I woke up from a much needed nap this afternoon to the sound of loud chanting. Someone calling out to the gods in a foreign tongue is not exactly the greatest sound to wake up to. It seems we will be having new neighbors across the street and they were doing some sort of creepy blessing over the house, which is their perfect right, I suppose... except for the fact that the yard looks like it needs the blessing even more than the house.
Maybe I'm just being my usual bitter, plant-hoarding self but sometime during the past week, someone or something (baboons, maybe?) went in and pretty much destroyed every single plant on the property and all that's left now of the fragrant, blooming gardenia hedges,varigated dracaenas, ti-plants and red ginger is a sea of stumps and stems. Like so:
I don't know about you but baboons sorta freak me out. The beady eyes. The screeching. The wrinkly leather hands. I am convinced that one of those purple-buttocked beasts would have no trouble tearing a garden (or a gardener- gulp!) to shreads. I may be paranoid but trust me on this one folks...BABOONS ARE EVERYWHERE!
My violent baboon theory aside, it was probably the new owners. I am guessing anyone who so thoroughly "cleans up" their property to this extent, probably are the same kind of clean, practical, no-nonsense people who have nothing on their kitchen countertops... no papers, no unopened mail, no coffee cups, no tchotchkes1, and worse yet- no plants. Well, hello! Check out what I'll be crowding my countertops with...
Yes, being both impractical and full of nonsense (when it comes to plants anyway), here's the current state of affairs with my indoor saintpaulia leaf cuttings. As you can see, the majority of them have sprouted plantlets. Hooray! But wait! Did you see that?
This new plantlet of Russian hybrid Nezhenka2 has jumped the gun and has already sent out a flower which is bigger than the plant itself. I'll have to remove it to avoid straining the plant, though but wow ain't it pretty?
But as most of you already know, my indoor plant-trays and numerous shelves aren't the only place seeing growth recently. For all you expats, there's also a ton of new construction going on right here in town. For example, you probably remember the run-down Western Auto warehouse downtown:
The McDonald's above Sack-N-Save one block away is relocating to the corner where the warehouse used to stand. I like the new design.
And across town, what was once this empty lot across the local Home Depot
is now the new site of a 60,169 sq ft. Safeway and a 154,242 sq ft Target store. (go Lamar, go!)

It's kinda nice seeing some new buildings around town and I think the landscapers have done an awesome job with various palms and colorful croton. I just hope they keep the chainsaws away from any baboons.
1- Wikipedia says: (Typically pronounced "CHACH-kee") are small toys, knickknacks, baubles, trinkets, or kitch
2- Nezhenka (Evgeniy Aripov)
AVSA Registration: 9506 "Soft Cuddly" Single-semidouble pale pink pansy with lavendar fantasy. Medium green foliage. Standard.
Recent Comments