Not much to say; this and that

It’s hot.

I am working on trying to propagate “Grandma’s Rose”.  When we went back to Arkansas for the last time, to get the remainder of Mother and Dad’s stuff, at the last second I went out in the back and dug up “Grandma’s Rose”; supposedly our great-great grandmother had the “original” (no telling where she got it) rose.  Mother had “liberated” it from a relative, and had it for like 30 years.  I dug it up and brought it to Houston, where it’s graced the front of my house and favoured me with blooms (I cut some of the best ones and some of my camellias and took them to Mom, don’t know whether she enjoyed them or not but Dad did).

In any event, this big cane got too top-heavy with blooms and leaves and just fell off.  I have cut it into 6” sections, now to plant them and see if I can root them.  I’d like to have more than one of this bush in case anything happens to the main plant.

Otherwise, all I’ve done this last week is go to work and come home, trying to stay out of the heat.  The heat is insane, it works on your brane (see?). 

>o<

Enjoyed a quick internet wallow on the subject of “Mid-Century Modern”, one of my favourite things.  There are several notable mcm houses here in Houston; I wish I had one of them.  Really I don’t, because they’re usually terrible to maintain, terrible to heat and a/c, etc.  But, I sure love the way they look.  Makes you want to break into a chorus of “Meet George Jetson…”.

Here’s a slideshow on Flickr that I really liked; I’ll start it on one of my favourites.  Go “right” through the pics.  Of course, any style is great if you can afford some of the finest examples; if you have to have a 1500 square foot “mass produced” version, it’s not going to be great no matter how you slice it.  I still would love to live in one of these wonderful houses.  Link here.  Look at Braeswood, and 319 Westminster.  Those who know me might be surprised to know this is my very favourite architectural style.  I’d gladly abandon all my knicknacks for something like these.

>o<

Eggs Benedict are just one of my favourite things.  Don’t have them very often, too much work vs.. fried/scrambled, but yesterday I got all energetic (for me) and whipped them up from scratch.  Did it again today to use up all the ingredients (the English muffins are not on my diet).  I’ve used the same old recipe forever for Hollandaise; I’m sure there are better out there but I like this one just fine.  It’s from my 1951 edition of The Joy of Cooking.   Still great after all these years.

>o<

Trifecta on our generation this weekend. I’m second cohort of the Baby Boomers; the first group graduated in the 60’s and had their classics.  We had fewer “classics”, but there were several that were all ours, and we lost two of them in two days; the trifecta came in with the loss of another of our parents’ icons---they’re just going away fast.

I was never Michael Jackson’s biggest fan, but you’d have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to recognize his incredible talent.  I know he had issues (!) later in life, but somehow I don’t think of that now; I’m just remembering “Thriller”.  He was the music icon of our generation.

I had the poster of Farrah Fawcett on my dorm room wall.  It’s supposed to be one of the biggest-selling pinups of all time; I can tell you this much:  there were 600 guys at Penland Hall in the fall of 1975, and each one of us had at least one copy, if not several.  She was one of the sex symbols of our generation (the other was Chris Evert).  You other generations can sneer all you want, but you’ve got yours.  She was ours.  I still think she was gorgeous. 

Ed McMahon was everybody’s favourite sidekick.  We grew up watching him on the Tonight Show (sneaking around to watch it on a 13” black and white Sony with rabbit ears, because I was supposed to be in bed.  I was really proud of that Sony; I bought it myself at a garage sale and the parents had a debate amongst themselves about whether I should be allowed to keep it; they decided it was my funeral if I couldn’t get up to go to school).  Anyway, the GI generation is fading fast.  Sigh.

Between these three deaths and the carrying on in Iran and Korea---and the heat---what an exhausting week.