one mystery solved

I now know what the yellow flower on the fence in back of the house is, thanks to Finslippy. Kerria japonica "pleniflora" (also comes in a "single bloom" variety which looks more like it's common name "Japanese Rose"). And now I have to give Monster the satisfaction of knowing he was right - it's not a wild flower but something planted there a long time ago.

Perky? Me?

You scored as Perky Goff, You are a perky goff! You like cute things, glitter, and scary carnivals. You think that the contrast between playful innocence and dark corruption is tantalizing, which is why you like to dress up like an evil dollie. Click on my name to take my other tests if you liked this one. Perky Goff 83% Romantic Goth 75% Cyber-goth 71% Old-school Goth 63% Anything-Goes Goth 54% Fantasy Goth 54% Ethereal Goth 50% Industrial/Rivet-Head 46% Understanding Outsider 42% Death Rocker 38% Confused Outsider 17% What subcategory of Goth best fits you? created with QuizFarm.com

long weekend coming up

I'm wondering what the Memorial Day weekend has going on. Who's still in town this week? Any good events happening?
It will be a good weekend to to a lot of gardening - cleaning, setting up a new box, and more planting.

Maybe we should have a few folks over to hang out on the patio Sunday and/or Monday. We have tunes... we have the butterfly chairs & benches... we don't have a huge grill but I believe litttle smokey is big enough for plenty of hotdogs and other quick cooking goodies. I could even try my hand at lavendar lemonade or my standard red sangria for company.

All I think we need is a wading pool and and ice cream.

smoked

It is incredibly smokey outside this morning all over the city. My drive into work was like driving through a cloud smelling of woodfire from Midtown to Chamblee. All of this is said to be from the fires in south Georgia, which have been burning for many days now, but the effects have not been noticable here until today.

pretty good week

This week at work has been busy. As busy as it should be all the time - it felt like we finally got back to where we should be. I actually believe I got forty hours of busy this week.

Thursday, got my hair cut by the wonderful Mr. Marcinko.

Friday, I went to a wine tasting at my pal Lee's house and sampled a few syrahs and shiraz while chatting with friends until it was time for home and bed.

Saturday, last night, was the Gemini Potluck. Got to see Kortny and Stephen's home. Very very nice place. Beautiful aquariums. Sweet and friendly cats and dog. Groovy reptiles. Fun collections and A TON OF FOOD. I was charmed.

Today, woke up for my usual CBS Sunday Morning, brunch with the GothFather. Came home and killed more English ivy in the back yard in my quest for a back yard I can use and enjoy. Showered. Watched Dr. Who while Monster made me a cosmopolitan.

Soto

Last night, for Herb's birthday, a small group of friends gathered at Soto restaurant for dinner. The group included Herb, Aileen, John F, Monster, the GothFather, Brandon & Gilli. Great dinner. Fun service, since it was the workplace of the GothFather, so everyone in the staff knew him and he was the experienced native guide and advisor on the food. We started by ordering the mussels and antipasto plates for the table. I had the scallops with fava beans. Monster had the grilled duck breast on polenta. Great food, perfectly cooked. They also have a new pastry chef at the restaurant who put together a fabulous "cookie" plate that came after the meal with several very diverse baked sweets. I'm not sure how that appeared at our table - whether someone was talked into trying it or if it was a normal after-dinner bit or if, knowing it was Herb's birthday, a treat.

Afterwards, all of us gathered at the GothFather's Groovy Bachelor Pad for Italian cream cake and coffee. Lots of conversation on film followed. Finally, we left for home and bed around 1:30 AM.

No More Archer Farms potato chips

This is kinda icky but I find it fascinating.

I seem to have developed a food allergy. Something in Archer Farms Salt & Pepper potato chips causes canker sores on my tongue. Odd but true.

