Stealth Fail

"Birth, life, and death--each took place on the hidden side of a leaf." --Toni Morrison**

It was like Wild Kingdom out on my front porch today. I missed my Moonflower opening (sneaky little bugger!), but when I went outside to admire it, I found a whole host of other critters. I was mainly focused on these beetles, which, after a lot of research, I am pretty confident are Steelblue Ladybeetles (Halmus chalybeus). While I was watching this one motor around, it actually stopped and picked an aphid off my Moonflower. Like any good gardener, I cheered. I didn't manage to get that on camera, but, trust me, it happened (both the aphid eating and the cheering).

Not very exciting in this light, but below, you can see the subtle metallic hues that make these look like little jewels. Or fancy helmets. I like to imagine Darth Vader running around in one of these when he wants to feel fancy. 

These guys are so shiny my face is actually reflected in this one's shell! It's hard to get it big enough and clear enough to see here, but, again, trust me, it's there! I was worried that the ants might try to run off the ladybugs, but this stand-off seemed to end peacefully.

After I saw all the big ladybugs, I started noticing a few of these guys on the undersides of the leaves. I'm pretty sure they are baby ladybugs. Yay, babies! Now, go kill some aphids!

I was so caught up in my study of all these tiny bugs, that I nearly missed this big guy: 

He's doing a pretty good job of blending, and since he was on a leaf above my head I would have missed him entirely, but I happened to look up and saw something that didn't look quite right.

What the...? When did my Moonflower sprout antennae? 

Stealth fail, Mr. Grasshopper, stealth fail.

**All of this "invisible" activity happening right outside my own front door reminded me of one of my favorite quotes, which I discovered thanks to a fellow blogger, the late Dewey.

What I'm Reading Now-The Submission

The Submission: A Novel by Amy Waldman--When I reviewed That Day in September, the lovely Wendy mentioned this book as a candidate for a good companion read. I hadn't heard anything about it before that, even though it has garnered quite a bit of acclaim, but I was definitely intrigued. Well, it took a few months, but it did finally make its way to the top of my reading list.

I didn't LOVE this book, but I did find it interesting; and by the time I was done reading I was definitely curious about how closely this fictional novel mirrored the actual events surrounding the design selection for a September 11 memorial. A quick look at The National September 11 Memorial and Museum web site leads me to believe that the general memorial competition and selection process described in the book was probably pretty accurate. In 2003, thousands of designers submitted plans, and a Memorial Jury was in charge of making the final design selection. The book adds a twist though: the winning submission was designed by a Muslim, and, as you can imagine, here is where the trouble begins.

Now, maybe that part happened in real life too and we just never heard about it. If so, then the real-life jury was better at sweeping things under the carpet than the jury in this book. Either that, or they made contingency plans ahead of time for just such an occasion...which brings up the question, what is the proper contingency plan for something like this?

What if a Muslim wins a design competition for a memorial honoring all the people who were killed by Muslim terrorists? Should Muslims have been excluded from the competition? Well, of course not, you couldn't come right out and say that, even two years after the September 11 attacks. Besides, certainly some Muslims lost their lives in those attacks, and their families are surely mourning just as much as anyone else's. What if the designer won't answer any questions about his design, a design that has what some people consider Islamic elements? What if his design is really a memorial to the brave terrorists who died that day? What if it isn't? What if it's just a beautiful design that evoked a sense of healing in the one family member who served on the jury? Should he have to answer questions like this when the same design could have been submitted by a non-Muslim without anyone questioning its "real" meaning?

These questions and more are explored in this book, and it makes for a thought-provoking read. Unfortunately, I also found it extremely frustrating. Many of the characters seemed very one-sided, almost like caricatures; I kept thinking, Is the author trying to annoy the hell out of me with these characters? What idiots! Who acts like this? but then I realized that so many of the people we see in the media act exactly like this. It's the extreme radio shock jocks who will say anything to incite debate, the reporters who will run any story no matter how ill-gotten the information and no matter the potential consequences, the people who will fight based on personal belief, no matter what the actual facts might be, the conspiracy theorists. So, then the frustrating thing started to be that, yeah, this is probably exactly how this would go down.

I have to say that I couldn't come up with a decisive answer after reading this book. As annoyed as I was with a lot of the characters in this book, I could also understand where many of them were coming from. I know that today, not having lost anyone in the September 11 attacks, I would say that, absolutely, the winning design should be the winning design, regardless of who designed it. I can't however say that I wouldn't have felt differently if I had lost someone in that attack. I'd like to say that I would still be able to maintain an objective, all-Americans-deserve-the-same-chance attitude, but I don't know if that's true or not. I don't know if I would have been overcome by my own fears and anger, especially a mere two years out.

