August: A Perfect Summer Continues

Garden

The weather has been stunningly beautiful this year.  We're having less rain going into August so I will need to begin watering the outer yard to keep the trees and shrubs and grass happy.

My lilacs along the north facing roadway are suffering from having snow mounds dumped on them over the last few winters.  I'm going to try to prune them to a happier state and see if they respond.

Without question it is the weight of the snow because five other lilacs in from the property line are vigorous.

My annuals in pots are still happy and gorgeous as long as I water them daily.  In this heat, if I miss a day, they droop and wilt and look tragic.

My very old bench which has at least one rotted leg but which when propped against the fence somehow held many pots was finally undermined and undone by beagle digging.  I wouldn't have minded at all if he just went under there to keep cool, but no, he had to dig one of his trenches.

Desperate to have a plant holder in that prime sunny spot, I dragged out an old headboard from the garage and it is serving well enough.  I may spray paint it and use it again next season.  I'll need to take the back off for air circulation.

My sisters came over one day and re-did the border of this bed. They're younger and can tote bricks and patio blocks as if they're marshmallows!

Small Garden Before

Small Garden After

I may remove one layer of bricks, but this garden is retaining moisture much better with this frame.

My knees are demoniacal, and were so bad at the beginning of July that I feared I may not to able to walk at all anymore.  Warm packs, Bufferin, Advil, Tylenol in rotation and treating my legs as if they are made of glass resulted in a much better start to this month.  I was even able (gasp) to get down on the ground and reach in to weed this bed which I had been trying to get at for most of a month, but I just couldn't reach the center from my garden tractor.

 Random garden photos, proceed with caution.

Books

After years of customers highly recommending the Agent Pendergast series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, one of those Amazon $1.99 deals caused me to purchase Relic, the first in the series.  It is one of those things, I think, where I was just in the mood for something adventurous and mysterious.  I loved the book immediately this time around.

As soon as I finished it, plink! I snared Reliquary, book two, which takes place in the world underneath the city of New York.

These are set in New York City, and the stories revolve around the Museum of Natural History.  The Museum is a character in and of itself, with its miles of tunnels and rooms filled with collections of so many amazing things they couldn't possibly ever be displayed.  The personalities of those who work in the museum or are associatedwhich  with it are so vivid.

Agent Pendergast is sort of a visiting expert in the first two novels, and apparently comes to the fore in book three, Cabinet of Curiosities which I've just begun.

 The New York Museum of Natural History

Preston has a non-fiction title all about the museum which he wrote before this series of novels.

Must read list!

I'm determined to read through the series before the new book comes out this November.  I love these books so much.

Sara Paretsky's most recent novel Brush Back came last week, so I'm alternating reading Cabinet and Brush Back.

The VI Warshawski character is a wonderfully brave, smart PI, but she is very grounded by her friends and family and her South Chicago background.  The stories are action packed. VI has a strong emotional response to the world around her and it is easy to be carried along with her feelings about events and people, making for a wonderful read.

Beagles

My older beagle is ten.  I hadn't even realized he was that old. He looks really good, but the vagaries of age are creeping up on him as his allergies and ear problems and dental problems cause him ever more trouble.

Beagle two is a lucky dog indeed as she gets a lovely walk through a wooded set of paths with my son daily.

Although there are nice grassy spots in the beagle area of the yard this year thanks to the rain, they like to lie in the dirt. Silly bozos.

I haven't posted much because you know, TYPING.  How easy it is to just jot things of interest in my notebooks, for possible posts sometime, but they don't make it off of the pen and paper page.

I'm composing this outside in my garden in my comfy Adirondack chair on my lovely iPad Air 2.  The breeze is keeping the flies off of me ( I was writing in the cool shade of the garage, but I was circled by flies...doesn't bode well does it!)

I'll add corrections and pictures later from my PC which is simpler to compose and add pictures on, but I don't tend to retire to my computer room/craft room till later in the evening when my head isn't so interested in composing anything at all.

edited and enhanced, lrs 8/5/15

I Am Princess X by Cherie Priest

I was not sure what to expect from this book though I’d read about the basic plot before publication.  I love the Clockwork Century books by Priest so why not?

Libby Deaton and May Harper become friends in fifth grade when both of them have  sit out Phy Ed for a time. 

 

Together, beginning with a chalk drawing on the playground at school, they create Princess X. 

 

She is “a blue-haired girl in a puff-sleeved princess dress, wearing a big gold crown and red sneakers” who wields a katana.   She lives in a purple haunted house with friendly ghosts and watches over the town of Silverdale.

Over the years, the girls fill notebooks with stories of Princess X.  May makes up the stories and Libby draws them out.

One day Libby and her mom are killed when their car goes off a bridge on a perfectly ordinary day.

 

May is bereft beyond words to lose her friend Libby and to have the grand stories of Princess X end as suddenly.

She is left with nothing of their friendship, as Libby’s father moves out of state suddenly and all of the stories disappear with him.

Except.   It is possible that the stories and scrapbooks went to a thrift store somewhere in the city.  Perhaps they can be found.  May makes her parents drive all over looking for them.

When May’s parents divorce, she is shuttled to Atlanta to start a new life and make new friends.  On visits to her father, she still hops on a bus and searches for the notebooks. 

 

One day she is stopped cold by the sight of a sticker on a store window that is Princess X.  Impossible.  Did someone find those notebooks and decide to continue the stories or market them somehow?

Or is Libby alive?  Secretly, May never believed Libby died, wouldn’t believe it.  She dreamed over and over that Libby had broken out of the car and rose to the surface, alive.  Her parents hated this obsession, because Libby’s body was found, downstream from the submerged car, severely eaten by fish but with Libby’s clothing and school ID.

On May’s travels through the city she began to see more Princess X stickers.  It turned out there was a website that had gone up about six months ago that was wildly popular, as it featured the story of Princess X, new stories May didn’t know.  Nobody knew who wrote the comics, the IP could not be traced by even the most intrepid geek.

The Comics feature Princess X, held prisoner by Needle Man, and The Ghost Queen “mother and avenging spirit” who helps the Princess escape the Needle Man, and watches over her.

With the help of Patrick, a neighbor with a bit too much tech saavy for his own good, May reads the comics, and is convinced Libby is alive and reaching out to her with the comics.

Thanks to Patrick, she learns that the accident that killed Libby’s mother and perhaps Libby was no accident. Libby’s mother was shot in the head, leading her to drive off the bridge.  May’s parents had managed to hide all of this from her.

A clever intermingling of the search for Libby and the story of Princess X’s daring escape from Needle Man becomes a really tense thriller of a story.  The Needle Man is not only real, he is very tech savvy as well and he is relentless in his search for Princess X.  He is willing to murder, lie, steal, do anything to get her back.  He is incredibly clever.

I read the book in a single evening, just transfixed.  When I closed the book, I said, “wow, that was just spectacular, one of the best things I’ve read in ages.”

Garden Pics

Ah summer and the livin' is easy.  Here's how things are looking after a massive tree trimming and fresh mulch.  My garden so far, the "Good Parts Version."