Cool days

It's an awesome morning - about 7:45 and only 57 degrees!  Today's high is supposed to be only 75.  How great is that?!  It's been nice for a few days, which got me thinking about the summer of 2004, which was a very temperate year.  I remember it specifically for two reasons - first, I got my very first, SUV which was also my very first vehicle with a sun roof that year and got to use it quite a bit. It was a Saturn Vue - it was my third Saturn as I'd had very good luck with them.  I bought my first sedan in 1996, and about 4 years later, I traded it in for another but this time I leased since we could run it through the business.  Then I did a second lease on the Vue - I really loved that vehicle!

The other significant event that summer was my dad passing.  I got the call from my cousin, Larry, right around just about now 20 years ago - he had found Dad dead on his kitchen floor and the coroner (which, in a small town, is just one of the local doctors who take turns playing this role...) said it looked like he had been dead about a week or so.  Middle of (a thankfully cool) summer, no A/C - it was probably not a pretty scene.  I could tell in my cousin's voice that it was traumatizing... I called the sheriff's office to ask if they planned to do an autopsy, and he floundered a bit and said no, there appeared to be no foul play, but if we wanted to pay for one, we could (to the tune of about $3000...)  Honestly, the tone and after talking a little more to my cousin, I think the real answer was probably there isn't much left to autopsy, but he probably didn't want to be that blunt with a grieving daughter.  So Wes came back from Indy and we had Dad cremated and a few days later, we had a little get together that included the few friends Dad still had some contact with - Norman Pierson, who was his best friend since high school and Peggy Weston and her kids.  Mom and Peggy had been best friends since high school and Dad and her husband, Walt, had become very close over the years.  Walt had died a few years earlier...  We got together at his favorite camping park, Pilot Grove Park, and scattered his ashes from a bridge into a pond there.  But what I remember most about that day is that it was downright COLD!  Even with a jacket, the breeze had an uncomfortable bite to it... in AUGUST!!  It was weird!  And here we are, 20 years later almost to the day, with a cool spell in August. Makes me say, "I haven't thought much about you in a long time, Dad...  I appreciate the reminder..."

Most people wouldn't want a reminder of a sad time.  But it was that sadness that kind of forced me give our relationship - or lack thereof - some real thought.  I hadn't seen Dad in probably 8 years before he died.  He made it pretty clear at some point that he'd really rather just be left alone.  It was around the time that Wes and Sally moved to Indy in 1996.  Before that, we (Wes, Merry & I) had made an effort to see Dad maybe once a year.  Wes went more often, but I think it was his effort that got all three of us to go meet with Dad somewhere for lunch occasionally. And it was always pleasant enough, though he often looked (and smelled) like a hobo.  Which calls for an explanation...

Dad had mental issues.  Not diagnosed - he would never see a shrink or do anything that would present the opportunity for a diagnosis or any kind of medicinal intervention.  But it was clear he had issues.  He talked to himself a lot.  Of course, we all do that somewhat.  But his was more conversational, like there was someone there.  He was terribly passive aggressive at times.  Extremely insecure and socially inept.  He drank a lot, I think, to squelch the feelings of inadequacy and, I suspect, to quiet the "voices" in his head.  But the biggest outward sign was the way he lived.  He let Wes come in the house sometimes and he would only describe it as "dirty" without much more detail.  When we planned to go to the house after his death to see if he had a will (which Wes thought he did) and to find important papers, like bank accounts and such, Wes said we needed to get disposable coveralls and booties.  I told him, "I have no plans on going anywhere near the kitchen, so I don't think that will be necessary."  He said, "Oh, yes, you're going to want them, trust me."  And so we all showed up in those white flimsy overalls and booties and he was right.  "Dirty" does not begin to describe what we found.  "Filth" doesn't even come close.  It was like everything was covered in this black greasy film. And the smell... OMG. I think what used to be carpet was probably more or less a mire of dog urine and probably some poop, too.  Oh but wait... I poked my head upstairs and those formerly beautiful hardwood floors were about 3"+ deep with dog poop... Was that all dog poop?  I asked Wes - did he send the dogs upstairs to poop?  WTH?  He said, no, I think he scooped it up with a dustpan and threw it up there.  That made no sense to me - why wouldn't he just step outside and throw it out there? Thus the mind of a mentally ill person, I guess.  The toilet hadn't worked in years.  The shower as well.  I think he still got water from the kitchen sink, but that was it for running water.  He was living like an animal...

