Weekend Flowers

Doug is somewhat of a gung ho gardener. At least, he starts off each season that way.

The first spring and summer in a new house, you don't always know what is there already. Stuff is planted, and there may be perennials, and you don't just want to dig it up and ruin everything. So you sort of wait and see.

We had daffodils in the yard, but no tulips. There are hostas and some other green leafy things. We have some hedges and azaleas that are coming up and around the front and side of the house.

Doug is a firm believer in just letting the bushes grow into the shapes they want to be. He doesn't shape things into boxes or globes... he leaves them to find their own paths. He'll trim back a particularly exuberant and unruly shoot, but for the most part, grooming isn't his style. It's like the English romantic poets... let nature be nature and we shall cower in front of how it grows, its beauty and wildness. None of the Enlightenment man controls nature hoo-haa. She cannot be tamed and restrained.

But once in a while, she needs a good haircut.

We were at the national arboretum a few weeks ago, and they have a national Bonsai and Penjing museum, all very orderly and beautiful, all very well kept. Some of the trees are hundreds of years old. It's quite astounding and inspirational to the gardener who aspires to greatness. Doug brought up the romantics as we stood in front of a pine tree cut, tamed, trimmed to grow against a wall, and how the tree probably hates this. Just freaking hates it.

Doug's heart is in the right place, ever the romantic poet.

This weekend, we bought four nice hanging baskets for the front porch. There are wildflower seeds to sow, as is his style. He is monitoring the gardens for what is coming up, what we like and what we don't. The aforementioned hostas have some friends growing way in the back corner of the yard, which is disorderly and wild, so he thinks he may replant them, and move them over to a spot where they can be seen and enjoyed.

Oh, and the Ivy. We have a lot of ivy.

It's nice to see him puttering around, and I'm hoping that he is able to make it look like what he wants it to look like, and my involvement will be minimal.

I'll take some pictures of the progress I guess. Missed out on the daffodil pictures but will try and do a better job of the other things.

I love things that happen at my job, Episode 1

My job is simple. I help radio stations. I work for a major news network, not going to say who, but my job is to help the stations out in the world with problems and issues. My company builds products and provides services to these stations to get content out into the world. Digitally and terrestrially. 

I wanted to share a funny anecdote about something that happened yesterday. I was working with a small station out west, and they have been struggling with under staffing, tech deficit issues, and general confusion about some things. One of these things is SSL certification. 

A while back, Apple decided that all streams and audio coming into their iDevices had to be in HTTPS Secure format. 

This sent people scrambling. Stations that hosted their own streams or who weren't working with our preferred provider had to do a lot of work. If you were a station working with our partner, - no problem. It was done for you, seamlessly. 

So this sweet little station out west was having a bad day. Ransomware attack over the weekend, stream invisible in smart speakers, issues and complications. 

I was working with the Program Director (PD for those in the know) John, and he was working with his streaming provider. They got the stream secured, and over to me. I tested it for him. They were playing some strange ambient music, followed by the Doobie Brothers...

I said "what's your format over there?! It sounds like crazy town!" 

John said "oh, our hosts... they're free spirits! They play what they want. I'm sorry!" I told him that I loved when stations do that - and I said "You should play Guster!" 

So he ducks into the studio and says "Hey! You got any Guster in there?" The host said they had Endlessly, Amsterdam, and Careful.

Now, Careful is one of my favorite Guster songs so I said "ooooh! Careful! Play Careful for me!" 

So he hollers in and says 'Play Guster's Careful! Dedicate it to Christine, our Station Support manager in Washington DC! She is the super most amazing dedicated helper ever! Say that on the air!" 

And they did. 

I sat here at my desk just laughing hysterically. No one else was sitting in my area - it was on the later side and most of the team had cleared out for the day. But wow. What a giggle. I've requested songs before from stations. I try to listen to a station while I'm reading a helpdesk ticket, or following up on a call. They are all varied and different, big and little; music or news or a nice mix of both... they're all unique and lovely. 

