Spring trees wearing bandaids tie traditions in knots
These birthday celebrations were ongoing during Spring Break at Tiger’s school.
Note: I realize that mentioning Spring to readers who reside in New England, or the Midwest or Europe, or Canada or other places with a winter that just won’t let go, may be annoying. At this point, I (pretend to) apologize.
While on break, Tiger had a camp experience at a nearby Urban Farm. He was the youngest person at the camp, but he did well and had a great time. I was walking back to the car with him when he spotted..
“Look at that, Dan! That tree has a band-aid.”
“It does look like a band-aid,” I replied. “I think it’s a graft,” I thought. “It’s a graft,” I said, rarely saying the same thing I was thinking.
“What’s a graft?” Tiger asked reasonably.
I attempted to explain something about fruit trees propagating and flower trees having two different color flowers. Tiger was befuddled and unconvinced.
“Maybe the tree just broke and they are putting it back together.”
“Maybe, Tiger,” I replied. “Good idea,” I thought.
On Easter, we joined Melika and Tom, with Mitra, friends and family for a traditional brunch at La Cumbra. This was followed by a traditional Easter Egg hunt at ..
“Traditional?” I asked. “There must have been 1000 plastic eggs for 8 children.”
“Well..”
“And two Easter Bunnies”
Tiger was thrilled by the egg hunt. Arrow thought that the bunnies’ were somewhat intimidating. But Arrow liked outdoor play gym.
Arrow Tiger
Following tradition, Nazy sent me to the store to get Easter Egg dye. Then, with the ‘help’ of both Tiger and Arrow, she attempted to color the boiled eggs. I watched from a (great) distance, safely parked behind my iPhone.
April 2 is Sees-da-Bedar, a Persian holiday that occurs 13 days after the Vernal Equinox. Following tradition, Nazy and I walked to the Mission Park to celebrate Spring, rebirth and to..
“… tie strands of grass together, Dan. Do it seven times and make a good wish each time.”
“Yes dear.” I replied faithfully.
It isn’t always easy to ‘tie the grass’. In Switzerland, we worried about violating the grass neatness regulations in the national forest. Last year, in Santa Barbara, we arrived at Mission Park just after they had mowed — it was hard to find grass tall enough to tie. The year before, we were in the midst of a massive drought and their was no grass. (Tying dust together is extremely difficult.) This year, however..
“… it’s perfect!” Nazy exclaimed.
At this time of year, and following the March rains, Mission Park is awash in wild (and some not so wild) flowers. When we moved into our home several years ago, I planted alyssum in our window boxes. Since then, the alyssum has spread to the park… which is also awash in wild geranium. The white alyssum, however, is our contribution.
Regular readers are probably aware of the challenges we face with the cable TV company. In the time we’ve been here, they gradually increased the cable fee from $25/month to $150/month. We don’t watch $150 worth of TV each month, so I looked for
“ …. streaming alternatives,” I explained.
“Can we watch …” Nazy began.
“We can watch everything,” I asserted with the confidence and inaccuracy of Trump’s claim that Mexico would pay for his stupid wall.
Over time, Nazy ‘settled’ for the new arrangement. (At least we could watch Jeopardy, semi-local news, Sesame Street and CNN.) Then..
“This streaming arrangement,” I claimed, “has thousands of free movies. You’ll love it.”
After careful consideration of the zillion movies on offer, we selected a romantic comedy. Nazy prepared the popcorn and we settled down in front of the fire for a
“Why does this movie stop every 90 seconds for a commercial?” Nazy asked.
“Perhaps, my dear, you are exaggerating.” I replied — hoping that she wouldn’t notice the additional 3 minutes it took to restart the movie after the commercial.
“And what is it doing now, Dan?” Nazy asked as a ‘loading’ icon turned on the screen.
“Well,” I replied articulately. “Ah! The advertisement is over our movie is ..”
“What is that?” Nazy asked.
“It’s not our movie.” I sighed. “The movie channel forgot what we were watching.”
“Thousands of free movies. Eh, Dan?”
“Perhaps a few kinks to work out,” I replied.
And, by the way, a friend sent us the following link — please click here. After a quick visual review, we bought the Amazon item, candidly taking pleasure by putting a thumb into Trump’s eye. Once we received the item (see below), we contacted our solicitor. We will be asking for, eh, demanding royalties for Tiger’s college fund. When Arrow saw the item, he said it was ‘Tigah’. It’s about 7 inches high.
For last week's letter, please click here
Dan and Tiger