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Four Months Later

Do you remember the Kimchi chronicles? Last June I made three batches of kimchi. It was a fun and informative experiment, and I greater understanding of kimchi as a type or class of pickle, and also some understanding of what I like and why.

One of my goals had been to explore how the kimchi would hold up to aging. Although my kimchi has been in the refrigerator it has still continued to ferment and age, and although 4 months would not be considered particularly old for aged kimchi, it seemed like a good time for a comparison. Pictured below is a small sample of each of the three batches of kimchi, taken yesterday morning.

The samples are small primarily because this was all that remained of what I had called Kimchi 1, or the kimchi made using David Chang's recipe in Momofuku,. Notice that the kimchi has become less vibrant, but the batches are still distinguishable. In the photo above, the kimchi at the top left is the batch called Kimchi 2, made from the formula used in Koreatown, and the bowl at the bottom of the photo is Kimchi 1. Below is the comparison photo of the two batches taken last June, Kimchi 1 on the right, Kimchi 2 on the left.

In June, I much preferred the Kimchi 1 version, which I found far more complex and layered. I also liked its bright almost bubbliness on the tongue as it aged, which is a characteristic of a particular stage in the kimchi process. By comparison Kimchi 2 was softer with a taste that I thought bordered on bland, but which I described as comforting. At that stage, I was not convinced that Kimchi 2 was worth the work involved, but I was willing to wait and see.

The aging process has changed my perceptions. David Chang's kimchi has not aged particularly well to my taste. It is not bad, it is good even, but as it has aged it has developed a metallic edge, and a bit of a burr of sharpness and heat, that doesn't burn the mouth, but which seem to lodge itself in the back of the nasal passage and almost grate on the sinuses. It is not bad, but it is not particularly pleasant. This does not in any way lessen my love for this type of kimchi. David Change himself, in the book, states that he likes this kimchi best when it is young and vibrant and still a bit bubbly on the tongue. It is easily made in small batches that can be easily consumed while the kimchi is still in its prime.

Kimchi 2 however has proven to rise above expectation. What was boring before is now considerably more interesting. I would still describe the flavors as soft, but they are a bit more pungent, actually brighter with age and far more interesting. I feel myself smiling with each bite as the flavors of pepper, cabbage, and ginger dance across my tongue, identifiable but not harsh and without burning. This kimchi did not begin to come into its own until it was 2 months old, and it continues to improve. Now I know that I will make it again, although I can see that no two batches are ever alike no recipe a guaranteed formula, more of a rough guideline. The next time I make this however, I shall age it longer at room temperature; this will surely hasten the process and probably change the profile of the kimchi, but I am eager to explore the possibilities.

The third Kimchi above is the red cabbage kimchi called Kimchi 3. It is far less vibrant in color than the original batch, but it is still fabulously complex and subtle and interesting. It still tempts me to want more each time I eat it, and it still seems to bridge cultural expectations blending well with both Western and Asian flavors. It may be my favorite, but at this point I am not willing to abandon the other formulas. I will probably set aside some of Kimchi 2, so that I am certain that I will have some to compare at the six-month mark. I know there is enough of Kimchi 3 already, as it was the biggest batch. And of course I will make more of Kimchi 1 to use young, as a vibrant, spicy condiment.

Expect an update in late December.

October 22, 2016
Some Quiet Time

Over the past couple of weeks my time has felt fractured, with too many disparate things competing for attention. Somehow despite my best efforts at scheduling there has been no time for sustained work, or rest and it has taken its toll, and so I have granted myself a personal retreat, a time for respite, for allowing time for dreaming and deep breaths, a time for self-care and for deciding who and what will occupy my time.

Although there was a day where I pretty much lay about, sleeping, reading, watching, I did finish the prayer shawl pictured above. It is a simple pattern, done in a simple yarn. The colors caught my eye. The edges tended to roll, so I tried a technique I read about in a Rowan pattern, and I crocheted around all four sides of the shawl to finish it. I am slow at crochet. I can knit far faster, but it is a useful technique and it solved the problem. Then I added the fringe, then while catching up with a new television series, Bull, I cut the remaining yarn in segments and attached the fringe.

