All Hallows' Eve Eve

It's All Hallows' Eve Eve and we are prepared despite anything that Mother Nature may have thrown at us. Here is a trick-or-treater in a costume that she made. Does it make you want to get a cup o' joe and a glazed special?

On the Side

One does not find a lot of blue objects in nature. Here is no exception, since the reflector is plastic! Makes for an interesting composition though....

Pine needles in October make for lovely rustling while walking through them....

 Could this be the last rose of summer? The Modern Suburbanite took time to smell it and it was sweetly fragranced.

Berries by the Road

 The Modern Suburbanite has brought you lovely images of early Autumn squashes at the ecoganic market (Gourds o' Plenty) . Now with the onset of Arctic air, the ModSub shares photographs of tempting, glossy berries on the roadside of one of her fave walks. Question: since when does the authoress refer to herself in the third person a la Bob Dole? Blame it on low pressure system of Sandy....

Berries Site 2

Berries Site 3

Methinks this is Nandina. Confirmation? This blog is taking on botanical inclinations.

Goblins Galore!

Frankenstorm on the way? Instead of filling up the bathtubs with H2O, let's blog instead :)!

So we are having a record-setting series of bake sales at the ballet school to raise scholarship monies. Above and below are fine creative examples from our amateur bakers. Many thanks and kudos!

Boo! Fast approaching All Hallows' Eve round these parts. These cupcake chefs d'oeuvres were produced by some talented sisters for a local bake sale. I get a chuckle particularly with the light blue Dracula face; he looks like he's been up all night being ghoulish.

Masterfully done!

Musingly,

The Modern Suburbanite

Hummingbird View

Good afternoon, Fair Reader. 

This plant seems to be in four states of bloom concurrently: round bud, large petal bud, opening bud to reveal yellow center, and full flower.

"That's nice, ModSub", you may say; "But why bother me with it?" Well, skeptical one, the entire cluster as shown is about three inches wide. Do you know how tiny these stamen and pistils are? T-I-N-Y. And, proudly she beams, I caught it on "filmless" film even with a breeze blowing. Happy day, indeed...

This photograph's color scheme goes well with previous post,  Spice of Life .

Musingly,

The Modern Suburbanite

Spice of Life

New day, new musings...

So I went to lunch with my mom (of meatball fame-- Old Smokey ) at our local Korean restaurant. As is traditional, the pan-chan arrived directly after ordering. Pretty elegant kim-chi, I must say. While we were there, my mom informed me that the South Korean Defense Minister was there for lunch; US military guard there. Too much brass.

Ever notice the spiciness of the marigold, especially when it is about to go to seed? As a child, I remember pulling out the spiky, black and silver-tipped seeds and setting them into the wind to grow wherever they would land. These blooms wear the colors of the Redskins, which is a propos in this town.

Finally, a view from the busstop this morning of a tree ready to go out in a blaze of glory. We will have to keep the faith through the long winter that the foliage greening will be perennnial.

Muse on,

The Modern Suburbanite

First Thoughts First

"If the Angel deigns to come it will because you have convinced her, not by tears but by your humble resolve to be always beginning; to be a beginner."

-Rainer Maria Rilke

http://linguaspectrum.com/quotations/by_author_english.php?quoteoftheday_author=Rainer%20Maria%20Rilke

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

http://www.entheos.com/quotes/by_topic/Goethe

Blooming Identity

“Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.” 

― Rainer Maria Rilke

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/7906.Rainer_Maria_Rilke

I wonder what is this type of flower (above)? Anyone care to enlighten me? The leaves to the left seem to be nasturtium. The bloom may be in the chrysanthemum family; the leaves are different from its neighbor.

This large, single bloom is an organic rose given from grandmother to her granddaughter. Thank you!

Just digging the dusky color and little detailed plant in the lower left-hand corner of photograph (above). These appear to be geraniums.

Le Burger

What do you think of this perfect hamburger? I just ate it for lunch; and now I've just become part of the generation that digitizes and transmits into the "cloud" that which it just ate. Vegetarians may move on to a different post.

I feel a bit like the protagonist of a Japanese tea ceremony; in a likewise pursuit of lunchtime perfection I have carefully constructed my hamburger. This burger has the finest grain-fed, cruelty free beef that a certain organic market can provide, a disk of ripe red tomato, and a melting corner of Colby-Jack cheese. The only thing not visible to the Fair Reader is the Maille mustard on toasted potato slider bun.

So the mustard puts me in mind of the great chefs, Jacques Pepin and Julia Child (I know it is cliche of me to blog on the late great Mme. Child; but it's hard to avoid iconic figures.) I remember watching an episode of Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home ( Julia and Jacques Cook Beef ; around 16 minute mark) where they make les hambugers with and without relish (literal and figurative). Wryly, Julia asks Jacques, "Are you going to toast our buns?"; the unflappable M. Pepin just keeps on preparing the meal. Vintage hilarity... I learned that Julia prefers not to form her patty by making a ball and then pressing flat. She just loosely pats a messy disk together for the cast iron skillet. Jacques on the other hand creates a more tightly packed patty and cooks it on the grill.

