Suburban Agriculture

Gardening is not for wusses. Being a wuss myself, I can speak with some authority on this subject. I was dubbed the child with the green thumb at an early age and clung to the title. Being the third of four kids, I eagerly latched onto any characteristic that distinguished me from the pack. I lost my dog last year but gained a back yard. It was impossible to grow anything other than grass back there while Alistair was alive. Alistair of the toxic urine. He peed an apple tree to death for gosh shakes. And, he totally corroded the lower hinge on the gate. That hinge looked like it came up from the Titanic when it finally just crumbled. Don’t even ask about the air conditioner.

Anyway, the garden. It’s very small -- only 8’ x 10’. I planted it with tomatoes, okra, onions, lettuce, beans, peppers and zucchini. The zucchini was a bust. I got one before it died in captivity after putting up a rabbit-proof fence (more about that later). Zucchini does not like to be penned in. One plant apparently needs about 50 square feet to be happy. It didn’t go down alone, however. It launched a hostile takeover of the beans’ territory. While it was busy stunting them, it left its rear unprotected and that’s when the fence slipped in cutting off any chance for retreat. The zucchini chose death over surrender.

Back to the rabbit proof fence. It falls under the “Seemed like a good idea at the time” category. The fence lived up to its name and kept the rabbits out. Unfortunately the three foot high fence was more than my five foot frame could handle. The first time I fell trying to step over it was because my shoelace got caught in it. Fortunately, being only five feet tall, I don’t have far to fall. The second time I fell the fence teamed up with the bird netting I’d spread over the tomatoes. This time my foot got tangled in the netting as I was stepping over the fence with an armful of tomatoes and okra. I lost my balance as I was trying to free my foot. As I crashed through the fence the produce was flung into the air and rained down all around my prostrate body. My finger was caught in the netting and as I sat up, the tent stake anchoring the end of the fence popped out and came whizzing by my head. bugger. The netting ripped my fingernail off halfway down the nail bed. (You just cringed, don’t lie.) I looked at the nail and knew it was going to hurt and bleed like hell once it figured out what just happened. I was right. I gathered up my veggies and limped back into the house, trying not to drip blood on the floor. I made my husband cut the rest of the nail off, went to bed and slept for three hours. Proportionately I think the injury I sustained in my 8 x 10 garden is the equivalent of a farmer having his arm wripped off in a thrasher. We took the fence down and I have yet to see a rabbit in the garden. However, I do think I heard snickering coming from the bushes when I fell.

Catch-Up

I guess I should try to catch up some on da bloggin’. Let’s see since April I’ve:

· Visited my daughter in New York – all by myself.
· Taken a world literature course – aced it.
· Grown ‘maters and other veggies – without insecticides.
· Saved the lives of three birds so far that have gotten trapped in the bird netting covering the aforementioned ‘maters.
· Become grandmother to one dog and two cats – Delta, the chocolate lab adopted by my son and Marlon and Orson, the obese cats adopted by my daughter.
· Gone to a 4-day work week – love it, love it, loooovvvve it!

I’ll start with New York. A mere three weeks after returning from France, I was off to New York. My daughter’s roommate was out of town so I even had my own room. I booked Super Shuttle for the trip from the airport and, though it took a bit longer, cost less than half as much as a taxi from LaGuardia. While my daughter was at work the next day, I did a little grocery shopping (I emphasize little because the apartment is a 6th floor walk-up). In the store, I managed to bash my shin into a carton of canned goods while simultaneously getting a cramp in the other foot. I limped home and up the 5 flights of stairs and promptly got my finger wedged in the door jamb. Don’t ask me how. I was not off to a good start. I spent the rest of the day puttering around the apartment and managed to not injure myself any further.

That night I went, by myself, to a Broadway play – “August, Osage County.” I noticed when I emerged from the Time Square subway stop that there were a lot of sailors around. I wracked my brain; wasn’t there a reference to this in an episode of “Sex and the City?” What did they call it? Oh yeah, “Fleet Week.” There were sailors in their whites everywhere and most of them were easy on the eyes. The novelty wore off pretty fast because they were adding to an already crowded area and were in my way. I now really, really, really hate going to Time Square but, unfortunately, you have to if you’re going to one of the Broadway theaters. The play was fantastic and I got home a little after midnight.

I also saw a new musical, “Passing Strange,” this time with my daughter. It was very good also. The rest of the visit was spent going to the Metropolitan Museum, walking the Brooklyn Bridge, helping out with a wine & cheese party my daughter gave on the roof, going to dinner on Memorial Day at the apartment of friends (wonderfully cool people – and excellent cooks), shopping and just hanging out with my daughter in the city.

We were resting on a park bench when we encountered the most gimped-up pigeons I’ve ever seen. One of them had a foot problem (it was missing) that was cringe-worthy. Another had hairy legs. I shit you not. I started referring to him as the “werepigeon.” It was like they were trying to freak us out ‘cause they wouldn’t go away – and there was an old lady feeding pigeons on the bench across from us. I’ve posted a picture of the werepigeon.

At the end of my visit, I Super Shuttled back to LaGuardia and that trip wasn’t quite as smooth as the one from LaGuardia. The shuttle was an hour late and it took forever to get to the airport. The fact that it was the handicapped van added, I’m guessing, about an hour to the trip. I still got to the airport in plenty of time. We sat on the tarmac so long before takeoff, I fell asleep. When I awoke I thought I’d slept through the whole flight and we’d already landed in Memphis. Nope, we were still waiting the take off. The pilot got on the intercom and bitched about how LaGuardia, like most of the east coast airports, had only two runways, a crazy amount of air traffic, and how we’d burned $1,200 worth of jet fuel waiting in line. I had to run to my gate in Memphis and was the last one on the plane, but I made it. Seriously, I can’t wait to go again.

