Althouse: At the Waterlily Café...

September 28, 2009

At the Waterlily Café...

... you can rise above the petty worries of a Monday afternoon.

37 comments:

Peter Hoh said...: time for reflection.; 9/28/09, 2:45 PM
chickelit said...: One summer evening drunk to hell
I stood there nearly lifeless,
An old man in the corner sang
"Where the water lilies grow,"
And on the jukebox Johnny sang
About a thing called love
And it's how are you kid and what's your name
And how would you bloody know?

Shane MacGowan (1985); 9/28/09, 3:07 PM
Paddy O said...: For $50 I could take an exam and pass out of French, instead of taking a longer, much more expensive, course.

I studied all summer. Haven't studied French for about 17 years, ever since high school. But, it came back a bit. Enough. It helped my wife is fluent in French. Good idea to marry a French tutor.

Had to translate a passage from the first chapter of Vladimir Lossky's Theologie Negative chez Meister Eckhart. I chose that as the text. I'm not really sure why.

Had the exam this morning. Just me and my dictionary. A professor picked out 1500 words from the chapter. I had to translate it in less than 2 hours. Had it done in about 1:15, which gave me a little bit of time to go over it and make sure I caught all my ne que's and translated correctly all the words I thought I knew without looking them up.

That's done. My summer of French is over. Time to get on with the Fall. Well, once I get these 50 papers from the summer course graded.

For now, though, I think I'll just sit and stare a bit. Nothing like a good long stare to help cleanse the soul.; 9/28/09, 3:10 PM
Treacle said...: Oh how I have tried to open my flower like that poor waterlily. But after so many loveless and lustless years, I am like the Tin Man. Pity the poor soul who must traipse into my rusted and creaking interior for affection. I am afraid tetanus of the genatalia will be his only reward.; 9/28/09, 3:10 PM
JAL said...: The last lotus of summer.

Enjoy.

Speaking of lotuses (we were, weren't we?) check out the Flaming Lotus Girls site for fabulous sculptures.

wv = sporr
Maybe next year the FLG will animate and ignite sporrs.; 9/28/09, 3:12 PM
Peter Hoh said...: It's time to plant tulips and daffodils and other spring bulbs. (Skip the hyacinths and use muscari instead.)

Meade, have you visited Mills Fleet Farm yet?; 9/28/09, 3:19 PM
Bissage said...: AND NOW, comes a delightful children’s story, based on actual events that occurred in nature, which actually happened in reality, once upon a time.

Tales from a Suburban Backyard.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Please note that the story probably has no moral worth remembering.; 9/28/09, 3:20 PM
EK said...: "At the Waterlily Cafe..." someone finally needed to step up and provide the obligatory Claude Monet reference.; 9/28/09, 3:27 PM
miller said...: Summer has fled Seattle. Autumn clouds have rolled in, making the whole region gray, cold, and tired-looking.

On the plus side, Mayor Nickels was soundly defeated in the primary last month.; 9/28/09, 3:29 PM
Unknown said...: A living candle on the water. Very nice and, if not autumnal, then certainly evocative of summer's end.; 9/28/09, 3:42 PM
ricpic said...: Sometimes a phallic symbol is a phallic symbol.; 9/28/09, 3:44 PM
traditionalguy said...: Carl Sagan thought there were Billions and Billions of water lillies, not to count the frogs everywhere. Carl Sagan went a counting and he did ride...; 9/28/09, 4:27 PM
David said...: I'm still worried about whether our painter will show up tomorrow/; 9/28/09, 4:29 PM
blake said...: He's a saint on Sunday
He's a beast on Monday
Rest of the week he's just crazy; 9/28/09, 5:21 PM
Meade said...: @peter hoh: I have not. But I will, next time I get up to Beaver Dam, WI. Thanks for the tip.

I'm in complete agreement with you on the muscari. Scilla is another good colonizing minor bulb - hardy and prolific here in Zone 5a. I noticed last spring it is all over the place here in University Heights - Madison.

We're reworking the front and back yards chez Meadhouse. Shady backyard: woodland wildflowers, species bulbs under Redbuds, Kousa Dogwoods as understories to existing mature White Oaks and American Elm.

Sunny front: prairie grasses, alliums, postage stamp lawn with bench to watch sunsets, edible herbs in large cast containers. Street trees: I'm looking for a specimen 'Village Green' Zelkova and a 'Robin Hill' Serviceberry.

We'll paint the trim of this lovely Prairie-style house with a purple-eggplant taupe and pale taupe on the stucco. Large handsome window boxes deserve a very special treatment.

Over 20-some years, A. has done a superb job of restoring and maintaining this historic property. It's a treat for me to get to add a few modest finishing touches.; 9/28/09, 5:26 PM
AllenS said...: Meade, another place you need to check out is Menards. I don't know if you had them where you used to live, but they got stuff.; 9/28/09, 5:54 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: ..next time I get up to Beaver Dam.

