Month: June 2011

Landscape & Gardening

Look What the Rains Brought!

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Those pink things you see are my first rain lilies of the season. Here in Dallas we had two days of heavy rains early last week, and look what they left behind. The one in the top photo is called Grandiflora Rain Lily (Zephyranthes grandiflora). It’s the biggest and pinkest one of the three varieties that I have planted. The bottom photo shows a variety called Habranthus Pink Rain Lily (Habranthus robustus). Both of these varieties and the third version that has yet to bloom were purchased through The Southern Bulb Company. The man behind The Southern Bulb Company, Chris Wiesinger (also know as The Bulb Hunter), has a great story on how he combined dating and bulb hunting into one event. Check it out.

Contemporary Art

A Bloomsday Celebration

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The Reading Room will present a Bloomsday celebration on Thursday, June 16 from 6 until 10 pm, with readings from James Joyce’s Ulysses, music and related visual material.

Confession: I have never read Ulysses. Question: Should I go and pretend to know something about something? What Karen has lined up for the evening sounds like it would be fun and interesting, but I’m terribly afraid of saying something stupid. I wonder if Half Price Books will have an old collection of Cliff Notes. Woohoo! I just found an online version of Cliffs Notes. If you’re like me, study up here before attending and also go here for an NPR article by Frank Delaney.

Agenda: Festivities will begin at 6 pm with a screening of Harrell Fletcher’s Blot Out the Sun in which a very condensed version of major themes of Ulysses is staged in a service station. Readings by Jeff Whittington of KERA, Charles Dee Mitchell, and Diane Orr will follow. And to conclude the evening, there will be a bit of Irish music.

Thanks to Conduit Gallery, Jennie Otttinger’s book portrait Ulysses will be on view. It is part of her larger library project which was recently shown at the Volta Art Fair (NYC). Ottinger received her MFA from Mills College in Oakland and lives and works in San Francisco.

The Reading Room is a project space dedicated to the intersection of visual and literary culture and is located at 3715 Parry Avenue. For further information: Karen Weiner, www.thereadingroom-dallas.blogspot.com.

Landscape & Gardening

Done Except for One

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Except for the caladiums, all summer annuals have been planted. I wanted to wait another week before planting the bulbs, because they have a much shorter life span than the other annuals. I take photos at the beginning and at the end of each season to keep as a record of the placement, size, and quantity of my seasonal choices. So keep in mind while viewing the photos in this post, that you are looking at plants that have yet to grow to their full potential, and those unsightly bare spots will soon fill in.

Just Because

High Maintenance Takes Its Toll

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This is one doll from my collection of Patsy Ann dolls that I now keep locked up in the attic. Most of the nice looking ones were used in a promotional campaign back in 2001, but I never had the courage to use this particular one until now.
This is one doll from my collection of Patsy Ann dolls that I now keep locked up in the attic. Most of the nice looking ones were used in a promotional campaign back in 2001, but I never had the courage to use this particular one until now.

Ughh! I’m a victim of my own demands. My home’s restoration work started back up a month ago and my paying work load increased threefold. And then there was the urgent need to get all the summer annuals planted ASAP as soon as they became available for purchase and before the first week of June, which required me to spend the last three weekends including the holiday to amend the soil and plant. I will post photos soon. Even though there is progress, I feel disoriented, and after three weekends of outdoor labor, two days of oil-based paint fumes, glue for the VCT flooring, bleach for the newly grouted tile, and scorched eyeballs from long hours at the computer, all my intelligent brain cells have been fried. This is my excuse for not posting lately. Please accept this homeless creature as a stopgap.