How do you like the new pot I picked up yesterday at the local family-run nursery?
Kind of a pretty little guy, isn’t it? The blue plate under it is an old, chipped dog dish that I had to retire from duty lest one of the pooches cut her tongue on it.
It’s another of those Mexican Talevera-style imports that Home Depot gets now and again and overcharges royally for. The nursery in question tends to be expensive — if you were in Mexico, you could buy these things for a few pesos and the maker would be happy. But HD is more so.
I love Talavera. That spider plant was sitting on the counter in a much smaller pot in which it volunteered, years ago. When I cleaned out and around the flowerbed, I found whatever had been in the little pot was long gone, and this critter was living in it. So I brought it inside, plopped it on the kitchen counter, and forgot about it.
Friend was over here the other day and noticed the thing. These plant-lovers can spot plant abuse in an instant. She tsked over the dry soil and the yellowing leaves.
{sigh}
So I promised to repot it.
Driving around the city yesterday, I found myself on the road that passes the nursery and thought, As long as i have to put that plant in a new pot, it might as well be a Talevera pot, which i will love. i will not especially love another cheap terracotta or plastic pot from HD or Michael’s.
Zip! Into the nursery. Coveted every plant on the grounds. Made my way to the back part of the lot where the Talavera pots are piled high. And lo, there was a whole collection of…uhm…blue-pot specials. Prices were not on “special,” but the pots were striking in their minimalist color scheme: blue and white.
Grabbed this; resisted the temptation to buy another gaggle of plants; raced on about my business.
I love the blue, because my son bought me a beautiful blue bowl for Christmas, which is on display atop the counter at all times. Also, the decorative tiles in the Mexican tile counter are predominately blue. So I suspected the pot would be perfect. And it is. IMHO, that is.
If you live in Phoenix or if you visit, and if you also happen to love Talevera pots and kitsch, you must visit Whitfill’s. They have several locations around the greater metropolitan area. And unlike certain competitors, they do not hawk landscaping trees like they were peddling used cars. 😀
In other news… The client’s book has gone to press. He seems pretty pleased, and as we scribble is bearing several copies to family members in Seattle. The index is probably in the can — I hope the last few ditzy issues were finished yesterday. All that remains on the table is the current Chinese dissertation author’s magnum opus, and helping to get her through an unusually stressful period. This project is driving her bats, and she has herself all keyed up, poor kid. With any luck, though, she’ll get through it.
If and when the last of the current work tsunami recedes, my plan is to kill some more time writing a new Fire-Rider novel and also writing a nonfiction book about cats.
Cat books sell exceptionally well… As for fiction: I have neither the skills nor the patience to peddle that stuff, and have decided to regard those scribblings much as I regard blogging — as a kind of hobby. I’ve got some fun new ideas for FR, one of which includes an invasion of cryptids.
Inspired by Honored Client, I may also compile a little genealogy of my family and put it together in book form as a gift for my son, since it’s so easy to create PoD volumes. The other day I stumbled upon a lead on my father’s purported Native American forebears: his eldest brother was living on the Chickasaw Nation in 1900. Today the tribal rolls [my fingers are determined to make that roles!] are sprinkled with the family name. So they may have been Chickasaw rather than Choctaw.
Maybe not, too. By 1900, more whites than Indians lived on the Chickasaw, plus the two tribes were closely allied and a lot of intermarriage went on between them. To find out more, I’ll need to pony up some cash money to get into the pay-to-peek genealogical websites. But it could be worth it.
If I could learn more about that guy and wherever the hell his parents came from, creating a genealogy with some narrative would be pretty easy, because one of my cousins on my mother’s side converted to Mormonism and committed that side of the family history to the Mormon archives.
It’s 10 a.m. It’s already getting hot, and, finding myself out of food, I must fly to the grocery store before getting down to work. And so, away!