After we left, it was like we were all stunned.  Now I understood why he wanted to be left alone.  He had enough sense to be ashamed of how he was living and didn't want Merry or I to see what Wes knew about.  Wes said he always acted embarrassed about it, somewhat, but he knew Wes wouldn't judge him.  He thought Merry and I would.  The irony is that of the three of us, Wes is probably the freakiest about things being clean.  Maybe that's why, who knows?  Once we started talking about it, Mom seemed to come to a conclusion about the dog poop thing, which was the most bewildering for me.  She explained... 

Jon (Larry's older brother) stole my Dad's inheritance back in 1993 by having our 90-year-old grandfather, who had dementia, sign over the majority of the farm to him.  Dad had worked for his parents his whole life as a farmhand, a greatly underpaid farmhand, with the promise of the vast majority of the farm as his reward.  We tried to fight it legally, but it was too expensive, so he got away with it.  Well, the house Dad lived in was part of the land that Jon stole, so the house was Jon's property.  Mom believes that throwing the poop upstairs was Dad's way of saying, "Shit on you, Jon" for what he did to him.  Mom says Dad would never confront anyone (including her) directly, but would find a passive-aggressive way to show his disdain.  Apparently, he was particularly fond of the "piss on you" approach.  She talked about how he would walk by the bathroom and pee in the kitchen sink!  I asked how she knew and she said she would find yellow droplets on her pans that she would let air dry in the sink and she eventually caught him once.  It would force her to rewash, which she was convinced was his way of "getting back" at her for some imagined slight.  One time, when Aunt Judy was there, she says they had words about something and he went upstairs.  We didn't use the 2nd floor of our house because it wasn't heated.  And part of it was older and maybe even a little dangerous (or so they would have us believe...)  Dad apparently went into one of those rooms, knowing this would be above where Mom and Aunt Judy were sitting, and peed on the floor.  A few minutes later, the ceiling was dripping, and a droplet landed on Aunt Judy's head!  Oh yuck.  Like I said... he had some mental issues.

His sister, my Aunt Caroline, was diagnosed as a teenager with schizophrenia. We have always suspected Dad had the same, although he was much more functional.  Aunt Caroline had four boys, all of whom were mostly raised by my grandparents.  Those two (Grandma "Dogs" & Grandpa Lester) managed to fuck up a lot of people!  Dad and Aunt Caroline... Jon, who everyone thinks is a saint, managed to screw my Dad (his uncle) and his mother, and ultimately the three of us and his 3 brothers, out of any inheritance.  Larry lived a lot like my Dad, though he found a woman to marry him a few years ago and appears to be living a relatively normal life.  (I haven't seen him in years, so I'm only surmising this from what I see on FB.)  I don't know much about Rick (Rick and Larry were born 11 months apart) except that he had a moving business for awhile and married some young girl - like 16 or something - when he was in his 30s.  And Tony, the youngest, is the one that "made it out."  He fled as soon as he got out of HS, far far away from this family.  He lives in the Pacific Northwest, last I heard, and he changed his last name from Whitehead to something Hispanic.  His Dad, I understand, was Mexican.  I don't think they ever married, so he had her latest last name.  Anyway, Wes found him once and communicated with him long enough to find out he's had a good life with success.  Good for him!

That was a long ramble.  TMI, maybe.  Sometimes, you just gotta get shit out there!  LOL...

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I started this on Friday.  Today, it's Sunday and just as cool.  They're predicting rain today, though it sounds most likely to occur this evening.  It'll give me a chance to get some repotting done and maybe some deck clean up.  The pot that still has my old Jade that was destroyed in a hail storm a couple years ago is on the back deck.  When the roots were still strong, I couldn't get the old stump out of the pot (it's a nice ceramic pot).  I'm hoping that enough time has passed that the old roots are soft and rotted so it will come out.  I want to put one of my biggest Crown of Thorns in that pot as it is in a plastic pot that blows over every time we have wind.  It'll be a challenge!

