Wildflowers and Idiocy

 

So this is what the sky looks like here lately.  There are wildfires burning to the North and the East of us - all blessedly distant - and this is typically what the skies around here look like for at least a couple of weeks every year at the end of Summer.  It makes for apricot skies and mango sunsets, and the moon rises like a huge flaming balloon every night.

Today the wind shifted. The last trailing effects of horror death run eek tropical storm Hilary blew over last night in a light rain, and today the skies are clear and the sun is OUT.  (See, when California gets a bit of rain I can jeer since OMG get over it that's just an average day up North here - but when we get temps over 80f I am suffered to cry and scream and bitch because That's Not Fuckin' Normal.) We had a lovely blue morning, and as the day progressed, the smoke crept back, and the heat increased, and I am now distinctly uncomfortable.  I was not meant to imbibe polluted air and suffer in temperatures above 72f.  I could die. Any minute. My tits are sweaty. I am uncomfortable. Shit.

So I got high as balls and went out and took some more wildflower photos up and down my street.  

HA I fooled you this isn't a wildflower!  It's a Snowberry!  You can't eat them. I don't think anything eats them. I think they just fall off the bush eventually and lie on the dirt.

HOOT HOOT!!  Gotcha again!! This is the fruit of the Red Elderberry. No wait it's a Hawthorne. Yeah. This is a Hawthorne.  OK it's not really a Hawthorne, it's what we call a hawthorne.  A regular hawthorne is called a myrtle, and a myrtle is called a pincherry.  This makes sense if you live here.

Some tansy, also known as ragweed, that's been stunted.  You have to resort to chemical warfare on this shit to knock it back, as this has been. Once it takes root, forget it.

A clover head. If so inclined, you can carefully slip one of the purple blossoms out of the cluster and sip a perfect drop of honey out of it.  I mean, not this one, right. People's dogs have been at this stuff.  It's on the side of the road here. Ew.

Here we have Queen Annes' Lace at every stage of it's thang, with some purple clover in the background.  At this point I was down on one knee in the street angling my phone around trying for the perfect shot, and...people saw me.  Good thing I was blazed.  Behaving in an abberrant manner doesn't count if you're high.

This is called yellow lotus, and it grows in a nice round cushion.  The crazy thing about it is that once it has sprouted, it will grow to suit its conditions exactly.  This little clump is no larger than a demitasse, and all its parts are perfectly miniature.  If the seed had landed in a more fertile location the clump would have grown to the size of a hassock, in a perfect half-sphere.  

This humble little plant is a native orchid in seed - platanthera elongata.  It is EXTREMELY rare.  And it comes up in its multitudes between buildings H and G here where I live, and nowhere else.  I've looked!  A small miracle, this humble little plant with green, nondescript blossoms, ant pollinated, spread by ground nesting birds who pick at it's seeds (and live in the landscape heathers.)  This is a life- list plant for me and I was astounded to find it here!

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Every single year since 1969 I have cut off the side of my pointer finger, right or left.  Every single fucking year.  And this year is no different, as I type without using my right pointer finger. I just did it, trying to cut an onion on a mandoline.  You'd think by this time I'd know how to avoid this shit but noooooo. I am truly disgusted with myself.

I am so used to doing this, in fact, that I don't even freak out anymore.  I just go through the drill.  Let it bleed clean,  press it closed, open the bandaid one-handed and stretch it on, whoop whoop and done.  God I am sick of this.

I don't usually use a mandoline for that exact reason.  Thing is, we finally joined the trend and bought an air fryer.

Seduced by the promise of frying minus the part where the kitchen and the cook get coated with a fine mist of grease, we let this appliance into our lives and now I have to figure out how to use the damn thing.  I messed around with slices of bread and temperature settings and the timer and finally thought I was ready to make something substantial, so I went for crispy vegetable fritters. Potatoes, zuchs, carrot and onion (the villain of the piece) all cut on a mandoline, squeezed, mixed, a little seasoning, a little tempura batter, a little oil, twirled into a nest type of thing and fried.  A pain in the ass usually, given stove-top frying in hot oil during August, and messing with racks and paper towels and bowls and hot fat... but delicious nonetheless. It's what you make this time of the year when people realize they've planted too much zucchini and try to fob it off on you. 

I thought I was ready. I thought I had this knocked.  Right up until I slipped and lopped off a quarter of my fingertip AGAIN.  

No it did not land in the food. I knew you'd wonder. 

I however cannot be felled by such inconsequentialities.  Tomorrow I will be air-frying like a hero, turning out tasty fritters.

-Oh, and baking a nice cake too, in the oven, like a normal person.  Tomorrow is the Bikers' birthday!!!!