Judging books by their covers (again)

A long ago conversation with Amateur Reader and my sister-in-law still has me thinking about how I select books (I was attempting to link to the conversation on Wuthering Expectations here, but I am now recalling that this was an actual conversation, mulled over coffee and good food, so I'm only finding distantly related posts, like the one AR wrote about plot twists in Jane Eyre, which would probably be relevant for readers of Okay For Now except at the time of that blog post, AR hadn't yet read Jane Eyre and I couldn't remember it).

At the library in particular, I judge books by their covers.

I picked up Saving CeeCee Honeycut by Beth Hoffman because it had a hummingbird on the cover and kept it because something on the jacket suggested it was about Savannah, and it has been my Savannah summer.  If the universe is signaling to me through my book choices, it is reminding me of the very fine line there is between quirky crazy and mentally ill and that the family members can be easily scarred by both.  Despite that somber message, and a having a strong anti-discrimination pro-confident woman position, the book is mostly a light coming of age story of an adolescent girl escaping her parents and thriving among the rich women in Savannah.  M, MiL, GK and many others would enjoy it, particularly if travelling to Savannah, but its no glorious caper of a Mary Kay Andrews chick book.

I picked up The Dancing Pancake by Eileen Spinelli because dancing pancakes fits in right there with magical food, a common motif among things I read,  and I was feeling guilty that I had never noticed Eileen Spinelli as I was checking out Jake and Lily by Jerry Spinelli, her husband.  I was in the children's and young adult (shelved together at the local library) novels looking in the S for Okay for Now when Spinelli jumped out at me.  Jake and Lily was great.  One thing that J. Spinelli does very well is recognize that we are all the bad guy in our youth and his very likable characters make some very unkind (if normal) friendship moves.  Jake and Lily is no Stargirl, but it is pretty fabulous.  The Dancing Pancake was in verse, of sorts, and also lots of fun.  I would have no reason to compare it to Jake and Lily were Eileen and Jerry not married, so I am not going to do so now.

I picked up The Artisan's Wife by Judith Miller from the new books because I was going to mock it based on the silly cover.  But from the cover I also learned that the heroine is abandoned in Weston, West Virginia.  And since one fourth of my nuclear family was born in Weston, West Virginia (population 4,110), somehow the book was calling to me.  The Artisan's Wife is historical Christian feminist romance of some sub-genre I have never before encountered.  A very large portion of the book is devoted to work and the running of a tile works.  Another large chunk takes place at the mental hospital (an imposing building in Weston, known now (for haunted house tours) and allegedly in the 1870s according to the book as the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum) [message from universe about mental illness duly noted], and the last chunk is dealing with family and prayers.  The book is good and the writing solid enough to stand up on its own merits, but as the romance is entirely without tension, I have no idea what this book would be or who would read it if it wasn't niche marketed.  [Note: there are two copies of this book among the new books at our small local library.  Either somebody is reading these books or some librarian thinks some readers are reading these books].

While looking for something else this morning, I ran back across Having It and Eating It by Sabine Durant, which I read sometime in the last year or two because Durant is now shelved where Katie Fforde used to be.  It's one of the chick lit books focusing on the messiness of relationships (I'd probably place Wife-22, The After Wife, and Bridgett Jones in this category) and, while everything is neatly resolved, it left me feeling a bit deflated.  I guess sometimes I do want plain happy marriages.

I would not have read Behind the Throne by K.B. Wagers based on the cover because someone chose a really mundane quote for the back cover and Behind the Throne is described as beginning "an action-packed new series with a heroine as rebellious as HAN SOLO, as savvy as LEIA, and as skilled as REY." (emphasis not mine).  However it is good, really good, and I have my next in the series pre-ordered from Amazon. Whether or not K.B.'s sister is a dear friend (and she is), I would be recommending Behind the Throne for anyone with a passing interest in action sci-fi (the Star Wars assessment is not that far off, but seems very unlikely to prompt me to read a book) or feminist dystopias.

What are you reading?