It is a lovely shawl, soft and snuggly, with a lovely drape. And I who used to hate knitting shawls and scarves, have found some peace and enjoyment in the process. I've therefore sorted through the remnant and odd ball stash and created a collection just to be used for a few future shawls. But first, I think the next project, as yet undetermined, will be something for myself.

October 15, 2016
Something? Nothing? Anythng? …. Playtime….

It seems things always take longer than I think they will….

You would think that by the time I reached my late 50s I would know this, that I chronically underestimate how long something will take me and plan accordingly. Wait, I do plan, and I mostly finish on time, often in advance, yet I still manage to fool myself. Mostly though I tend to forget that just because something is straightforward and not complex, it does not mean that it will go quickly..

The weekend before last I spent the weekend sewing rainbows. Actually I spent most of Monday on the project as well.   The sewing was straightforward: 18 yards of fabric in 6 3-yard segments, straight seams, simple hems, and a top casing that was open between the panels so that rods or supports could be placed. I did more than the minimum necessary, in fact I wanted to be sure that the piece was sturdy and would last, and I enjoyed every inch and foot, despite that there were many long seams and huge bunches of material being pulled through my machine. I loved the process of making the thing, despite the exhaustion it entailed and even though I apparently ran the colors backward. I thought I was going from red to orange and so forth to purple but realize now that I was looking at the project from the wrong side, where I was stitching down hems and seams, and I got the order reversed. Hopefully 'tis no matter.

It was, in fact, a fun project despite the fact that it was so simple, the kind of thing I once would have hated doing. It made me think about sewing, and needlework, and the balance I still seek between sewing for myself and for others, making things that are practical and letting my imagination find its own path. In fact, it wasn't until very recently that I was willing to even admit that my imagination may have paths to wander that I had not previously considered, and it is ok to explore and play with artistic things even if I don't consider myself particularly artistic. It is perfectly permissible to be an advocate and impassioned dabbler.

Since the rainbow project, I've been practicing my embroidery stitches again, not really making anything in particular, just practicing techniques, and playing with different types of thread and the effect of fiber and thread on the appearance of different kinds of stitches.  The act of making traditional stitches over and over, of improving skills, has also allowed imagination to soar, as if my mind and heart and fingers are finally finding a direction, finding their own voice.  I am reminded of the many times my father used to tell me that you have to know and understand the rules before you can break them. You have to know and understand the craft before imagination can take flight.

But it hasn't all been fun and games: I've also tackled those boxes in the attic, and letting go of excess.  Boxes of fabric and yarn that came with me from New York, embroidery threads my mom sent me, all of these things have been waiting, apparently weighing me down even though I was doing my darndest to avoid thinking about them. They were constant reminders of that rather ugly "Its all about me not being able to do what I want" miserable stage of life. I'm not really there anymore, but I wasn't ready to face that attic full of stuff. I preferred to pretend that the evidence of my misery and my excesses didn't really exist, rather than face the part of myself that allowed it to happen, and set her free. It is easier after all to build walls and suppress the sides of ourselves that make us uncomfortable, that we don't really want anyone to see, just as easy to avoid the truth as it is to shove things into an attic, or a closet, or a storage unit, and pretend they aren't there. Until suddenly we realize that all that stuff is seeping out through the cracks and we have to be done with it or be dragged backwards.

Needless to say, sorting and cleaning has been a rather cathartic experience, and also far more time consuming than I anticipated, but it is done now, and it has also empowered me to play with threads and stitches without worrying about whether whatever I was making was good enough, without even worrying if I was making anything other than a mess. Life needs a few messes after all.

You don't get pictures of the sorting though, or of tangled threads and experimental stitches. But I've been playing with more than thread. As I've started letting myself play, I've been dreaming and imagining projects and I want to record my ideas, even if they never go anywhere.

A while back I went to the art store to replace a large box of Prismacolor colored pencils. Mom had taken my box home with her, and I needed a new one. But when I got to the store, I started looking at all the other kinds of pencils and artists crayons that were available. I wondered if I would prefer something different, but I couldn't make up my mind. And so I purchased several small sets of different kinds of pencils, just to explore and see what I liked working with. Seems kind of ambitious, and pretentious doesn't it? Especially for someone who can't draw.    As usual I lean toward excess. These several sets cost me considerably less than the big set I had intended to purchase though, and may actually have been a good idea as I am actually learning new things and finding that I have distinct preferences, even though most of what I have created so far are just large blurry blobs of color on paper. They are my blobs of color, however, and I'm happy with them.

