happy 70th birthday, dad!

he's so freaking adorable.


also, i kind of can't believe that he's 70. where has the time gone? parents just aren't allowed to age. seriously.

pre-celebrations

on sunday, we celebrated my dad's 70th birthday a little early!

his birthday is actually the 12th, which is almost always smack in the beginning/middle of the lychee harvest, so he's always so busy working on his 14 acres. this year, we scheduled it so that we could actually celebrate it and let him relax. as it was, he was still apparently grumpy that he should have been cutting the grass. close friends, family, delicious sushi and bottle upon bottle of wine made the lack of work and heat and sweat just a little bit better.

a lakitu day

patrick roger

you know, i'd really love to win the lottery and go back for a few months.

and get that blasted duck confit.

and learn how to pronounce french with some semblance of "frenchness" instead of my feeble faux-spanish-french-italian mix.

from the pompidou

the day we visited the pompidou was grey and drizzly, yet still kind of lovely.

seductive

since she's a seductive little cougar, we're considering getting a friend's neighbor's kitten for her; we're waiting to find out if testicles will drop as she does seem to get along better with boys than girls.

kittens: so freaking adorable.

a serious cleanup of my craft room will have to be in order.

peas!

my very first pea blossom. SUCCESS!!

last year they withered in the full sun before they got 4 inches tall. very sad. they're doing much better in the shade of a large tree, in a round pot with chicken wire trellising. in FACT, when i checked more recently, there appeared to be a baby pea on it!

imagine it now: large clean, white, dinner plate, one lone, verdant and plump pea in a small pool of butter. maybe a little anthill of salt & pepper, appropriately placed off-kilter, to tease the appetite.




... that's actually making me really hungry.

(no surprise there.)


in any case, i believe i have 6 pea plants (THANK YOU AMY! for saving me after i accidentally and heavily stomped on my seedlings...) - hopefully they'll produce enough for actual food. i've read that heirloom plants don't usually produce their fruit all at the same time, unlike more commercial varieties. so i'm guessing one should have more plants growing at the same time - perhaps 6 is enough. we shall see; all in due time.

the fact that i haven't killed these plants is cause for celebration enough. zucchini are supposedly easy to grow. LIARS. powdery mildew has beset my plants - i've been pouring diluted milk over their diseased leaves to try and save them, it seems to be working on at least one of them.

all in all - garden is surviving!