Flowers of June in my #Bloomingdaledc front yard

hydrangea

Asiatic lilies

day lilies

The June garden is jammed with flowers of the brightest colors and I'm quite dreading the heat of July that will kill these blooms. But for a month at least I have this wonderful bluish purple hydrangea bush that seems to have at least two dozen heads.  I suspect the coffee grounds I pour on this bush are helping to make the soil more acidic which makes the flowers bluer but I'm really not sure about that.  Then there's the lovely popping red of the Asiatic lilies which come up from bulbs and seem to double every year. They are being eclipsed by the bright orange day lilies who are invading the yard without mercy.  I was weeding around them all this morning and pulled what felt like a million columbine vines which were curling their way up these flowers and getting a good stranglehold on some of the buds. So I yanked those climbers out and found that very soon I'd filled a trash bag with weeds and leaves and other yard debris. I also found that the pollen from the day lilies had dyed my wrists orange!  Hubster says I should wear gloves in the garden when I do this, but invariably I'm weeding on a whim and don't have the garden gloves at hand. Also, I have a faint hope that the plant juices that get on my skin are actually good for me!

Winter's Here in DC!

Wreaths on 16th Street

Snow on K Street

Well, winter came upon us in Washington, D.C. this week with cold winds and even some wet and sloppy snow today. Although I had a big coat and hat and gloves and managed to stay warm, I didn't have boots on and sure enough stepped into a puddle of cold melting snow and got my shoes and feet all freezy and squishy. Perhaps someone was trying to cheer me up later when they said that it's not really winter until the 21st of December when it's the solstice. So, I looked that up and that's the longest night and shortest day. But when I thought about that it would seem that we would then be moving toward shorter nights and longer days the next day. And this would happen until we get all the way to summer on June 21st which is really when "winter"  starts, back there when I was moaning about the heat and blogging about the fountains here in DC and right after the longest day and shortest night we'd be heading back to winter again. But today it was definitely winter and I was glad to get home to my cozy, Christmas-light festooned house and to rest and think about Advent.  

Snow on 16th St

• Winter Solstice (socyberty.com)

Franklin Square

14th Street

Those Mighty Megabuses

As the light turned green, two of these big blue and yellow behemoth megabuses went whizzing through the 7th and H street intersection in Chinatown when I was there tonight. Where were they off to at 11 pm at night I wondered or had they done their runs for the day and were going to whatever warehouse they are kept in at night? I've never ridden on one but the more I see of them, the more I get the urge just to hop on a bus, Gus, see New York city again, Jane, or maybe never come back, Jack. Something about how easy these buses seem to make it appeals to me. They stop right in the middle of Chinatown, you see the long line of YOUNG PEOPLE with backpacks waiting on the sidewalk climbing in and off they go, hardly stopping anywhere along the way, so I hear. Not like Greyhound or Trailways where you have to go to their station and put up with whatever route they go. But that's a bit like how life is, isn't it? Some buses just pass you by since the big conductor in the sky just didn't want you on that one today for some mysterious reason.

Chinatown Crepes

After going to the movie theater in Chinatown to see Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in "Knight and Day" we stopped at the crepe makers' stand and got snacks. Hubster had a chocolate and banana crepe as they were out of strawberries and I had their savory crepe with Swiss cheese. They make them right there in front of you so I snapped the crepe maker as he did his job, using the miracle of my cell phone camera. These were a very satisfying and filling treat, so much so, in fact, that we didn't finish them and brought half of each home for a tasty snack another time. And, by the way, this movie is a great date movie. Totally ridiculous violence where in extended gun fights only the bad guys die, and some incredible chase scenes including dodging a bull run. Not a bad spoof of James Bond action flicks, only in this one the dame doesn't die and in fact rescues the agent. Whoops! Have I given the plot away?