Crankypantsing, My Garden, Photography

Making Lemonade

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Some assberet stole some of the flower pots off my patio late last night. That would have been annoying enough, but he also dumped the dirt out of them and made an unholy mess. There are piles of dirt everywhere. One of the plants had become pot-bound though, and the dirt came out in one large chunk, complete with a tracery of roots around the outer edges. It’s kind of pretty.

The thief pretty much has to be someone from this apartment complex, because my patio can’t be seen from the street or sidewalk. The only people who would have known there were flower pots there would have been people who live here, because the only foot traffic along the back of the buildings is from residents walking their dogs. Nice to know that one of my neighbors is not only a thief but a slob, too. The least he could have done was dump the dirt under the tree or in the thicket, instead of throwing it all over my patio.

Art

The Cardinal’s Portrait

The Cardinal's Portrait
The Cardinal’s Portrait (1896), by Toby Rosenthal

I grew up with this print. I don’t remember a time when it wasn’t in my family. My mom gave it to me a few years back, but I’ve never really had a good place to hang it, so it’s been sitting in the back of my studio closet. I finally decided I didn’t care if it went with anything else in my apartment. I dug it out of the closet and hung it in the living room. Now I just need to polish the frame, because it’s in pretty sad shape.

As I was looking online for any additional info on the original (there isn’t much), I kept running into message board posts from people who said they had the original. They’d been given it, inherited it, or had found it at a yard sale. I’m pretty sure there’s just one version of the painting and that what those folks have are prints. Logic, people! When I worked at the art museum, there was a steady stream of folks who had found some “treasure” and wanted to know if it was a long-lost original SOMETHING.