So, even though I didn't LOVE this book, I still think it's a worthy read. I'd also recommend checking out the book's web site. I went there looking for more information about the inspiration for this story, and I kept getting frustrated. It took me a liiiitle longer than it should have to realize that you can click on all the pictures that come up on the home page, so let me save you some frustration: you can click on all the pictures that come up on the home page.

Moonflower Vine Opening

From what I've heard, sitting and watching the grass grow is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Luckily though, sitting and watching a Moonflower vine open is much more exciting!

You can tell when a flower is about to open because it goes from this:

 To this:

 And, finally, to this in about three days' time:

Then you go out to run some errands, come home, and find that it has turned into this: 

So, the next time you see a bud getting ready to open, you sit your happy self down in front of it with a camera and stare at it until it opens up. No pressure. Maybe you have a glass of wine so the flower doesn't feel like it's your only entertainment. Or a beer. I'm just sayin'.

You can see that it starts out all tightly closed at 4:00PM

By 4:12, it's starting to crack open just a tiny bit.

4:35-It's really starting to look like something might be happening.

4:40-Even the aphids are getting excited and moving in for a closer look!

4:43-Ooh! Hello?

4:55PM KA-BAM!

Hey! Wait a minute! What happened between 4:43 and 4:55? Well, from 4:49 to 5:53 I shot video, of course! I trimmed it back so you don't have to watch the whole four minutes (who has that kind of time??) but otherwise, the video hasn't been altered-this is all real-time footage, no time-lapse or anything.

You can see that it was a little bit breezy when I was filming this, but at about 0:12 you can see the flower start to do this sort of waggly dance that lasts about 5-6 seconds before it really begins to unfurl. I have other video (yes, I'm that big of a dork) that shows the same thing happening in other Moonflowers on other days, so I'm pretty sure this is the flower moving on its own, not because of the wind. Cool!

I have either photos or video of seven flowers opening, four on one plant and three on another. The four that opened on the one plant all opened between 4:49PM and 5:27PM (within 38 minutes of each other but on different days)--pretty consistent. The other three opened between 6:20PM and 7:21PM, all on the same day (still within nearly an hour of each other, but much later than the other four and they unfurled more slowly). There are several factors that could have contributed, so I'm not sure why the difference, but here are some possible causes:

• The four early-openers are in a tall, deep container; and the three later-openers are in a low, shallow container.
• The four early-openers opened on fairly sunny days. The three others opened on a cloudier day.
• The late openers also opened more slowly. I don't know if this is because there were three of them opening on one plant at one time, and so more energy was needed to get all three open, or if this had something to do with it being darker when they opened, both because it was a cloudier day and because by the time they opened it was dark.

So, there you have it. Now you all know what a flower nerd I really am...of course, if you made it this far, I'm assuming I'm among friends, so thanks for being nerdy with me!

If you want to see more videos of plants doing what they do, visit Indiana University's Plants-In-Motion, and click on the different Movie Categories on the left-hand side of the screen.

What I'm Reading Now-A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls: Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd by Patrick Ness and Jim Kay-I read this book all in one sitting, which is something I rarely do. Granted most books I read are longer and have fewer illustrations, but still. Speaking of illustrations, this book has several full-page illustrations and nearly half the pages in the book have at least some illustration somewhere on them. I would tell you to click on my (Amazon Affiliate) link above and click on the "Look Inside!" feature, but they showcase the Kindle version, not the hardback version...which is dumb.** (Instead, you can go to Jim Kay's web site and get an idea of what his work is like.) The illustrations are wonderful and lend a lot of atmosphere to the book. If you are going to read this book, I would encourage you to find a version that allows you to enjoy the artwork as well.

I didn't realize it when I picked it up, but A Monster Calls won the Red House Children's Book Award-Older Readers and was short-listed for the Galaxy Book of the Year Award-2011 (where Ness won in his category, National Book Tokens Children's Book of the Year). The book has also been shortlisted for the 2012 Kate Greenaway Medal, Carnegie Medal, Oxfordshire Book Award, and the German Children's Literature Award (Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis). It was also nominated for the 2012 BSFA Award for Best Art.