Plant Images from Central Kansas, July 2016
They are as unrelated to these books as Desmanthus is to H.Clinton

The Unsightly Glow of Persistent Flash Problems

The rain was great for the roses. Well, it was great until the leaves turned black and yellow and fell off (fungal problems in Western Oklahoma!).  I had beautiful bouquets for Mothers' Day and my birthday, but have the persistent problems of being unable to ) the flash.  All of the blossoms are from our yard.  The white is mock orange.

May 11, 2015

May 19, 2015

Fruition and Warning

After two days of prurient content, I am happy to present imagery no more lascivious than a pregnant or breastfeeding mother.  This should also be a warning to all of the flowers from Sunday's post; if you keep dangling your stigma out like that, you might end up all fat and sprogged up like this.

Quince

[For those of you wondering why I am prepping posts of plant pictures and bad puns on Sunday afternoon when school is about to start, rather than, say, working on my syllabi, I should add that there are lots of practical reasons (computer incompatibility, napping kid that I can't disturb with cleaning, non-napping kid that I must supervise rather than errand running and so forth) and there is plain ol' wanting to extend summer for just a few more minutes.]

Action

After I explained that petals weren't reproductive, the crazy woman in the back of the classroom (there's always at least one, but this was my first year teaching and I didn't realize it), blurted out, "so petals are basically the makeup and perfume?"
Somehow I couldn't resist replying, "Yes, if the makeup and perfume attract the guy driving the sperm delivery truck, and he is a member of an entirely different kingdom of organisms."
Plant sex, with its animal intermediaries, just doesn't have any analogous practices among humans.
Many of these were taken on a cool day in Idaho.  You just never know when you are going to find the action.

Without the artful cropping they'd be pornographic

I'm about to crash hard into the school year (new adventures for all four of us, and we are not prepared, either physically, materially or emotionally) tomorrow.
So I'll set up a series of salacious plant images today.  Today is "alluring parts" tomorrow, "action" and then it will all come to "fruition".

 You're welcome.

Five days of peaches

The speed of spring is sometimes delightfully dizzying.  One moment (say, March 30) our darling dwarf peach tree barely had swollen buds, and then these were taken moments later (on April first, second and fifth).  Meanwhile, the first tulips opened on April 1, the lilacs on the east side are about to pop, we planted three kiwis yesterday and two figs last week and the whole outside smells deliciously of golden currant and hyacinths (each of which has been blooming for more than a week).

On Orange Flowers, Genus Marmota and Horses

So it feels as if I should have a lot to write.  After all, tomorrow is Groundhog Day!  The Year of the Horse has begun (time for a new resolution) and I care enough about the Super Bowl to prod the Mister to change our phone and internet provider so I can watch it, in its entirety, tomorrow.  But I haven't condensed much into cohesive thoughts yet.  What I have to write at the moment are a bunch of announcements.

Groundhog Party has been replaced by Sundae Party on Sunday, Feb. 16, when The Parents and The In-Laws will be in town to see Dianthus and Aster baptized.  You (along with our whole congregation and our colleagues) are invited to eat ice cream with us.

Dyed orange and blue daisies don't look good with orange alstromeria and a cobalt blue vase, but having them makes me happy.

Blue brownies are required.  My earliest sports memory was running the bases between the innings at my dad's company softball games and coming in when one man shouted "Kids, ice cream!" and never liking that man because there was never any ice cream.  But I digress.  My second earliest sports memory is Super Bowl XII in 1978.  I was five.  We drank Orange Crush and processed (thus bright orange) macaroni and cheese and sadly ate our orange frosted brownies as the Broncos lost to the Cowboys.  I watched the Super Bowl closely in high school, because my home team Broncos played three out of the four years, and lost every one.  We ate brownies with orange frosting each year.  In January of 1998, one my mother's wise students told her, "Madame Chateau, put blue frosting on the brownies this year."  She did. It worked, and it worked again the next year.  She and are both baking blue frosted brownies this year. Dad and I are both making pork green chili and things will turn out well.

I started Groundhog Day letters, but since they talk about the upcoming Super Bowl, and upcoming Groundhog Day, and haven't been mailed yet, I will probably have to start over.

