Raise the Jolly Roger in PNC Park and in our garden

Despite no dependable relief pitching, Pirates beat NY Mets today, taking 3 out of 4 games for this series and stood at 42:40, only 2 ½ games behind Cardinals and Reds.  We have since raised the Jolly Roger in our garden.

 

 

Spiritual and “material” tradition of our garden

Our gardening comes from the tradition of Dr. Greenlee and John Gapen, not only was it spiritually, but they also provided “material” needed.  I have shown you the bench and the “DOC” chair (look carefully for the DOC in the chair); here are the seat cushions and stuff for Pirates and Steelers—they all came from “The Doc”.  Some of the wooden posts used in the garden had been used by John Gapen, who is still “working” in our garden in a sense as the heavy boots I wore while tilling is John’s.

It is not a beautiful garden yet, but beauty is in the making

The first step of planting flowers/veggies is figuring out the space between them; they may not ask for a room of their own, but they insist the basic living space.  So the colors may not blanket the ground in the beginning; but “gardening is a way of showing you believe in tomorrow.”

The honor roll of this section of the garden includes:

Aster, bleeding heart, calendula (bon-bon), canna (still on the ground), celosia, Chinese leek, cilantro, dahlia, dianthus, four o’clock, geranium, iris, kale, lily, marigold, morning glory (will be removed soon), rose, salvia, snapdragon, sun-flower, zinnia.

You may or may not notice that I list them alphabetically; I cannot show any favoritism as all our flowers are very sensitive.

How the religion of England was changed? What’s it got to do with touring England?

Talking about the beheading of Anne Boleyn (Henry VIII’s second wife) seems like a tabloid stuff; a topic of People magazine or one of those one grabs at the checkout line at Supermarket.  But this event is of great historical significance.  This is how a nation (England) changed her religion, breaking away from Pope and thus Catholicism.

Henry VIII tried to get a blessing from the Pope to annul his marriage with Queen Catherine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne Boleyn.  Cardinal Thomas Wolsey failed his mission and almost lost his head.  This was a mission impossible for Wolsey as Pope Clement VII was then literally a “hostage” of the powerful Spanish King Charles V, who was a nephew of Queen Catherine.  (After all Queen Catherine was the daughter of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castille, who commissioned Columbus to discover the “new world”.)

It took four years for Henry VIII to completely dissolved and destroyed monasteries, large and small. In fact, Oxford and Cambridge Universities, considered religious institutions then, were afraid to meet the same fate of closure.

One of the 11 volumes of Will Durant’s The Story of Civilization is Reformation; it led to the creation of Anglicanism or so-called Church of England as we know it nowadays.

Anne Boleyn didn’t do it, but things happened because of her.  She was not just a woman with a pretty face; she spent many years in Paris as the maid of honor to Queen Mary.  She was well versed in French literature, art and music.  Of note, in those days France was much more developed, cultural and sophisticated, comparing with England.  And she is the mother of Queen Elizabeth I.  By the way, T.S. Eliot was an expert on Elizabethan literature.  British would like to claim Eliot as one of their own (he was indeed naturalized as a British citizen and converted to Anglicism).  When in the Poet Corner at Westminster Abbey, we’ll see the lines from T.S. Eliot’s Little Gidding inscribed on his memorial stone,

“. . .the communication

Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.”

And of course we’ll also see the burial site of Elizabeth I and Henry V (the theme of Shakespeare’s Henry V is about war) in Westminster Abbey.

While entering the Traitor Gate in the Tower, I’ll think about what Anne Boleyn said when she entered it coming from the River Thames.

When I see a building, be it Hampton Court Palace, Westminster Abbey, and the Tower of London, I’ll also ‘see’ the people (I mention above) and think about their stories. So this is not just a morbid and macabre interest as one may suspect.

Harvesting snow peas

Katy was harvesting snow peas; they are already taller than Katy.

Do not say “stop to smell the roses” to us hard working bees

We, like the hard working bees, literally smell the roses while working in the garden, so do not say “stop to smell the roses” to us.

The past long and harsh winter (winter of discontent, indeed) took a toll on the roses; they hardly survived.  The roses in our neighbor’s yard barely survived and haven’t bloomed at all.  Sensing the various flowers flourishing nearby, our roses are blooming; after all rose is queen of the flowers.

An old gardener and his American beauty

This sign used to hang in the kitchen of Dr. and Mrs. Greenlee, with the passing of both of them; it is hanging in our kitchen now.  We earned the honor and privilege as we’re the most qualified couple to receive it:  there is an old gardener and after living more than 40 years in America, Katy can unabashedly claim to be an American beauty.

Today at Sermo there was a post talking about getting old; one doctor wrote, “When you get more excited about buying a new garden cart than new clothes.”—to which I wrote,

 

“Now my passion about gardening the past 4-5 years is simply telling me I am just getting old.  Nowadays we visited Lowe’s and Home Depot much more often than did Macy.

Reading Band of Brothers on D-Day

D-Day and Band of Brothers) on D-Day; 70^th anniversary today.

It is fitting to read two of Stephen Ambrose’s books (

Band of Brothers is the story of the Easy Company, 506^th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101^st Airborne Division, U.S. Army.  I wrote about the 101^st Airborne Division on D-Day of 2010.

http://doctorjytsai.blogspot.com/2010/06/heavy-heart-of-supreme-allied-commander.html

The title of Band of Brothers comes from Shakespeare’s Henry V,

From this day to the ending of the World,

. . . we in it shall be remembered

. . . we band of brothers.”

Like the soldiers of Henry V in the Battle of Agincourt, the men in the Easy Company of 506^th Parachute Infantry Regiment made their name on D-Day and beyond; they are truly band of brothers!

White lotus (白蓮)

(I “stole” this from the Facebook page of my cousin, 陳英毅.  The writings are also his; this image of white lotus is well complemented by the beautiful poem.  I’ll leave it as it is; any attempt to translate can only mar it.)

唐朝 陸龜蒙 有詩曰：
白蓮
素花多蒙別豔欺，此花真合在瑤池。
無情有恨何人覺？月曉風清欲墮時

陳英毅 它描寫白蓮(荷)含著怨恨在人們不知不覺中凋謝，暗喻潔身自好的人，在黑暗的封建社會裡，總是受到冷落和排擠，只能默默無聞地被埋沒。這也表現了封建時代知識分子的孤芳自賞、懷才不遇的心理(網路資料)

The red lotus is a painting of my younger brother.  This will call for another poem.

White pinky in our garden—affectionate remembrance to Grandma Greenlee

The photo of dark red pinkies (a type of carnation) is from last year; they came back in full bloom in white, except a very small portion.  I am still trying to figure out the scientific basis of this color changing; Katy said it signifies the affectionate remembrance of Grandma Greenlee, who passed away last October.  Dark red carnation expresses deep/passionate love whereas white one signifies purity and affectionate remembrance.

May-June 2014

Symbolism of flowers can be universal or ethnic/regional/national.  In Taiwan one wears red carnation on Mother’s Day if one has a living mother and white carnation if one’s mother has passed away.

May-June 2013