A Bouquet from a Flowerless Garden

I have to provide something for the penguins to admire so I went out into the garden in search of something. What I came up with is mostly trimmings from plants that were overtaking one of the garden paths up to the veggie boxes...leucodendron and chaste tree branches (Vitex Agnus Castus) which finished flowering and are now covered with little berries. The blue are some stems of statice left over from a farmers' market bouquet because they are true to their common name...everlasting flower. They make a nice restrained bouquet.

We had almost our full complement at coffee this morning. Maggie couldn't make it because she was teaching a class but Bob brought his friend who was breaking his journey overnight at their house last night. He was a nice man who really liked Spike so we really liked him.

A discussion of the division of labor in our households evolved into memories of our fathers. Tobi said her mother and father were both teachers (as was she) and that when her father retired her mother announced that it was high time he did some of the cooking. He perfected a recipe for meat loaf which everybody loved but never made anything else. However, he kept their cars in good working order and was very handy with home repairs.

Every morning my father squeezed fresh oranges for juice from a box purchased at an outdoor produce market in Pasadena. He also made the coffee spooning exactly six scoops of Yuban coffee, counting aloud as he did so, into an electric percolator. I started drinking coffee for breakfast when I was in high school which is where I established my taste for strong coffee.

Our clocks go back tomorrow night and that was always another job my father took on. Afraid he would forget to do it, he would often change the clocks two or three days in advance, with the result that for most of the week of the time change nobody really knew quite what time it really was....John is always saying, 'but it's really only such and such a time' and I am always asking him when it really changes to the time it actually is. I wish we would just stick with the same time year 'round.

My mother did almost all of the cooking when she came home from work. She would always send my brother or me upstairs to get her a shirt so she could take off her suit jacket and work blouse, change into the shirt and roll up her sleeves. She was a good cook and my brother and I 
haad very few foods we refused to eat. I think I have become a more fussy eater in my dotage than I ever was in my youth.

We're off to our next door neighbors for happy hour. Always especially welcome on Friday. I don't know why, being retired, that it matters what day of the week it is, but it does, and I'm always happy to see Friday roll around.