Hiking With Mary, Thinking of Mary Lyne, Running From Mary Kathleen O’Looney
by Pasadena Adjacent
I don’t know the name of this flower but maybe you do. It has beautiful big fleshy heart shaped leaves that you can root. It was handed over to me from Mary Lyne (not to be confused with hiking Mary who gave me six bottles of wine or Mary Kathleen O’Looney who stole five of them) After Mary Lyne’s husband Frank died, she sold their eclectic rambling San Pedro home and moved back to Saskatchewan Canada. The new owners slapped the gracious rambler with a “Home Depot makeover”. A top to bottom varnish of “dull”. I saved the plant before all was lost to mediocrity. That makes me a heroine
Mary Lyne comes south for the winter. She shares an abode with her sister at the Art Linkletter Mobile Estates in Palm Desert. Like Mary Lyne, Mr. Linkletter is also from Canada: Moose Jaw Saskatchewan to be exact. Linkletter’s daughter Diane (not to be confused with a prominent member of the tea party) committed suicide in 1969, allegedly under the influence of LSD (the story that Art maintains). An autopsy revealed no drugs in Diane’s system, but that didn’t stop the “killed by LSD” story. Ah the circle of life!
Hats off to Vanda at Toadberry for proper plant identification Hoya-Kerrii, not to be confused with Hari Kari
This is a real flower? I thought the maroon centers were jewelry pieces that you may have created and stuck on one of those ice type plants with furry foliage. This is stunning!
Nature is genius.
This flower looks like something inspired by LSD. It can’t be for real… those centers look like Victorian buttons! Oh Miss Havisham!? Have you been dipping into MK O’Looney’s sherry again? Or maybe you harvested the wrong mushrooms?
This is such a cool shot, PA.
“…varnish of “dull”.”
Television instructed them to make it so. They couldn’t help themselves. You were right to liberate that plant, whatever it is.
The flower truly seems like an invention of Miss O’Looney; inspiration for 19th century wallpaper.
I thought it was some sort of confection. Left over from your Halloween stash?
LSD and Heroine in the same blog!! I always thought that Linkletter daughter OD was a scare tactic to discourage travelers. We don’t have celebrity trailer parks here. No idea what that flower is, but yea Nature. Looks like fancy candy.
Here is my days-late response to Chef Walter about good citizenry and love of oaks… with apologies to all (except Queen Victoria) for the length of this missive. First of all, good citizens, such as ourselves, need to be double jointed so we can pat ourselves on the back for doing things like bagging our leaves for collection rather than tossing em down the hillside into the ravine; which would be so much easier. Dumping leaves in the gully promotes erosion, putting sediment in the stream and carrying it to the river. Siltation is a problem for the navigation channel, necessitating costly dredging operations. The IL River is over 300 miles long and a major waterway connecting Chicago (Lake Michigan, Great Lakes, St. Lawrence Seaway etc.) to the Mississippi River. Commercial barge traffic constantly utilizes the river, annually transporting over 110 million tons of corn, soy beans, wheat, coal, steel, chemicals, raw minerals etc. so we wouldn’t want our hillside washing into the river and plugging the entire Midwest economy. Pretty picture of IL River and Peoria at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tsheets/tags/peoriaflickrmeetup/ Much, much cheaper to use the river versus rails and highways, and when the river freezes over—usually in Jan. & Feb.—ice-breakers keep a channel open to allow continued barge traffic. So, back to the oak-loving-hating thing; love the beauty and shade, the wildlife and the micro-environment, mainly the cooling effect they have in summer, love the sounds the woodpeckers make, the squirrels chattering and scolding our dog. Love to watch the cardinals and yellow finches flit in and around the trees, the dog jumping up stupidly trying to climb after the squirrels, the spectacular fall colors. Especially love the tiny new leaves emerging after a long winter. Each season has a distinct beauty. Love all these things. What I dislike (OK… maybe hate is too strong) are the constant shedding of small twigs year round. Spring time brings droppings of a reproductive nature: the male flowers (catkins) are a few inches long consisting in part of pollen producing stamens and drop by the thousands after releasing the pollen. Oaks are a plant with both male and female reproductive parts, separate but on the same branch. Summer continues with sap dripping and more twigs falling. This year was a bumper crop of acorns; they carpeted our drive to the point that you could not take a step without crushing a couple. In autumn the leaves begin to fall taking a month or more to complete the task. Now all this is fine, except one tree, estimated at over 200 years old, stretches over the house and driveway/parking area (if I were a Realtor it would be called a courtyard). My parked car is targeted with all these falling objects and the gutters on the house are filled regularly. Thousands of acorns clog the downspouts pretty fast. Late summer and fall I climb on the roof every week and blow everything out to keep that from occurring. In a nut shell/acorn cap, this is what I hate. The dozens and dozens of bags of leaves degrade and become usable rich soil and the acorns we dump in the ravine for the animals and future trees. Re-reading this makes me realize I don;t hate Oaks any more, after all, the leaves & acorns are disposed of for one more year!
