With all the crappiness
surrounding us these days—mostly man-made—I was filled with joy and gratitude
to peek through the trees around the (man-made) ponds on the former corporate
HQ campus and current construction site of absolutely hideous townhouses
selling for $1.2M and discover my old friends the sacred lotus blooming.
Those ponds were completely
drained a couple of years ago, and I was so worried about the flora and fauna
that were part of their ecosystem. The snapping turtles were rescued and
relocated somewhere; I haven’t seen the blue herons. But the lotus gives me
hope.
Given the whole saga of the
Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool—the graft that keeps on grifting; the $15M "improvement" job that lasted less than a tenth of a Scaramucci before it began to sprout algae bloom—I think the
only possible earworm for today has to be “Bein’ Green”. And who
else to sing it but the OG, Kermit the Frog.
For years I’ve found the fruit
you get in the local supermarkets tasteless. With the exception of apples,
oranges, grapes and sometimes cherries, everything (especially stone fruit) has
the consistency of concrete chunks, the juice of a tax form and the taste of
cardboard.
This usually includes berries.
Occasionally you can find blueberries that don’t feel and taste like little
balls of paste. And since all strawberries now seem to come from Driscoll, they’re
gigantic, hard replicas of berries with no fragrance or taste.
So this summer I signed up for
a CSA from a farm in Pennsylvania. So far, I’ve had two deliveries, both of
which included strawberries. (The first one also had peaches, which frankly
were indistinguishable from what I could find at Wegman’s—if they don’t smell
like peaches, they won’t taste like peaches. The second had a clamshell of
cherry plums, which were mildly flavorful, but of course they journeyed from
South Carolina to Pennsylvania and then to the People’s Republic. The CSA farm
did notify customers that it’s been a rocky year for fruit and they’d be
supplementing their supplies with items from elsewhere.)
Those strawberries, though—they
were the absolute berries (if I may be so bold.) Small, intensely flavored,
richly crimson. They absolutely exploded with flavor. The first time in years I
haven’t had to sprinkle sugar on a bowl to entice any taste out of them.
See what I mean?
Just a tiny slurp of Cointreau to macerate these babies:
We had three gardenia bushes
in the house where I grew up in Southern California. We also had no air
conditioning, so on summer nights my bedroom windows were open. Even though I
was at the front of the house, I could still catch the scent of the gardenias.
It was heavenly.
About seven or eight years
ago, I bought a little gardenia shrub and planted it in a pot in my back yard.
It’s not an ideal situation for it—that area gets only scattered bouts of
direct sun seven months out of the year, due to all the trees around me. But
that little trouper has hung on, even though it took a bit of a hit during the
snowcrete days we had earlier this year.
Although it doesn’t give me
weeks of scented evenings, I’m still grateful for the flowers it produces for
me. Gardenias mean summer to me.
Juneteenth has been a federal
holiday since 2021; forward-thinking organizations began marking it in the wake
of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis cops. One, Derek Chauvin, shoved
his knee to Floyd’s throat for nearly 10 minutes, while his colleagues watched.
(Chauvin was subsequently
tried for the murder—after considerable shenanigans by the Minneapolis police
department and massive nationwide protests. He’s currently serving his sentence
of 22.5 years. Even SCOTUS denied his appeal. However, last week Minneapolis
Republicans observed a “moment of silence” for him at their state convention.
He could still get a pardon or commutation via pressure from the White House, just
as Colorado governor Jared Polis pardoned Tina Peters. Justice, man…)
If you’re unclear about
Juneteenth, it commemorates the day in 1865 when news arrived in Galveston with
Union troops that the end of the War Between the States meant emancipation for
slaves across the country. The Emancipation Proclamation, which the victory at
Antietam in September of 1862 made possible, outlawed slavery in all
territories then in rebellion against the United States. However, as you might
imagine, the Confederates basically said, “Yeah, and?” and got on with their
slaving business for another two years. Two months after the surrender of the
Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House, the “and” question was
answered in Texas.
We all know that we have yet
to fulfill the promise of emancipation; for that matter, we have yet to fulfill
the ideals of a more perfect union, equal justice, domestic tranquility,
general welfare and the blessings of liberty. But Juneteenth reminds us that,
even when we can’t see the full arc of the moral universe, we feel it in our
consciences and we are obligated to do our part to ensure that it bends toward
justice.
For that reason, Republicans
up and down the spectrum are grumbling and scuffing their toes in the dirt (as
they do on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day), pissed off at the reminder that they
actually lost that war and that the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments to the Constitution exist. (Even if SCOTUS can’t seem to find them.)
However, those of us with a
working conscience and a moral compass that isn’t permanently stuck on
terror-fueled racism can take a few moments today to consider how emancipation
enriches everyone, because humanity is not actually a zero-sum game.
In honor of Juneteenth, here’s
musical prodigy Jon Batiste performing “Freedom”. Both your eyes as well as your ears are in for a treat.
I have to say that I don’t normally pay any attention to
the notifications I get from Paris Baguette. I just scan the app to accumulate
points whenever I go in for a latte and then redeem the points when they are
enough to get something free.
But this one kind of surprised me a couple of weeks ago:
Yes, I suppose that some percentage of people might not be
celebrating Father’s Day, for any number of reasons. So, okay.
But I don’t recall a similar notification for Mother’s Day
last month, when I’d imagine there are at least as many people who ditto.
On one of my recent walks on the W&OD Trail, I noticed
a woman spreading what looked like seed from a pouch she was carrying onto the
base of an electricity pole.
I asked, “Are you feeding the birds?”
She said she always carries food for them and went on her
way.
Well, when I saw it was raw rice, I was a little dubious.
But it turns out that birds can indeed digest uncooked rice, so some of our
feathered friends got quite the feast.
I actually had a couple of other contenders for my Gratitude
Monday post yesterday. One was the African elephant that Texas GOPs trotted
out over the weekend for some convention they were holding.
The elephant peed on the venue floor. And—let me say this—evidently
elephants have capacious bladders.
