My Urban Garden 7-30-09: Salvaged Brick Path

 

What was once the exterior of a house is now a path in my back garden.  I’m so pleased how it turned out.  When the apartment building across the street is finally demolished I might salvage enough wheelbarrow-fuls to extend the path into my side garden. 

“Away We Go”: So Good It Deserves a Font All Its Own

With the movie poster’s school-notebook title font and pregnancy-centered storyline, it might seem like Away We Go is a deliberate attempt to cash in on Juno’s box office success.  Yet this grown-up comedy starring Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski has a sweet charm all its own and could become another indie sleeper hit.  It’s already my favorite film of the year.

Directed with restraint and thoughtfulness by Sam Mendes and anchored by an honest, understated performance from Rudolph, Away We Go follows thirtysomethings Burt and Verona as they travel across and outside the country to find the best place to raise their unborn child.  There’s an early indication where the couple will eventually settle, but the encounters with family and old friends along the way is what makes the film so special. 

We’re introduced to some shocking and bizarre examples of parenting, from the truly insensible to the overly attentive.  Maggie Gyllenhaal’s new age feminist is a memorable standout.  Later the troubles aren’t as evident, as is the case with two married college friends and their seemingly happy bustling household. 

But at the heart of the film is Burt and Verona, one of the most believable screen couples I’ve seen in a long time.  As their journey progresses, initial concerns about starting a family eventually lead to questions about the everyday nature of happiness and regret.  And it’s made credible mostly by Maya Rudolph, who contributes so much to scenes with just an expression and quietly counterbalances Krasinski’s moments of upbeat goofiness from becoming self-indulgent routines.

By the end, two sets of doors open.  One completing the couple’s search and the other marking the journey that lies ahead as parents.  Burt and Verona just don’t find a place to live.   They discover a home and have realized how it can be a happy one.

Floating back and forth between humor and insight, Away We Go is a rewarding examination of family and relationships.

For the Bird$

I bought some birdfeed.  Just some peanuts and a packet of suet.  This cost me $12.50.  A lot of money considering my current budget.

But while gardening yesterday I noticed a male cardinal hopping around my empty feeders.  And then it perched on the edge of the roof for several minutes, tilting it’s head around as if to say, “Seriously?  There’s nothing?  C’mon, seriously?”   It had been weeks since I had any feed to put out.  There’s been news about people not being able to afford to feed their pets since the economic downturn, but nothing about whether people can afford to fill their birdfeeders.

At least the hummingbirds won’t go hungry.  Nector can be made cheaply.  I saw my first one this evening.

My Urban Garden Journal: Let me get dirty.

I spent most of the day weeding and pruning the front garden.  Pulling weeds after a heavy rain is therapuetic.  The roots tend to just slide out whole.  Sure, I came across an ant colony that didn’t take too kindly to my extracting/intruding and swarmed all over my arms and legs.   But, overall, it was rewarding.  Hard work doesn’t seem so hard when I can get dirty and messy while doing it.  For some reason digging around in the dirt is what’s gotten me in the gardening spirit this year, more so than the flowers.  Not only do I appreciate getting dirt underneath my fingernails but all over my shirt and pants too.

I fit the segments of brick edging that I salvaged from the demolition site together into a weird jigsaw of a border along my driveway.   I need about eight more feet.  The pieces are there at the site, but in lengths too long and heavy to lift into my car trunk.  I’ve been waiting these last couple of weeks for one of the bulldozers to plow into the remaining edging and break it into smaller, lighter chunks.

I have so many perrenial herbs in my front garden that I’m not using.  There’s chives, thyme, sage, oregano, mint and dill.  Dill is listed as an annual, but it’s proven to be a perennial–a very invasive perrenial.  It even grows out of the cracks in my driveway.  I wish I could establish a bartering system with a local restaurant.  I supply them with herbs, and I get a free meal once a week.  I’d be happy with a large bowl of soup.

No reward for an effortless A

I won’t have to take my management final.  My instructor  has a rule that if you have perfect attendance, participate in class, turn in assignments on time and maintain an A average throughout the term then you earn an exemption.

I got a 98 for the class, but don’t feel like a star pupil.  These last two weeks I’ve had to force myself to sit down with my textbooks and finish homework.  I’m too easily distracted.  There’s something a little too ironic about putting off a written assignment describing my personal one, two and five year life plans until the last minute.  I get A’s, but question why I’m not approaching my assignments with a little more gusto and efficiency.