I don't know where I am going with any of this. But that had been my goal all along, although I had almost forgotten. I wanted to take time to play and explore this side of myself that I mostly left dormant during the career phase of my adulthood. I wanted to take time to see what I wanted to do next, if anything, and I wanted to allow myself time to accept that I don't have to do anything at all except perhaps be myself. No obligations, after all.

In the meantime, I rediscovered the UFO box (unfinished objects) and there are many sweaters that I want to finish, sweaters that will once again fit. And there are partially made garments, and partially fitted slopers, a huge stack of things to be altered or refashioned, as well as some beads and shiny things as well as threads and yarns and fabrics. I feel like a kid in a candy shop, and I can't wait to play. Who knows where I am going or what will result. It could be nothing, but then again it could be something, anything. At least the journey will be fun.

October 11, 2016
Grateful

Happy October! Fall is in the air.

It was in the upper 40's when I took Tikka outside this morning, and I loved the crisp chill in the air. It reminded me of New York, although only briefly. The sun is more intense here, and the day warmed up quickly. Although it the sun was shining brightly, I was comfortable walking around the farmer's market with a lightweight sweatshirt, although there were people out in down as well. I guess New York hasn't completely worn off yet.

I still love the cooler days and I am grateful for this bit of seasonal weather, this reminder that all things change, and there must be time for slowing down, as well as time for rest, to sustain continued life and growth.

October 1, 2016
Three Things Thursday

1. It is a cool, gray, drizzly day here in Knoxville, although there was a brief bit of sunshine. It would be a perfect day for working in the flower beds except that the drainage work is finally being done in the back of my yard after a long series of frustrating delays. Once again there are heavy machines and men in boots mucking about and digging things up. Admittedly I've let that section of the flower bed go to weed. It was a hot summer after all, and I knew the area would have to be dug up, so it hardly seemed worth the sweat and effort, knowing that any fruits of my labors would be destroyed. I've been waiting for this job since June and I am happy that the digging and hardscapes are finally complete (fingers crossed).

2. Last night's concert at the Knoxville Museum of Art was stunning in its beauty. Our fabulous young concertmaster, Gabriel Lefkowitz performed Brahms' First Violin Sonata in G Major, bringing the soothing lyricism of the piece to life, his violin singing with a gentle effusiveness, as if all the cares of the world could be washed away in the music. The second half of the program, Schubert's "Trout" Quintet, was also beautifully performed and it was an experience altogether different from the one at the square room a week ago, even though two of the musicians were the same. This time the music had its own life, the individual musicians indistinguishable, as if there were a profound conversation going on between them, the music melding to become something with its own life and presence, where as the previous week's concert I had felt like I was hearing three distinct musicians playing the same piece. It was as if a couple of people were talking about the same thing and drawing the same conclusions, but although they were "hearing" each other, they weren't really listening, the experience was not transformative. Last night's performance was something else all together, five musicians coming together to create something greater than themselves. If you are in Knoxville and you have a chance to go to tonight's performance, go.

3. I am reading Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend. Actually I've gotten a kind of slow start, not because I don't love the novel, I do but because I started it on my kindle and now I've moved to a paperback copy and have found myself needing to step back, and retrace my steps. I don't believe I had fully realized how different my experience of reading is, and how different my perceptions and reactions, between reading on the kindle, versus reading an actual book. This has made me step back and pause somewhat. I knew that I liked certain kinds of books better on one or the other, and that if I loved a book on the kindle, I might buy a physical copy as well, and end up rereading it as it always seemed different on paper. But only now am I beginning to understand the repercussions, and appreciate how the difference affects my thoughts and relationship to the material being read.

September 29, 2016
Now for Something Pretty…

When I was sorting through photographs recently I discovered a small cache of pictures from my trip to New York with Liana last February. Included were some snaps from the Vigée Le Brun exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum. Since I had recently written about a different visit to an art museum, and a different kind of painting, it seems like we are due for a bit of an antidote. Even though that trip was over 7 months ago, I thought I would share the photos I took here now.

