fall/winter, birds, plants, starving, r's

When to blog?

When you have something interesting to say or show.

When you are bored and have nothing else to do.

When you are making a transition.

That's what today is. It's a transition from summer into fall/winter. No, it's actually too late to get ready for winter. It's here and I'm not ready. I knew this would happen, and I kept trying to put it out of my mind. But today I have to go downtown in the cold and it will probably rain and I don't know where my winter sweater is. And I'm not in the mood for tackling cold weather.

I feel rather like cleaning house. The kind of house cleaning where it gets worse before it gets better. The first day you take everything that's not in the right place and put it in the middle of the room. Then you clean everything that you have room to clean, and gradually you start sorting and putting things back, but that usually takes another day or two. As time goes on, your enthusiasm starts to wane, but you excuse yourself by saying, "It's x% better than it was. And that leaves only x% to do, which isn't much." Although actually the last 15% is harder than the first 85%, and at least half of that will never get done.

Fall/winter shows itself in not-terribly-obvious ways. The sycamore trees are shades of yellow, green and brown. Lots of other trees are their usual dull-green color. The neighbors' pomegranate tree is gold. The other neighbors' bougainvillea continues to bloom, as it almost always does, without any regard for other plants around it that would like to grow if given the chance. Bougainvilleas are like large furry dogs. They're quite lovable if kept in line. But if they aren't, they can be annoying. Licking you in the face, smacking you with their wagging tail. Doghair is nice on the dog, but not on the furniture. Magenta-colored bougainvillea blossoms aren't so nice when they're swallowing up apple trees and other useful plants.

In between the colorful or not-so-colorful trees are all the nice or not-so-nice apartment buildings. How can you get excited about an apartment building? The apartment buildings around here are well-designed and, for apartment buildings, nice to look at. The buildings are all similar enough to go well together, but there is some variety in shape, windows, balconies, and trim color. But still, a building is a building, and an apartment building gives you no indication as to the character or personality of the people that live in it. Maybe that's just as well, who knows.

Watching birds. A dozen or so birds fly to the sidewalk from the low branches of a sycamore tree. One second later a dozen fly from the sidewalk to the tree. This happens over and over again. I wish I could get close enough to see what they're doing.

A white-spectacled, yellow-vented Bulbul comes to my balcony now and then. He pecks the leaves off my Solanum. So far it hasn't hurt the Solanum too much. I need to plant more so as to maybe get more birds.

I have three different types of Haworthia. One for a long time was dark, nearly black and hardly growing. I brought it in from the sun for a day or two, as I often have to do with the other Haworthias, but it didn't recover. Finally I brought it in for about two weeks, and now it's starting to turn a little bit green.

There is no Thanksgiving-Christmas here. Which means there are no family gatherings. This seems wrong somehow. I was tempted to buy some toothpicks and some styrofoam balls and make a little Christmas tree, just for old times' sake. Really old, like more than 50 years. Yet I am not really interested in Christmas or Christmas trees. It's just the association of this particular craft with family and good times. When I was a little girl my father bought me some toothpicks and styrofoam and I made my first tree. The next year I/we did the same thing, with some improvements. Each year my tree got better. Toothpicks and styrofoam balls don't interest me now, but I remember doing crafts often, and it was fun to have my father interested in my crafts.

There is a little craft store near where I am going today, and I like to look at the little kits that are fun to do when you are a kid. I really crave something like that now, but I haven't seen anything I really want, and it seems kind of a waste of time. Painting something would be nice, but I don't know how to paint pictures, just walls. And I don't think I'm up to painting walls, especially since our ceilings are a bit high and I don't care to stand on a ladder. Using a long-handled roller would be a bit strenuous for me now, and you still have to get on a ladder to do a neat edge.

I think I am about starved for something creative. Do I dare start laying out scraps for a quilt? I have five quilts back in the U.S. I would like to bring over and finish. But meanwhile I am Starved. Starved. Starved. And Starved.

I guess I'll have to console myself by rolling my r's. This is my latest accomplishment. You never get too old to learn something new. The ability to roll r's is NOT HEREDITARY. I looked at a number of You-Tube videos and tried all kinds of things, and finally I found something that works. Brrrr is a bit difficult, but Drrrr works pretty well. I can even roll my r's while doing my do-mi-so exercise!!! So there!