The light was almost horizontal this morning so our normally overshadowed crepe myrtle shone in the light.
Botanica Shadows
I was in Wichita, Kansas recently attending an energy industry convention. While there I took a little time out to visit Botanica, Wichita’s wonderful little known gem of a botanical garden.
I have to tell you I’m not much of a flower person. I mean I love them but I don’t know one from another. I love gardens. To me gardens are much more than flowers. Flowers are very important of course but so is how they are planted in relation to the other plants and settings.
How the garden makes use of shadow and light is just as important as any other component. The key is how it all fits in. People go to gardens for the total experience, not to just look at plants. You can go to nursery to do that.
Gardens engage all our senses, sight, hearing, touch, feeling, smell. There is something ancient and comforting about being in a garden. I think the being is important. You should go to a garden and just “be.”
Of course, so that you can just “be,” somebody else had to work their butt off.
I also posted about Botanica last year.
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
My friend Bill over at Tulsa Gentleman suggested this book, “The Historian” by Elizabeth Kostova. I saw it at a used book store and snatched it up, cheap. And what a find it was. I love this book. It is a multi-generational story set in eastern Europe. It’s got old old libraries and monasteries and crypts and all sorts of stuff. But mainly this book is about the hunt for a vampire. Not just any vampire but the granddaddy of all vampires.
Vlad the Impaler, a very mean dude, an actual historical character who killed tens of thousands of people. His favorite method, impaling a person on a pole and planting the pole in the ground. The Christian Church loved him though because he was good at fighting off the Muslims who were encroaching in Europe.
Anyway he turned himself into a vampire. An old school vampire right out of Bram Stoker‘s novel. Chasing him are a band of intrepid, shabby, scholars of medieval history who are trying to trace his whereabouts in the 20th century by searching for and examining documents and books more than a thousand years old. During their search they find romance and intrigue in the countryside.
I give the book four stars out of five. It is a great read. I took it on vacation and read it on the beach. Elizabeth Kostova is quite a story teller. I’ll be reading more of her.
Rain Coming
Reddy Kilowatt
Remember this guy? I found him at Sooner Lake in northern Oklahoma on my way to Kansas. Sooner Lake is a power plant lake for Oklahoma Gas & Electric’s coal fired power plant. He looks a little different though with the clothes and a badge. He still has the light bulb nose, electric plug ears, and those strange shoes. Here is the original Reddy Kilowatt.
(from Parkin Electric)
See here in God fearing Oklahoma we don’t even let our trademarks run around naked. I mean who knows what passions would be ignited with all those red lightning bolts flashing all over the place. According to Reddy Kilowatt Wikipedia article Reddy Kilowatt was started by the Alabama Power Company in 1926 and was eventually licensed to hundreds of other companies until the Arab Oil Embargo when conservation suddenly became important.
I think that it is cool that this remnant of a once widespread logo is still working.
Meet my New Friends
(No, that’s not my new friend, that’s me before Sweetie kissed me the first time. She’s told me more than once she sure didn’t know what she was getting herself into. Look at Sweeties fingernails!!)
My regular readers know that I like to go geocaching. I like to to go a lot.
My favorites are out away from people. It’s kind of a solitary hobby. I mean not many people like to while away the hours out in the woods or in cemeteries pondering life, and looking for tupperware.
But, Monday I spent a few hours in Wichita, Kansas’ Pawnee Prairie Park. I am in Wichita on business infrequently and when I have some free time I check out the Park. Monday, I had all sorts of help geocaching.
They kept their distance, but they were not too afraid of me.
Occasionally they would run off but most of the time they just kept an eye on me.
Talk about ears, they could hear the camera lens opening and extending a long ways away.
Often there was a mom with her fawns.
This last little guy was by himself. I don’t think he knew what to do. He never did try to hide or run or anything so I gave him lots of room. I don’t think he was more than three feet tall.
Yep, I made lots of friends at Pawnee Prairie Creek Park.
