August Flowers

This morning:

Coffee while propped up in bed reading The Lacuna.

Notebook at my side to write down things I want to see again or do something with. For example, this quote from the book.

Frida Kahlo's cook has just delivered a meal to her studio, and she asks what he thinks of the painting she's at work on. He says, careful not to offend, something like "We're making good progress" and she responds wryly:

"As the fly said, sitting on the back of the ox, 'We are plowing this field!' "

The Lacuna is a novel I almost set aside without reading more than 50 pages. In the beginning it did not hook my attention. But before reaching its hundredth page, it had redeemed itself. From now on I'll give every book my devotion for 100 pages; that's fair as well as self-serving.

I don't know whether the following is a translation of a real saying in Mexico, or if author Barbara Kingsolver has written it herself, but it comes out of the mouth of a hardworking servant in the early part of last century.

"God gives money to the rich because if they didn't have it, they would starve."

For full dazzle, click to enlarge: the flowerbed in the front yard.

I receive some photographs and am sorting them, finding a folder on my computer, when I see "august flowers.jpg" in the list and click on it just because.
And voila! Wow! If I say so myself. You'll have seen it or something like it before, but if you're like me it will give you a lift anyway.