madam python tricks Kate’s flowerless Geranium Named Jeff
“Home at last, home at last. Oh Thank God, I’m home at last.” My trip from Geneva to Santa Barbara consumed three issues of The Weekly Letter - a record. Astonishingly, I actually made it home. Nazy had prepared for my arrival by allotting several days for recuperation. However, those were all used up because of my (slow-‘moving&rsquo
journey. Thus, it was an active first week.
“We’re going to Spamalot,” Nazy explained. “It’s showing at an outdoor theatre in Solvang.”
“Spamalot?”
“Have you seen it, Dan?”
“Yes, it’s very funny - based on Monty Python.”
“Monty Python?”
“Sophisticated humor - high brow. You’ll probably need to study up on current events and historical references.”
“Are you sure?”
“I particularly like the part where the French defeat King Arthur's soldiers by, eh, ‘breaking wind’.”
“That part..”
“Like, cart, mart, start and dart, rhymes with what the French do in the show.”
“Sophisticated humor, Dan?”
Actually, the show was really good. And Solvang is beautiful city with Danish roots. (Solvang means ‘sunny field’ in Danish.) My 100% Danish Mom grew up in Dannebrog, Nebraska. We had time before the show to walk through and enjoy the Solvang. Nazy wouldn’t let me buy any Danish pastry, but she had booked dinner at a great Italian restaurant. (Go figure.)
The very next day, we went, courtesy of Mitra, to visit Lotusland - a spectacular estate and botanical garden in nearby Montecito. Lotusland was established by Madame Ganna Walska. (Her original name was Hanna Puacz: She liked the sound of Hanna and Walska reminded her of her favorite dance - the Waltz.) She married six times (4 time$ to rich men) so she got her money the old-fashioned way: she married it. She was (in her mind) an opera singer. [According to contemporary accounts, she was not a good opera singer.] But she had a love for gardens and she was good at that. She spent about 40 years designing, redesigning, adjusting and fixing the gardens that she named Lotusland.
According to the guide, “Madame” was not easy to work with.
“.. and Madame had the artist rework this mosaic 14 times...”
“She makes Steve Jobs look flexible,” I thought.
“... Madame went to sleep at 4:30..”
“In the morning?” I thought.
“ ... in the afternoon”
She was eccentric and long-lived: she died at 97. As I explained to Nazy..
“Early to bed, early to rise..”
She may have been weird, but she created a magnificent garden - or, more accurately, set of gardens. The 37 acre site is filled with exotic plants. Nazy and I throughly enjoyed the morning.
Our own garden had suffered a bit during the early summer. The princess plant (named Kate) looked..
“Is it sick?” I asked.
“Sick? Of course not. Look at the green leaves. They are coming back,” Nazy explained.
“Coming back? Where did they go?”
“You should have seen her a few weeks ago. She was almost dead.”
“And you’ve upgraded her to comatose?”
Kate is recovering. Jeff, the Geranium, on the other hand, is strong and healthy. (Local children want to climb on Jeff and have fantasies of slaying Giants.) Jeff had huge deep green leaves. But Jeff is flowerless.
I explained the situation to Nazy: “A ‘flowering’ plant that is all green is not impressive.”
Wikipedia says that Kate and Jeff have different reactions to the same mistake: Overwatering and over-fertilizing. Kate drops leaves and Jeff shuns flowers.
Mal-performing (nameless) peripheral plants like the straggly petunias were simply dumped. Others, like Ayssum, that bloom spectacularly, were left untouched.
Nazy also arranged a variety of events with the Santa Barbara Newcomers Club. She is really good at meeting people and making friends. (And volunteering - both of us.) My flight experience generated several questions and comments from anxious readers:
Is there anything positive that you can say about your flight?
That’s a tough one - but: I ‘upgraded’ to a premium economy seat on the Geneva-Dullest Airport leg. The seat wasn’t wider, but it did have more l e g r o o m. It was a reasonable purchase. Of course, United tried to screw it up by placing me in boarding group 5. (i.e. after the screaming babies, the nonagenarians, the middle school class returning from a Europe visit, the Quaker convention group, the chanting novices on the way to a Hari Krishna convention, anyone traveling with a family and anyone traveling alone.) Experienced, I foiled the plot. (More accurately: “Lucky, I foiled the plot.&rdquo The airplane was parked at a remote gate accessed by a bus. United boarded the bus by groups. That meant that the last person in (i.e. ‘me&rsquo was the closest to the door. And, although two buses were used, United made the people in the first bus (groups 1&2) wait until the second bus arrived. When the doors opened, everyone took a breath and human expansion ejected me onto the tarmac. Taking advantage of my ‘First’ status, I ran to the stairs and commandeered a substantial amount of overhead bin space. Thanks UAL.
Can you recommend any reading material to pass the time at Dullest Airport?
Try “Dear American Airlines- a Novel” by Jonathan Miles. (Recommended by my good friend Cormac.) It’s a great book that begins with a complaint letter to American Airlines. (I could claim that it’s the wrong airline, but all of the US airlines have congealed, like scum on a rancid pond, into comparably abysmal service levels. I also have friend (Mike) who is repatriating from Singapore. Singapore Airlines doesn’t require that cabin staff be as old as the Wright Brothers and it insists that they weigh less than the fully fueled airplane. Singapore Airlines also feels responsible for taking passengers to their destinations. Making a transition to United, American, Delta or US Air will be traumatic for Mike.
Has United done anything right in recent memory?
Yes. I was shocked that they had credited 3 of the 4 flights on my expedition home - leaving me 12 miles short of the next frequent flyer leg. They can’t figure out how to credit the longest segment.
More photos of Lotusland are available by clicking here.