I had forgotten that the Vigée Le Brun exhibit was in New York. We had gone to the Met to see something else (which I will write about later), but once I saw the banner I remembered that Frances had a wonderful post about Le Brun, here, and I was eager to see the exhibit. But by this time, we were quite tired (or at least I was quite tired) and I was not as intrepid as Frances. There was no listening to museum tours, no thoughtful analysis, just a meandering look and a pause. If you are looking for a more informed post, follow the link above.

The photo above is of the most formal portrait that I photographed. It is a commission for the marquise de Rougé, and she is shown with her two sons and her dear friend, the marquise de Pezay. It is an exception to the artist's oeuvre, and yet, even in this formal composition, it captures everything I love about Le Brun's portraits. Notice the warmth of the composition, the love and affection in the faces, and the fact that they are painted with a warm and understanding eye. The composition is classical in form, and yet the subjects are anything but. Here is maternal affection, friendship, loyalty, love for and by children, captured seemingly simply, but in reality not such a simple task, in a portrait that hits all the right notes for a commissioned work, and yet moves beyond them in its very humanity.

Then let us move from the formal to the personal. This very intimate portrait is of the artist's daughter, Julie Le Brun. Its very nature is both personal and introspective. And yet, in its simplicity there are layers of meaning. We see the child in profile; she sees herself (as do we) in not quite full frontal, perhaps three-quarter, profile. In this view we see both the child as she is and the child as she perceives herself to be, while simultaneously seeing the innocence of childhood, of the child as we wish her to be, and the same time that preternatural wisdom of childhood, an aspect of childhood that does not always make us comfortable, reminding us that children are perhaps aware of something which we have forgotten (and are eager enough to sooth over and deny). It is always hard, in a portrait, be it a painting, or in a more modern sense, a photograph, to capture the multifaceted nature that each of us possesses, and yet Vigée Le Brun shows us something of that here, of the self, internal and external, visible and invisible, and how they are both interrelated and reflected in our lives.

A later picture of the same daughter, as if startled by an unseen or unanticipated visitor. The portrait was modelled on Santerre's portrait of Susanna at her bath, and it was a familiar subject that was to some extent popular and increasingly secularized in the eighteenth century. Notice that this portrait is considerably less innocent than some earlier versions, where, although the voyeurs were far from innocent, Susanna herself is often portrayed with a lack of awareness. This Susanna is aware that she is being watched, and Le Brun perfectly captures that sense of being on the cusp of adulthood, of that almost liminal state where a child is both still child and yet adult, in fact actually neither. We must also remember that a girl of 12 or 13 was considered a woman and could be married, even though we find that shocking today. It is a painting of great tenderness, yes, and of both maternal affection for, and awareness of, the child that was and the woman that will be.

And lastly there is this portrait of a small boy with a gun. Boys are not as common in Vigée Le Brun's paintings, and as I recall the identity of the boy has not been established. This painting has haunted my thoughts (yes it is true, even though I had forgotten that I had taken the photograph). It is the boys eyes that have stayed with me, soulful childish eyes, and the reminder as seen in the gun, that the world intrudes. The utter humanity, affection, and love is evident, as it is evident in all of her paintings, and although I find the painting unsettling I do not know that the subject would have been considered unsettling at the time. And yet….

Contrast the boy with the girl above. Look at the sheer affection with which each is portrayed. Here is humanity in all its glory and all its weaknesses, captured with compassion and love and yes, an intentional, albeit subtle, subversion of form and expectation that continues to enlighten and confound the viewer even today.

September 27, 2016
A Walk Through Market Square

The best laid plans go oft awry….

Instead of a post, here are some photos from my morning walk through the farmer's market:

A breakfast taco of eggs and avocado

eaten sitting on a bench facing this arch,

late summer bounty,

the meeting of old and new (and football season),

and autumn abundance.

Returning to my car, I was entranced by the juxtaposition of color, texture, and form in the meeting of these buildings.

Have a lovely weekend.

September 24, 2016
A Concert

What is music? Don't worry, I'm not going to define it now. In fact I'm probably simply gong to leave that question open and ask more questions still. More exactly I suppose, what is the experience of music?

I don't have an answer, none of us do, truthfully, although we can and do experience music, and I suspect that the experience changes constantly. There are no two performances that are alike, no two experiences that are alike, even if one is sitting at home in one's favorite chair listening to one's favorite recording. Each time we come to the music, we bring something different with us. The experience is always more than ourselves, more than the musicians, more even the air in the room, but all of these things combine for form an experience that, at its best is a kind of relationship with something both greater than and deeply essential to ourselves.

