gurdymonkey (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gurdymonkey) wrote2010-07-26 06:21 pm
gurdymonkey) wrote2010-07-26 06:21 pm
Gas! Food! Bonsai!
I think I've figured out why I didn't sleep well at the hotel: white noise from the air conditioner. I'm not used to it.
I looked at GoogleMaps this morning and stand by my estimate: I did a five mile urban hike (possibly more if we include random convention hall roaming) with a man who is four years post- heart transplant. It is a good and wonderful thing.
Took a few arty-farty black and white shots in the deserted stairwell while waiting for James so we could go to breakfast: Ihop this time. He does like his scrambled eggs and bacon, that boy, and I could tell he wasn't thrilled with the continental breakfast offerings yesterday. Went back across to the hotel, split off to our rooms for random acts of tooth brushing, then he accompanied me through check out and walked me to my truck in the garage where we said good bye. He headed off towards the Convention Center. I saw him again at the traffic light. He glanced over, saw me and waved. I miss him already.
Got onto I-5 headed north about 9 am and made decent time all the way along. Stopped for gas at Lost Hills. Saw a big sign for "Bonsai" at the Harris Ranch exit. What the hell, I needed to get out and stretch my legs for a minute anyway, figuring it was probably going to be fairly typical "mall bonsai" for the folks stopping for lunch at the restaurant across the road. (Mall bonsai: usually sold from a kiosk or pushcart by a random person who will assure you they're all good, healthy trees and furnish you with an illegible photocopy of care instructions so you can take it home and kill it in anywhere from three weeks to six months because it's the Bic Lighter of bonsai.)
White van parked on powdery roadside dust, makeshift fruit-stand-like display and yes, tiny trees starting at about $14 with little ceramic Chinese fishermen sitting under them. However, the larger trees on the top board were quite lovely. In fact, there was a large juniper (nearly 2' high) that looked like the pine in which kami manifest. It was breathtaking - and absolutely the last thing you'd expect to see at a roadside stall in Coalinga.
The man selling the trees was serving a couple who were dither- OK, the wife was dithering, the husband was being pretty patient. The seller waited them out and left me alone to look without anything more than a "Good afternoon." What he did do is telling: picking off a dead leaf here, giving a decisive pinch there as he moved past the row of trees.
There's no way I was going to buy that big juniper, but damn it was pretty. He checked out the couple with their $20 tree, and I get a better look under the ball cap and hear the accent and realize the vendor is, in fact, Japanese. "You like juniper?" he says to me finally. "I hear they're hardy," I say, cautiously edging towards the cheap trees on the table to my right, meaning "I'm a tree killer. I murdered two mall bonsai before I learned my lesson. I shouldn't even BE here, except my hips hurt from walking five miles and then sitting in a car for three hours." I cannot spend that much money on something that's going to be in the compost bin in three months and manage not to blurt anything gushier than "You have some very nice bonsai."
"Chinese elm good strong tree too." He smooths the tiny leaves gently, stops, and nips at something with his fingernail. I start picking up $14 bonsai which are grouped pretty tightly on the table and examine them from various angles. Dwarf juniper. THE classic mall-fodder, but even the tiniest ones he has have already been trained into graceful poses and everything looks healthy. OK, I can do a bonsai for $14. Yeah, that won't be so bad. He lets me be. I keep looking up at the big juniper. He says nothing.
Is that a wave of psychic approval as I don't even look at anything with ceramic figurines in the pot? Nah, he's way over there puttering in the back of the van.
Then I see another juniper on the middle tier. Not as big as the big one, but quite lovely. $59. That's still an awful lot of money for something I've got a very good shot at killing. Though I've managed to keep two plants alive in the garret for about a year.
So I ask. I describe the conditions in the garret: good indirect sunlight most of the day unless Alameda is socked in, some direct sunlight in the afternoon depending on proximity to skylight. The Bonsai Man suggests I let it have no more than two hours a day of direct sunlight to start, then in a couple weeks, up it to three or four, then more if I like, but not if it's too hot. (I remind my Gentle Readers that we're standing on a dusty roadside at high noon in July in the Central Valley, shielded only by a scrap of canvas. )
He starts circling and underlining on the instruction sheet. How to water, when to water. This one was watered two days ago, so it'll be fine for a couple more days. "Anytime good" for misting the needles. Plant food every 3 months, he says, circling the spot on the instructions with a flourish and squirting a generous dose of greenish liquid from a plastic vial over gravel in the pot. "I give you fresh," he says, and pulls out a small white carton with enough bonsai fertilizer to last five years. (*This is not an exaggeration. Half a tube once every three months, times 10 tubes.) He makes Mr. Miyagi look like a Tourette's patient. he's so serenely confident I will not kill this graceful four year old. In fact, he's tapping his pen against the sheet and telling me I'll be needing a bigger bowl in about two years.
