If it's all the same to you, I'll just take the pen

[pameladean]

I've had bronchitis, the viral kind. I use the pluperfect because the particular chesty symptoms are mercifully gone, leaving behind a stuffy head, an impressive hollow cough, and a vast lack of stamina. I haven't gotten any writing done, and am worried about not being able to help David and Lydy with cleaning for the Minn-Stf meeting, but I'm sure all will be well. Codeine makes me very stupid, but it's nice to be able to stop coughing. I won't need the codeine any more, I don't believe.

We are having a very fine week of spring, and the lawn is an excellent cat jungle at the moment, full of monstrous plaintain, blooming dandelions, the hopeful spires of daisy fleabane, black-eyed Susan, white daisy, dame's rocket, shepherd's purse, aspiring wild rosebushes, white and purple violets, and a few escaping daylilies. The week I spent doing jury duty and the week I spent being sick were both desperately needed for weed control. I've lost the initiative at this point, but sufficient mulch will probably allow me to draw even again. Yesterday it was raining mulberry catkins and elm seeds; they swirled in the wind just like snowflakes. The wild geranium is blooming, and all the Solomon's seal is up, and beginning to droop at the end as its flower buds form. We've had a very long blooming season for bleeding heart and also for lily-of-the valley. There are buds on the mock orange bushes. All the phlox has come back, and then some; the black-eyed Susan is strewing itself liberally around in inconvenient places as usual. And I seem to have put in a dozen new lilies last fall. I'd forgotten.

I have a new computer, for the first time in, well maybe since the first time I had one at all. The one I'd been using dates from 1996. The new one is a laptop. I've never had my very own before, though I have shared several with David. It's a good thing I had his advice, because frankly, the fact that its name is also the scientific name for the maple family would probably have been enough to sell me. I'm still getting used to the idea that I can pick up my entire computer and walk off with it. For the moment, I will just say reverently, "It's so fast!"

P.

Comments

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

...so you bought an Acer.

(I may have flunked--okay, low B-ed--my Latin final, but by golly I know my trees. At least, I hope I do. Great, more uncertainty about my linguistic ability. Maybe I should flunk some students to cheer me up.)

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

I studied Latin in prep school before I dropped out....I googled. ((hangs head))

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Poetry is really good for tree types. They're always telling you what the grove that produced the wood that built the (ship, chair, bed) was, etc etc. Not to mention people turning into sorts of trees, or clutching sorts of trees, or being raped under sorts of trees. :)

I'm hoping for a low A on my final (took it today), but my grasp of Livy is teh suck, I'm afraid. That and I had no motivation to study. I'm exhausted.

Don't I know you from someone else's journal too?

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

....I think so -- you sound familiar, if that doesn't sound weird; I went to St. John's College, so I enjoy hanging around Classics majors and pretending I know classic lit too. Heh. (I do remember a fair amount of nature lore in Lucretius and Ovid -- but alas, v little of it stuck.)

[pameladean]

You win!

I am a complete fake as a classicist because despite three separate tries I could not make Latin go into my head and stay there. It's my interest in local phenology that caused me to retain acer.

P.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

I am finally hitting the phase where I mix up Latin and Greek all the time because I don't notice the differences as much as I used to. Now I'd like the phase where I don't mix them up anymore because I know them so well, please. :)

[clindau.livejournal.com]

And it's my interest in crossword puzzles that causes me to retain acer....

...and an ant is *emmet*, and a slave/serf is *esme*. I think.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

A new laptop, huzzah!....ugh, bronchitis: I used to get that every quarter when I smoked in college. Nasty, nasty. I'm glad you are recovered.

[pameladean]

I haven't had it since I worked in an office with several smokers, which will tell you about how long ago THAT was. Nasty evil infection.

P.

[suzilem.livejournal.com]

My first PC was an Acer. I bought in in 1993ish. 25 SX. Ah, those were the days. It was a good little machine, and I hope that you have even better luck with yours as I did with mine.

[pameladean]

I'd never heard of it at all. I'm thinking of getting a maple-leaf sticker for it, though. 8-)

P.

[darcydodo]

If only you were a mathematician, you could run Maple on it, too. :)

I find that I tend to know many more plant names than my fellow classicists, thanks to my interest in actual plants. So I'm not surprised that you remember acer.

[aiglet.livejournal.com]

If you're willing to try something completely bizarre, this is what the people at my old Chinese restaurant used to give me when I had bronchitis and it would stop it dead in its tracks:

Get one *large* hand of ginger. Peel and chop into fine slices (the idea is to maximize exposed surface area).