I’m doing enough; and sometimes, lately, just enough.  But more than enough is far more satisfying.

“There’s bricks in dem dar piles!”

In total, I ended up making five trips to the demolition site for bricks this weekend.  I delivered a second carload to the Garden Station.  I wish I had a pickup truck.  There was a couple filling raised beds who had a SUV.  For a moment I thought about mentioning it to them.

I dunno.  I thought more people would be crawling all over the site salvaging brick.  There were a couple people scavenging for whatever metal they could find and pile onto their old pickup trucks.  Aluminum gutters, drain pipes, amd iron tubs—including the one I had been offered days ago.

It wasn’t until late in the afternoon someone from the McPherson Town district came over.  There had been an article in the paper about the neighborhood garden the residents had started this year.  Those are the people I thought would be hauling loads of brick away for pathways.

“Here for the free paving material?” I said to the woman getting out of her shiny, red compact car.”  I held two bricks up over my head. 

But she just said no.  And then a couple in a shiny, black SUV came by and they all three went off together to inspect the other properties on site.  I thought it seemed very standoffish.  But then I thought about how I was dressed: sweats, torn t-shirt, painter’s hat and badly in need of a haircut.  Not to mention dirty from crawling around piles of rubble and carrying bricks.
 
I imagine them thinking I was some sort of panhandler or homeless person, more than an environmentally conscientious gardener.  (“Don’t make eye contact, Margaret.  He’ll start asking for change.  Make sure you locked the car!”)

Or maybe I looked like some crazy old prospector type from the movies, loading up my Elantra like a burro.  (“Git away from my bricks.  I claimed ‘em!  This here brick lode’s all mine!  Now git!”)

Oh well.  I also ended up finding a couple good-as-brand-new downspouts, a three foot segment of limestone that I’ll use as a mini-pillar to mark the beginning of my garden path and a portion of rusted wire fencing that I’ll use as a trellis for my clematis.

Life: More Satisfying Than Galactica

I finished watching the last three second season episodes of NBC’s Life.  If the show doesn’t end up getting picked up by USA Network as rumored, then at least the last episode served as a satisfying and entertaining series finale.

And also maybe a timely remedy, considering how for weeks I’ve been walking around in a gobsmacked stupor after watching the once astounding Battlestar Galactica collapse into a sloppily resolved, disappointing mess.  And, no, I’m not just talking about the finale.  I’m talking the last six episodes.  When Tyrol showed Adama the fractures in Galactica’s hull after the failed mutiny, he might as well have been pinpointing weak points in the overall storyline.  As the cracks in the hull started to widen, so did plot holes and lapses in characterization. 

One could say that it’s unfair comparing two series from two different genres.  Life only lasted two seasons compared to Galactica’s four.  But why do I think Life turned out to be a better series?  Why would I buy both of Life’s season DVDs and not any of Galactica’s?  Because in the end, Life’s creators proved to be the better storytellers.

True, the Zen-free start of the second season screamed network interference.  Crews seemed more obsessed with his ex-wife than learning who was behind the conspiracy that sent him to prison.  However, the mysteries and characters were still offbeat.  And, more importantly, because the show started the season on the bubble I appreciated the creators’ consideration not to delve too deeply into the conspiracy and start something they couldn’t finish unless they got a full season commitment.  Once they did, the show returned to its Zen roots.  And kicked ass.   Then when I worried Sarah Sahi’s pregnancy might hamper the narrative, in came Gabrielle Union as a great cast addition and substitute partner for Crews. 

It’s just not that one show managed to end on a high not while the other languished.  The key difference is that Life’s creators had a clear idea where their main storyline (the police conspiracy) was headed while in Ron Moore’s case raising intriguing questions and mysteries proved easier than actually providing and incorporating credible answers and resolutions.

And despite some commendable episodes and performances, Moore ultimately squandered much of the final season’s potential by favoring certain characters over others.  If instead of Battlestar Galactica the show was called The Epic Love Story of Adama and Roslin then it could be deemed a great success.  And I never thought I’d say it, but there could’ve been a little less Baltar.   Cylons supposedly lost the ability to resurrect.  Yet Moore still found a way to bring back D’Anna and Ellen.  Meanwhile, Boomer, Athena and Helo continued to be treated more like plot devices to move the action along rather than complex characters with relationships worth exploring.

