Striped Amaryllis Just in Time for Christmas

Each year while doing some Christmas shopping in November, I usually pick up an amaryllis bulb and plant it in the kitchen hoping, God willing, it will bloom in time. Well, I planted this one and forgot it was called a Candy Stripe and so was very pleasantly surprised when this started blooming with four lovely heads in bright red with white stripes.  Candy stripes! Christ stripes! I think this is why I like this type of bulb so much.  Of course I've put in some hyacinth and tulip bulbs for next spring, but it's these stunning giant bulbs that come out at Christmas time that I just marvel at every year. This year it stands almost two feet tall and the four flowers each are as big as saucers This one's been blazing away for almost a week now and it's such a delight to have on the kitchen table sharing breakfasts and suppers with us!

Teddy Bears for Grown Ups

Car bear

Bears I  nearly bought recently

Cute bears

I don't know why we like teddy bears so much but there's a lot of them lying about my house and, actually, in both of our cars. Sometimes someone we are giving a ride to will inquire about the car bears, as in "Do these belong to your children?" or, upon seeing two or three on the back seat, asking "Do you know your kids left their toys here?"  Most of the time the car bears are just something warm and fuzzy to look at but they have done occasional duty as window wipes and fly swats when nothing else is at hand in busy traffic. (Of course, they get washed in the washing machine occasionally, in case you're thinking EEW!)   I'm sorry to say there's six -- maybe seven -- little and not-so-little bears in our bed also;  they get used as pillows, such as to prop up an elbow when you're reading at night or to keep out the draft around your neck or as extra support to the middle of one's back when lying on one side. And then, there's half a dozen little bears sitting on a table upstairs, just collecting dust and they have a miniature tea set in front of them and appear to sip tea when we're not around. I don't want to think about the other dozen or more teddy bears that got stuffed into a suitcase and stored in the garage in a recent anti-hoarding binge. Nor do I really want to think about the number of bears we've given away in our sporadic urge to purge ourselves or to share with others. And, now,  I'm recalling there's a bear in the kitchen with a chef's hat and there's a giant bear in the man cave upstairs (seriously!), not to mention the keychain koala bear that hangs off my bag. I consider it a good day if I don't see a bear and buy it.  So we're bearing up pretty well with our toys. How about you? Ha ha.

Orchids on My Breakfast Table at Hotel in Colorado

On a recent business trip, I really enjoyed my stay in Colorado at a Westin Hotel (in Westminter). Part of the enjoyment was having fresh flowers on the breakfast table in the restaurant at six in the morning. I really hadn't expected anything like that and of course had to get my camera out and arrange the vase and flowers a little and take a photo.

Gassy Pizza and Coffee at Emilio's

On the way to visiting my mother in Leesburg, VA recently, I discovered I had arrived a little early and decided to have lunch by myself at Emilio's in Lansdowne, a "village" development on the outskirts of Leesburg. Feeling like one of the Real Housewives -- who always seem to be eating out in brand new restaurants with trendy Italian or similar themes in brand new buildings -- I sat down and ordered a coffee and a pizza. It was a thin crust, the kind I like, and layered with thinly sliced zucchini, red bell pepper strips, some black olive slices and cheese. Not a tomato in sight! Well, it tasted fine except there was a faint odor of the cooking gas underneath the flavors, which is something I really don't like. But the service was very good and the waiter quite professional and friendly, so I didn't really have much to complain about except that gassy taste which is significant in my opinion. You really shouldn't be able to taste the cooking fuel unless it's hickory smoked or something. So, I found myself contrasting this restaurant with downtown DC restaurants. One, there really aren't pizza restaurants in downtown DC. There's a pizza van, but not a restaurant. Two, I was the only customer at 12 noon, although several others came in later to fill about 4 tables of the 20 tables they had. Everyone was white, or seemed to be anyway in this location although I think I did espy one Black person in a car driving by. A typical DC downtown daytime restaurant is usually very busy with most of the tables filled. Three, I parked my car in the street right outside the restaurant. That is highly unlikely in DC, to say the least, where just a couple of hours parking can cost $10 at least. Then, the other patrons were not what you see in DC restaurants at lunch time which are suited men and women, or otherwise dressed in office smart clothing, with a high proportion of "single" people it often seems. In Emilio's was a grouping of suburban ladies in baggy blue jeans and pants, loose tops and anorak coats, and none of whom seemed to have combed their hair or put on any makeup or jewelry that day. They were gaily ordering a pizza and salads and beers and just didn't look like DC lunchtime restaurant patrons. The other table was an older couple, a man and a woman, who seemed to be staring vacantly out the window in between eating their chicken salads. Not really lunchtime patrons in downtown DC either.I'm not sure where I'm going with this commentary other than to say I enjoy living in the city, which is much more bustling and diverse than are the far exurbs and where pizza either comes delivered to your door or you buy it off a truck. 

Glasses Needed for Views Reading

Image via Wikipedia

No matter how I try to keep track of them I lose my reading glasses. The solution has been to have multiple pairs in multiple locations since they are cheap enough, usually less than $20 a pair and in some cases I've bought three for a dollar! For cooking and detail housework I only need 1.75 or 2.00 magnification but for reading print I need 2.25. Anything higher tends to make me a bit nauseous. But this morning, all I could find were the red 2.25's kept together with staples at the hinges and which I only use for reading in bed. Why do the hinges break so easily! If the pins come out I can put a staple through and hold the hinge together that way even if the raw metal ends do occasionally catch on my hair or a scarf or something. I did come across two pairs of usable reading glasses on the way down the stairs but one was missing the ear holder and the other had mysteriously got two cracks in frame around the lens. And they were my favorite as they had rhinestones in the frames! So I ended up at CVS buying some dark pink ugly things so I could at least read what the number on each dollar bill is! My best organizing tactic is to put any glasses I find in the little drawer in the dining room side table and hope they all migrate there instead of underneath pillows, at the bottom of handbags or underneath the bed. This includes the various sunglasses I have collected over the past few years and which also seem to be experiencing a bout of lost lens or busted hinges or cracked lens holders. You'd think plastic things would last longer! But Thank God for glasses (or was it Benjamin Franklin?)