Take one bottle regular Coke. (Has to be regular, can't be either caffeine-free *or* diet.) Decant into a large pot, add the ginger, and boil for 10 minutes.

Drink hot, like tea.

It smells *vile* when it's cooking, tastes pretty good (it's *spicy*!), and will kill off pretty much anything up to and including walking pneumonia. I've fed it to other people and it works on them too, and when I asked my doctor, she blinked, thought about it for a minute, pulled out *her* recipe for "boiled things you drink when you have pneumonia" and allowed as how mine not only probably worked at least as well but almost certainly tasted better. (Hers had green onions and honey in it. Too weird for me.)

I hope you feel better soon!

[pameladean]

Hmmmm, it actually sounds good. Would basic very hot ginger beer do as well, do you think, or is the freshness of the ginger important?

P.

[aiglet.livejournal.com]

I think the idea is to get the "goodness" of the ginger, so that would probably work too, but I'm not sure what effect the caffeine and other weird chemicals have. They were completely insistent that it had to be Coke and not Pepsi, probably because Coke flavors with lemon and Pepsi with vanilla, so maybe the lemon helps?

Let me know how it works if you try it!

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I have that brand of monitor in my office. I like it.

we're having a bit of noah's weather here

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

and a few escaping daylilies.

Were those some of mine? Their early years may have inclined. I am fond of things that like to escape their places and wander.

But the Gardzilla is on Falls scree that they dug up when they built the Mills, and then potworthy clay so these are pretty rare. And I've been known to smile politely and in disbelief at the term "invasive plants." They have to work pretty hard at it and might have developed muscles. ;)

Some of the orientals have shown out in crinkle nose wonder spots, and I must have forgotten to snip the cone flowers, there's suspicious looking seedlings all over the paths. The birds must be helping. There's baby lettuce in my bedroom window box, and up until a few minutes ago three sunflower saplings.

There's a sad lack of grass, and so I am expanding the beds again I think. I may have to find a new home for the push mower soon, which is going to outlive the grass. We're very green and lush and getting ready to pop, roses, clematis, regular peonies, all loaded.

And btw, your tree peony is blooming. I've a jpg and on of a galadriel pendant that I may have up over the weekend is it is still deluging.

The sprout has the family genes. I remember being up in a tree with a book as a kid and watching my uncles play frisbee with the tornado warning winds. He's just come back dripping from the park playing basketball in the storm.

The dogs of course are more sensible. I am afraid I plant in the rain, although not this one. But they are all curled up in a heap on my bed. I think it is one of the times they realize we are not just fur challenged, but very different.

Re: we're having a bit of noah's weather here

[pameladean]

No, yours are still consolidating their position. I gave them lots of room. Next year, now, that I might expect them to go awandering.

My present escapees are the standard orange daylily. It's good that I like thelm.

I love your description of your volunteers. I am a terrible sucker for volunteers. I hate to mow them. I mow around daisies and black-eyed susans and dame's rocket until late summer, when I ruthlessly cut them down. This encourages them, so I don't mind it so much.

P.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

We've been in this house about seven years (eight?) now, and the first summer we were here I moved a few of my neighbor's volunteer daylilies along my front retaining wall (top). I'm now working on a twelve-foot border of them, and they're starting to think about a second layer. All from two or three tiny little bits.

[pameladean]

Yes, they're quite amazing. I have dug up a patch from time to time to make room for something else, but not only do the daylilies flourish in their new locations, they come back in the old. I guess I should dig down about nine feet or something.

P.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

That was my experience with daylilies, too. I thought it was an unusual one, guess not.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I think you will like having a laptop. It is very nice to be able to drag your thoughts with you from room to room and even out of the house! I'm hooked.

[pameladean]

I am very slow to adapt to new things. I have yet to unplug the external mouse and keyboard and take this computer anywhere. But soon, I'm sure.

P.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Some people don't like laptop keyboards; I do. I don't know if it's because the first computer I owned was a laptop, or what. I don't often unplug this one, but I really like that I can. And, Austin being so wired (wirelessed?), I like that I can take it with me. I've done that a couple of times since I've owned this one.

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

Hurray for new laptops and fine flowers! And may you feel much better tomorrow.

[eub.livejournal.com]

I've thought of them as the sharp-eager-sour brand, but I like the maples better.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

May you get well quickly!

(I use mulch for weed control, but I feel sorry for the weeds I'm smothering. I am a guilt-ridden gardener.)