Treating Boomer like an afterthought shortchanged the season on so many levels.  Boomer was an essential part of the first season; and her connection to Tyrol needed to be explored in depth over several episodes.  Not only because they continued pining for one another even after Cally gunned her down; but because Boomer’s identity crisis after discovering she was Cylon paralleled Tyrol’s.  It also significantly contrasted with Tory’s, who should’ve been the one to abduct Hera, not Boomer.  I firmly believe Galactica’s final season would’ve turned out better if Boomer hadn’t escaped during “The Hub” episode and was brought back along with D’Anna.

I’ve read a synopsis of Moore’s original plot for the fourth season’s second half before the writer’s strike halted production.  And although the fates of certain characters seemed better realized, it too lacked the cohesive complexity of the first two magnificent seasons.

Maybe it’s the sci-fi genre that’s to blame.  Moore might’ve come down with the same case of creative hubris that hobbled other fanboy idols like George Lucas and Frank Miller.  He got lazy or became convinced of his own cleverness; and instead of crafting meaningful storylines, he compensated with shocking scenes or gratuitous action to generate message board buzz.

This is the real reason behind Lee’s sudden and unbelievably accepted decision to go Luddite and plunge the fleet and all its technology into the sun.  It was actually Ron Moore’s thinly veiled intention of burning all the toys of his franchise so Sci-Fi Network or some other creative team won’t be able to write BSG: The Next Generation.

Or maybe it’s the television medium.  Even prolific television writers such as JJ Abrahms and David E. Kelley became so successful that they spread their creative energies too thin developing other shows and ended up neglecting the very series that made them famous in the first place.   Developing the prequel, Caprica probably distracted Moore.  Maybe that’s why so many of the cast like Tahmoh Penikett and Dean Stockwell got so much say in the storyline, especially the finale.

Maybe it was a combination of all three.

But I also found certain story elements of Life to be much more entertaining and meaningful than Galactica’s.  I’d prefer listening to Charlie’s Zen tape on a loop than Baltar’s monotheistic ramblings.  And I also thought Roman turned out to be a greater nemesis than Cavil.   Not just more cunning, but more ruthless.  If Roman had a ship, he’d ruthlessly pursue Galactica and the fleet all over the galaxy like a pitbull after a pack of rabbits.  And be nonchalant about it the whole time.

Sure, there were themes running throughout Galactica concerning theology, humanity, and wartime politics.  But, then again, themes can be found in mediocre writing too.  How well they are handled distinguishes the mediocre from the inspired.  And those themes were handled much better in the first two and a half seasons.

Am I sorry I ever watched Battestar Galactica?   Not as sorry as if I’d watched the show weekly instead of as complete seasons.  I’ll watch The Plan movie this fall, but not without some trepidation.

I will buy both seasons of Life on DVD though.  And the only thing I’ll be disappointed with was that it ended too soon.

Don’t Ignore the Free Stuff

I stayed up longer than I thought I would and woke up after eleven, which seems to be where my body’s alarm clock is stuck nowadays.  And because I fell asleep on the floor my body was stiff, and for awhile I walked around the house like an arthritic zombie.
Later, I drove to the demolition site and loaded up three carloads of brick.  The demo crew had made quick work of leveling two houses.  All the debris and brick should be cleared and gone by next weekend.

A few cars passed by.  No one stopped to get anything though.  I took one carload to the Garden Station public garden nearby.  I hope someone from there comes by with a truck and salvages some of the available materials.  My little Elantra alone isn’t going to do it. 

Some guys were rehabbing a nearby apartment across from the site, and I nabbed an old iron sink they had left at the curb.   Don’t know if I’ll make a birdbath or a sedum container out of it.  I’ve thought about repaving some of my stone paths with the salvaged bricks.  I can’t rescue everything though.  Or expect everyone to share my interest and concerns about recycling.

I think of the thousand or so buildings that will be demolished around town in the next eighteen months.  Some are supposed to be deconstructed and the materials salvaged.  But how many, and what about the rest?  I’d like to think there are industrious people in town that will find creative uses for all this free, useable stuff that will be otherwise be shoved into a landfill.

Urban Garden Photos 5-8-09: Solomon’s Seal

Demolish and Salvage

Demolition has started on the site of the new elementary school across the river from downtown Dayton.

Can you see all the free garden path paving materials that I see?  I was offered an old cast iron bathtub that could’ve been used for a bog garden, but I didn’t have a way to haul it back home.  Darn it.

Don’t think that I’m not thinking of a way though.  Maybe I can put wagon wheels under it and push it all the way back to my house.