The hibiscus' story

The photo of the hibiscus bloom that appeared in yesterday's Wordless Wednesday post was taken a few weeks ago, when I was thrilled to see it, and several buds on this bush. Here's the way it looked yesterday:

Now, this might not look like cause for great celebration (and not only because of the poor condition of some of the leaves, the rather messy the intermingling with the ruellia, or the very, very dilapidated condition of the window frame in the background—please ignore especially the latter. Yes, we know we need to paint but are just too lazy).

However, I must call attention to the size of the blooms. Note the photo at the right, showing one of the current beauties with my enthusiastic thumbs up for size comparison. Pretty impressive, eh?

But the amazing thing is, this bush rarely puts out more than one bloom per SUMMER! And here it sits, in the middle of a drought, with spring barely underway, sporting at least four, and many more buds you can't see on the picture.

Can it be that it's finally "settled in," after putting out prodigious foliage and few flowers for more than 10 years or so? After getting its humble start as a stick in the ground taken from one of my mother's favorite hibiscusii?

Plants never cease to amaze me. But I've gotten to where I approach miracles of this sort the same way that, at my advanced age, I now take to gardening and nurturing the things—just be happy with what's produced and don't worry about how it got there.

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A postscript with a perceptual psychology point of interest. I took a LOT of pictures of this bush, trying to replicate on the computer screen the loveliness I see when I look at it live. But none of them come even close, although the one I chose is the best of the lot.

I think it's a really good example of how the cameras that are our eyes are SO much better at capturing the emotional oomph of a scene than the mechanical varieties are. When I look at the bush, I FOCUS on the miraculous blooms in a way that no camera can.

This is probably the same reason few of the hundreds of sunset photos I've taken in my lifetime even approach the beauty of the remembered scenes. Although using a cheap camera with no fancy exposure features might have something to do with that.

So, I wish you could see the daughter hibiscus bush from Mom's yard the way I do (and I really wish she could see it). But until digital photography makes some pretty awesome advances, you'll have to just let me rave about it to you.

Wordless Wednesday*

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*I'm inspired to do this Wordless Wednesday thing by several blogs I've gotten hooked on. The latest example comes from my friend at JaPRA. However, I do want to tell you more about this blossom and will do so tomorrow.

Life in the semi-tropics

Seeing all the palm trees in Tampa last week reminded me that I've been collecting shots of these very photogenic trees around town here. Perhaps I have enough now for a short post showcasing this lovely, evocative vegetation.

The photo on the left is one of the Tampa collection, but I thought it was blog-worthy as much for the neat little salamander or whatever on the building as the shapely palm in the foreground.

We don't have as many of the really, really tall specimens that Tampa does, but I did see the one at the right on a bike ride around my neighborhood recently. I'm lousy at estimating heights, but, let's just say it's pretty tall.

We've got some good examples of the lower-to-the-ground varieties around campus, making for some nice photo ops:

Looking through the arches on the south side of the Library

An attractive grouping on the side of St. Louis Hall

I'll continue to keep on the lookout for neat palm trees to snap and might get enough pix for a follow-up post later.

However, I doubt if I'll be able to come up with palm tree photos any better than those we took in Hawaii. Here's a teaser:

For more information on types of palms, etc.—that is, of you want to get beyond the extent of my knowledge of them: short vs. tall—of course they have their own society (the International Palm Society) and this Wikipedia article is chock-full of what looks like good scientific info.

City by the Bay...

....not that I saw much of the bay while I was in Tampa, but I know it was there.

I was at a government information conference and when we do one of these, we work!

Fortunately, though, we also know how to party and some of the local folks put on a really nice reception Sunday evening at this amazing building on the University of Tampa campus*. Since I didn't even know there was a University of Tampa, much less that they had this wonderful example of Gilded Age architectural finery, it was one of those neat surprises you get when you travel to random locations around the world.


Above is a picture of a section of Plant Hall, which used to be a hotel but now is part museum, part faculty office building, and part great place for a librarians' reception. The food was as nice as the surroundings, and the campus was just a pleasant few blocks' walk from our hotel. After stuffing my self with Florida-themed buffet food (the mango/cheese empanadas were to die for) I walked around inside and outside of this fascinating structure for a while.

Man, if I were visiting colleges and trying to decide where to go, having such a neat building on campus would go a long way toward selling me on the school.

On the left is a closer-up shot of the impressive dome-like element, under which was the room where our reception was held.

