Mossy Cottage Knits

Fleeting Beauty

You know you’re never going inspire your readers with images of ethereal beauty when your Photo of the Day is…

Behold—the orchid cactus after it has run the good race. As you can see, you have to get architecturally creative with the longer, strappier orchid cacti, hence the blue "flying buttress."

Interesting story about this cactus. When I first moved into my house, I noticed on the upstairs deck of a neighbor’s house a curiously huge plant, at least six or eight feet around, covered in bright coral-red flowers. I asked the homeowner about the plant, learned that it was a cactus orchid, and further learned that it was a cutting from a cutting from a cutting, etc., from an original plant owned by a long-deceased someone who had lived in the neighborhood decades ago. Apparently it had become a tradition in the neighborhood to give a cutting from the plant to new arrivals. Over time, I learned that the “tradition” was loosey-goosey and was never even really honored. I did, however, receive a cutting which, given my black thumb and the tinting on my windows which prevents any beneficial light from coming through for the plants, died after a few years, having never produced a single flower. TMK’s orchid cactus is, however, a cutting from my plant so, in a slightly altered version, the tradition lives on. And TMK being TMK, her plant is, of course, producing flowers. She’s a poo-poo head.

On the reading front, the (normal for the time, I’m sure) racism in Dr. Dolittle got to be just a wee bit too much for the no-longer-a-naive-five-year-old me so, after Chapter 5, I reluctantly said goodbye to old childhood friends Polynesia, Gub-Gub, Dab-Dab and the pushmi-pullyu.

I traded Dr. Dolittle for a little bit of unexpected reading kismet which had me discovering that I could spend from 11:30-12:00 in the lunchroom eating and reading chapters 27-29 of the hardcopy version of “The Awakening,” by Kate Chopin, which I had arbitrarily plucked from my home bookshelves, and 12:00-12:30 knitting and listening to chapters 30-33! Perhaps there’s an argument there in favor of letting Librivox determine what I read next. (Unfortunately, I believe Señor Smackylips is a contract employee and will only be with us temporarily. There goes my excuse for skulking in my office, listening to audio books.)

On the knitting front, I’ve had nothing on my needles for Dulaan ever since finishing my last sweater mid-April and the feelings of guilt were starting to creep up on me, so I started a “Molly Sweater” from the Morehouse Farm “Merino Knits”. The Molly is an easy, long, bulky, seed-stitch jacket. I’m knitting it in stripes in order to use up the dribs and drabs of colorful Avalanche Yarn that I still have lying around. (Literally. Grabbed one from the couch, one from the dining-room floor, one from a dining-room chair, one from the garage, one from the trunk of my car. Ah, the disorganized life of a knitter.)

So far, so good but, in real life, although the gold on top is a beautiful, rich, deep, autumn-squash color, it screams gratingly next to the terra cotta and pine green. I tink I need to tink.

Posted by Ryan at May 9, 2007 12:54 PM