Wednesday I went to a small chamber concert downtown. The hall was small, lunch was served and the audience was seated at tables around the stage. The atmosphere was friendly and somewhat intimate. I realized how much I missed this kind of small venue, the sense of being a part of the music that it entails. And the concert was lovely. The first piece, Beethoven's String Trio No. 3 in G major was lovely and performed with skill.

And yet there was a point where I distanced myself somewhat, where I was enjoying the music, but where I was also standing back from myself, watching the musicians. They are all excellent, and the piece was well played, but what I missed at that moment was that sense of relationship that carries into the music when you hear it performed by some quartets and trios, by chamber groups who live by playing chamber music, who spend extensive time playing the piece together, and who play with a sense of attunement that adds another dimension to the work.  I didn't mean this as a criticism, just as a reflection on something I sometimes missed, a different kind of listening. It struck me that the musicians never looked at each other, as if they were each playing their role, and the piece would come together, which it did. There is nothing wrong with this, and yet all of life is a relationship, a relationship of experience, or being, of creation. And I suppose, like life, there are different types of relationship, even in music. Again, I'm not trying to criticize, only to explore, and explore my own understandings more than anything else.

I still enjoyed the concert. Far from being sad, I was thinking how lucky I have been, how lucky that I have been privileged to hear such a wide variety of musicians, playing in such a wide variety of settings. I was also thinking how playing as a member of a symphony orchestra is different from playing as a soloist, and as playing as a part of a quartet (or trio or quintet). In both the orchestra and the chamber group it is not about you per se, but how you play and interact with the group, but the dynamics are completely different.   And great ensembles develop their own personality, their own space within the music.

Even then however, the experience involves more than the musicians. Although the musicians are critical, either the musicians, or the audience, can make or break the total experience. Wednesday's concert became more than 3 or 5 people on a stage, playing music together. The musicians were excellent, the audience was appreciative, and it was in this relationship between the two that the true music took place.

During the second half of the performance, when the Wind Quintet was performing an arrangement of the Dolly Suite by Faure, my fingers could not stay still, instead they were rapidly seeking out the keys on the imaginary piano in my lap, experiencing the music audibly, emotionally, and physically. And so I listened to the music, but some part of me injected myself, rather than my mind stepping back, my fingers stepped in, and this changed the equation. This change was not necessarily bad, or good; it simply altered my experience of the music. But don't we all react this way to some extent or another? Something resonates, and some part of our soul runs toward that connection, dragging us behind willy-nilly. And that is an essential part of the experience of music, why all cultures, all peoples, all times, seek it out and share it amongst themselves.

And that brings me back to my question: what is the experience of music? And is any one experience any better, or more powerful than another? What is the role of the listener in the equation?  The simple truth is no experience can be duplicated. So shouldn't we enjoy each experience for the joy it brings, even when our minds wander slightly?  How has life changed my ability to listen? Has my heart grown softer, or more hardened? What perambulations will my thoughts take the next time? How will I experience the music? How will you?

September 22, 2016
This and That

I've been so wrapped up in a couple of things the last four or five days that it feels now like I really can't focus on anything. That probably isn't completely true; I am getting things done after all, and in order to do something, anything, you have to be able to focus at least some little bit. Yet I still feel scattered and some part of me wants to solve the problem by doing something else — after all getting things done seems to be the secular religion of modern life. It is easy to tell ourselves we are good as long as we are getting things done, and to feel like we are somehow slipping if we just let time wander by. But I suspect this feeling is not so much an inability to focus but a process of sorting out, although I can't quite put my finger on what exactly is being sorted.

So what have I been doing that occupied all my attention?

PHOTOS

The big time-suck was sorting out photos and putting them in albums, although that wasn't what I originally set out to do at all. I was simply rearranging furniture in the guest room, and I had other plans for the end of the week. But in order to move a bookcase I had to unload it. Then it seemed like such a shame to put the big box of photos back on the shelf along with the pile of empty photo albums just waiting for those photos to magically arrange themselves on the pristine pages. I decided the time had come to either finish unfinished things or let them go, and this thing needed finishing.

