Except for trips to the grocery store, we were busy at home with chores. We worked together on painting the "garage" and I was enjoying the teamwork feeling until I started in under John's ladder and he decided to quit for the day. Let's just say I'm a slap-dash painter. We ate some good grilled fish and steak for dinners so the kitchen wouldn't heat up. And other than the Blue Angels doing their thing at midday, our neighborhood was still and it was nice to be in the eye of the hurricane.
The onshore flow of Pacific air came back last night like switching on the air-conditioning at 2 am. We'll be in the comfortable 70's again for the rest of the week. Maybe the rest of the month. We probably won't get that hot again for another year! I'm happy about that actually, because the heat threw the Oriental lilies and gladiolas into overdrive bloom, and the flowers would be gone in just a few days instead of weeks. Not to mention the expensive chore of keeping up with daily watering. The lawns around her are already a politically correct brown, but the pots need to be watered every day.
We have flashy glads blooming now, thanks to that half-off bulb sale at the White Center hardware store. Some of them grew over five feet tall, and the left-over cannas and begonias I bought at the same time are starting to bloom in pots. I grabbed the gaudiest packages off the rack. The clashing, wild colors would set Monet's teeth on edge, but the pictures looked good on that cold, gray day.
Gladiolus are also known a "sword-lilies" because of the shape of the narrow leaves. In ancient Rome, a sword was called a gladius and a small sword was called a gladiolus. The word is also the root of the word gladiator, and in the language of flowers the plant suggests strength of character and remembrance. In my long-ago florist days, we never liked glads because they were used in stiff formal arrangements for depressing occasions.
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