There is construction going on at Casa de Harper!
Harper’s Other Dad is trying to grow tomatoes….. again. It was something he enjoyed when we lived in the Midwest but he has been unsuccessful since moving here. It is just too hot. Still, hope springs eternal so he grew three plants in pots and has now transplanted them to the garden.
In an effort to help him and them, last week I built a sun screen over the garden. The fabric manufacturer promises that the temperature below the screen will be as much as 15 degrees cooler. It also seems to keep the ground from drying out so rapidly. Maybe we can get by with only having to water them 2-3 times each day.
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Even more impressive is the tenacious bird determined to nest in a cactus on the patio. The location is very inconvenient. It will be neat to see them hatch and grow but my anticipation of the mess is less than eager. Also, I am not sure how neighborly Mama Bird will be once there are chicks in residence. The nest is about shoulder level and within 5 feet of all the outdoor seating.
When I first noticed the beginnings of construction, I verified the nest was still empty and removed the building materials to a more convenient spot. My hope was she would either build her nest in the new location farther from the patio or, at least, realize her first choice was too near people and find somewhere else. No such luck! After a couple of rounds of avian construction followed by human demolition I started to feel badly about making the poor bird begin construction over & over again. She seems committed to that spot. I guess all we can do it try to be good neighbors. Maybe I’ll name them.
There is a local theater company in Harper’s Valley called Nearly Naked Theatre. They have very limited budgets and perform in a small black-box space adjacent to the Phoenix Art Museum. I am a fan.
I just finished reading Inferno, the most recent novel by Dan Brown. Even though I liked it the least of the four Brown novels I’ve read, I freely admit that it is a ‘page turner’. In my case, cover-to-cover, 460 pages. in about 48 hours
In Fight Club her hair was black and tangled. The eyes were an homage to Rocky Racoon and the dress was tattered and black.
Sweeney Todd continued the theme in makeup but the hair is clearly longer. Most significantly, the tattered black dress was accessorized with tattered black gloves.
By the time Bellatrix Lestrange appeared on-screen in the Harry Potter films, the look was clearly developing. The tangled hair is even longer and now, with proper lighting, looks only half black. The makeup was more subtle; more of a glamorous, really well-dressed, racoon. The dress is still black tatters but she’s gone to long sleeves and lost the gloves. I don’t know why I thought this look was so similar to the previous iterations. And yet it seems somehow familiar….
At 7:58 we’re in our seats, the orchestra are in their seats, and I am in the process of turning off my iPhone, which was happily already on silent, when I receive an incoming call. I step outside the Hall as the lights are going down to hear; “This is operator #72 at Blah Blah Security. An alarm was activated at your home by the family room motion detector. Since no one was at home when called we have dispatched the police”. Having recently had a burglary at Casa de Harper, I was probably more concerned than I might otherwise have been but I remained calm. I went back into the Hall and stood in the back until the first piece ended. During the applause, I grabbed Harper’s Other Dad and we were off. I guess after two failed attempts we were not destined to hear Prokofiev this season.
I unlock the door and walk into the house followed closely by the two uniformed officers and Harper’s Other Dad. Hearing our voices, in bounds the Harper Girl; all smiles and tail wags. Apparently Harper decided to go wandering around the house in our absence and set off the motion detector. Either that, or she invited some of her cronies from the Dog Park over to party while the folks are away and they all bailed when they heard the cops had been called. (I just know some of those bitches have records!). I can’t prove it. Even the cops couldn’t get anything out of Harper. She’s saying nothing.
In the end all was well. Casa de Harper and all within are safe and sound. I apologized to the officers for the inconvenience and 
We have a service agreement with a local company that does plumbing, heating & air conditioning work here in Harper’s Valley. They come out once a year and do a plumbing inspection and tell us what needs attention or might help us conserve. They come twice a year, December & May, for heating & cooling system inspections. Through some fluke of the calendar, both the plumbing and A/C inspections happened Thursday. Don’t believe what gay porn movies might suggest. Spending 3 hours with a plumber followed by 4 hours with an A/C technician is not all fun & games.
It has been a very dusty spring in Harper’s Valley so, while cleaning the kitchen, I washed off the rubber ducks that live on the kitchen counter-top. There is something not-quite-right about having to wash a bath tub toy. Also, I never understand why the Hooters duck always floats its way to the top. I have a theory but it is kind of an ‘etch-a-sketch’ mental picture so I shake my head to make it disappear.