Have you made a good friend lately.?
Snap, Crackle, Pop
I really love exploring cities and towns including where Tulsa where I live.
Earlier this week I went to Rose Hill Cemetery here in Tulsa to look for a geocache and found the above monument. Dedicated to the “Veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic.” The Grand Army of the Republic was basically the Union Army during the Civil War. Well that’s good, there are lots of memorials to the veterans of that war, both Union and Confederate. This one was a little different though.
This was dedicated in 2008, 143 years after the war ended. (It ended as far as the Union is concerned. Many of my friends who live in the South, are still fighting the “War of Northern Aggression.” But I’m getting off track.)
So my interest was piqued. “Who would spend the money, time, and energy on such a project.” I mean, it is a really nice memorial, about nine foot tall and made out of granite and landscaped.
So I turn to my best friend Google and find out that it was three organizations. The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, The Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War, and the Daughters of the American Revolution. They got together, raised some money and got a monument built in a far forgotten corner of an old cemetery. I think that’s cool. I think remembering is important.
It turns out that of the 35,000 people interred at Rose Hill Cemetery there are about 35 Union Army veterans. It reminds me of one of my favorite Bible stories: The Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel. The passage is:
“So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone.I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.”
(Ezekiel 37: 7-8 NIV)
I loved that passage as a kid and still do. I could see a whole valley of dry bones as they came together. Legs and arms popping into place, the skeletons rattling as they stand up and look around for their missing parts. And then the ligaments appearing then the skin. Somebody ought to make a movie.
Check out my friend Baloney for more pairing of text with images.
Oh, yes I almost forgot, yes I did find the geocache.
Baseball and Fireworks
Friday night the Yogi’s went to see the Tulsa Drillers play at ONEOK Field.
What we didn’t count on was hot hot it was. My car thermometer said 109F when parked at the stadium. I don’t think the official temperature was that high, but it was hot. There was no breeze either. This is Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping through the plains darn it.
Even the umps were hot.
The opposing pitcher spotted me eating ice cream. I thought he was going to come up in the stands and take it. He’d of had a fight on his hands.
We smiled in the heat, and perspired. Sweetie perspired, SuperPizzaBoy and I sweated.
Keep him fueled on pizza and ice cream and SPB is ready to go.
Seventh inning stretch so we sang “Take me out to the Ball Game” and of course “Oklahoma.” If you live here you better learn that song. As far as I’m concerned, its the best State Song in the whole country.
And then we had a Fireworks Show!! The Drillers often do that on Friday nights.
Have you been to a baseball game lately?
The Dogs of Rome: A Commissario Alec Blume Novel by Conor Fitzgerald
I found a new fictional private detective, Alec Blume, of the Rome Police. He was born an American to two academics who moved to Rome temporarily when he was just a kid. While there his parents were brutally murdered. He doesn’t really have any family or friends in the States that will take him so ends up staying in Rome making his own way and eventually becomes a police inspector. Very interesting. The Dogs of Rome by Conor Fitzgerald is the first in a new series of books to feature Alec Blume.
The book starts with the very grisly, amateurish, murder of the husband of a prominent Italian politician. Alec Blume is called to lead the investigation and immediately runs into roadblocks put up by the upper management of the police. The result is a very gritty fast paced novel. It of course involves the Italian police and judicial system which is fascinatingly different from what we have in the US.
I found the novel fascinating. I read most of it on the beach on vacation on my Kindle. I rate it four stars out of five overall, five stars out of five for a beach read.
Meet the Mooses and other Family
My beautiful, smart, witty, and pretty newlywed youngest niece, Jillian has started a blog. Please click on over to Meet the Mooses and say Hi! Her mother, my sister, has had a blog for some time. If you haven’t already please check out News From the “Pole” Yard. I have another niece, the eldest Dana with a blog Dana of Oz., where she posts, sometimes, about her life in Australia.
So we’re just all over the blogosphere. Thanks again to Al Gore for inventing the internet and making this all possible.