Humbling experiences

A few humorous/embarrassing moments:

There’s a public toilet in Monaco close to the bus stop on the pier. I decided to avail myself of it before we began the trek up the hill to Monaco-Ville. I deposited my .30 euro and opened the door to the unisex facility noticing it was a hole-in-the-floor model -- my first. Then the door closed and I was in darkness. I guess the light was out. I tried the door handle but it was locked. I started groping along the walls feeling for a light switch. My eyes began to adjust to the dark and I could make out, with the help of a little light coming in along the floor a big red button next to the door. Pushing it unlocked the door. I opened it and used the light to size up the situation. The toilet was modern and clean and there was a horseshoe shaped bar that could be used as a toilet seat recessed into the wall that could be lowered by pressing a button and pulling the seat down. The sign also claimed the seat would raise automatically. When I felt secure enough in my surroundings I closed the door, lowered the bar, perched on the edge (it was high and I feared the seat would automatically snap back to it’s original position) and went about my business. Unfortunately, sitting so far forward, I was only in the general vicinity of the hole and let me tell you, there’s quite a splatter range when piss hits stainless from a height of about 2 ½ feet. I’m just glad I was wearing capris.

Yesterday on our sojourn back from Gordes we took a wrong turn in one of the little towns. When we were circling around to try again, a woman jumped out of the car in front of us leaving the door open with a child inside. She ran straight to Dan’s window and started asking for directions in French. We couldn’t manage a sound. All we could do was stare stupidly with our mouths open and shoulders hunched. It took her a split second to realize she’d picked idiots to ask and ran to the car behind us. As we drove away I realized I had a map open in my lap.

There’s a small circus going on in the park behind our hotel. We were walking by the motor homes where the circus folk live the other night on our way back from dinner and some of them were hanging out in what appears to be a communal outdoor gathering spot. They mocked us (I think it was just Dan really). Let me tell ya, there’s nothing quite as degrading as being mocked by a French carny.

Dan stepped in dog shit. It was bound to happen. He was walking down the drive here when a car came along and he quickly stepped over into the median to get out of the way. That’s where he hit it. It wasn’t so much the stepping in the crap that was funny so much as the little shitslip/slide to the side. Some people here do clean up after their dogs but they leave the bags-o-crap laying on the sidewalk. I guess they have shit pixies here that come by and pick them up.

Gordes

Our trip to Gordes in Provence was our longest car trip. It took about 2 ½ hours to get there driven mostly on the A8. This is similar to our interstates only it’s a toll road. When you’re traveling that far, the tolls really add up. I think the highest one we paid was 12.70 euro.

There was parking just on top of the hill so we didn’t have to climb into the town. We ate lunch at the café featured in the movie “A Good Year” and we photographed where various scenes were shot. The town is quite picturesque and we roamed around the very steep streets for a couple of hours. We had an ice cream and decided to go to see the bories which are dry stone huts -- some built centuries ago. We discovered there was one right in our car park so just photographed it instead of going to the historic borie village (saving us some euros). They all look pretty much the same.

We decided to drive back to Monaco on the N7 which is like our state highways and have no tolls. It was a much more enjoyable, if quite a bit longer drive. The highway was lined with old sycamores and vineyards most of the way. We passed a large field of purple iris. We went through town after town, all with a number of roundabouts. They were landscaped, some quite elaborately. Dan merrily pirouetted his way across Provence. He then drove on the Bord de Mer (the coastal highway) from St. Raphael to Cannes. This road was slow going, even though we seemed to be speeding along, with lots of hairpin curves along the sides of mountains with nothing but the Mediterranean below. We decided to get back onto the A8 at Cannes as the sun was beginning to set and a fog was rolling in off the water. Plus, I was getting nauseous. The trip back took about 5 hours.

Top photo is from the drive on the N7 showing the sycamores and the bottom is the town of Gordes from a flanking hill.

Street singer in Antibes

We climbed up to the old part of the town (Monaco-Ville) where the Palais Princier, Musee Oceanographique, cathedral and tourist shops. We toured the palace where the royal family still resides. The part on the tour is opulent and includes the throne room where, among others, there is a huge portrait of Prince Rainier, Princess Grace and their children. The tombs of the past princes are in the cathedral. Flowers are left on Prince Ranier’s and Princess Grace’s -- mostly roses on her's.
We got a couple of sandwiches and sat on a bench across from a low wall overlooking the Mediterranean. There are large gulls here, or maybe they’re albatross’ and one landed on the wall next to a couple across from us that were also enjoying a picnic. They were sitting on the wall with their food spread out between them. The gullatross sat on the wall behind the woman for a little while until shooed away. He then landed just on the other side of the wall so that his head and neck were all that was visible sticking up just behind their food. I half expected him to say, “Mine!” like the stupid gulls in Finding Nemo. I was hoping the couple would look away so that I could see him steal some of their lunch but it didn’t happen. He really was a pretty bird. His head was snow white and there was a red half circle on his lower beak.

The next day we drove to Antibes, a town on the Riviera with a huge port where large yachts and a multitude or sailboats are docked. There was a fabulous food market set up in the main square. We wandered around cobblestone shop-lined streets and came upon a lady singing in the style of Edith Piaf. She accompanied herself on guitar and a tamborine she worked with a foot pedal. She was singing “La Vie en Rose” as we walked up but by the time we thought to video her, she was singing a song I’m not familiar with and not even sure if it’s French. Of course, when we got about half a block away, I heard her start the song from the movie that Edith Piaf used for her comeback.

We had lunch then walked along the piers ogling the boats. The largest yacht had its own helicopter complete with a custom cover.

The top picture is the market in Antibes and the bottom is the seaside view of the Musee Oceanographique in Monaco.

Glassmaker Pascal Guyot