At Starbucks this morning, I overheard parts of the conversation at a nearby table of “Friends of Dave”. FoD is the term Harper’s Other Dad coined to describe cranky senior citizens for whom I seem to be a magnet. I could only hear bits & pieces but the highlight was the comment; “Orthodox!? How many kinds of Jews they got?” In fairness, the context seemed to be more a lack of cultural awareness than anti-Semitism. Interestingly, as I was leaving, I noticed the man who made the comment was wearing a t-shirt that said; “Friction – It’s a Drag”. I’m betting that was a gift from a grandchild.
We saw The Great Gatsby last weekend. It is obvious from the first frame that it is a Baz Luhrmann film so if you liked Moulin Rouge you will probably love the visuals. If you did not like Moulin Rouge you may want to consider Dramamine before seeing Gatsby. Overall, I liked Gatsby. Toby Maguire still looks too young to play Nick but the movie feels true to the book as I remember it. I found the unabridged audio-book in the computer. I’ll listen to it to see if I notice anything glaringly different.
We saw Iron Man III this week. I think it is all one could hope it to be. The visuals are amazing and the suspense level remains pretty high throughout. My only critique is that it has what is referred to in Casa de Harper as a “P.S” ending. A PS ending is when the performance is about to end and there are elements of the story line still unresolved so they just add a few lines or frames to tie up all the loose threads. I don’t think I need a spoiler alert to say there is a lot of that in the last few minutes of IMIII.
I noticed a sign in my supermarket today. The sign over aisle #15 says that is where one finds the “Juice Aseptic” The sign has probably always been there but I never noticed it before. Is the ‘Juice Septic” in a different aisle? I don’t think I would buy a Juice that was described as ‘Septic’. The dictionary tells me that a synonym is ‘putrefactive’. I think that sounds better. “Juice Putrefactive”; I’d buy that.
Spo of
Yesterday was the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. The decision outlawed racial discrimination in public education. The ruling overturned the 1896 SCOTUS decision in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson which had allowed discrimination as long as all groups were treated equally. The Plessy decision had established the so-called “Separate but Equal” standard and had been the law of the land for almost 60 years. The Brown decision was not universally popular but its anniversary is one we, as Americans, can be proud to celebrate.
I am reminded of the Brown decision often these days, when I hear someone making a case for domestic partnership as an alternative to marriage equality, I usually bite my tongue but the thought bubble invariably says’ “Yes, because that whole separate-but-equal thing worked out so well for us last time”. Americans need to do a better job of remembering history.
Today is the birthday of English writer Dorothy Richardson (1873 – 1957). Happy Birthday D.R. I’ll admit I’d never heard of her before a few hours ago but my BFF du jour, 
I don’t visit the Public Library very often. There is a branch a couple of miles from our home but every time I’ve gone there to browse I have found the selection of books more and more limited. Increasingly, their space is dedicated to terminals where people can access the internet. I have learned, however that their website if quite user-friendly. I find the book or film I want and, if a copy is available anywhere in their branch network, I can put it on ‘hold’ and have it sent to the nearby branch. I pick it up at the Holds Desk. I don’t even have to find it on the shelf. I do, unfortunately, still have to walk past the ominous ‘beware of snakes’ sign. Happily, access is by a metal bridge a few feet off the ground so I just walk fast and think of something else.
My mother and I were not particularly close. As a child there were a variety of reasons for that; lots of baggage. As an adult, however, it was more my doing than hers.
Shannon was born in southern Illinois, about an hour north of the Ohio River which forms the border with Kentucky. The men in her family had worked for the railroads before settling in southern Illinois and northern Kentucky. Thereafter they were coal miners. The women were all wives and mothers. She grew up in a home that did not see much love and she hoped to make her family experience better. I think she tried her best. Results were mixed.
Shannon was single most of my life. She dated periodically but never for long nor very seriously. Years later she reconnected with a man she’d known in her youth. He was a classmate of her older brother’s. He had been interested in her but she was 19 then, he almost 30. She thought he was too old. He’d proposed when she divorced but she’d rejected him because she didn’t think he would have been a good step-father. He never married. After she retired and moved back down south they reconnected and, perhaps having just run out of excuses, she married him. She was 69, he, still 10 yrs older. I find that wonderfully romantic. They’d been married for 5 years when she died. He passed away a year later.
Harper's Valley 