The purchase of the brownie supplies, along with reading of several Groundhog Day books, has Dianthus slightly confused.  Brownies are for tomorrow and Groundhog Day is tomorrow.  This he knows. So when he asked me who is going to win, I answered immediately "The Broncos" and he replied, "I want to win, but I think Marci will win again this year."  Marci?  Turns out he remembers the groundhog party from last year and wants to play pin the shadow on the groundhog.  I'm afraid watching ads won't be nearly as much fun.

Marmota is the official genus of our household.  The Mister declared it so even before he was legally The Mister.  How could I resist?  We have stuffed (plush, not taxidermy) versions of four different species of marmot: groundhogs (a.k.a. woodchucks, Marmota monax), yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris), Vancouver Island marmots (Marmota vancouverensis) and an alpine marmot (Marmota marmota).  It's time to get all of the marmots, other squirrels, rats, hedgehogs and other creatures out for whatever celebration we're having.

The lunar new year, along with Janet's birthday, signifies the start of a new theme resolution year.  Everyone here has a head cold.  Somehow I can't pick a theme.  So we'll stick to my orange flowers and that the year of the horse bodes well for my favorite football team.

Happy New Year!  Happy Groundhog Day!  Go Broncos!

Still plenty of time for flowers

I received a beautiful floral card yesterday with a note, "Sorry that this is late for Floraganza".
The note concerned me because if one person thinks that it is too late to send me flowery things, than many people may think that it is too late to send me flowery things, and it most definitely is not.

This is because:

1. My special theme resolutions are on a cycle that changes on Janet's Birthday (January 24), the Lunar New Year (January 31 this year) or when I get around to it (usually February).  January is often the time of intense activity as I recall how much I wanted to accomplish before the theme changes.
2. My resolutions creep on from one year to the next (I'm still learning about lactic acid fermentation, for instance).
3. It's never too late to give me flowers (except if I'm dead, in which case I would rather the money go to planting flowers somewhere or the big party of a wake that I've requested, but presumably I won't care much).

In other Floraganza news, the current Eating Well cover article features flowers-- cauliflower, "the skinny starch" which I will need to go investigate.  What are your favorite cauliflower preparations?

I'm all about floral accessories, these days, and someday I'll post about that.

And, J, a dear friend from graduate school, submitted this guest star post, that I somehow forgot to post in the holiday shuffle.

J writes: I happened to be in Arizona this summer and had a spare evening. I went to the botanic garden in Phoenix and it happened to be on the night in which a queen of the night cactus started to bloom. The garden closed before the flower opened up all the way, but I felt so lucky to have seen it even partially.

I've never smelled a queen of the night in full bloom, but I know enough of about night flowering cactus for JH's short description and photograph to evoke a sense of decadent, attention-demanding, sweet, perfuminess.  I also love the metaphor as applied to humans.  Some people that seem unassuming, or even outright dry and prickly, can shine brilliantly in their element, if only for a very little while.
Thanks J, for reminding us to seek the unexpected and the ephemeral.

The Right Book Right Now

I just finished a book crying.  And it wasn't even particularly sad.  It was just, so, so apt.

Every once in a while, I read a book that speaks to me.  Either somehow it is my book, or transmits the message of the moment for me.

Fall in Colorado, to accompany earlier post

That my a dear friend bought be a copy of The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert is not particularly stunning, after all, it is a book about a botanist by a popular author.  That the friend stood in line for a signed copy; that I asked the friend, out of the blue, for a fun book and she happened to have my Christmas present awaiting me; that the book is about historical botanists in Philadelphia, a city about which I know something of the botanical history; that orchids are mocked and adored, that the main character deals with sexual frustration by studying mosses (an idea I thought unique to my ex-boyfriend-- "Someday I'll give up on women entirely and learn how to key out mosses"); that my hero, Alfred Russel Wallace, is also the hero of the book's heroine; that it ends with a shellbark hickory . . . that I'm wondering about hope and light and wanderings on this first Sunday of Advent, that this is but one of three Victorian botanist historical novels suggested to me within weeks of each other*.  Together is all feels so much more than mere coincidence.

