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Even when the odds are good that The Great Pitcher is gonna toss you a curve ball, sometimes it surprises you anyway!

R.I.P Mo.

WOW! Look at Clay Aiken!!

The hands-down best part of American Idol tonight was the priceless and hilarious look on Michael Sandecki’s face when he turned around to see his idol, Clay Aiken behind him. And did Clay look FINE sporting a new, hip hairstyle!! Michael started out singing a really bad rendition of Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me, but thankfully Clay rescued him and nailed it, as he did on Season Two.

While it was really no surprise that Taylor Hicks took the title, there were a few surprises anyway. Prince? On AI? Wow. Color me shocked!

Oh, one last thing. Congratulations, Taylor!!! David Hasselhoff seemed very happy! Hee.

It is a little scary though that Americans vote more for an idol than they do a President. Hmm.

Read more: Clay Aiken, American Idol, Taylor Hicks

Ok, before I get to that concert blog, I was in the mood for a list. It’s raining here, which is pretty rare in California at this time of year, and when it rains I always get list-happy. So, I thought a nice little list of things I love might be fun. In no particular order…and definitely not all-inclusive.

Baseball
And, since I live here, the San Francisco Giants — yep, even Barry Bonds! What’s baseball history without a little controversy!?

Clay Aiken
I am a huge fan of Clay Aiken. He has an amazing voice and an incredible talent for entertaining an audience! I’ve followed him since he competed on American Idol and I believe his star is just beginning to rise. While he’s done quite a few concerts since this particular video was taken, and I might have even gone to a few - hee!, this video continues to be one of my very favorites! Thanks to ldyjocelyn — August 2004.

Good times!!

Here are a few other great blogs about Clay Aiken:
The ConCLAYve: A medley of thoughts
The ClayBlog
Olostra

Other kinds of Clay
I might have a bit of a collection of items from Berkeley artist, Lynn Landor. And Julie Kiriilova. And maybe a couple of coveted items from Josie Jurczenia. And one beloved Carol Valk vase… before her art got way out of my reach.

The Berkeley Potters Guild

Twice a year, my sister and I trek up to Berkeley; once in Spring for the seconds sales (gah!) and in Winter to see what’s new and do a little holiday shopping. Always a good time! I love many other kinds of art, but ceramic, blown glass, and metal intrigue me the most often. I also love watercolor and I’m just finding out about mixed-media collage. I have a link in my blogroll to Misty Eyed Art, which I found accidentally one day while browsing through random blogs. I fell in love immediately with her art and I am hoping to get a few pieces for my office soon.

24
The season finale is this week! Wee!!

Robbie Williams
I adore Robbie. I first discovered him during Live8. I had no idea he even existed. I have since immersed myself in his music, I have all of his CDs and I even belong to his fanclub. Crazy, huh? The succession of his music may or may not exactly follow his journey through his career, but it sure is an interesting peek into how sudden stardom might affect a young man. Very interesting. Anyway, if you read my blog, you’re bound to run into a Robbie song or video now and again.

The Food Channel!
I love to cook. I love to eat. And I love watching the The Cooking Channel!!

Chocolate
Chocolate always deserves a mention of it’s own, dontcha think?

The Ocean

The Four-Legged

I really don’t need to mention flowers and gardening, do I?

Technorati tags: Clay Aiken, Robbie Williams, Baseball, 24, pottery, cooking

This morning, while my little old man cat, who is not long for this world, was taking his daily stroll through the side yard, I snapped a few photos. Inspired by a great gardening blog written by beauzzartz at The ConCLAYve, I wanted to search my own gardens for interesting textures and colors. I’m not a designer by nature - at least not on paper. I am more of a get everything I like and then make it work type of gardener. I was that way as a graphic artist too, which is why I gave up the design part. I can’t labor over a concept; I’ve just got to roll up my sleeves and dig in.

After six years of living here on this property, I’m finally paying attention to drifts of color and texture and how I want things to look overall. I have so many varied climate areas and soil types that I feel fortunate to be able to create many different types of gardens. They aren’t all successful, but that’s half the fun of it. Besides, the gophers and moles help me stay flexible. Have I mentioned yet that I hate them?

Two years ago I wanted a tree, and I wanted it now! Something that grew fast… like a weed. I found one. A Purple Robe Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia ‘Purple Robe). It blooms in the spring with the most incredibly colored pink wisteria or pea-like, slightly-scented flowers. It’s a great shade tree in front of a very sunny laundry room window. I hesitated planting it near the house as it has a tendency to sucker and spread, but so far, it has not been any trouble.

Finally! After two weeks of staring at the three yards of topsoil mounded on my driveway near the veggie boxes, I finally tackled getting it actually into the last box. That cute little picket fence I built around the garden isn’t very convenient it turns out. The truck could have dumped the soil directly into the box, but nooooo, I had to move it just far enough to make direct shoveling a pain in the ass, so about three thousand wheelbarrow loads later, it’s all done. Tomatoes in. Tomorrow I will plant the seeds I’ve got waiting. I learned a little trick a couple of years ago about spreading the seeds out evenly on a long sheet of toilet paper, folding it lengthwise to cover the seeds, spritzing it with a water bottle and planting it in prepared rows. Makes for a very tidy row of seedlings! I may even plant a few of the onion seeds that are ready to burst out of this head.