It took far longer than I would have liked. First there were the old albums that were falling apart, the one's that were not archival quality, that my younger self purchased at Hallmark, the albums that were not doing anything pretty to my photos. Those photos all had to be transferred to newer albums.  And then there were the photos that never made it to albums for one reason or another, usually because George had started exploring black and white photography and had turned a guest bathroom into a darkroom, but it would sometimes be two or three years before he would have photos from a trip ready, by which time my own motivation had waned.

And yet this proved to be a good time to sort through that previous life and revisit it, to explore the healing balm of memory when it is not held too tightly out of fear. It was a good life, and it was good to see the young woman I was then and reflect on the woman I have become, am becoming. By the time I had finished with three decades worth of photographic memories, I was sick of glue dots and photo squares, sick of the process, but then I moved on and gathered and sorted the digital photos as well, the markers of this new life and ordered prints for a new album. I hadn't originally thought I would do that, create a new album. I was wrong. I like paper. I may not revisit those photos frequently, but for now at least I like knowing they are available.

MUSIC

Friday night I went to my first symphony concert of the season. I was tired and somewhat cranky, lost in my own internal monologue, and not eager to go out. But I knew I should see people, knew I should let the music carry me away, knew I should get out of my head. Sometimes I do think it there may be benefits to not living one's life so deeply wound up in one's own mental peregrinations, but then without my swirling thoughts I wouldn't be me.

Suffice it to say the concert was beautiful although I feel incapable writing of my normal review. I've heard the pianist, Orion Weiss play before, both as a soloist and in chamber performances, and have long been a fan.  His nuanced playing of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #3 in D minor was breathtaking, as was the interaction between the soloist and the orchestra, and the dancing flow of the music. The performance played up the depths of this piece, a piece that is often overplayed. The orchestra also did a magical job with Tchaikovsky's Symphony #5, another piece with great lyricism and emotional depth, which is not always adequately explored in performance. I know the musicians and our new music director are still getting to know each other but I went home smiling, and looking forward to the upcoming season.

READING

I finished reading Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life. I had actually started it in June, but only got half way through it before my mom arrived. Somehow, it is a book that takes too much out of the reader, and I couldn't read it while Margaret was here, so put it aside and started over. It held up surprisingly well to rereading, and suspect it will be worth reading again at some future point, but not again immediately. It is a difficult book, both lyrical and gentle and yet simultaneously brutal and emotionally wrenching. I know that many feel extremely manipulated, and although I think it is part of the role of fiction to manipulate our emotions and our understandings, this book is particularly difficult and I can see why many struggle with it. And yet, despite some issues, I believe Yanagihara has nailed the unimaginable struggle in the psyche of anyone who has survived significant childhood trauma, and who, even after overcoming it and perhaps even living a successful life, still struggles with that trauma as an adult, that unimaginable inner voice of the small child whose sense of self was so compromised before there was any opportunity to build self defenses. That small voice, that crying child, that sense of being evil, wicked, dirty, wrong, whatever you call it — it never goes away completely, no matter how much the rational mind tries to convince one otherwise. If we could understand only this, perhaps we could change the world.

There is more to the book than just this, much of it even more evident on the second reading. I highly recommend it, but not as casual reading, and not if you are not willing to be pulled in directions you may prefer not to go. It is not a book that can be forgotten once it has been read.

September 20, 2016
Word-less Wednesday

I've been distracted, and although I do have things I want to write about, I do not want to write about them right now. Fortunately, although it is still wickedly hot, the mornings have been cooler, and rather than writing in the mornings, I have been out in the garden tackling the signs of neglect.

The habaneros are ripening nicely, and I think I've finally found the right spot, a spot where I can put in 2 or 3 pepper plants, and perhaps a tomato or two. Next year I'll put up a teepee for the tomatoes and give it a shot.

I am especially grateful however for the long season of crape myrtles and hydrangeas and the constant push of knockout roses, which continue to brighten the flower beds.

I'll admit that I am a wimp, and this summer was just too darn hot for me. Admittedly I also experienced a gluten-related incident and had a raging case of dermatitis herpetiformis, which would become aggravated in the heat. It is amazing how quickly a weed population can proliferate given nearly 4 weeks of neglect in high summer.

Oh well, at least the flower beds looked green, and some of the weeds had pretty blossoms as well. But I am mostly grateful that my flowers soldiered on and continued to bloom despite the invading hordes.

I

September 14, 2016