Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day-July 2009

Boy, it doesn't seem like any time has passed at all since our last GBBD, but here we are again! To see what else is blooming around the world, visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens. Here's what's blooming in my yard.

Leucophyllum frutescens, or Texas sage, has been a good plant for me. I've had it in a container for a couple years now, and it doesn't do much, but when it does it's very pretty. It's drought tolerant, which is good, seeing as how my pots experience frequent bouts of drought. I believe mine is the 'Green Cloud' variety. Mostly, it's just a nice foliage plant, but after a good rain pretty pink flowers just pop out all over the place.

Here's some bougainvillea, lining up nicely for a shot.

A camera shot over the rock wall reveals that my lantana are still doing well.

Last month, we saw Pam Tajima. Pam is starting to fade a little bit, so this month we'll be looking at...Pam's unnamed brother. Dang. He's got a tag, but there's nothing on it. We'll call him Bob.

I was having a hard time getting a clear picture of Bob. Seems every time I tried to take a picture I was getting jostled around by some mysterious force. Apparently Buster was not as interested in my picture taking as he was in letting me know that he had not yet had breakfast.

Hello. Can I help you?

Technically this isn't blooming, but I thought the red ti plant was pretty in the morning light.



Remember my mysterious purple plant that we watched unfold and grow? Well, now it's blooming too. Always something new with this one!

My golden shrimp plant, Pachystachys lutea was a big hit with everyone last month, and since it is still blooming like crazy I thought I'd provide a close up shot.

Again, these aren't exactly "blooming" but they are popping up all over my lawn, so I thought I would include them too.



And, finally, my poor crape myrtles-they went from sticks that showed no sign of ever blooming again last month to past their prime this month, but they were quite pretty in between.

This month was kind of a challenge, but I hope you all enjoyed hanging out with me and Buster in the garden!

Traveling to Thailand

**Edited 7/17 to add: I've listed this as my Weekly Geeks post for Weekly Geeks 2009-26:Where in the World Have You Been? I wanted to get another post up with more information about my actual trip, but so far, this is all I've managed to post, and it DOES fit in with this week's theme. :) If you want to hear more about my Thailand travels please come back during the week to check for updates.**

Wow, where to begin?? I didn't mean to mysteriously disappear, but I'm always weirded out about announcing, "Hey, world, I'm going to be out of the country, away from my house, for the next 10 days!" It's not like I've got my address posted here or anything, but you know. I also didn't mean to cause anyone anxiety about wishing me a good time. Nanny Goats in Panties wished me a fun time and then worried that maybe I was going in for heart surgery or something, which would have been awk-waaaaaard. But no worries! I did not go away for surgery (even though I did go to Thailand and I hear you can get all kinds of things done there for a lot cheaper than you can here), and I did have a good time in some unexpected ways.

The main reason for our trip was to attend my bother-in-law's wedding. Since we were going to be all the way in Thailand, we figured we might as well make a vacation of it too. Now, I love living in Hawaii, but travel to virtually anywhere is a bitch. Thailand involves an 8-hour plane ride to Tokyo, then the inevitable 4-hour layover, then another 6 hours from Tokyo to Bangkok. Upon arrival in Bangkok, we waited for my husband's two other brothers to arrive from the U.S. mainland (so, okay, granted, they had a lot more traveling to do than we did) then had a 2-hour drive to Pattaya where my brother-in-law who was getting married lives.

Ah, but this brings us to our first photo Q &A from the other day.

Q: Where can I get me a beer machine like that??

A: Well, I don't know if you can get yourself a beer machine like this, but you can go visit one in any of the airport lounges in Narita International Airport (NRT), assuming, of course, that you can get into the airport lounges. My husband travels enough that he can. There is a cooler of chilled glasses next to the machine, and as you can see, you put the glass on the machine, press a button, and it pours you a perfect glass of beer. This is one of the ways in which the 4-hour layover is made more tolerable in Japan. Ah, wouldn't you know it, someone has posted a YouTube video of the beer machine in action.

Another way to kill time while wandering around Narita is to check out the Nippon Origami Museum that is located in Terminal 1. They have examples of all kinds of origami figurines, but my favorite was the basset hound.

Also, the hippos were pretty cute.

