Sage Garden Advice

If you are looking for a low maintenance bang for your buck in your garden and need something that will thrive in full sun, then look no further than pineapple sage (Salvia elegans). I got mine at Home Depot in a herb sale in mid-July (when people are apparently not buying a lot of herbs). The plant started small, the same size as most other herbs, but has grown in my front yard to nearly five feet! And the leaves really do smell like pineapple, which is really nice when you walk past it or when there is a breeze. But the biggest payoff are the beautiful scarlet blooms, which started opening up about the same time as my chrysanthemums.

Pineapple sage bloom, detail

Pineapple sage with golden and silver sage

It's stunning. I am sorry that these photos don't do it the justice it deserves. And I love having something so dramatic in my yard this time of year now that the daisies and coneflowers are cut back for the winter. (That area of the yard looks so BARREN now.)



Last year, I started planting both golden (Salvia officinalis ‘Aurea’) and purple (Salvia officinalis ‘Purpurascens’) sage as a border around my front walkway. I had gotten the idea from the kitchen gardens at Kew Palace, which I thought were even more amazing than the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew (probably because the kitchen gardens were more achievable at home than the rest of the place). I hadn't realized that the pineapple sage was going to get so big until I got home and read about it, but I really think it is a nice addition to the walk up to the front door. (And planting it allowed me to pull out this really awful shrub that grew over the walk and was full of aphids and that I just HATED.)

I really hope it survives the winter.  It's so hard to know with herbs in New England. The fact that it will get sun all winter has got to help. Next year, I think that I am going to get a couple more and plant them in the front circle with the echinacea and daisies so that part of the yard will also look nice next fall. Even if they don't make it through the winter, I think something like this is worth replacing.

Casual Observation: The Whole Package?

I will be honest, I am a complete sucker for cute packaging, and I have been totally known to buy products I didn't need simply because they came in a cute container. (Mints or candy in vintage-looking metal boxes tend to be the most appealing. Especially while standing in the checkout line at Trader Joe's.)

But I am also a committed recycler and environmentalist so when I recently opened up a new container of a product I actually do need, I was horrified to see the following (shown here both with and without a penny so you can get an ideal of the scale you are seeing):

That huge wad of cotton is needed to fill up the bottle because the actual pills don't even cover the whole bottom of the bottle, let alone fill the bottle to the top.  Additionally, there is the wasted cardboard box, which is slightly more than twice the size of the actual bottle it is holding (presumably to accommodate the security device?).

So who is the guilty culprit? Well, I hate to admit it because I love this product, but the guilty party is:

Now I am all for getting 60 pills for the price of 45 (especially during the late summer and autumn), but I would love even more for these guys to come up with some product packaging that would make more sense size-wise for what they are selling. If they don't want to sell the pills in a pop-through wrapper, why not try selling them in a smaller tube bottle, like the one used on the product below?

image from drugstore.com

The good thing is that I can (and will) put the plastic bottle and cardboard out for collection in the recycling bucket, but wouldn't it be better if someone at the company was thinking proactively and could come up with a more environmental way to sell this product? They spend loads on advertising; why not spend some on reinventing the packaging for long term impact?

It would make me an even bigger fan than I already am.

Hard at Work

Sometimes it is really fun to work at a family business. (I currently work with my dad, my sisters, two of my aunts, and one brother in law.)

Not "Nana".

A true story: yesterday: Sister B popped into my office with my 2.5 year old nephew, Codename: Sweetpea. 

He saw a picture of Queen Elizabeth II that I keep at my desk as inspiration for getting through tough times with class and a stiff upper lip, pointed to it, and said "Nana". It was hilarious. I thought Sister B was going to bust a gut. 




Fortunately,  Sweetpea didn't point to the picture of good old Winston Churchill and call him "Grandpa".

Casual Observation: Music Collections

Yes, you read correctly: 17,003 items in the music category

As far as I am concerned, the one real drawback to having your entire music collection in MP3 format on your computer rather than cd or vinyl is that when you meet someone new and go to hang out at their home, you can't peruse their music collection. And based on the music you find there (or that you don't find there), make a decision about whether you and the other person were meant to be friends. (Or whatever.)  Because despite the advice I gave to a friend long ago, you might not need to have identical music collections to be an ideal pairing, but having similar musical taste will at least make long car trips with that other person bearable.

I totally associate music collections with going back to school, college in particular. Perhaps it was because I had two heavy huge cases of cds that I just HAD to have with me every year. God forbid I left something at home. When my brother had to carry one of them up to the furthest reaches of the third floor of my dormitory sophomore year, I knew that I was going to be on my own for junior and senior year, which I was. And junior year, I lived at the far end of the fourth floor. It wasn't pretty.

There was so much music sharing going on in college. Even though I had a huge music collection and went through the college student rite of passage known as the Columbia House CD Club (what a mistake), I definitely was introduced to a lot of new music through friends from classical music and show tunes to alternative rockers to ska, ska, and more ska senior year.

