Meme-Day

Having posted at a reasonable hour last night, I thought I was going to get to sleep at a reasonable time, too. But then I installed the Babel Fish widget, in hopes of being more welcoming to foreign blog-readers...and then stayed up entirely too late seeing how cool the Midnight Garden looked in a host of other languages. (Sorry, Sh@ney: I tried to get one for you Aussies, but they say it's the same language! Who knew?)

Although I'd heard the lightest shower in the night, everything was dry this morning and the sun shining bright, despite forecasts to the contrary...so I tended to watering as usual, with coffee in hand.

So, Java...dear Java (whom I hope to someday visit, perhaps coordinated with a visit to the Park Seed company, since she is in their neighborhood)...has meme-d me. I'm not always a big fan of these, since they can encourage us toward that whole business of Too Much Information the internet spawns with its faux anonymity.

But they can be fun, too...and an enjoyable way to get to know interesting tidbits about fellow bloggers. Or is it? And so, here we go:


THE MEME OF FIFTEEN

1. What did you want to be when you grew up?

A railroad engineer. Then one of the Kids From "FAME".

2. What are you now?

A catering director, a gardener, a blogger and an aspiring beach bum, among other things.

3. What fictional character(s) did you identify with as a child?

Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, for their ability to hide their secrets while still doing amazing things to benefit the world around them.

4. How about now?

Those three, still. But also Mole, from The Wind in the Willows, who is good-natured, easy-going and somewhat uninitiated in the ways of the world.

5. What is your "Gay Pride" song?

"Go West", by the Village People. Which is funny, because I actually went East.

6. What is your drag song (we ALL have one)?

Ha ha, easy: "Le Jazz Hot" from Victor/Victoria.

7. Earliest memory?

Hard to be sure, so many have been supplemented with lots of photos, home movies and family anecdotes over the years that I find myself at a loss to really think of the first thing I truly remember. Perhaps t'was walking around in the grass outside the apartment building, something about dandelions. Or it might've been trains.


8. Memory you'd like to forget?

A hot night spent in a cold, uncomfortable place, as the Universe tried to tell me things I refused to hear. If only I had chosen differently.

9. If you ran for a seat in political office, what would be your platform(s)?

I'm more likely to run for a seat on a trolley. But I'd want to address health care for everyone, a revitalized transportation infrastructure (railroads made this nation great and can return its former glory if given half a chance), greater support of education and the arts...and gardens and seed for everyone!


10. Winehouse. Want her to succeed or are you over her?

The "Rehab" girl/singer? Not sure I know enough to care, or care enough to know, really. Next.

[For the next three answers, "Love" being such a complicated business, I've decided to defer to some of our modern age's philosophers and poets. Can you name them?]

11. The first person you thought you loved?

I was sleeping and right in the middle of a good dream, like all at once I wake up from something that keeps knocking at my brain. Before I go insane, I hold my pillow to my head and spring up in my bed screaming out the words I dread.


12. The first person you actually loved?

I'll make you happy, baby, just wait and see. For every kiss you give me I'll give you three. Oh, since the day I saw you, I have been waiting for you. You know I will adore you till eternity.


13. The person you love now?

And maybe love is letting people be just what they want to be. The door always must be left unlocked. To love when circumstance may lead someone away from you and not to spend the time just doubting.

14. If you could be, do, have, own, or possess anything you wanted, what would it be?

A quiet place in the country, maybe alongside some railroad tracks. Nothing big, a small house with a big porch, a little greenhouse and just enough land to have a few different microclimates for creating different kinds of gardens and habitats to wander around in, and being able to look up now and then to watch some trains going by. Put another way, "a tracthouse of our own, somewhere that's green."


15. Even if you are in love with someone right now, who are you/could you be crushing on right now?

Are you kidding me? This is where memes collapse to like the Fifth Grade level. (Who asked you to ask me this?) No, really; it would be indiscreet to say.

I'll just go with Carter Oosterhouse. Are you kidding me? That smile, those eyes, that hair...America's Favorite Handyman, indeed!


While I'm on a roll, Mary of City Garden tagged me back in June with a meme I haven't come through on, yet...so with no further adieu:

6 RANDOM THINGS ABOUT ME

1. My first dog was a beagle named Popcorn. She was a bad girl. Because of the predominance of dogs in our neighborhood named for snack food, someone once remarked that a summer evening on our street was like being at a baseball game: "Licorice! Candy! Popcorn! Taffy!"

2. I think the best dessert in the whole wide world is trifle. You've got cake, pudding, fruit, jam and booze. I ask you, what's not to love?

3. It simply wouldn't be Spring without a host of cheerful pansies in a raft of wonderful colors.

4. I think "Brokeback Mountain" was a pretty terrific movie. The soundtrack from the film always leaves me a little sad and wistful, but in a good way.

5. You know that screen saver with all the multiple-lined polygons that swirl and bounce off the edges of the screen and is constantly changing shape and color? I could watch that for days.

6. Every time I hear the rumble of thunder, I go take a seat on the porch area out in front of the house. It's under the eaves, to keep me dry, but I love a front row seat for a good lightning storm. The storms always seem to fizzle before they get to us, or turn and go in a different direction.

(Thanks, Mary, for your patience with me. It was June when you tagged me and there was so much going on in the garden.)


I suppose I'm a spoil-sport for not tagging anyone to carry on after me. If you'd like to pick up the thread of one, or the other, or both memes, at your blog, have at it!


Of course, all this meme-ing might lead one to believe that there's nothing going on in the garden worth talking about, and mostly, that might be true.

But I'm happy to share with you this first yarrow flowerhead. I found this seedling in the lawn early this spring and carefully transplanted it into the garden bed. I have since, on no less than three different occasions, accidentally dug the thing up and had to replant it...so I give it major props for having bloomed for me. I hope it will be the first of many.


Here's a few of those chamomile seedlings which I'd spotted recently. Really, they have moved past the point of being "seedlings", I think, as it looks like some of them are fixing to bloom.

Anyone care for a spot of tea?


The day came and went without rain until this evening, when we had a bit of a shower for about fifteen minutes. It was probably just enough to cool down the pavement and the plants. If we don't get more overnight, I'll still need to water in the morning.

Before it rained, I did grab a plastic pot and some shears and spent some time deadheading the border. It's fairly time-consuming, that's true, but for every fading flower I snip off, there'll be one or two new ones. It's mostly marigolds and pansies in there, but also some allyssum, a few daisies, a bit of lychnis and some dianthus...and a couple fading lilies from the red asiatics.

There's more to do, but then again, there always is.



Hey, you know that July 14th is Bastille Day over in France, right? It commemorates the overthrow of the monarchy of King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette and the birth of the republic of France.

And I'm just peasant enough to celebrate with a nice big piece of cake.