But, really, they have all sorts of things to look at; there are entire dioramas showing things like village life and dinosaurs if I remember correctly, which I may not because, really, I just wanted a picture of the basset hound, and no matter which way you cut it, I was on at least 6 hours of travel by the time I reached Narita. Either way, the displays were way more impressive than any of the shoe-box and chicken bone dioramas I made as a kid. What? You never made dinosaurs out of chicken bones as a kid? Huh. I guess my elementary school was just cooler than yours. And probably in a much drier climate as well.

Um...anyway, our flight from Tokyo to Bangkok was fairly uneventful, except that I didn't realize it was going to be a 6-hour flight. For some reason, I had it in my head that it was like 2 or 3 hours, maaaybe 4. So, I was almost in tears when, at the 4-hour mark, I realized that we still had about 2 hours to go. Luckily, we at least had a pretty view for part of the flight. The sun was setting as we were heading to Bangkok, and this was the view from our window.

I've never really been above the clouds for sunset, and,I have to say, that's one of the coolest sunsets I've ever seen.

Happiness A-Z: B

If you don't know what's going on, go here, or just keep reading.  It's fairly self-explanatory. :)

B

1.  Butterflies - An unexpected flutter of beauty bebopping its way through the world.  How can that not brighten your day?

2.  Baby animals - Technically, I guess I already covered this in my "A" list when I listed Animals, but I think baby animals deserve their own listing.  Holy Cuteness and Cute Overload are good resources for your daily fix of baby animals and other cuteness.  Some of my favorites include baby elephants, baby hippos, and baby Basset Hounds.

This was our first Basset Hound, Sadie, when she was a puppy.  She was mostly ears, and we had hard wood floors, so running was tricky anyway, but every once in a while those short little legs would step on one of those long ears, and then it was all over!

3.  Buster - I've mentioned Buster before.  After we had Sadie for about a year, we decided she needed a companion, and we adopted Buster from a Basset rescue society.  Here is what he looked like when we first got him:

See that spot on the back of his head?  That was a big scar from some injury he had sustained before we got him. We suspect that someone might have thrown him out of a car, but we don't know for sure.   :(  He recovered fine, and he's been with us ever since.  Here he is consulting on our landscaping a couple months ago.  

4.  Basset Hounds - Duh!  They are great comic relief, and according to this 2006 New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell, they are the only other dogs besides beagles that have never been implicated in a fatal human attack.  They are laid back and have no problem making themselves at home.  Case in point:

"I'm NOT moving."

"You're not going to make me move are you?"

According to bassethoundrescue.com's the Basset Hound's Indoor Energy Level is, "Low-From One End Of Couch To Other."  LOL.  That's about right, but they are actually very energetic and have pretty high endurance if you get them out somewhere where they can run around and smell things.  So they're still good for someone who wants a dog that they can go out and do stuff with, but they'll be right there with you when you want to sit down on the couch, have a beer and watch TV too.  Also, they're stubborn.  If you've ever tried to reason one of these goofballs off the couch, you know!  They'll totally pretend that they don't understand English when it suits their purpose.

Haha-I just went back through and reread my post up to this point, and I realized that the quotes I made up for the two pictures above totally captured both dogs' personalities.  Sadie was stubborn and independent and a little aloof.  Buster is stubborn too, but, when it comes right down to it, he's a total pushover.

5.  Bees - they do good things-they pollinate flowers, they make honey, and they give directions to food sources by wiggling their butts.  I can't do that.

6.  Books - Since we're on the "B" list today, one of my favorites from the past year is Backyard Giants:  The Passionate, Heartbraking, and Glorious Quest to Grow the Biggest Pumpkin Ever.  You can read my review of it here.        

7.  Braveheart - I love this movie.  This is one of those movies that I can always stop to watch if it is on TV.  If I'm flipping through channels and Braveheart is on, that's it, three hours-gone!

8.  Butter - I'm no Paula Deen, but butter makes everything better.

That's all I've got for today.  What "B" things make you happy?  

  

Ten Things I Love, Brought to You by the Letter "O"

Of all the latest and greatest memes that are currently going around, I saw this one over at Trish's blog, Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'? and thought it would be fun.  Basically, you are randomly assigned a letter, you come up with a list of 10 things you love that start with that letter, and then if other people want to participate, they let you know in the comments, and you randomly assign them a letter.  Trish was assigned the letter "O" and has already given us her list;  now I've also been assigned an "O" so I'll have to see if I can come up with 10 more.  I guess it's probably ok if we love some of the same things though!