It feels so very academic that the Universe speaks to me through novels about botanists, but then, what medium would be more apt?

Dianthus kept our heads in one picture

This rapturous state has me writing in italics. I've been warned about that (by Mr. Carpenter, a character in the Emily books.  Another instance of a book being written for me).  And of course, I suppose it would be far more convenient (and make for better blogging) if every time I read a book that was clearly a message, I could interpret the message (see here for at least one previous mention of failed interpretations).  But if I could interpret divine messages, my calling probably wouldn't be to be uber-rational, pragmatic, plant science teacher and an occasional party-thrower.

I'd very much like more of you to read The Signature of All Things so we can talk about it.  I think it can certainly stand on its literary merits, but I somehow doubt it is your book in quite the same way it is my book, so I don't know how much to promote it.

Meanwhile, I'd love to hear any stories of books speaking to you.  And if you'd like to join me in other tales of Victorian naturalists, *Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann and Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier will be read sometime "this season".

I'm counting this as a flower book for Floraganza, even though the botanical stars are the mosses, which clearly do not have flowers.

Don't let your flowers wilt

Part of the funky smell was the flowers.  The old arrangement in water that needed dumping smelled bad and the new flowers, (well, purchased new over a week ago but never arranged), added extra must.

Still life with rotting flowers, half never arranged, and a pumpkin.

I had let my flowers wilt. 
My personal symbol of joy, learning and taking time for myself had become a foul-smelling obligation.  Bleh. 
Don't let this happen to you.
The overall advice from my blog is pretty obvious: take care of yourself and seek joy in your life.
Sometimes I have a hard time following it.
But if you do find that your flowers have wilted and the water is murky; it only takes a minute to dump it all or dump and salvage. In either case, your life will smell that much better.

There will be flowers

I planted 1,000 spring flowering bulbs today.
Okay, because I am a list maker, a literalist and a completist, I should re-phrase that: a paid helper, my sons, and I planted 45 daffodils, 95 tulips, 195 crocus, 20 alliums, 45 hyacinths, 100 iris reticulata, 100 Dutch iris, 100 chionodoxa  and 100 ixiosomethings.  That's not a full thousand, but when combined with the remainder of the 1,300+ we planted last year, there could be a very good show when you come visit in the spring.

There must have been flowers

A surprisingly challenging concept for a botany professor to teach is that all flowering plants have fruit.  And every ripened ovary encasing seeds is a fruit.  And everything that has a fruit, by definition, had flowers.  And that most plants (including grasses, oak trees, and "weeds") are "flowering plants."

So that factoid that somebody taught you, "tomatoes are really fruit" is botanically completely true.  "Zucchinis are really fruit," "Cucumbers are really fruit,"  "Green peppers are really fruit,"  "Okra is really a fruit," and "Green beans are really fruit," somehow don't get told haughtily at school lunchrooms in the same fashion, but are no less true.
'
Here's a sampling of my parents' fall fruit crop.  The flowers were probably stunning.

Flower Progress of Photographic Failures

Just checked back with my goals for Floraganza (go back to February), and progress towards them has been mixed.
I forced bulbs (#13, check), I've sent some flowers (#16, check), I've received flowers (#17, check), I had flowers in the kitchen constantly until June.  I have cool dried flowers in a graduated cylinder in my office all the time (#1, check, to some extent).  I've worn flowery things.  I read The Language of Flowers.  I did ethnobotanical story telling.  I'm drinking from a flowering mug as I write.
I have not, however, learned how to take a good photograph of flowers in my kitchen with my camera (#10, fail so far).

 Here's three of the many bouquets I've photographed both with and without flash.  Flash- overexposed with weird colors.  No flash- too muted and with too "soft" of focus.  Suggestions for remedies or ways to improve my technique?

 

Cardoons: Macho, Tough and Flowery

Our first guest post of the season!

I am immensely grateful to Janet for giving me a great flower to think about in this season of frantic lab report grading and committee convening.  The piece below first appeared in the Denton, Texas newspaper and the photograph on Janet's facebook page.  Remember, you, too, can be a guest star on this blog.

