Random

Life is good here.  Summer means long evenings on the back porch, meals made of whatever can be concocted from what's in the refrigerator, and a general laziness that suits my nature.  Projects get postponed until winter when we will have to be stuck in the house (at which point they get postponed again because wouldn't summer be a much better time to do all this work?)

Last week was wonderful, and dreadful.  The Supreme Court decisions confirmed that in the end, it will all be fine.  But the horrible shooting in the Charleston church and now re-fighting the Civil War is so depressing.  As are the comments about heritage of the Confederate flag and the 1-man, 1-woman comments about gay marriage from some of my friends.  I keep breathing deep and reminding myself that they are far more likely to to change their minds if I lead them by example than if I scold them.  Lots of deep breathing involved.

My daughter and her partner have started a new adventure in Cleveland where they have both landed spectacular jobs!  My daughter is a research scientist at Cleveland Clinic and the Learner College of Medicine, and her partner is with the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine.  At least when we are old and sick we will have good resources for medical care!  They found a perfect apartment (although it is so small they had to carefully read the Mari Kondo book on the Magic of Tidying Up!) and it is in a neighborhood they are beginning to love.  Walk to coffee, walk to restaurants and bars, a beautiful city park at the the end of the street, and 2 miles from work!   They are finally settling in for the long term as these are "real" jobs and they are planning to make Cleveland their home.

Son and dear girlfriend are on a good path.  She is still looking for a permanent job but he now has a job that can support both of them until she finds a job in her field.  He travels all the time for work - they told him it would be a least 50% travel and this first year he anticipates more like 80% - and then has regattas every weekend.  Lovely girlfriend is also traveling with her current job so they only occasionally find that they are both at home at the same time.  They are in tune with one another, and both grew up in households where you learned to be independent so this works for them.

I'm looking forward to a couple of weeks at the beach and then 3+ weeks in Spain.  I can tell my father is a bit concerned about my schedule as he keeps asking me when I am leaving and how long I'll be gone.  He has a perfectly good memory so I think it is his way of expressing concern that I'm going to be gone "too long".  He will be fine while I'm gone as he has his girlfriend and his activities to keep him busy, and he'll be on vacation one of the weeks I'm in Spain.  He will not, however, have someone available to fix the TV remote when he screws it up so that is probably his biggest worry.

My flowers in the front of the house look like crap.  I plant stuff and then half of it dies, then I try to fill in with things and half of them die.  Add to that the fact that I have no good idea of what to plant and the heights listed on the plant tags and how tall they actually get are apparently totally unrelated measurements.  Two plants, both said 12-18 inches tall on the tag, one plant is now at least 3 feet tall and the other one is about 6-8 inches tall.  I'm giving into the randomness finally and if you stand on the sidewalk in front of the house and squint it looks ok,   And if you happen to know what kind of flower this is, please let me know.

Help!  What kind of flower is this?  (and please excuse the bird shit on the wall.)