Wow. That reminds me of a plant we had when I was growing up. We had it in the bathroom, in the window, it had lots of sun and humidity, and it loved it. It grew kind of in the shape of a wreath and had little fleshy pink flowers that opened up, had a distinct smell and had little drops of sweet nectar. (Yes I tasted them.) I’m not sure if this is it, it was decades ago, but this plant looks a lot like I remember it.
Apropos acorn – I have learned that to raise super tasty mangalitsa pigs you need to finished them on acorn.
http://woolypigs.blogspot.com
I love the Hungarian but my middle name is Kathleen.
I’m taking out a restraining order
oh yeah? HAH! I laugh in the face of all restraint!
I thought it was fake when I first saw the picture, but I do believe it’s real! I’ll ask my mom. What an amazing plant!!
Hey, hey you. YOU! Some guy came over here and tried to serve me with a TRO. I slammed the door in his face. In his face! I says I says, Hey! You! Gettoutta here. That’s what I says. Since I ain’t no restraint here’s this
This entry has me feeling nostalgic for my youth. I miss drugs.
I really thought you created that flower … it’s unlike anything I thought existed and it’s gorgeous.
I liked all the connections in your story.
On the Protuguese Point 5500 – it has “Private” signs all over the front. I thought it was a private club, but from the back it looks like a residence. Sarah Adams (the other PV blogger) posted it a while ago – don’t remember if she had more info.
It’s a wax plant! Also known as Hoya
The female version of hero is heroine. The 70’s round of feminism took issue with this term…. so…. they came up with Shero. It all makes me want to move to (La) Cananda, take drugs and jump off the roof.
Laurie: you inspired me to look more deeply into the drug angle. I was high so I missed it.
Elaine: intrigued by my metaphors? Not bad for a graduate of U.F.O. (University of the Freeway Off-ramp)
JT: have you seen the exhibit at the Huntington? Just avoid Mary O’Looney. Ms Havisham loves the place and spends a great deal of time in the vicinity of the rose garden and tea room. Keep to the sun drenched high road. The girls are careful about their complexions so they avoid that area.
AH: My Halloween stash was gone by 9 p.m. I had zero trick or treaters. Guess where the candy went?
D: Travelers? news to me. An attempt to keep wanna be hippies out of the golden state? Intriguing. Walter the Chef is presently under the weather. Broke his nose. I expect details at a later date. Did you follow Vanda’s wooly pig link? Funny. Beautiful Peoria (see it here)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tsheets/tags/peoriaflickrmeetup/
Vanda: thanks for figuring the cool flower mystery out for us. I’ve placed it into the post…Hoya’s!! The pig link is a reminder. A friend went to a public storage auction and purchased a trunk. Turns out the trunk held all this genetic documentation for a sheep farm (circa 1960’s) as well as the rejection letters a woman author had received in an attempt to get her “how to type secretarial skills ” book published. I’ve actually used the materials in a Palm Axis post..
http://www.palmaxis.com/search?updated-max=2008-06-09T15%3A28%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=5
Mary Kathleen O’Looney: although I’m in desperate need of an editor, your services are not desired at this time due to the restraining order I was forced to take out on you. Please, don’t hurt the server. Get some sleep.
Kathy H: Welcome: the mystery is solved thanks to Vanda. I’ve put in a link to a Hoya online business.
John E: how about a mid life crisis? It’s doable
Tash: Abalone Cove is a favorite spot for me. I go down to the beach, then walk the coves and conclude the walk over at the archery range. I’ve often wondered about the age of that house.
When I was a little girl, I learned to tap at the Art Linkletter Dance studio in El Cajon.
I was too obscure; I meant travelers taking trips of another sort…
D: and (La) Canada is a city near by thats every bit as wealthy as San Marino.
Hello Queen Victoria…I remember waiting in the parking lot for you back in the day when parents left children in cars unattended.
If I ever get to own my own house I will plant Hoya plants all around it.
I love the story of the trunk. Did you know that some sheep dogs look almost the same as the sheep they are guarding?
As I recall, you were so quiet that you would be easy to forget….um….I mean….leave in the car. I really wanted to learn ballet, but Mom stuck me in tap. I lasted through one recital (that Mom didn’t even attend, but I’m not bitter…) before the parental units decided that I should take piano instead. I guess I wasn’t a very good tap dancer. It was nice that Dad took me out for ice cream after the recital.
Hoya Kerrii – Hari Kari? goodness