The experiment was this week. For the last two weeks I had to go through the slow-healing process of sores on my tongue that I at first attributed to burns. I do a lot of personal injury to myself with burning-hot food and scratchy tortilla chips. But somewhere in the back of my head I remembered greatly enjoying a bag of those chips over the course of the preceding week. I did not eat any potato chips during the healing, because it seemed to irritate things in my mouth worse than anything else. All healed up, I had a handful of chips (maybe two or three) on Saturday morning and by Sunday, I had what seemed like the begining of a sore on my tongue. Didn't eat any chips Sunday and by Monday, my mouth felt fine again. Last night, there was just small amount of chips left in a bag, that I scarfed down before putting the empty bag in the trash before throwing it out. This morning, my tongue is once again raw on the tip. These sores don't always occur on the same place, but they are nearly always on my tongue, rather than my gums, inner cheeks, etc.

Now I'd give anything to know what the exact irritant is in the chips, so I can avoid it in other foods and snack fear-free.

Another for Ben

From Philip:

Ben was a GREAT public speaker. So I know this better be good

I had a really bad dream a few months ago. Ben was in it. It was so bad, I woke up shaking. Something’s wrong with Ben. Should I call? Should I call? I did the math. It was 4:15 Eastern Standard. A.M. Hmmmmm…Should I call? Hmmmm… He’s probably fine. It’s nothing. But I COULDN’T shake the feeling. I paced a little. Finally, Violet insisted, “Call him. You should really call him.” So, I called. At 4:30 AM, eastern…standard….time…..

Phone rings. Rings again. And again. And again. OK, getting worried. Click.

Ben: [very sleepily] Hello?

Philip: [very quickly] Hey man, it’s philip I know this is probably silly but I just had a dream that you were in and I had dream like that when I was a kid and it didn’t turn out so well and I got worried and just wanted to make sure you are ok and safe and cool and debra is too is good yeah...

Ben: [pause, slowly] Yes, Philip, everything’s fine. [A little testily] And you know what, buddy?

Philip: What, what?

Ben: I will be even better tomorrow. [pause] In the daytime.

Philip: OK, cool. Sorry, I just got worried and had to know if you were good, glad we got to talk glad you’re ok, silly I know, call ya back later, ok cool. Love ya man.

Ben: Love you, too, buddy.

[Click]

I’m glad I got to talk to him a few times after that. Like the 3-day visit last Fall, in San Francisco, at my HOUSE. That was AWESOME fun. Even if, according to Ben, I didn’t let his VERY expensive wine breathe long enough. Luckily it was bottle number two and no one noticed. That was a great time. I had them to MYSELF! Without all of you fighting for their attention. It was great. Truly.

Then a couple of months ago, I saw Ben for the last time. Ironically at another brother’s funeral. Jason Swinks. Also a great guy.

And last Wednesday, when he’d been moved to the hospice, we talked. Debra held the phone. We actually talked for about 20 minutes, Cracked each other up a few times, cried some, said our I love you mans, our great meeting yas, our remember whens. And our goodbyes. Like we all had to do last week.

He understood his condition, but what he was giving was giving me -- giving ALL of us – was the last little bit of Ben he could. Goes out the way we remember him. That’s a lesson learned, brother.

And that’s not the only thing Ben taught us, no?

Things like…

You just can’t laugh enough. In fact, too much laughter is just about right. A wit so dry, he might as well have whispered vermouth over it.

It’s a FACT: Single-ply toilet paper is just flat-out wrong.

The only thing better than a great bottle of wine, is 2, sometimes, THREE great bottles of wine.

If you have a beautiful & kind partner who loves you, hey, the rest of your life is just plain easy. Find her.

Toast the cumin seed first. Then grind it. Then don’t tell anyone your secret. Unless they beg. Like I did once.
Incidentally that helped us win the 24th annual Sausalito chili cook-off. Hap, I hear you are making Ben’s chili. I hope you remembered the toasted cumin seed, bro.

Beautiful Triumph motorcycles that sit in the basement are sad and lonely. There’s no excuse, Ben!

You are never the smartest person in the room, if Ben is there, too.

Croquet is in fact a contact sport.

And of course, “ Ben! Whatcha gonna gimme for my piece o’ cornbread??!!”

Back to that bad dream. It felt a little like this. A little unreal. I think we all feel like we’re in a bad dream right now.

