Not done with the Flower Show yet

090312_03michaelsleaves
Originally uploaded by lb_philly.

The week after the Flower Show closes is pretty disorienting to me now that they make the change to Daylight Savings Time on the show's last day. Nothing looks or feels quite right, and I am homesick for a place that no longer exists. The show is largely gone by Monday morning and the exhibition halls are squeaky clean by Tuesday.

But the Show lingers on for me, on my kitchen door's windows. Michael Bruce, whose City Walls exhibit fascinated me, gave me two lovely leaves, one orchid blossom, and two test-tubes with magnets hot-glued to them while the exhibit was being torn down. The orchid was losing its pizazz so I'm seeing if I can press it . The leaves remind me a bit of one of those iconic representations of the Sacred Heart.

Michael emailed me the sweetest thing yesterday. I'd taken a picture of him camping it up with his colleague Marilyn and promised to send it to him. He wrote me that he'd been looking over my Flickr set and thinks that I do a better job of documenting the show than anyone. Of course, that's because I have the access, the time, and the obsession to try, try again if I don't get what I want the first, second, or sixteenth time.

My own personal Flower Show continues here as the Nopalxochia flower gets bigger and bigger (downstream on Flickr). I have counted three more buds, whoopee! Downstairs, the seedling amaryllis are about done but the parent plant is just starting to open up. And one of my Christmas Cactus has decided March is close enough to Christmas.

I pruned some trees and shrubs the other day, taking down about ten feet of curly willow and three feet of broadleaved evergreen. I've brought some of both indoors, as clindau, karenkay and kightp will remember from last year. The willow is showing lots of green on the leaf buds already.

All 540 of my Flower Show pictures on the photo set are tagged, and I'm captioning some more every day. I'm also adding them to the photo pools in batches.

During weeks like this I'm awfully glad I work free lance. I haven't neglected my clients too terribly badly.

You can teach an old cat new tricks

Ferko gets three kitty treats along with her thyroid suppression pill, twice a day. The preferred place for administration of same is her cat-bed, which sits atop my credenza. A step-wise assembly of boxes etc. provides easy access. She doesn't like her pill very much but she sure loves her treats.

I've taken to asking her whether she's ready for "pills and treats." After a couple of weeks of that, she hot-foots it up the steps and sits on her cat bed as soon as she hears the magic words, ready for the indignity followed by the reward.

Self Portrait

Self Portrait
Originally uploaded by lb_philly.

I've had this camera and its associated Gorilla Pod for over a year. I never used the Gorilla Pod, nor the time-delay feature. But I needed a head shot pronto, so what the heck. I had expected to have Roy take it, and I went off and got my hair done and put on face paint for the occasion. When the time came he was tied up on longdistance, so I wrapped the Gorilla Pod on the top of my monitor, set the camera for a 10 sec delay and hoped for the best.

Earrings would have been nice. A good tight crop got rid of the background clutter. Amazing what can be done with technology, these days. If I ever write another book, this could be the jacket photo!