1.  Olives-Unlike Trish, I do love olives.  Thanksgiving isn't Thanksgiving if I don't eat an entire can of black olives all by myself.  When I was a little kid, I ate a whole bunch of black olives (probably an entire can all by myself) and they made me so sick I threw up.  Never once did my loyalty decline.  That's how much I love olives.  Kalamata olives are awesome in pasta and salads, green olives are great on pizza, and black olives are great out of the can.  Running around with them stuck on the ends of all your fingers is totally optional.

2.  Orange-colored "Rosalind"-Isn't she lovely? This is a hibiscus that I found at a local nursery a few years ago. I bought two of them, and was thrilled to find that one of the plants was a double-blooming variety like the one shown here.  Unfortunately, they both came to a disastrous end.  I don't remember exactly what happened, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with our then-new puppy who, for some reason, seems to have a beef with a lot of the plants in my yard.  Of course, I haven't run across another since.    This picture by Dick Johnson is from the International Hibiscus Society.    

3.  Olympic gymnastics-I enjoy watching the different routines, and I am always amazed by the pure strength exhibited by these athletes, not to mention the flexibility.  I can't even touch my toes, let alone the back of my head with my foot!

4.  Olive Garden-Okay, okay, I know, but the thing is, we don't have one here in Hawaii.  I love their salad and their bread sticks with alfredo sauce, so whenever we make it back to the mainland we always hit up an OG to get our salad and bread stick fix and then we're good to go for a couple more years.

5.  Oreos-Self-explanatory.

6.  Our Old house in Omaha-Do I get three points for that one?  When we lived in Omaha, we had the cutest remodeled Victorian house on about 1/3 of an acre on a quiet corner lot.  Technically, we weren't in Omaha, we were actually in a little town outside of Omaha, but nobody would know where that was if I said it, so I just say Omaha.  Our house had all the charm of the Victorian design, but it was completely remodeled with a new basement, so we didn't have all the headaches that go along with a 100-year-old house.  We used to sit outside and watch the fireflies, which were not unique to our house, but were unique to me in the sense that that is the only place I have ever lived that had fireflies.  I want to import them to Hawaii.  My husband thinks that I would somehow be responsible for killing off all the dolphins if I did.  He's probably right, so I guess I won't.  I don't want to be responsible for starting some invasive-species epidemic that ends with the death of all the marine wildlife.  I would feel really bad about that.

7. Old Man Buster-This is my dog, and his name is just Buster, but he is an old man and sometimes that's what we call him, as in, "Hey, Old Man, how ya doin'?"  He is sweet and funny and a big slobbery mess, and I love him so much.  This picture was taken a couple of days ago when we were outside reading.

8. Oprah.  There, I said it.  I know a lot of people can't stand her, and I know she can get a little up on her high horse at times; but geez, come on.  If you had reached Oprah status, are you telling me you might not slip up every once in a while and think you know better than some other people?  Maybe forget that not everyone has an entire walk-in closet of $500 shoes?  I'm pretty sure I would.  She's taken a talk show and turned it into something respectable.  Sure she still does the interviews with celebrities promoting their latest movies and the makeover shows like everyone else (but come on, don't we love those?), but she's encouraging people to take charge of their health, to be charitable, to be spiritual, to generally try to be better human beings.  She's also encouraging people to read.  I know a lot of people won't read a book specifically because Oprah recommended it, but I think that's as silly as only reading books that Oprah has recommended.  If you want to read a book and then Oprah recommends it, you'll just have that many more people to talk about it with later.  If you've hated everything she's ever recommended, then don't read what she recommends.  No big whoop.

9.  Open minds-Because I love people who will still love me even if they hate Oprah!

10.  Opportunities that you didn't expect-Whether it's the opportunity to leave work early, travel somewhere you didn't think you would get to go, take a trapeze class, or talk about the fact that you took a trapeze class, it's usually a good thing!  Sometimes opportunities don't work out, but having the option is nice.  

What?  I know you were all waiting for me to go there with the list of things I love that start with "O", but I'm not going there.  So there.

So, if you'd like to play along, let me know in the comments, and I will randomly assign you a letter.