Whew! That's quite a bit of recognition, and rightfully deserved. All I knew when I picked it up was that I added it to my TBR list after I read Nymeth's review of it last year. She does a great job of explaining exactly why this book is great, so please go read her review. Mine is going to be a lot more...utilitarian. Here goes:

There's always a lot of mixed feelings when a loved one is dealing with a protracted illness, and, often, those feelings don't feel OK. Sure, sadness is expected, and anger and frustration; but what about when it gets really bad and the person is really sick and they're not going to get better? Is it OK to be upset about the way it's affecting your life? What if you have your own problems that you're dealing with? What if you just want it to be over already? Does that make you an awful person? These things are hard enough to deal with as an adult, but as a kid I'm sure it's even harder.

I think this is a book that has the potential to provide a lot of comfort. For kids (or even adults) who have had to deal with death, it's a chance to see that all the things they are feeling might be totally normal, that they aren't alone. It's also a chance to process all those feelings that adults are always trying to have awkward, sympathy-laced/keep-your-chin-up conversations with you about. For adults it could provide a good opportunity to see things from a kid's perspective as well as start a (hopefully productive) conversation with a young person who is trying to deal with loss. Also, sometimes it's just helpful to have a book that allows you to have a good cry.

I definitely think this is a book that needs some adult interaction; the main character, thirteen-year-old Conor O'Malley, goes through a destructive phase due to feelings of loneliness, anger, and frustration, not to mention the bullying he's dealing with at school. A child reading this on his own may see this as an example of how to handle such feelings, instead of how not to handle these feelings. I have a hard time sympathising with destructive kids in general, but I found Conor totally relatable and sympathetic, and there is great potential here for conversations of the "Have you ever felt like Conor?/What else could he have done in this situation?" variety.

Also, how could I not love a book that has a giant, ancient tree monster who lets you sleep in his branches?

**Also, be careful searching for "Monster Calls" on Amazon.com. It brings up several options that you probably don't want coming up when you're doing a search at work or with your kids in the room. Be sure to include Patrick Ness, Siobhan Dowd, and/or Jim Kay in your search.  

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day-April, 2012

Well, I wasn't even going to do an official GBBD post today because there's hardly anything blooming in my yard right now, but then I went outside and saw this. 

I figured since it went through all the trouble of opening for me on exactly the right date, I couldn't NOT post a picture of my rose, "Mardi Gras (Jacfrain)".

My ice blue plumbago is always blooming, and so is my Cuphea hyssopifolia (False Heather/Mexican Heather/Hawaiian Heather).

My lantana is spilling over our rock wall, which is nice because normally it's all on top of the wall, where I can't see it or photograph it.

My red ginger is a little overexposed here, but I like the way it came out all glowy, so I'm keeping this picture in the lineup.

That's it for today, but please visit our Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day hostess, Carol, at May Dreams Gardens to see what else is blooming around the world.

A Day of Beauty

I have tried several times to get a Moonflower vine to grow here in Hawaii, and I've never had much success before. I've had several that never grew at all; and the last batch I planted* grew, bloomed, and went to seed during my six-week trip to the mainland last fall...less-than-stellar planning on my part, I admit. Not to be deterred, I gathered the seeds from my already-done-blooming plants and threw them into a pot in my front yard. Well, my persistence (and better timing) has finally paid off! Yesterday afternoon, this beautiful, all-white blossom surprised me with a mid-afternoon opening. I didn't think it would bloom until the night, but what do I know? It has been pretty cloudy and dreary here, so maybe it was just confused.

Later that night it got rained on...

This morning, it appears to be on it's way out.

No worries though; it looks like another one's on its way!

*Seeds used were Moonflower, Giant White from Burpee.

What I'm Reading Now-The Night Circus: A Novel

The Night Circus: A Novel by Erin Morgenstern-This book has recently been long-listed for the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction, and I can see why. I loved it. I loved the world that was created within the book--beautiful, magical, visually evocative. I want to visit Le Cirque des Réves (The Circus of Dreams), this black and white circus that appears in the middle of the night with it's ever-burning cauldron of fire. I want to see the illusions that the magicians create, night after night, building upon each other's magic. I want to attend a Midnight Dinner at Chandresh Cristophe Lefèvre's mansion. I want to see all the impossible clockworks that Herr Thiessen creates. I want a dress like Celia's, that changes color to complement my nearest companion...I want to see the magic.

When I read the Harry Potter books as an adult, I was glad that they weren't around when I was a child, because I know I would have spent my entire life waiting for an owl to deliver my invitation to Hogwarts and my whole school experience would have been even more disappointing than it was. (I blame "Grease" and "Dirty Dancing" for an exceptionally disappointing high school experience.) Anyway, now that I have read The Night Circus, I'm pretty sure that I will always be on the lookout for the black-and-white striped tents that announce the mysterious arrival of Le Cirque des Réves. And if I ever find it, you can bet I'm goin' in!