Gardening is Latin for digging your own grave…

For quite a while I’ve longed to have an English garden––or as close to an English garden as I can get in America. My perfect garden would be an oversized one, with flowers that grow tall, bushes that grow thick and full, and it would have non-symmetrical flower beds. I image a garden that at first glance appears to grow wild––but on closer inspection it becomes clear that this garden is subtly partitioned. Herbs, flowers, and vegetables would be placed together with their Latin-named family members, but each of the three groups would share the same soil.

I went to CVS a week and a half ago on some mundane errand. Before entering the automatic double doors, I noticed something miraculous. Giant dahlias! I hadn’t seen those since I volunteered at the Green Gulch Zen Center, an experience that further ignited my desire to start my own garden. Green Gulch had acres and acres of organic vegetables gardens, flower gardens, and well-manicured fields of lavender. The people who worked these gardens were extremely knowledgeable about plants, and I learned proper weeding, harvesting, and composting techniques. It was at Green Gulch that I first laid eyes on these giant dahlias. Giant dahlias can grow to be 7 feet tall, and the flowers look like they grew right out of the pages of Alice in Wonderland. I almost expected them to speak or break out in song. When I saw these same flowers at CVS I was shocked. I had to buy some.

These dahlias are what encouraged me to actually begin work on my new garden. My mom and I had the clay-like earth rototilled and mixed with fresh soil. After that, the ground was just begging to be planted in. However, there was still one dangerous problem: Dogs!
I have two golden retrievers that love to dig, rip, stomp, and chew on anything and everything in sight. Having a freshly planted garden with two dogs running around is like unleashing an epidemic. They will destroy it, without a doubt. For the last three days my father and I have been working on building a dog-proof fence. In theory this project is flawless. In reality there are endless un-seen obstacles. Damn you, reality! Despite our countless trips to Osh and Home Depot, we’ve hit a brick wall in our progress. Originally we planed a beautiful, lightweight wooden fence, but as we started to put it together I came to a depressing realization. I looked at the wooden swing, the wooden corners of the deck, the wooden arms of the deck chairs, and I saw matching chew marks on all of them. There was no way this lovely, spindly fence was going to withstand the wrath of our monstrous dogs.

I spent yesterday afternoon with my dad at the dining table, poring over fencing websites. It was the most frustrating day ever, because we came to the conclusion that we had to start over with stronger wood and wire fencing. Our previous hours of work had amounted to nothing. My dad was irritated. I was irritated. Only the dogs where happy that they could still dig in the garden.

I’m still trying to figure out our next step. One option is to get 2x4’s and dig 2 foot holes to put them in. But that would involve torturous digging and messy cement. Our other option is to stay with the petite redwood poles and try our best to find a light-weight wire to mount on them. I’m leaning toward option two. Hopefully I’ll make some progress by next week, because those dahlias are itching to be planted!

In the mean time, though, I recommend that everyone go to Filoli Gardens. If you’re like me and get tired of the hustle and bustle of city life, you need some beauty in your day to center yourself and re-awaken your inspiration. Filoli is a 600+ acre estate with breathtaking centuries old mansions and gardens that you can lose yourself in for hours. It’s only 30 miles south of San Francisco, so you don’t have to fly all the way to England to see some lovely gardens. Grab a friend, put on a pretty dress, pack a picnic lunch and go! It’s still summer, so make use of it and do something nice for yourself. Have a secret garden adventure! It’s a lot easier than trying to create your own…

Dangerous Necklaces!

Thank you Ian, for letting me drag you to the local bead store. Baubbles and Beads––one of my favorite places––was calling to me while I slept, and thus I had to give in and buy some new materials. While the lavender dries and my sachet project remains on hold, I’ve delved into some fun beading rampages. You might ask, “did she just use the word rampage to describe her seemingly low-key beading projects?” Yes. Yes I did. When I bead and make jewelry, the adventure is as perilous as extreme ironing while hanging from the face of a cliff.

While my hands are in the fray of whirling needle nose pliers, flying shards of wire, and exploding glass beads, my soft fleshy hands are always in danger of getting injured. My right index finger was a casualty when making my latest creation. I took a nice piece of metal and managed to jab it painfully into the pad of my finger. There is now a rather intriguing looking red line that goes from nail to knuckle.

Although Brian well knows that I am often a hazard to myself, I am pleased to say that my injuries have been worth it. I finished a fun new necklace! In my defense I would like to say that I was trying a new beading technique and thus my dexterity was somewhat compromised. Inexperience often leads to my greater injuries, however after that struggle I am now wonderfully improved. This necklace was my second attempt at using chain instead of beading with chord or wire. In my opinion, jewelry that exposes chain is rather pretty when the chain is high enough quality. When using a chain that has a stylish design the jewelry often looks very finished and elegant. If you bead with cord, the whole point is to cover the relatively unattractive cord with shiny beads to make a necklace. With chain you want to show it off.

Attaching the beads to the chain was the hardest and most dangerous part for me. You have to slip the bead onto the wire, make loops on both ends of the bead to attach to the chain, and then you have to curl the free ends around to secure the bead and make sure it doesn’t come loose. I apologize for describing this so terribly, and I hope to make amends by adding a picture.


All in all the project was really fun a.) because I got to try something new, and b.) because I have very few long necklaces, and I can now proudly add this to my collection. I spent an inexcusable amount of time looking in the store aimlessly for a pendant to dangle on the necklace, but they were all sooo expensive! Instead of buying an overpriced pendant from Baubbles and Beads I found a cute (and cheap) one from forever 21. It was on the ugliest chain I’ve ever seen so I maliciously snipped it off and added it to my own necklace. Technically I cheated! But whatever :) I’m a corner cutter <3

I was browsing in the Kinokuniya Bookstore in Japan town when this older man came over to inspect some books on the shelf next to mine. He must have been about 60 with white hair, and he had these cute little Elton John glasses on. He looked over at me and with a gasp said, “You’re dressed like a Harajuku girl, aren’t you!” It wasn’t really a question and so I sputter out an, “um…I guess so.” I smile at him, not wanting to appear rude or anything, but I looked down at myself questioningly. White gathered skirt, hoodie, curly blond hair, and a black hair bow. Pretty normal clothes for me, today anyway. I started wracking my brain to try and remember what a Harajuku girl was.

In Twickenham England one of my favorite classes was Culture and Society in Modern Japan. At the very end of the class we were going to discuss Otaku culture and Harajuku, and it was even right there on the syllabus. We must have watched too much anime or something, because we ran out of time and missed the last lecture. However, I have at least a smidgen of popular culture knowledge, because I remember Harajuku as a shopping district in Japan for alternative styles. I remember someone in the UK telling me that Harajuku is similar to Camden Market, which is an exciting, fashionable part of town in London. Consequently, Camden Market is my favorite part of town. But of course we already knew this.

If Harajuku breeds a plethora of young and alternative fashions, then what is a Harajuku girl? This was a job for Wikipedia. Apparently “Harajuku girls” are teenagers living in Japan who come to (or live around) Harajuku and dress in one of the many outrageous styles popular in the area. The styles range from cyber punk to gothic Lolita, from ganguro to cosplay. For the record, ganguro really freaks me out with the fake tans and the long nails. *Shivers uncontrollably.*

So a Harujuku girl can be dressed in any of these fashions, and of course they can be dressed in many other styles that I didn’t happen to mention. It’s a broad term I guess. Thanks Wikipedia! Now I really want to go to Harajuku and see for myself!