Flower Friday : : Grevillea

Grevillea is another one of those plants that has a lot versions. I think this one growing outside our front door is particularly spectacular. It is also one of the first things to bloom in the spring and the blooms change as they open and mature, so this may be one of those things that I photograph a lot.

My neighbor Cindy kidnapped me today for a little shopping therapy. The last time I went shopping with her we went to Costco and I filled the refrigerator with food the day before our whole town caught fire, the power went out and we had to throw away all the food. This time she wanted to look for tables to go next to her new bed, so off we went to Sonoma where they have some interesting, somewhat quirky, somewhat rustic furniture stores.

The first place was strictly outdoor furniture and a little too 'ordinary.
The second place had a lot of interesting looking things, but no bedside tables.
The third place has heavy, massive pieces of furniture that are quite beautiful if one has the right house for it, but an annoying proprietor who probably drinks because he is vaguely incoherent.
The last place calls itself a salvage store that makes upscale stuff out of old stuff. We found a chair, made of teak roots that we thought would look good on our front porch. I took a picture of it and showed it to OilMan, knowing he would hate it. He hated it. It remains to be seen whether he will be willing to go and look at the actual object. Picture a free form chair made out of a pile of driftwood, only it is actually teak roots.

Neither one of us bought anything, but we had a good time...

After hearing our friends' stories last night about their experiences since their house burned down three months ago, we have scheduled a visit to our insurance agent. In a disaster of this scale, there are just too many moving parts for any single family to be able to negotiate. The state insurance czar is on record as saying that anyone whose house burned to the ground in this fire should be given full compensation, but apparently the insurance companies can't be held to his recommendations. Jerry and Mary still had to itemize everything in their house, which now of course is gone. Have you ever tried that? Then they have to argue with the underwriter about each and every item since the company wasn't willing to reimburse them without documentation. And of course all the documentation burned up with everything else....

We had a nice evening, despite the trials. I'm sure they were happy for a small break in the full time job of getting reimbursed by the insurance company and deciding what to do next. There was an acute housing shortage here before the fire...now, with the loss of 5,000 houses it is severe.  They can recover the most money if they rebuild, but the hassles involved in doing that recede into the distance.

I don't really want to think this way, but why would I buy another thing at this stage of my life just because I like the way it looks?  OilMan keeps saying that we have too much stuff already. It may be our insurance agent who decides....