Hopefully, not affectively ineffectual --- since February

Hi, everybody. I want to start off with a contribution to your knowledge of the world.  The next time some one is asking you for directions, and they want to know the 'nearest cross street', you can confidently direct them to this'n, which I discovered while walking back from yoga class:


Glad to share this 'crucial' (get it, Latin-lovers?) info wit y'all. There is NO CHARGE for this, folks!

Let's look at some flowers; why not? They're so abundant, so characteristic of this town and of this part of the world (Garden State, remember!).

The cultivation of flowers is one of the world's classic 'win-win' scenarios: we give them a place to live, and water, and they, along with the Sun, work their visual magic and blow us away. For you cheapskates out there, this is free. Walk around; look at your world. It is changing.




Hydrangeas have a tiny nub in the center of each cluster of petals, that seems to 'pin down' the petals in a pleasing panoply of perfection (sorry, 'P' key got stuck on the keypoard).




In addition to the flowers, we have in Montclair a VERY successful plant, in several varieties, at least three of which bedeck our building. This is the Ivy, which calls to mind this little ditty from the middle decades of the last century, to wit (or half-wit):
  Oh, mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy,
  A kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you?

  -- well, maybe, but NOT when it grows on the side of buildings, thereby offering an
  indomitable perpendicular challenge.

NEXT