Last weekend was the Des Moines show & sale (well, display and sale is what we call it now that they are too small to be judged shows).  I had a dozen or so plants in the display, but the one that garnered the most attention was the Ceropegia with the weirdly bizarre flowers, and it had several.  I think I posted this pic recently, but here it is again:

I sold a few plants and bought a few.  I'm sure I spent more than I made, but at least I "defrayed" the spending!  I got an Aloe, a Gasteraloe, a Hoya I shouldn't have (variegated aff burtoniae) and a crazy-little "Devil's Backbone"...

My Hoya elliptica is once more proving to be a pain in the ass.  I was so excited when it started to perk up (it had been looking rather sad) and then actually put on a peduncle that budded up.  I wish I had documented it here when it start to bud because the bud grew and then staying in the unopened position for weeks.  I eventually decided that what I thought was unopened was just a different kind of flower.  Here's what it looked like:

Marco and I talked about it and he commented as well that they looked unopened, but I've never had a flower sit unopened for that long - they usually just blast if they won't open.  So I plucked one off and messed with it and found that yes, it does look like every other Hoya flower when you pry the petals open, so it WAS still developing!  It had been weeks and weeks!  And now a new bud was forming.  Then we had a few unbearably hot days near 100... stifling heat.  And one day, there was the plant dehydrating and the buds fallen.  I was so mad!  I thought I'd finally broken the code on how to grow elliptica!  So I whacked it back and put the pieces in perlite to see if they'll rehydrate and root, and right now, what's left looks... well, better.  And the cuttings are thin but still alive.  We'll see...

*****

I held out to publish just because I wanted to show a few more things that have caught my interest lately.  It's Tuesday the 13th now...

One of the plants I couldn't resist buying at the DM show/sale was a "Devil's Backbone".  I already grow this, which is bonanically Pedilanthus tithymaloides.  But it looks like this:

This is a photo from the web... mine grows with a little more space between the leaves which highlights the "zig-zag" appearance of the midrib or stem.  And that stem is about the thickness of skinny pencil, leaves about an inch or so long. Well, here's the one I bought:

 

This has little, very closely placed leaves so there is no appearance of a "zig-zag" stem.  Most of the photo online are like this rather than like the other photo, which I think was what I used to find when looking at photos of this plant online. I'm wondering if they are really the same thing at all!  Is this just a dwarf form?  If so, why not call it that?  Is it a seedling that just hasn't developed all of its  adult properties?  If so, why are there so many photos that looks just like this with no mention of that?  If Chuck Hanson was alive, I'd be sending him this inquiry and getting his opinion.  Oh, and one more thing - in some places they call it Euphorbia tithymoides!  I'm confused!

Hoya cv. Noelle bloomed.  I think this might have been the first time.  If the flowers were less typical, I'd remember for sure, but in this case, I think the leaves outshine the flowers.  Here are the flowers:

Nice but pretty ordinary as far as Hoya flowers go.  The plant has big, roundish, succulent leaves, slightly cupped under and here you see two extraordinarily huge leaves that are just eye-popping!

I can't seem to get a photo that really catches its essence - it's one that really brings me a lot of pride and joy!  Which is why it is the first one an observant person would see when they walk in the door.  I say it that way because for most people, their eye is drawn to the sunroom full of plants as they walk in the door, and this one sits on a shelf that's in the front window...

And one more... my Hoya macrophylla variegata (which they've thrown into latifolia - grrr).  I've been trying to keep my oldest one more hydrated to see if it would inspire new growth and it seems to be working.  But I got two of the most interesting leaves, like I've never seen on any other variegated plant.  I'm not sure how to describe them exactly:

'Krimson Queen" gets pure white leaves - well, they usually come in pink then turn all white.  This isn't what this is.  It's almost like a green leaf with an overlay of variegation.  Notice how you can see a green hue, and more distinct green veins.  It has a third one (lowest one on the table) that is a little more green but still has a look as if it's got a layer of lighter color over it.  It's so odd!  I love it!

 And with that, I publish!