Frail flower
Last year I got just one bloom on my peony because of the dry winter. The second day it was in bloom, a rain storm soaked open, petaly, lone flower. It collapsed under the weight of all the water it caught, then all the petals fell off. The plant's dark, glossy leaves are lovely by themselves, but I was sorely disappointed to lose the flamboyant flower.

Sadly, these enormous, fragrant blooms (they're about 5" in diameter) only seem to last a week at the most, even in the best conditions. This year I was able to rescue my peonies to enjoy indoors before they were decimated by rain. (They opened this morning, and a thunderstorm is in the forecast for tonight.) Here are four of the seven blossoms for the year.





Any green thumbs out there, is it possible to get a second set of blooms on a peony planted in the Mid-Atlantic region, or is this plant "done" for the season?

New heights
Joel beat me to the punch blogging about Claire's latest gross motor skill feat--stair climbing. I don't think it's time to panic yet. First, she only climbed one step. Second, when I tried to get her to repeat the action, she lost interest and crawled away.

I'm just glad that our staircase has so many bends, the most stairs she could tumble down at a time is about eight.

Spam, spam, eggs and spam
I've noticed a disturbing trend. I seem to get a lot of e-mail letters from strangers claiming to be related to some important person in Africa or Asia whose assets are tied up because of a military coup or some other disaster. Only with my help can they save the family fortune, they claim. By helping them move millions of dollars out of their home country to a U.S. bank, they promise me a large cut of the money. All I have to do is provide a bank account number and several other pieces of personal information, or simply up-front cash.

Of course, armed with this information, these strangers can easily siphon thousands from bank accounts. Or they simply take the up-front money and run. From what I've heard, this is an extremely old scam. Entire cottage industries have sprung up around swindling gullible Americans using this type of story. The Internet just makes it cheaper to reach more potential victims.

I'm still trying to figure out how so much of this variety of spam gets past the office firewall to end up in my business e-mail account. I probably get four a week and delete them all.

Taken to task
Multitasking is not for amateurs. My big misadventure for the week happened after a tiring grocery shopping trip, slogging around the store with a cold and sore throat. I'd nearly finished unpacking the groceries when one of my girlfriends called. I chatted away while putting tea on to boil, packing away food items and tidying up.

After making the tea, I noticed the pan under the set of burners needed to be cleaned. So I pulled away the metal grilles from our gas stove with my bare hands. My girlfriend heard a shriek and a crash. Yup, I grabbed one of the grilles over the burner where I'd just boiled water. Good friend to have on the end of the line, this ICU nurse. She talked me through how to care for my burns while I sobbed through the intense pain.

I now have several second-degree burns on my right hand, thankfully none on my finger tips. I have some very interesting blisters, though. The first night was the worst. I slept clutching a re-freezable chill pack for the cooler.

Talking on the phone is dangerous. So just send me e-mail from now on, thanks.

The One
The Matrix: Reloaded. Whoa. Just as intense as I'd expected. Also a lot more confusing. I'm not sure what to make of some of the new plot points, and the multiple new enemies to deal with.

I also wonder how much Cadillac paid to get their cars placed in the freeway chase scene. I mean come on, this is the brand one usually associates with seniors in golf pants driving under the speed limit, not svelte women in leather weaving through traffic at furious speeds dodging bullets.

Anyone with a knowledge of physics, is it really possible when fighting on top of a moving vehicle to land in the same spot after jumping in the air? It seems like the wind drag would put you further back. Yeah, yeah, it's the fake-o land of the Matrix, anything is supposedly possible. But this film requires you to suspend your disbelief an awful lot. The line between, "wow, cool" and "yeah, right" was getting a little thin for me at times.

Definitely worth seeing on the big screen, as long as you have time afterwards to unwind from this adrenaline rush.

La Luna

I saw a lunar eclipse for the first time on Thursday after babysitting for hierogrammate's kids. I can't believe it's taken 34 years to see this fairly common astronomical event. (BTW it was way cool.)

I really need to get out more.

Above and below stairs
Anyone keeping up with the new PBS show "Manor House"? It's a "living history" sort of show styled after "1900 House" and "Frontier House," in which contemporary people step back in time and live for an extended time in another era.