Meade cusses on the blog for the first time.. details at 11 ;); 9/28/09, 7:08 PM
chickelit said...: Is "Beaver Dam" some kinda code term for pudendal block?; 9/28/09, 7:40 PM
former law student said...: This will set hearts a-flutter. From slog.thestranger.com:

Sarah Palin's 400-page memoir, titled Going Rogue: An American Life, will be published on November 17th.

Their link, not mine:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/28/sarah-palin-memoir-going-_n_302246.html; 9/28/09, 7:40 PM
kentuckyliz said...: Beaver Dam is an alias for Maureen Dowd.

I saw the real painting Water Lilies. It's huge. It has its own room in the National Gallery in London, with a floor viewing level and a balcony. Up close it's chaos. You have to move way back to see the water lilies. It's an experience totally unavailable to those viewing it in prints and posters and greeting cards.; 9/28/09, 8:09 PM
MadisonMan said...: Why go to Fleet Farm when Farm and Fleet is right on the east side of Madison?

Other than Menards, I hope Meade has found Jungs -- although that's really better during bare root season. It's too bad the Seed Savers store on Monroe St. closed 3 or so years ago.

Another place -- if you like Peonies -- is Klehm's Song Sparrow farm. Their catalog is garden porn. They are somewhere southeast of here, not far, but I've never been. I don't even know if they're open to the pubic.

For the shady backyard, let me just say that you can never have too much mertensia virginica (Bluebells) or Bleeding Heart (Dicentra); 9/28/09, 8:34 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: I prefer to rise above, not about, my petty worries. Who wants to soak in a pool of their own mental anxieties?; 9/28/09, 8:55 PM
Maxine Weiss said...: Lordie, lordie lordie...

Someone's been rather busy.

http://twitter.com/tweetmaxine

______________________; 9/28/09, 9:30 PM
BJM said...: Falling, floating, dreaming.; 9/28/09, 10:50 PM
Peter Hoh said...: Madison Man, I was surprised to see that there's not a Mills Fleet Farm on the outskirts of Madison. We have a couple on the edge of the Twin Cities.

I've never been in a Farm and Fleet. Does it provide the same time warp effect, making it feel like one has stepped back into the 1970s?; 9/29/09, 12:13 AM
MadisonMan said...: Peter: Totally.; 9/29/09, 7:27 AM
AllenS said...: Peter

I've been in the Farm and Fleet in Rice Lake, WI., and it's similar to a Fleet Farm, but with a lower ceiling. My last purchase at Fleet Farm in Hudson, WI., was for 12.4 x 38 tractor tire tubes. You could probably get the same tubes in Farm and Fleet. Do you go to the FF in No. St. Paul?

WV: picaloan

A loan you can get in a type size.; 9/29/09, 7:44 AM
Peter Hoh said...: AllenS, yes, the North St. Paul/Oakdale one is closest, but it's been a while. I get most of that sort of stuff at Menards and Northern Tool, both of which are closer to me.; 9/29/09, 8:05 AM
Meade said...: Thanks, guys - for all the good info.

For mail order tools, I still swear by my first love back in Ohio: A.M.Leonard. But it's good to know where to go when only local will do.

And, MadisonMan, I'm totally with you on the Virginia Bluebells and Bleeding Hearts. Love those rightwing woodland wildflowers!; 9/29/09, 9:43 AM
former law student said...: Meade, if your standard is A.M. Leonard, I doubt Northern Tool or Menards will satisfy you. But see for yourself.; 9/29/09, 9:45 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Menards ain't no A.M.Leonard, that's for sure. Like Northern Tool, Menards has a lot of private label knock-offs. Two years ago, Fiskars came out with a new line of landscaping tools.* Now Menards has the same design under their own label.

Menards has some very top-quality stuff, too, like Spax screws.

*I've already bent my heavy-duty Fiskars digging fork. I'm not going to replace it with a cheaper version of the same. I'm tempted to buy this Radius fork, but I really wish I could convince myself that I could afford this one from England.; 9/29/09, 10:13 AM
Peter Hoh said...: While I'm at it, I should plug my favorite hardware store, Seven Corners which does online sales in addition to running a great brick-and-mortar store in downtown St. Paul.

I should do a flickr set on Seven Corners. Maybe after the frost sets in.; 9/29/09, 10:19 AM
AllenS said...: Had to check and see which one I have. And it's a True Value digging fork.

The label says:

Good Better Best

So, I bought the cheap one. I've had it a long, long time.; 9/29/09, 10:24 AM
Peter Hoh said...: My name is Peter, and I abuse digging forks.; 9/29/09, 10:47 AM
AllenS said...: I believe your neighbor called you a gardening machine.; 9/29/09, 10:57 AM
MadisonMan said...: I can't say True Value without hearing Paul Harvey.; 9/29/09, 11:16 AM
UTR said...: AMAZING photo!!!!!

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”

thanks again for sharing!!

from the furniture fasteners guys (:; 6/29/11, 4:16 PM