 

The Best in Show this year for the Denton County Fruit, Flower, Vegetable and Herb Show was the cardoon. I could make up anything at this point and you’d believe me as to what a cardoon is, since not many people are familiar with it. Even after looking at the specimen, the officials weren’t sure if it belonged with vegetables or flowers at the show. The cardoon is kind of an ornamental artichoke, which can be eaten when it is young. Since it is typically cultivated as an ornamental for its thistle-like flower, it was ultimately placed in the flower category in which it won Grand Champion in the youth division (grown by Emma and Lauren Martin).

The cardoon in my backyard has been one of my favorite plants for a few years now. It is a perennial with large, silver foliage that grows most of the winter. It is a bit of a weird and wild plant, maybe even dangerous looking. I enjoy the drama of watching it grow larger all winter while nothing else is making much movement. It begins to spike in height late spring, often, it’s the tallest thing in my yard, just peeking over my six foot fence. And in June, I’m rewarded with flowers that are a gorgeous blue/purple (but very macho and tough!) After the blooms, the plant usually turns brown quickly and gets invaded by all kinds of insects. Chop it back and try not to dwell on it: people still have children and nobody’s a huge fan of changing diapers, right? The cardoon will come back from the roots later in the summer or fall and the performance begins anew.

Red and Yellow Please This Fellow

Yellow Sweet Clover, Kansas, June

I've read more than once about how yellow (particularly when combined with orange or red) is an unsophisticated garden flower choice.  The authors mentioning this go on to write about how much they like to fly in the face of this conventional wisdom and plant yellow flowers because yellow is delightfully, unabashedly cheerful.
Apparently, I'm joining this time-honored tradition of defending my vulgar taste without knowing who has ever criticized it.
I like yellow flowers.
They are delightfully, unabashedly cheerful.
Here are some, none from my garden, for your viewing pleasure.
Which reminds me, I need to quit reading information about floods in Colorado (oddly an instant tear trigger for me) and go outside and pick some sunflowers.
Stay safe.

Evening Primrose, Bryce Canyon, June

Different Species Evening Primrose, Bryce Canyon, June 

Columbine, Devil's Postpile, June

Mustard

Floral Guest Stars

It's that point in the year and semester when I am behind on everything.  True, this point lasts for most of the year, but the September point often seems the worst, as if it is somehow unexpected that the I'll need to start grading all of those labs that I assign, or that field work must be completed before the leaves fall off the trees or that physical therapy, "reading logs" and keeping plants alive in 100 degree heat take time.
The frazzle is bad enough that I missed a family member's birthday last week (and you know how much I am into birthdays) and didn't bake a cake even though I saw her two days before her birthday.  Sigh.  We still love you, oh missed-birthday family member!
But, somehow, maintaining some regular (once or twice a week) posting on this blog is important to me.  So, once, again, I am giving you the opportunity to be a guest star on the blog.
This year, being flower year, you can:
1) take a photo of a flower blooming near you and send it to me
2) write a paragraph (or more) about a flower that you like and/or evokes a memory for you
3) review a recipe from a cookbook
4) show me a picture of your flowery things
5) reveiw a book (any book)

Let me know what you come up with.
To kick things off, here is a photo from my mother of her Austrian Copper "Mother's Day Rose" that MB and I bought her for Mother's Day 15 or more years ago.
  It bloomed late this year.  Salvia, probably "May Night" is the purple.  I'm not going to spend any more time trying to turn it on this computer.