Except for a brief walk to lunch Monday, and a slightly longer after-lunch stroll on Tuesday, that's about all I saw of downtown Tampa. What I did see was nice, and I took a few more pictures of interesting buildings that I might find reasons to post down the road sometime. But I thought I'd close today with this interesting image that caught my eye from a window in the hotel near our meeting rooms. I thought the reflections (and not) of all those palm trees and buildings looked rather cool:


*Incidentally, since seeing their URL, I finally learn why our UT (University of Texas at Austin) isn't ut.edu. Always wondered about that. The Texas folks just weren't fast enough with ICANN, I guess.

There's gotta be some kinda way outa here*

*Can't help with the BSG reference (I still miss it!) when I'm faced with the mazes of fences I saw on my way out of work today. Yes, it must be time for Oyster Bake once again. That rite of spring that transforms our usually quite lovely little campus into something that looks like a carnival being staged in a concentration camp.

Of course, it's all for a good cause—scholarships for deserving students that provide the raison d'etre for my job. But, gee, it sure is a pain! Compare the following scene of—hopefully—well-organized chaos to the bucolic view from my desk I shared with you a couple of months ago.


And if you think there are a lot of port-o-potties in the picture above, take a look at this scene at the left, one of the major comfort station colonies that has been set up next to the building where I have choir rehearsal. They've taken over the whole campus!

Of course, you've got to have the facilities for handling the end product of all that beer, I suppose, as well as the myriad other goodies that will be sold, consumed, littered, and excreted in the course of the 1½ day event. Some of the booths that will be selling the stuff—most of which is really quite tasty—you can see on the right.

Yes, this is not your usual school carnival, but a very, very, big event with 5 stages of live music (going pretty much simultaneously) and thousands and thousands of party animals eager to kick off Fiesta week in style. You really should come to San Antonio some April and take it in!

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In case you're wondering, I won't be attending the bash this year (that's why I took all these pre-event photos). We were hoping to go kayaking tomorrow instead but the weather forecast makes both that activity and the Bake less-than-attractive options. We need the rain, but St. Mary's also needs the scholarship money, so I really hope the young oyster-eaters, beer-drinkers and music fans aren't as deterred by the forecast as we old folks are. Take it from the official Bake mascot, Shuckie, as shown below....and ¡Viva Fiesta!

NOTE: I will be leaving for a librarians' meeting in Tampa, Florida, on Sunday and returning Wednesday. Depending on the availability and cost of hotel internet access, I may or may not be able to blog and tweet during this period. But I'll try and take some good photos of downtown Tampa (from past experience at these meetings I'll have precious little time for real sightseeing—we're not doctors, you know) and share them with you upon my return.

Tree fetish

[Laurelin] bore leaves of a young green like the new-opened beech; their edges were of glittering gold. Flowers swung upon her branches in clusters of yellow flame, formed each to a glowing horn that spilled a golden rain upon the ground...

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, "Of the Beginning of Days," (p. 33 in my edition)

I've been reminded of Tolkien's description of one of the original trees at breakfast lately. I look out the window and see the early morning sun lighting up my neighbor's magnificent oak from the bottom—quite a dramatic effect, that you might get some idea of in this photo. Well, Fantastic Forrest (author of an always-entertaining blog) says I have a tree fetish and she's probably right, although Tolkien had one, too, so I consider myself in good company.

Incidentally, the neighbor's tree is like the description in another way, too—fortunately we've come to the end of the season of the "golden rain," which in this case are buckets of oak blossom detritus and pollen. Pretty hard to keep the cars clean under that! But the shade the tree provides in the heat of summer is worth a little inconvenience in the spring. Everyone in this part of the world is probably a tree-fetishist, since without that shade in July and August we'd all be little fried buttons of sunburned flesh. ¡Viva los arboles!

Easter biking

After a rather dreary and chilly Saturday, Easter Sunday here was sunny, breezy and beautiful. Great day for a short but strenuous bike ride, which I undertook just before lunch.

The strenuous part involves riding up to the highest point in our little municipality, the parklike hilltop you see below. Along the way I couldn't help stopping to take a picture of the normally rather ostentatious lawn ornament on the right in its Easter finery.


This pleasant greenspace is where the neighborhood celebrates the 4 of July, and, coming up soon, Fiesta. I'll be out of town for most of the Fiesta festivities, attending a librarians' meeting in Florida, but I'll try to post some images from this city-wide week-long party.

In the meantime, I got a little bit of exercise today, courtesy of my trusty steed—my dorky but comfortable bike, shown here in repose:

Sailing around the neighborhood under pedal power makes me feel like a little girl again, even though back in those days accessories like the lock and helmet you see here weren't missed or felt to be needed. I seem to be sounding more and more like an old fart these days. But, at any rate, Happy Easter!