So that made my day. And reminded me why I do this job.

This is a Great day, an Historic Day!

We had a really nice visit up to Doug's homeland.

Doug's great aunt turned 103 on Saturday, so part of the reason for our trip was to go celebrate her.

85, 103, 87.

She's a sharp cookie. Doesn't see too well, but is top of her game for the most part, and loves to have little conversations. She has a great memory.

She remembered before Geoff was born we came to visit with Jessica on our way to NY (she and her husband were living in Connecticut). And we didn't visit more than once with Geoff because he was hell on wheels when he was little.

But she remembers them, and remembers details and stories. She loves to tell them to the kids (us) and our kids.

Doug took me on a nostalgia tour on Saturday night, we drove all around back and forth across the rivers that run through the valley where he grew up. It was dark, and he couldn't make out some of the places that he wanted to point out (again... I identified one of his relative's homes on the main drag because I knew it was across from the seamstress) and he was happy I knew.  We went to the Hot Dog Shoppe, which is an amazingly delicious heart attack in a styrofoam box, and ate overlooking the river outside of the insurance company his dad owned for many years (family still owns it, and family still works there...)

On Sunday, we went to Gary's church. I call it Gary's church because for many years Bonnie didn't go there. Not exactly sure why. But she seems to have been going back more in the last year. Gary was very active in his church, and was clerk of the Session (i.e.: Secretary/Record Keeper for the Governing Body) and was chair of the search committee for a new pastor.

Gary was very involved but Bonnie didn't really go there much. I'm not sure of the back story. I think some feelings were hurt or something was said. For a long time she went to the Anglican church that my sister in law and her husband go to.

Lately she's been back at Gary's church. So I guess I can call it Bonnie's church too. They all seem to love her. And everyone has been incredibly supportive to her.

When Gary died, they didn't have a pastor picked yet. Their pastor had retired, and they were using substitute pastors, one of them very regularly. They wanted that guy to be their pastor. He wanted to be their pastor. Gary really wanted him to be the pastor.

His name is Lee. For a long time he actually was their pastor but had gone somewhere else for a while. He was retired, and the rules and bylaws of his retirement as interpreted by The Home Office (shall we say) stated that he couldn't be hired back to the church he'd retired from.

But. After a while, someone put the pieces together and realized he had not retired from their church, but from another. The paperwork was faulty. The truth won out.

He was offered the position (and accepted) and announced it while we were there on Sunday. How fortuitous for us to be there. Almost like we knew it was going to happen that this announcement was going down.

Gary got his pastor.

Lee said "Gary used to say things like "This is a GREAT day! An Historic Day!" about things when decisions were made. He was maybe partly kidding, but he was enthusiastic about getting things done. So Lee quoted him, and looked to us, and told us he was going to do his best for Gary and for us.

It was humbling.

And then he skipped a whole section of the service. Completely blew it. Because he was probably flustered after having just made such an historic and great announcement. When everyone was laughing I called out "Tell 'em it's your first day!"

It couldn't have been more perfect.

Well. Actually, it could have. Gary could have been sitting in his seat. He always sat in Row 4, Left side, 2nd seat from the window. He would call Lee's phone and leave messages saying that. "Hello, Lee, this is Gary. Fourth Row, Left Side,  2nd seat from the window..." and then leave the rest of his message.

Lee said whenever he would be in the church he'd walk by Gary's seat and touch the back. I am tempted to get a small copper plate engraved with that on it.

We had a good weekend.

Bonnie's family has a big family reunion every summer. I don't think we've been for over 15 years now that I think of it. We intended to go last year but decided not to with the move and house hunting. The year before we planned a vacation and didn't know the schedule of the event, and were in town the wrong weekend.

This year, we have no excuse. It'll be nice. It'll be a great day, an historic day!