The Clafouti Trilogy: Part II That's MY Plate

Sitting down to a nice home-cooked dinner, we were directed to look at our plates.  I was impressed with the beautiful Portmerion Botanical Garden collection and was about to say something when he looked over at mine, "Bellis perennis.  The English Daisy.  That's MY plate."
I smiled back at him and nodded weakly, "Is that an anemone on yours?"
He then reached across the table, grabbed the plate in front of me, and repeated, "Bellis perennis is my plate," as he handed me the anemone.
Had he been four, I would have only been stunned that he knew the Latin names.  As he was past sixty, and I was his son's girlfriend eating in his house for the first time, I was stunned on all kinds of counts.
This happened in 1997 (meaning we are not talking about the Mister's Father).  Ever since that time, I can't eat off of flowery dishes without first checking to see if is is an English Daisy that I am not allowed to have.  Fortunately, my lasagna pan has clematis on it and my clafouti dish has gazania* so I am good to use them.  And yes, despite my avowal that I don't like limited purpose stuff that just clutters up the house and my avowal that I don't like floral stuff, I own a flowery clafouti dish, and I love it.
I was running around the kitchen assembling the ingredients for the clafouti, when I asked the Mister to look at the recipe and tell me what size of dish I needed (two quart, according to the Gourmet Cookbook).  He and I tried to figure out which of our pans fit that description (we're better with linear measurements than volumes) when I dashed to the display shelving, "Oh never mind, I just remembered we have a clafouti pan. I'll use it."
It was just this morning as I was looking for Knock-Off Portmerion Clafouti Pan Websites to which to link that I realized that my fabulous garage sale purchase could not be a clafouti pan because they don't exist. Flan: possibly.  Quiche: sure. Floral Clafouti pan: doesn't exist.  Except you have photographic evidence of the clafouti in mine. 
Tomorrow in the exciting conclusion: what is a clafouti and why my clafouti may not have been one.


*My dish gives the common name of Gazania as Treasure Flower, a name that I have never heard anyone in horticulture use.  All of the gardeners I know call them "gazania" but apparently that term is not widespread:
Middle-aged English Garden Visitor at garden in SW Scotland: what are those pretty flowers?
Me (inappropriately young, blonde and female): Gazania.
Him: Daisies?
Me: Gazania.
Him [loudly]: What is that name of those daisies?
Me: They are called gazania.
Him [loudly and slowly]: Where . . are . . you . . from?
Me: Colorado, in the States.
Him: Really? I thought is was someplace farther, like Denmark.
Me (baffled by distance part of remark): I'm from the U.S.  I have been working here for almost a year.
Him: How do you like England?
Me: Well, I've only been to England once, but I very much like it here in Scotland.
Him (not recognizing that Scotland is not part of England): Very good, then.

Him [flagging down an appropriately male and middle-aged gardener]: Excuse me, can you tell me the name of these flowers.
Scottish Gardener: Those would be gazania.
Him: Thank you.

Lacking a Bronze Clematis

The eighth anniversary is the bronze-pottery-lace-tanzanite-clematis anniversary.  Sure, you knew that.  You gave your spouse a bouquet of eight clematis vines in a tanzanite-encrusted bronze urn with a side of lace pottery and can't imagine why the Mister and I aren't doing the same.
As of today, we've been married for eight years and an alloy flower forever representing "clever" and "intellectual"* might be just the the thing we need.
I imagine it's not, but alas, as with the desk sets we didn't give each other last year (seven years, you recall, is the desk set anniversary), we'll never know if it was.
As an alternative, I planned to commemorate the day by posting images of our wedding flowers and explaining their meanings (a la Language of Flowers).
So, here goes: the mixed flowers in unmatched vases mean that I really wanted lots of flowers around, but was unwilling to pay a florist to take away my fun of arranging them.  The big bridal bouquet means that I know when to call a professional.  The chocolate tortes with roses and lemon tarts with lavender suggest we value flavor over tradition.

Pragmatic and into food and flowers.  I'm not sure if I'm interpreting that correctly. I'm probably supposed to see love, happiness, sunshine, honesty, and grace in that bouquet and I see pragmatism.  But then I was probably not supposed to be so lazy as to not actually look them up. . .

Happy Anniversary Mister.  I'm glad you married me.  I'm glad were pragmatic into food and flowers.  Thank you for bringing sunflowers and iris to our relationship, whatever good things they represent.  Don't wait up for the bronzed clematis.

*While the anniversary gift websites reveal that clematis represents clever intellectualism, the flower always reminds me of a pamphlet from high school sex ed, "Chlamydia is not a flower."

**Photographs were taken by Krista Cooley of Cooley Photography.  I can't find a current page to link to, but she was fantastic to work with and highly recommended.