Oct 26

All right. We've been home over a month now and it's time to quit moping! There have to be journeys that don't involve an ever-changing vista out a front window, so I need to figure them out.

One thing I have noticed is that the light is beginning to change from direct over-head summer light to slanted autumn light. Not that autumn is in any hurry to get here, but that's California for you. I wandered around the yard with camera in hand and found that a hydrangea I had given up on was actually blooming - not the dinner plate sized clumps of flowers you usually expect from a hydrangea, but still blooming and the late afternoon light was coming through the petals. I don't have a green thumb, so often I give up on something too easily.

"You don't want to grow? Hah! Off with your head!"

But being gone all summer, things I might have yanked out by the roots have had a chance to get their second wind and actually start a come-back. There is a certain virtue to inattention. Some things do better without all the fuss. Which reminds me, I did put the orchids that haven't bloomed out in front before we left. Maybe I should go see what they got up to this summer.

The things that I can always count on to grown without much attention from me are the mandarin orange trees. Our winter supply of vitamin C is assured. Gerry and I talked seriously about the idea of moving to be near the kids, but we've changed our minds for a number of reasons, not the least important of which is that we wouldn't be able to have mandarins in our yard if we went anywhere else.