I don’t know anything about them and if I ever do go, it will be with a person who knows what they are doing! That said, I do have morels pop up in the garden now and then. They are easy to identify and hard to mistake for anything else 🙂
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I also had morels all over the “back forty,” as they say, when I was growing up. I just thought, “Oh, this is some thingie that grows behind the house.” Come to find out, they are expensive and coveted. I cannot even remember tasting one. I know my mom cooked them.
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Absolutely! I saw some crazy special about a family foraging for their own mushrooms and everyone getting sick suddenly around the same time a few hours. They all almost died. I think this TV memory has stuck with me because it comes from the era of having only three channels, so everyone was watching pretty much the same thing at the same time because there were no other (TV) options.
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I forgot to add that I’m not sure if WTF, Evolution!? is based on a Tumblr page. I just saw the book at the library and had to check it out. I just finished it. Totally fun to read before bed each night. Definitely reads like a social media post.
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I’m eagerly awaiting my one peony blooming as well. I bet yours will thrive in their new spot! Mine came from an old library patron years ago, who also gave me irises. She’s passed away but I think about her still when I see my beautiful flowers every spring.
All forms of the potato deserve celebration! I’m sorry you had a hard day. My hard day last week was made better by Mexican food.
Kitty looks so happy in the sun. Bruce loves the sunny spot on my bed in the afternoon.
What a haul of audiobooks! Enjoy!
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I’m hoping they’re happy in their new spot because they get a lot more sun. I could see a dip in the row before where the ones in the middle were in the shade longer. Now I just need to go out back and check on them, and maybe I’ll see ToadMan coming out of his burrow when I’m back there!
At this point, I don’t even remember what made the hard day…. Isn’t that just silly? From devastated to forgetful.
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My garden is sadly neglected so far this spring too but your little flowers look so lovely. I bet the bees like them too.
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I haven’t seen any bees yet, but I am grateful that the area I took a picture of basically grow itself without my help. I tear out the occasional dandelion or tuft of grass.
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Do you know who David Suzuki is? He’s a big name Canadian environmentalist and he’s a proponent for leaving things natural in the early spring especially to help those pollinators. We call it “No Mow May” and it’s a nice excuse to be lazy about your lawn!
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I had not heard of him. I just looked him up, and my library has a bunch of his books.
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He’s one of our most famous Canadians! He hosted a show called The Nature of Things for a long time and now his daughter is the host. I haven’t actually read any of his books but he’s very well respected among environmentalists here.
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I remember reading the news about Salman Rushdie’s attempted assassination when that happened but didn’t know he had a book about it out! What a harrowing experience that must have been.
Lovely to see all your violets, I’m not a big flower person but those are some of my faves. I get them cropping up in my yard here and there but I never remember exactly where so each year they’re always a pleasant surprise. Small, unobtrusive, getting whacked with the lawn mower doesn’t seem to deter them, and such a pretty color- what’s not to love? 🙂 Wishing you luck with the rest of your gardening/plant mothering as well, it can be such a joy to tend something green! I’m eager to get started with my veggie garden but the weather hasn’t been quite consistent enough yet here, sadly.
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Oh, man, the news about Rushdie, when it happened, blew my mind. I’ve seen this man before when I went to a lecture in Lansing, MI. I still remember his final words: “for god’s sake, open the world a little bit.” This was in 2004, so not super long after 9/11 and Bush sending troops to the Middle East. In Knife, he talks about how the British tabloids often made him sound like a party animal, which is funny to think of, but I didn’t realize he had such a bad reputation for a variety of reasons.
I think when Nick mows, the violets aren’t cut down because they’re so low to the ground! Sneaky little plantys.
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I love your description of peonies … and can understand your thinking there are better plants around.
Violets are pretty but they take over. I spent weekends and weekends getting rid of them from the garden of the house we moved into in 1997. I did get rid of them, more or less, but when we left in 2023 the odd plant was still popping up. I bet they’ve taken over now because I don’t think the people to whom the new owners have rented it are doing much gardening!
I’ve been hearing good things about Knife. I wonder if I can get my reading group to do it?
That statement about chips et al would endear you to me too.
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Maybe if I had one peony, like some other commenters on here, I would love it more, but there are loads of them in a line.
What did you not like about the violets? I love them more than the green grass, so I let them go and feel sad when they are gone.
I think Knife could be a good discussion book because he talks about how the public portrayed him before and after the attempted murder, what it means to have a spouse support you while they are falling apart from grief themselves, the power of literature in the face of violence, etc. Lots of good themes without feeling like an “issues book.”
Heh, glad you have warm feelings about the various ways I love how potatoes are fried, too. ❤️
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Ha, I felt you might ask about the violets. It’s because they were in a garden bed and just choke everything else out. If you want a garden bed of violets, or some hardy ground cover, say under trees, or in big spaces, they’re lovely, but if you want other plants to thrive in a small garden bed, they can choke them out.
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I hadn’t realized they may affect other plants in the area…..now I’m going to have to wait and see what happens to the other flowers in the bed. I’m hoping they choke out the dang thistle!!
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Let me know… They have these runners/rhizomes that go EVERYWHERE! At least ours did. Depends on the plants they are with I think. And I think there are different sorts of violets. Opinions differ a lot on the issue of violets!
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I was reading an interview with Salman Rushdie about Knife. I’ve only read an older memoir of his, but this one sounds intriguing. What was so striking about this interview (and he no doubt goes into this in the book) is that when the man rushed him on stage he thought ‘it’s finally happening, and this is what you look like’. Just crazy.
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Yes, I think that is a quote from the book. He spent so long hiding after the fatwa was declared that he sort of assumed someone would assassinate him. Definitely check out Knife.
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