Of course, Julia slathers BUTTER on her toasted bun. Classic.

Darn, I'm hungry again....


The Modern Suburbanite

Seeds of Innovation

Good morning, gentle reader. Although this photograph was taken in Northwest DC, the setting transports me to my time in the Pacific Northwest, namely in Seattle. Seattle-- where the coffee is strong and the rain, imminent. There is an Asian sensibility to this composition-- perhaps it is the brown lattice screen. 

Lamb's Ear in McLean

Seattle, being the only subtropical rain forest in the United States, has a marked advantage for gardeners. We had a (tiny) lawn that mimicked a putting green quite well; during our stay in Seattle I, even I, was able to grow Lamb's Ear and the notoriously uncooperative rose.

Last roses of Summer in DC

I read an article in this week's Washington Post ( Feeling Bookish ) on the book culture in Emerald City:

"Books are a great technology," says Erin Belieu, poet and artistic director of the Port Townsend Writers Conference up on the Olympic Peninsula. "They have a warmth that's both metaphysical and actual: Who has an image of herself curling up with a Kindle on a rainy day?"

Is it terribly sacrilegious to say that I can imagine and have done just that with my "Kindle on a rainy day"? Will we one day, as technology marches ever-forward, bemoan the absence of the feel of the smooth glass beneath our fingertips as we swipe to the next page on our reading devices? Will the common complaint be that "I find the holographic images (of Twelfth Night enacted by 3 inch, 3D "actors" a la R2-D2 in Star Wars) to be so cold and soulless"? Post-Gutenberg, did the masses protest across Western Europe that they missed the warmth of oral tradition and the opaqueness of Latin rites?

Perhaps I'm suggesting adapting early and adapting often.

Musingly,

The Modern Suburbanite

Charitable Textiles

In case you are paying strict attention to this blog's details, Fair Reader, you will have been awaiting the explanation of the phrase, "explorations in the textile...arts" found in the Artist's note.

Almost two years ago, whilst in the midst of a knitting and crocheting frenzy, I produced these utterly soft, utterly tiny newborn caps. I sent them, as instructed, to Caps for Good (look at those thousands of caps in the warehouse!), where I am hoping they were sent from New York to African and Asian nations. Mothers of newborns receive education on newborn care and welfare; the caps are there to provide warmth for the infant.

Small caps for small heads; but I like to imagine that it made a small difference somewhere.

Leaves of Grass

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is, any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer, designedly dropt,

Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say, 

Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

A touch of poetry from the American master on this Columbus Day.

A reader in her comment below refers to this sermon by The Rev. Andrea Martin, The Way to the Kingdom. There is "teeming life" in the the tadpoles and in the grass blades. ( Auden and Lydia ).

I sat quietly on the "inviting boulder" ( Driving Miss Sunshine ) and this is what I saw. The stream did babble and the children did exclaim the wonders of creation.

Cactus Christmas

Previous post on Fall Harvest; this post on southwestern Christmas succulents. There was something about this composition of bromeliad and cactus and jalapeno shaped lights that called out to me. Perhaps, like most of my favorite photographs, the subject evokes childhood memories (Click here for: Old Smokey ). Case in point, my parents like to grow these two species. My mom managed to grow a cactus at least seven feet tall over several decades. Even when we moved cross-town in the bi-centennial year, the cactus came with us. It was rigged to their deck by twine to keep it vertical. I will have to re-check its status next time convenient. 

The bromeliad reminds me of visits to my dad's office where my brothers and I enjoyed leaving cryptic messages on his blackboard (or was it a whiteboard?). We also enjoyed spinning round and round in my dad's executive chair, making it increase and decrease in height with the dizzying revolutions. I wonder if it ever fell apart on Monday morning, as my dad returned to the workaday work world? My dad grew bromeliads in terra-cotta pots on his window ledge just beneath the off-white, oft-dusty venetian blinds; we also enjoyed "adjusting" these blinds, usually with off-kilter results (sorry, dad!). After months of benign neglect, the pots would return home for some plant doctoring by the true green thumb of the family, my mom. She has a talent for resurrecting blooms from twigs. Their perennial orchid odyssey is a subject for another photo-study and Modern Suburbanite musing...

Here is a simple composition of acid Christmas colors. Notice, fair reader, the round leaves with not eight, but nine segments. Digging that asymmetry.

Musingly,

The ModSub

PS-- Here's a shot of the famed 7+ foot cactus sans life-support:

Gourds o' Plenty

It's my favorite time of the year and that can mean only one thing-- the emergence of gourds of all types at the farmers' market. These were found at the Potomac Vegetable Farms on Leesburg Pike. It is their 50th year of "ecoganic" farming. Ecoganic, a neologism combining ecological and organic. 

Here's there site for your consideration: Potomac Vegetable Farms

Larger-than-life Apple-shaped gourd that sits on our front step with traditional orange pumpkin for All Hallows' Eve.

Must be sure to re-consider my very first post as The Modern Suburbanite: Pastels with Pits . Click it and re-live the magic all over again :)!