In "Manor House," one family lives "above stairs" in wealth and ease as Edwardians, while a group of volunteers serve them. It's kind of cool that a several of the volunteer servants have relatives who were "in service" and wanted to get an idea of what Granny's or Great Aunt Betty's life was really like.

By episode four, the servants are getting pretty exhausted and the younger ones are really chafing under the conventions of servitude. But interestingly, it's the wealthy unmarried aunt above stairs who becomes so depressed she needs to leave for a while. It was surprising to learn that in some ways, it was probably more fulfilling to be a parlormaid than a rich spinster during this era in terms of feeling like you contribute and matter.

Sabbath reflection

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds thy hands have made.
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, my savior God, to thee;
How great thou art, how great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my savior God, to thee:
How great thou art, how great thou art!

When through the woods and forest glades I wander
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze:

And when I think that God, his Son not sparing,
Sent him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin:

When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart!
Then I shall bow in humble adoration,
And there proclaim, "My God, how great thou art!"

Back in college when I sang with a music ministry group, I remember visiting a church with an active deaf ministry. This was one of the hymns of the morning. Seeing a whole group of people signing the lyrics made me really hear the words of this piece that always seemed a little flowery. "Then sings my soul..." Even when one can't praise God with one's voice, He hears the song of one's soul. In spite of my "lisping, stammering tongue," every failure and weak muteness, I can yet praise him.

We are amused
When life gets stressful, there's nothing like a little Monty Python. Watching some old episodes last night, I saw another favorite sketch:

(Opening shot: Sports announcer outside metal starting stalls used for horse racing.)

Announcer: Well they're under starter's orders for this very valuable Queen Victoria Handicap. And they're off...

(The starting stall doors fly open; out come eight identically dressed Queen Victorias who go bustling off up the field.)

Announcer: And Queen Victoria got a clean jump off, followed by Queen Victoria, Queen Victoria and Queen Victoria. It's Queen Victoria from Queen Victoria and Queen Victoria. It's Queen Victoria making the early running on the inside. And at the back Queen Victoria already a couple of lengths behind the leaders. Queen Victoria has now moved up to challenge Queen Victoria with Queen Victoria losing ground. Queen Victoria tucked in neatly on the stand side with a clear view. Queen Victoria still the back marker as they approach the halfway mark, but making ground now, suddenly past Queen Victoria with Queen Victoria, Queen Victoria and Queen Victoria still well placed as they approach the first fence.

(A low angle shot as the Queen Victorias appear over the fence and thunder towards the camera.)

Announcer: And at the first fence it's Queen Victoria just ahead of Queen Victoria and Queen Victoria falling away in third place. And Queen Victoria in the lead....

Caged
Claire's latest achievement is pulling herself into a standing position. Now when she wakes from a nap, I find her rattling the sides of her crib as if to say, "set me free, Mama!"

Lone Xylophone redux
I'd wanted to repost one of my earliest blogs that explains where I got the name. Now that the archives have been recovered, here it is...

Lone xylophone, I realize, is a kind of odd name for a blog, and merits explanation...

My sophomore through senior years of high school, I played mallet percussion, an experience that put me in an even more freakish subset of band freaks: girl percussionists. I didn't play something delicate and feminine like a flute or clarinet, but a huge instrument that had to be strapped to my body. I carried sticks and hit things.

Being a girl percussionist is not for wussies. I got to wear a 40-pound marching xylophone through blazing heat, rain, and snow on football fields and several-mile parades in hilly towns. (I only fainted once, during a two mile parade in 98 degree heat in a wool uniform. Fortunately, a parent caught my instrument before I was impaled on the harness.)

My band director decided that the percussion harnesses were ugly, so we had to wear them under our uniforms. It's amazing I ever got a date, wandering around football games with lumpy shoulders, bolts bulging at unnatural places on my chest and a steel bar sticking out by my groin. Of course, with the instrument attached I could do some serious damage if I turned around too fast--and did knock the wind out of a trombonist...

I'll save some of my crazy band days stories for future posts. Suffice it to say, my experiences shaped my imagination in unique ways, and I can hear beauty in hitting things, see dignity in the lumpy but strong.

Archives
It seems that Joel got the archives back up and running.