I can’t say Ben’s in a better place, because I honestly don’t know if there is one. But, oh, if there IS, he is absolutely THERE. And he’s probably cracking everyone up. And pouring wine. And cooking up something delicious. Because that is what he did HERE. He made THIS place a better place. And he made all of us better people.

We miss you Ben. There is a hole in the world where you used to be.

We’ll get by, but it sure won’t be the same without you. And it won’t be as much fun. We will remember the things you taught us about love, and laughter and friendships and honoring your partner. And we will miss you.

If you have anything to do with it, can you keep us all safe and healthy? Especially Debra.

And we will ALL keep YOU in our hearts. And we will never forget.

Until we can join you, wherever you are.

Cheers, buddy.

funerals, parties, eulogies

Last Saturday was the memorial service and funeral for Ben. As funerals go, it was one of the best I've been to. It was at Patterson/Oglethorpe Funeral Home, which is one of the nicest I've seen. Very formal but without the cold, sterile utilitarian quality that most funeral homes have. Ben did not want a religious service, not being especially religious himself. Instead, the memorial service was a series of stories and memories shared by friends, family, and co-workers. All were good speakers. All were great stories - and examples to live by, or rather, how to really live.

Afterwards, there was an open-invitation potluck for everyone who knew Ben at Joy & Cam's that went on the rest of the day and well into the night.

Chantelle shared her eulogy:

Hello. I’m Chantelle, Captain of The Krewe of the Grateful Gluttons. I lived in New Orleans for a time and became enamored of the notion of a Krewe; friends and their families celebrating together for 150 years. And I thought: my friends are the stuff Krewes are made of. I declared us a Krewe Mardi Gras 1999. All 8 of us.

Ben comes to me through Doc and Hap coming to Jazz Fest. They really perfected the art of attending the Jazz Festival. They would go early and set up all the stuff; the tarp and lawn chairs and coolers. And they’d raise our flag, so us people on the slow bus could find them. Today is the last Saturday of Jazz Fest. Buckwheat Zydeco is playing right now. Cowboy Mouth goes on at 3. Then we would have to decided between The Allmand Brothers and John Mayer. Diana is there right now with all of us in her heart. See: you can be in two places at once when someone loves you. When you got a Krewe.

Our Krewe isn’t so exclusive. You just have to live the creed. Try everything. Have seconds. And, say Thank You. On a balcony in New Orleans on our last St. Patrick’s Day trip Ben declared an addendum: Extravagance Without Waste. That’s my Eagle Scout.

When I moved to Atlanta, I wondered if the Grateful Gluttons would stick. When Ben Perry called himself a Grateful Glutton, my heart soared. He meant it. He believed we were the stuff Krewes were made of, that we could be together for 150 years. And he did the things to make it so. He lavished time on his friendships. You know what that is right there? That is faith in action. Faith in love. Believing in what you can’t see or touch or spend and reaching for it. Believing that the love between us is our greatest treasure and honoring it.

I recently read that this life is a “School for Gods”. That we are all Gods at college and these bodies are our classrooms and dorms. And after finals, we go home. What might the study of Gods be? The nature of love. Faith in it. I suppose it’s no wonder that Mr. Smarty-pants graduated ahead of his class. We’ll all get there eventually, us people on the slow bus. And our Ben will have raised the flag.

Y’all love each other real good. Immortal, like.


Thomas shared his thoughts in the form of a poem:

I was a friend of Ben:

In the Feudalism of my

Feast of Friends

there is no King or Queen.

But we lost a Duke when we lost Ben.

We lost a chef,

A happy scientist,

An Eagle Scout,

A Loyal friend.

===============

Eagle Scouts are born

to be

Prepared, Loyal, and Free

there for us to emulate--

in life--

and later,

in the gently treasured,

resurrected

Memories

of thoughtful deeds,

of playful thoughts,

of words well spoken,

and more attention paid

to Fools

than certainly

I

did

warrant.

I'll miss Ben's sense of humor

most of all.

arrivals and departures

Yesterday was so true to the statement "Someone comes into town. Someone leaves town."

In the morning, our friends Luke and Bridget became the parents of a new daughter.
In the afternoon, we got word that our friend Ben had passed.