Remember the character “Japonica” on “That’ll Be The Day” which ran I think on ABC? Sitcom. It was back in, what was it, 2006? 2007? Tuesday nights 7:30. Then it moved to Monday nights eight o’clock. Then it got cancelled. I think so. I don’t have the exact details, but you can look it up. I guess half a season is better than no season at all.
This is Camellia japonica. Around here we just call it “Japonica”. Other than that there is no connection whatever to that TV show character. I know where this is going. Japonica was the one who looked a little funny, never got enough teddy bears, and kept complaining that he just wasn’t ready for spring. “Japonica, why’s you always sittin there on that sofa?”
Then he’d hang up. “This is the plant most gardeners have in mind when they speak of camellias,” somebody in the Sunset Western Garden Book, Seventh Edition, says. I would say that is wrong. This is the flower that lasts but a moment then is gone for another year. The shrub sticks around, but not the flowers. More than 3000 varieties of Camellia. This has been one of them.
Japonica flowers and buds. Perhaps they are in the crucible of time. It’s the colour. Depending on the strain the flowers can be pink, red, white or orange. Some strains, like this one, bloom early. Others not so early. Now we know.
Japonica flowers courtesy M M H Nicol and C S Nicol.
There’s been some chatter here and across the seas about just junking it, BBC on old pianosCordelia Hebblethwaite is one heck of a journalist.
The family heirloom upright piano is now in the basement of the house where we’re packing up the last few years. That’s right. It’s been around, but it’s been here in the basement for what actually is quite some time now. That means quite a while. It’s been down here, with stuff on it, for quite a while. Stuff that also has to get out of here. And it’s time to get moving.
And if that doesn’t work for you here’s another shot.
It’s a “Weber” made in Kingston, Ontario. Serial number 29459. It was the piano in the family home when the kids were growing up. Then, years later, it was in the new home of one of the parent’s of those kids. Then it was in the home of one of those kids, who’d grown up but still played the piano. Then it was back with the mother of those kids. The ping-pong table had to come down in the basement and the piano was taking over.
I don’t think it was ever played too much down in that cramped basement that was already full of a lot of other stuff. I can tell you this. There was no more ping pong.
But throwing out a piano can be an unlucky act and generate generations of bad luck for the perpetrators of this outrage and their descendants. If that isn’t correct maybe it should be? You can’t throw me out. I’m a musical instrument.
If there’s not too many descendants, maybe no problem.
But we still have to deal with this piano so we are, or I am, here to tell you about a free upright piano that does need a bit of work, tuning for sure, but is a mature, fine looking wooden shiny mahogany upright piano needing tuning, as I say, and some key repair. That could even be key “repairs”. Doesn’t matter. Won’t be cheap.
Your Guess Is As Good As Mine
What I’m proposing is that you call me, direct, at samoyeddogs if either you or anyone you know is in a desperate struggle to obtain a pre-owned upright piano of some 60 or so years, absolutely free of charge. I hate to say it, but this offer may never be repeated. This is a serious offer and no reasonable offer will be refused. Pretty sure.
The real work of dissolution. Not some fantasy. Do you want to take up this piano’s cause and make it your own? Or watch it die like a dog in the ditch? Delivery terms can be arranged but this fine musical instrument, ready to walk out the door with you, is absolutely free. Welcome! Tickle my ivories.
It’ll be a cold day in March when I march down to the Fairview Pacific Rim hotel for an all day lecture on tequila, but that’s exactly what happened.
All day. 9:30 in the morning to past 5:00 o’clock in the afternoon. In the”Star Sapphire” ballroom, which sounds magnificent but is really just a big, modern, high-ceilinged room. This is what the ceiling looks like.
Actually, that looks kind of cool, doesn’t it? But I was there about the tequila. And so were about a hundred other people. I’d say most if not all of these other people were being paid for attending by their employer or employers. I was there on my own time. I must really have a thing for tequila, which sounds strange, because I haven’t had a shot of tequila in years.
Tequila’s made from the core, or piña, of the blue agave plant. I found out that the Jimador are the guys that harvest the piñas by hacking off the agave leaves which are long with a pointy end. Then the piñas are baked and then crushed, milled, boiled and a whole lot of other stuff and at the end of an 8 step process tequila is the result.
The rather long, day-long lecture was given not by a representative of any maker of tequila but by a representative of the CRT. The Consejo Regulador del Tequila. This organization is dedicated to preserving and expanding tequila’s good name and reputation. It’s the certification body for the 146 producers in five Mexican states designated to produce tequila.
I’m assuming you can make whatever type of booze you want in Mexico out of the blue agave or any sort of agave but you can’t call it “Tequila” unless the blue agave is grown in these five states and the tequila is made there.
I love the sound of the names of these states. Jalisco. Michoacán, Guanajuato. Tamaulipas. Nayarit. When you’re lost in the rain in Jaurez and it’s Eastertime too is a good one, but that has nothing to do with tequila boot camp.
It was hard. It was long. But the Mexican lady delivering the lecture was also cool. A genuine Mexican lady speaking good English in that Mexican lady accent. For shame I can’t remember her name, but she was very low key that way. The day was about Tequila, not her. I’m calling her Esmeralda.
I now know more about tequila than I ever thought I’d know, so there’s that. I thought it was over but then the guy who’d introduced Esmeralda that morning, but didn’t identify himself at that time as a representative of the tequila that was also putting on today’s show, okay, I’ll tell you, it was “Patrón”, reappeared and started in about the Patrón story.
This after hotel staff working the event had laid out six sampler glasses on tasting sheets with samples of six Patrón tequilas for all one hundred attendees. And for the life of me, this is insane, I can’t remember this gentleman’s name. I guess I was getting enervated by this time. It started with an “S”. His last name. He’s an American.
He was talking. And talking. And my personal small samples of Patrón tequilas were on the table right in front of me. And it was getting late. I’d organized to be out of there at 5. I had to go. It was ten minutes to 5. Finally he suggested we take a taste of the silver Patrón. But then he was talking on. It was interesting, but I gotta go. My car is waiting.
Be right down, Chuck
The “silver” sure did taste like tequila. It brought back memories. I sampled the other five quickly. Seriously. You can do this if you know what you’re doing. It was three minutes to 5 and Mr. “S.” is going on interestingly. Does that make sense? I got up and left.
Japonica flowers and buds. Perhaps they are in the crucible of time. It’s the colour. Depending on the strain the flowers can be pink, red, white or orange. Some strains, like this one, bloom early. Others not so early. Now we know.
samoyeddogs 