A Rose By Any Other Name

Hello World, Happy first day of summer! The summer solstice screeches into the station right on time this Sunday, kicking off the official summer season for real, and don't spare the sherbet and watermelon, my good man! You can also expect all of the Druids you know to go right ahead and party hearty for the occasion - although dragging around slabs of granite to assemble an astronomical monolith might be carrying things just a bit too far, in my opinion. But The Holiday Police notwithstanding, I still maintain that there is no wrong way to celebrate a holiday, and the rest of us are free to greet the changing seasons in whatever way seems most appropriate, from the prosaically mundane to the terrifyingly radical, and everything in between. Now, I don't mind saying that I appreciate a good monolith ritual as much as the next Druid - I mean, fellow - but I have the feeling that I'll be the one in the hammock with the lemonade instead. Of course, last Sunday was Flag Day, and you can be sure that the often over-matched Flag Brigade was on the job and hard at work running up the colors upstairs and downstairs, and long may she wave. It must be said that this whole process is not as easy as it used to be, now with the new air conditioner in the upstairs window, under which the flag bracket is located outside, and summarily cutting off access to the bracket on all sides. Now, it wouldn't do to ignore the Stars & Stripes on their special day, but it was late in the game for coming up with a backup plan under the (pomp and) circumstances, by jingo. The poor beleaguered Flag Brigade (and their last 2 remaining addled brain cells, which I have renamed Dickens & Fenster for the occasion) had no choice but to scramble around and dig out another flag bracket, and hang out a different window to attach it to the rickety window trim with a bunch of ratty bent nails, and looking for all the world like a textbook example of "who did it and ran," and I ought to know. Frankly, it's a wonder that Old Glory stayed upright through it all, and didn't just come tumbling down through the remorseless pull of gravity, and land face-first in the flowerbed underneath, to the detriment of both, I shouldn't wonder. You know it's late in June when the playoffs are finally over for the winter sports, and at long last we have reached that point in both the NBA and NHL - and that sound you hear is one gigantic raspberry from disappointed fans all over the country, thanks not. The Larry O'Brien Trophy for hoops mastery went to the surprising Golden State Warriors, who trounced Lebron James and the Cavaliers in 6 games in such decisive fashion (one might even say, "in a cavalier manner" - oof!!!) that Lebron didn't even win the series MVP as usual, even in a losing cause. Meanwhile on the frozen front, the scrappy Chicago Blackhawks skated off with their third Stanley Cup in 6 years, besting the Tampa Bay Lightning also in 6 games. So congratulations are in order for the players and fans in these 2 cities, and a rousing chorus (albeit belligerent) of "wait until next year" for the rest of us - and once again, thanks ever so much not. And speaking of late in June, we have no lack of wild roses to cheer us from every corner of the yard, with their varied palette of creamy petals and delightful fragrance, that can't help but offset those pesky thorns. It's also late enough for our pink and white astilbes to spring forth, and even the early daylilies are putting on a show in the vibrant hues that are their hallmark, and a more welcome sight would be hard to find. Which reminds me that last week at church, we heard the parable of the mustard seed, and the pastor, who is apparently botany-challenged, was trying his best to relate it to everyday garden plants that we see around us all the time. For some reason, he chose to wax eloquent about roses, of all things, and he explained that even though the flower fades, it holds within the seeds that will yield more new plants next season. (???) Here I'm thinking, this would come as a mind-numbing surprise after hundreds of years of cultivating roses, by scientists, experts, and devoted amateurs, that they could have just scattered a packet of seeds instead, and ended up with rows upon rows of roses. (NOT!!!) The way things were going, I'm surprised that he didn't tell us that we could grow our own birds from bird seed. Honestly, you can't make this stuff up. Also not making things up, you can believe me when I say that I saw the most amazing little red sports car coming home from work a few weeks ago, and there was no missing this little beauty, because it was just screaming for attention. It was like nothing I had ever seen before, and looked like one of those concept models they display at auto shows, but never see the light of day in the real world, because they would be too expensive, wildly impractical, and have only the narrowest of appeal to the general driving public. The first thing you would notice about it (besides being red) is that it was so low-slung that it appeared to be below ground level, and you would have to climb down into it from the street, as impossible as that sounds. Seriously, if you were standing right next to it, it wouldn't even come up to your knees. I can't figure out how anyone could drive the darned thing, because you'd have to be laying down the whole time, like a recumbent bicycle, and you would need someone perched on the roof, just to tell you where you were going. Of course, it's entirely possible that the engineers have taken this into account, and it already comes with its own built-in periscope so you can see the road ahead, and not just the ceiling of the interior, but I have no independent corroboration of this, and I would not care to speculate. For all I know, it might be one of those newfangled vehicles that drives all by itself, and the passengers are just along for the ride, so who cares if they can see where they're going or not. That is, unless it's been programmed by a bunch of Druids, in which case the passengers would wind up going to the monolith rituals on Sunday, whether they wanted to or not, and the heck with hammocks and lemonade, regardless, and don't say I didn't warn you. Elle