Heuchera micrantha ‘Palace Purple’. This is my new favorite plant. It’s dark leaves and gorgeous purple and white spikes offset the softly pink flowers and light variegated leaves of Lamium maculatum “Beacon Silver” planted in the same bed under the camellias and the Japanese Maple.

This Abutilon hybridum, sometimes called Chinese Lantern, or Flowering Maple, almost died last year from a whitefly infestation. No matter what I did, I could NOT get rid of them. It took wintering and lots of dish soap to finally kill the little suckers that were literally sucking the life out of this tree. It’s coming back to life this spring with a little TLC, and I hope to have it in a huge pot on the back patio in the next few weeks.

Planted along the steps up to the pergola is grosso lavender, penstemon, and these lovelies whose name escapes me right now. Hey, it’s 2:30 in the morning… what can I say? They’re cute though. Hee.

And finally… how can anyone be mad at this happy little guy for raiding the quail’s foodbin?

Next up… my concert memories, beginning with Winterland San Francisco. I’m pretty sure I can remember most of it! It helps that I have every ticket stub for every event I’ve ever attended… ever! Now that’s a fun stack to look through!

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks.
Most of the time we are simply not patient enough,
quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.
– Linda Hogan (Native American poet and novelist)

Technorati tags: gardening, flowers, planting seeds, garden photography

I’m off to a weekend in San Francisco and Wine Country.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there, most especially mine.

♥

Today I heard a clip from a performance Clay Aiken gave when he was just 19. It’s amazing what kind of talent he has - talent that is really kind of undeniable regardless of your musical taste. Boy can sing! With just the right amount of nurturing and cultivating, Clay’s talent is growing and finding new ways to express itself. I know that what comes next will be so much better than I can even imagine given what I’ve seen so far.

There’s almost always more than meets the eye.

When I bought this place, there was barely any landscape at all. My acre is surrounded by woods on two sides and the previous owners let that be their “garden”. Worked for them. They were raising children and operating a business out of the house while living in RVs and trailers on the property. There was an arbor propping up a starving grapevine, three not-quite-fruiting plum trees and two apple trees. One apricot tree was so old it had cracked down the center and was rotting from the inside out. The “yard” wasn’t fenced at all, which meant the deer came and ate pretty much anything they tried to plant, so they had given up.

The realtor thought I was nuts; I saw a diamond in the rough. And so it goes.

Jump ahead five years of watering, feeding, mulching, and digging. Mornings spent sipping coffee while contemplating the day’s activities from a bench set out the very first morning. Afternoons spent working away - feeding, watering, mulching, planting, weeding - while listening to ball games, music, or just the birds chirping. Evenings spent with back pain, sunburn, blisters, groaning credit cards, and a sh*t-eating grin at each day’s results. Toss in one helluva fence and behold the reaping… I’ve harvested tons of Santa Rosa plums, Japanese plums, Gala apples, Fuji apples, green table grapes, Concord grapes, and every vegetable known to mankind.

And I’ve added a few things. Roses and irises and lilies and lavender. Quince and lemons and limes and clementines. A new 30 x 17 pergola to hold the ever-so-much-happier grapevines. Clematis and morning glories and jasmine, and a few varieties of sage. Peonies and tulips and thyme and sweet peas. Hydrangea and five different varieties of camellia. A Godzilla-sized back patio, a paint job, a new roof, some indoor renovations, well-water ozonation, city hookup to sewer (they had five failed septic tanks - eep), vegetable boxes, a deck… and seven fruit trees (now deceased because of gophers — oh yeah, that blog is coming! RIP Fruit Trees!). Oh, and blueberries. Yum!

Birds I’d never seen the first year now come to the many feeders and birdbaths. Hummingbirds, and whole families of quail. Tufted titmice and all colors of finches and chickadees and, my favorite of all, the downy woodpeckers.

Of course, with the good, come the pesky blue jays and pigeons and that rascally evil thief, Mr. Squirrel.

Amazing what a little nurturing and cultivating can do… the big picture is almost always worth it.

Even if that damn squirrel keeps coming back for more.

Technorati tags: Clay Aiken, gardening

Yeah, we’re still waiting for CD NEWS! I don’t really think we’ll get any for awhile and that’s ok with me. It’ll be here when it gets here and in the meantime, the sun is shining, the blossoms are blossoming, and I have mulch to spread! Five yards of mulch!! I have to make up for the last two years of running around the country all spring and summer long.

We had more rain than normal (/understatement - read torrential!) this year. So, spring and the blossoms are a little late, but they are beautimous. Thanks to the newly found Foliage setting on my Canon S2, I shot these sweet apple blossoms up at the top of the Gala tree this morning. No touch ups required for the bluer-than-blue sky. If only I could post a scratch ‘n sniff!

Today: Scrawny - 2, Gophers - 0 Heh.