I haven't found the camera yet. Maddening. I did find the cell and was dismayed. Oh well I can use it to take pictures until I find the camera. The camera's four years old and I only bought it because my then 5-year old Kodak went kaput. I have another Kodak somewhere I got for free; must unearth and use. Oh, Tom has it in Monrovia.
Oh, great news about the landscape! For Jero's swan song, I directed him to build a kind of terrace that extends southward the palm terrace, four feet below the concrete patio. He built it with the broken concrete chunks Marcella and I had brought, and filled it with soil from many locations. A great aspect of this project was that some of the soil came from the boggy area where the tap always drips. Clearing that mud away allowed him to fill it with gravel, and to use the cleared-away mud as part of the new soil for the terrace extension. [Ed.: Do I sound crazy?]
Anywho, once the terrace extension was created, Bayou tested its restorative powers by running in tight circles, rolling around, and then casually lounging on the new bed. He was a delight to watch and I didn't worry much about the ancient wildflower seeds I had just strewen. He tilled them in good. Something will survive around the edges and that'll be fine. I'd be thrilled if it were carnations.
Did I mention that Marcella and Jero gave me a Delphinium in a deep blue for my birthday? I repotted it and noticed it's got at least two good stems coming on soon. (As an aside, the Stapelia buds are bigger still...but not open yet.)
Jero's true final act was showing me how to make a mold from a nice pot I found at Rob's. He showed me how to make a removable wooden case to restrict the plaster poured around the object of which you are making a mold. He and Marcella had to go to the post office before 5pm, so he couldn't stay long enough to pull the mold off the pot. I was supposed to do it but plumb forgot in the midst of other excitements. I am going to make pots in pastel shades that correspond, but with more white, to the various colors of the plants I sell. I may or may not mix yellow greens with blue greens on one pot. Maybe I would, if it had a white band at the top that dribbled into watery blue green that dribbled into watery yellow green. Maybe with red earthenware showing though.
If a city was once magic, is it always magic? Can the magic be killed by development, which is a form of decline? Because whatever you loved about an area will be gone once the area is developed. Development is another word for obliteration. You shouldn't have to get permits to build, you should have to get permits to obliterate. You shouldn't be able to change the nature of an area unless the surrounding public agrees. Votes taken annually.
I am thinking of Vancouver. It's not the city I remember as a child and as a young adult. I wonder what San Francisco is like these days? It's a magic city, too, but I feel its magic is dark; so is some of Vancouver's. Los Angeles and New York are not as dark as the two west coast gems SFO and YVR.
Good night; nothing much else to say.