All I bought in LA was a SIGGRAPH convention tee shirt. I had to go to Coalinga to adopt a tree.
I looked at GoogleMaps this morning and stand by my estimate: I did a five mile urban hike (possibly more if we include random convention hall roaming) with a man who is four years post- heart transplant. It is a good and wonderful thing.
Took a few arty-farty black and white shots in the deserted stairwell while waiting for James so we could go to breakfast: Ihop this time. He does like his scrambled eggs and bacon, that boy, and I could tell he wasn't thrilled with the continental breakfast offerings yesterday. Went back across to the hotel, split off to our rooms for random acts of tooth brushing, then he accompanied me through check out and walked me to my truck in the garage where we said good bye. He headed off towards the Convention Center. I saw him again at the traffic light. He glanced over, saw me and waved. I miss him already.
Got onto I-5 headed north about 9 am and made decent time all the way along. Stopped for gas at Lost Hills. Saw a big sign for "Bonsai" at the Harris Ranch exit. What the hell, I needed to get out and stretch my legs for a minute anyway, figuring it was probably going to be fairly typical "mall bonsai" for the folks stopping for lunch at the restaurant across the road. (Mall bonsai: usually sold from a kiosk or pushcart by a random person who will assure you they're all good, healthy trees and furnish you with an illegible photocopy of care instructions so you can take it home and kill it in anywhere from three weeks to six months because it's the Bic Lighter of bonsai.)
White van parked on powdery roadside dust, makeshift fruit-stand-like display and yes, tiny trees starting at about $14 with little ceramic Chinese fishermen sitting under them. However, the larger trees on the top board were quite lovely. In fact, there was a large juniper (nearly 2' high) that looked like the pine in which kami manifest. It was breathtaking - and absolutely the last thing you'd expect to see at a roadside stall in Coalinga.
The man selling the trees was serving a couple who were dither- OK, the wife was dithering, the husband was being pretty patient. The seller waited them out and left me alone to look without anything more than a "Good afternoon." What he did do is telling: picking off a dead leaf here, giving a decisive pinch there as he moved past the row of trees.
There's no way I was going to buy that big juniper, but damn it was pretty. He checked out the couple with their $20 tree, and I get a better look under the ball cap and hear the accent and realize the vendor is, in fact, Japanese. "You like juniper?" he says to me finally. "I hear they're hardy," I say, cautiously edging towards the cheap trees on the table to my right, meaning "I'm a tree killer. I murdered two mall bonsai before I learned my lesson. I shouldn't even BE here, except my hips hurt from walking five miles and then sitting in a car for three hours." I cannot spend that much money on something that's going to be in the compost bin in three months and manage not to blurt anything gushier than "You have some very nice bonsai."
"Chinese elm good strong tree too." He smooths the tiny leaves gently, stops, and nips at something with his fingernail. I start picking up $14 bonsai which are grouped pretty tightly on the table and examine them from various angles. Dwarf juniper. THE classic mall-fodder, but even the tiniest ones he has have already been trained into graceful poses and everything looks healthy. OK, I can do a bonsai for $14. Yeah, that won't be so bad. He lets me be. I keep looking up at the big juniper. He says nothing.
Is that a wave of psychic approval as I don't even look at anything with ceramic figurines in the pot? Nah, he's way over there puttering in the back of the van.
Then I see another juniper on the middle tier. Not as big as the big one, but quite lovely. $59. That's still an awful lot of money for something I've got a very good shot at killing. Though I've managed to keep two plants alive in the garret for about a year.
So I ask. I describe the conditions in the garret: good indirect sunlight most of the day unless Alameda is socked in, some direct sunlight in the afternoon depending on proximity to skylight. The Bonsai Man suggests I let it have no more than two hours a day of direct sunlight to start, then in a couple weeks, up it to three or four, then more if I like, but not if it's too hot. (I remind my Gentle Readers that we're standing on a dusty roadside at high noon in July in the Central Valley, shielded only by a scrap of canvas. )
He starts circling and underlining on the instruction sheet. How to water, when to water. This one was watered two days ago, so it'll be fine for a couple more days. "Anytime good" for misting the needles. Plant food every 3 months, he says, circling the spot on the instructions with a flourish and squirting a generous dose of greenish liquid from a plastic vial over gravel in the pot. "I give you fresh," he says, and pulls out a small white carton with enough bonsai fertilizer to last five years. (*This is not an exaggeration. Half a tube once every three months, times 10 tubes.) He makes Mr. Miyagi look like a Tourette's patient. he's so serenely confident I will not kill this graceful four year old. In fact, he's tapping his pen against the sheet and telling me I'll be needing a bigger bowl in about two years.
All I bought in LA was a SIGGRAPH convention tee shirt. I had to go to Coalinga to adopt a tree.