And, of course, there was the ever classic mix tape, which now in the 21st century is known as a "playlist" and is shared on websites. (Remember handwriting all of the songs on the liner and patiently lining up the tape with the track so you had just the right amount of filler between the songs? I used to also make collages for the covers of the mix tapes.) If you ever want to clearly understand what the mix tape means to my generation, I highly recommend watching The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It pretty much says it all.

I have been taking my old mix tapes (both ones I made and ones made for me, which I saved in a very large Tupperware in my basement along with the cds I just couldn't get rid of when I left Boston) and been turning the track lists into playlists. This has meant buying songs on line that I haven't thought of in YEARS. It's actually been pretty cool. And, it's gotten me putting together new playlists. (I actually just put together a new/old one together for JR, which I burned to an MP3 disc, but I still need to mail it. It seemed appropriate to make her something concrete, as she has been the custodian of my vinyl for the last 2.5 years.)

Hmmmm, vinyl.... Remember how you had to flip the record over to hear the other side?

"Man is in the forest."*

You are clearly a native New Englander when you see a fawn in your yard, and instead of thinking it is so cute and loving the little Bambi-ness of it, you yell and chase it out of the yard because of the ticks. AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! (And the eating of the flowers. And the vegetable patch.)

Seriously, Lyme disease is no joke. My doctor even said that Connecticut is known for two things: allergies and Lyme disease. And I already have the first one.

Don't be fooled; this little guy is just WAITING to pounce!

* Walt Disney's Bambi

Casual Observation: Girl Power Apparel?

from Tumblr

I realize that I am totally late to the party in terms of seeing Disney's "Frozen". I liked it. (Although I actually preferred the song "Would You Like to Build a Snowman?" to "Let It Go", so please don't beat me with a stick.)

I did raise an eyebrow though when Queen Elsa finally embraced her magical snowy powers and became "empowered" (a concept I find debatable as she becomes empowered in order to run away and become a hermit in the mountains, which to me is totally the opposite of being empowered.) She also ditched her warm clothes and became all sexy. Like "slit up the clingy dress, kitten heels, and wiggling like Marilyn Monroe" sexy. Actually, I may have raised both eyebrows.

Was there a problem with the cold weather gear? Can you not be empowered in a cardigan? (I am frequently empowered in a cardigan, Disney.)

When I started looking for images to illustrate this blog post, I found out that I was not the only person who was talking about this very subject on the internet (not a shocker, as I acknowledged, seriously late to the party on this film.) I totally understand and support Elsa's ditching of the gloves; they were symbols of her repression and denial of her magical talent. But the rest? I suppose that since she can control ice and snow, the implication is that she doesn't get cold, but the radical change of "costume" for this character was a deliberate choice on the behalf of the film's directors. And I was disappointed. Because, like it or not, Elsa is also one of the film's antagonists. So we are back to the trope of the sexy bad girl. (Jessica Rabbit said it best: "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way.")

Princess Anna

Meanwhile, Princess Anna, clearly the protagonist/hero of the story, has a costume which is extremely modest (granted, that's because she is cold, but still...)- the opposite of her sister. But wait! She is empowered to try to save the day in boots, a cape, and tights!  Maybe she's a superhero? Do we have some unintentional genre mixing here?
< /sarcasm> (BTW, I am also frequently empowered in tights, Disney.)

(Sorry, I just need to say this: kitten heels, on ICE!?! Clearly, the animators all live in California and have not been to northern climes in February. And slipped and fallen on their butts. Which HURTS!)

Did I like this film? Yes. Did I love it? No. (It was no Little Mermaid or Aladdin.) But I know lots of people who did love it and whose kids loved it. And if the friends complaining on Facebook about the long wait times to meet Elsa & Anna at the Disney parks are any indication, LOTS of kids love Elsa & Anna. Which is great. I grew up on a steady diet of Disney films, and imagination is an awesome thing that should be encouraged.

It's a film; I get it. You certainly aren't going to make everyone happy every time. Just for a film that has all this buzz about the power of sisterhood and not having a (male) hero save the day, I still think that Disney has a way to go. Some people will agree; some people won't. And that's okay; you don't have to agree with me. The important part is thinking about it and making a decision for yourself.

Disney and princesses, man, it is SUCH a double edged sword for them. Guess I am glad that growing up my three favorite Disney women were a magical English nanny, a Cocker Spaniel pup, and an evil fairy with horns growing out of her head.

"Till we have built Jerusalem, In England's green & pleasant Land"*

Things like this happen when you watch too many British mystery tv shows on public television (thank you, CPTV, for showing all the British mystery shows, BTW.):

So I was watching my DVRed copy of last Thursday's installment of the "Father Brown Mysteries" the other night, and I was completed befuddled. I couldn't figure out why the episode started with people singing the Anglican hymn "Jerusalem" when Father Brown is Roman Catholic. 

But then I realized it must be because they were at a WI (Women's Institute) event. And the next thing you know, scene opens at a WI meeting. 

Yeah. These are things that worry me. Can it be possible that I am over-Britified?   NAH!

Although sometimes I wonder if I am a reincarnation of some little old lady from the Cotswolds, circa 1953. It would explain A LOT about me....

*lyric from Jerusalem, by William Blake