...by any other name

I so wish I could embed a scratch-and-sniff app into the blog to duplicate the fragrance I experienced when passing this lovely gaggle of roses on the way to my car this afternoon:
Hey! why don't you guys at Google get busy on that?!

Anyway, it was amazing! This must be peak time for roses all over campus, as they are putting on quite a show. My two little bushes at home are also looking quite handsome. Quite ready, Mr. DeMille, for their close-up:

I was looking through my photo collection to see if there were other rose shots that I could use here and came across this one. It takes us back in time to January, soon after I returned from London, when no one had pruned the dears for over four months (not to disparage the stay-at-home spouse: rose-pruning was not on his list of chores). I had never seen so many hips in evidence before, since although I'm not an assiduous gardener I do keep the extremely robust Old Blush somewhat pruned, if only to keep it from taking over the yard. But I may have to let it go again this fall—the hips are almost as pretty as the blossoms!

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Going back even further in time, 29 years ago today our little boy was born. What a wonderfully life-changing event that was! Think how much terrific travel writing I'd be missing out on if that had never happened. ¡Feliz cumpleaños, Hal!

Play-time

We're glad the unseasonably strong cool front that blew through here yesterday didn't come calling a few days earlier. The weather on Saturday was warm enough on the river to call for some voluntary splashing, although I didn't go so far as to take the kind of lunch-break swim that I'll want to during the summer. The water is still a little cool for that.

But we had a very pleasant afternoon paddle on the upper Guadalupe (this means upstream from Canyon Lake). Henry has more pictures on his blog, but I took my camera and managed to get a few nice shots. As I always am, I was impressed by the stately cypress trees all along the banks. Those you see on the left above were at our put-in point.

The lacy cypress leaves (needles?) were just coming out on a lot of the individuals along the route. Their shady canopy will be most welcome when summer really gets here and any bit of shade feels like a small blessing from on high. Here's the extent of their budding out as of Saturday:


The title of this post is a reference to Henry's newest toy, a trailer designed to haul several kayaks and/or canoes from home to put-in to take-out and back. He and a few of our paddling buddies had 'way too much fun arranging and securing the 6 boats we loaded up at Guadalupe River State Park, our take-out point, for transportation back to where their owners had left their cars. Boys and their toys! Always entertaining!


In this case also environmentally responsible, since we saved the planet some greenhouse emissions with fewer cars having to motor to the river. But if it wasn't fun, too, I doubt if they'd be doing it.

Wind & Weather

It was really windy yesterday. Real "whippin' up the waters in the bay"* weather. We don't have a bay handy but there were tiny whitecaps on Woodlawn Lake, which you don't see every day. I stopped on my way home from work to take this picture of the waves splashing over the little dam and you can see them in the background:


Here on the right is one of the palm trees by the lake with its fronds blowing every which way as well.

All the blowing was in conjunction with a cool front that is keeping our evening temperatures nice and cool, but it's warming up nicely enough during the day that I plan on kayaking with Henry on Saturday. And, unlike him and his friends, I don't do water sports when the mercury dips too low.

We'll have to see if the little rain we had a few days ago has made any difference in the river flow level. We had a brief morning thunderstorm but very little moisture came from it, I'm afraid. However, when the morning sun peaked through the dark clouds briefly and shone on St. Mary's administration building, it was just too pretty not to snap a photo. Especially as I was in perfect position in the parking lot to see it, just having arrived for work.

*this is the way I remember the words (although the links I found have different words than "whippin'"), from when we sang this song in 7th grade girls choir. Please don't ask me why I remember these lyrics but often have trouble with the location of the keys or my cell phone. Just one of life's little mysteries.

Less news is bad news

I freaked out when I saw the paper yesterday morning (and not just because of the bad Spurs headline—unfortunately I already knew about that second loss to the lowly Thunder in as many weeks). At first I thought it might be an April Fools joke, but, alas, today's paper was just as tiny. Here's a picture of Wednesday's sports section on our dining room table, next to Tuesday's business section.

Our Express-News has been getting lighter lately, and I knew they had just laid off a boatload of writers not too long ago. But I was not ready for the new comic-book sized (or that's what it seems like) format. I agree it doesn't look like much difference in the picture, but it really feels different as you hold it above the breakfast cereal. An important consequence of the trimming has been a complete reorganization of the comics page—this is a very big deal!

There's news everywhere (and not just in print) about the hard times facing the ink-on-paper media industry (if you missed this clever April Fools story, you might enjoy it, but there is a very uncomfortable truth beneath the humor). But this is really hitting home!

How much longer before the paper disappears, altogether, like the Cheshire cat?